While Japan lags behind, the U.S. puts it to practical use I rode in a “fully self-driving cab” where everything is completed with an app!

Easy Arrangement with a Single App

In Los Angeles, where I stayed for nearly three weeks from the beginning of November for research purposes, I learned that a fully automated (unmanned) cab service called “Waymo” was available.

The Waymo project started within Google in ’09.’ In the fall of 2003, the company achieved the “world’s first fully unmanned driving on public roads. In December ’16, the project was renamed Waymo and separated from Google to become a self-driving vehicle development company under Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc.

The service, similar to that of regular cabs, had been deployed in San Francisco and Phoenix, Arizona, and was finally launched in Los Angeles on November 12. Currently, the service is available in an urban area of about 80 square miles (approximately 200㎢) in Los Angeles. This is about the same size as the cities of Hachioji and Tachikawa combined.

To use Waymo, users must first download the “Waymo One” application. Once the pickup point and destination are specified, the time to arrive and the fare are displayed. As with other rideshare services, the fare is variable and slightly higher during busy times.

As a test, we started at Santa Monica Place, a commercial facility, and set Venice Beach as our destination. The app’s map clearly shows where Waymo cannot stop, so we set our destination to avoid those places.

I have seen the unmanned cabs being tested in Las Vegas and San Francisco several times, but this is of course the first time I have ridden in one myself.

Automatic change to a “detour route” in case of traffic congestion

With a mixture of anxiety and anticipation, Waymo arrives at the designated location!　Since it is an electric vehicle, it pulls up to the shoulder of the road and stops at the designated spot without making a sound. I peeked fearfully at the driver’s seat from the outside, but of course there was no one in the car.

This is the world’s most advanced self-driving car!

I am sure everyone thinks the same thing the first time they ride in a Waymo. I touched the “START RIDE” button posted on the monitor below the air conditioner vent, and Waymo quietly began to move.

The motor drive noise was quiet, and there were no sudden stops or starts. At first I was wary of rough driving, but if I had not been told, I would have forgotten that it was an unmanned driver, so smooth was the ride. Along the way, when a light rain began to fall, the windshield wipers immediately started operating.

What was even more surprising was when we approached a traffic jam. When the main road was congested with construction, the system automatically selected a “detour route. The wiper was also able to handle the sudden appearance of electric kickboards and bicycles on the narrow roads, thanks to the “LiDAR sensor” installed on the top that constantly monitors 360 degrees around the vehicle.

Human drivers would have had no problem at all in places where they would have had blind spots and collided without noticing until just before the collision. In fact, Waymo claims to be almost twice as safe as a manned driver, having traveled hundreds of millions of kilometers in over 10 years of demonstration testing, with only 3 accidents resulting in injuries in 7.1 million miles (11.36 million km) in 2011.

They arrive at their destinations almost on time. Since payment was completed via the app, there was of course no exchange of fees. There were many pedestrians in the vicinity of Venice Beach when we arrived, but no one approached us in a particularly unusual manner.

Even though it has only been about 10 days since the service was launched like regular cabs, tens of thousands of Waymo vehicles have been running on public roads for several years, so it is probably not a particularly unusual sight for the people of Los Angeles.

Japan’s self-driving technology continues to lag behind.

While the Waymo we drove this time was based on the Jaguar I-PACE electric car, Tesla’s “Cyber Cab,” a robo-taxi that made a splash when it was unveiled in October, was developed from the start as an unmanned cab, and as a result, it does not even have a steering wheel. It has no accelerator pedal, side brake, or meter.

The “cab” as we know it can accommodate three to four passengers in a sedan type, and six to seven passengers in a minivan type such as the Alphard, but this Cyber Cab has only two seats. The driver’s seat is normally reserved for passengers. Moreover, this is not a story for the distant future. Production is scheduled to begin in 2013 at a price of $30,000 (approx. 4.5 million yen), which is a considerably low price for an automated vehicle.

This reminds me of Japan’s unmanned cabs. Unmanned vehicles with “Level 4” self-driving technology, one step ahead of fully automated driving, began commercial operation in Eiheiji, Fukui Prefecture, in May 2011. At the time, former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (67) and former Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura (62) test drove the vehicle and said, “This is a first for Japan!　Japan’s automobile industry will lead the world! Japan’s auto industry will lead the world!” and so on.

However, this self-driving car has a range of only about 2 km. The maximum speed is slower than that of a bicycle, and since the vehicle moves by electromagnetic induction lines embedded in the boardwalk, it can travel only in limited areas. Japan should have been a world leader in this field only two to three years ago, but it has fallen far behind.

The world’s automated driving technology is evolving at an ever-increasing pace. Japan, which is facing a shortage of cabs in urban areas and the “2024 problem” of logistics, should learn from the world and refine its self-driving technology once again. ……