[icey]

Same here (downtown Phoenix area) -- the driverless Waymos have been awesome. Occasionally they get confused but it seems pretty rare. They're better than a lot of the other drivers on the road out here.

I'm mostly excited that they upped the allowed passenger count from 3 to 4. Usually we take a car if we're going out to dinner with friends but the 3 passenger limit made taking one of these a pain in the ass or impossible.

[drusepth]

Does the fourth passenger sit in the "driver's" seat, or is it a three-packed-in-the-back kind of situation?

Never seen a self-driving-car in person, but I assume it's the standard 4-seater sedan layout, right?

[icey]

I haven't taken one since they announced the change (I'm in a part of Phoenix that's pretty walkable), but I think it will be 3 in the rear bench and one in the passenger seat. They've been pretty clear that they don't want people sitting in the driver's seat, and I'm guessing that will continue to be the case with this change.

[rwmj]

I wonder if there's some regulation behind why they haven't got rid of the traditional front-facing layout entirely and replaced it with train carriage style seats around a table?

[boulos]

Yep, three in the back and one up front, driver seat empty. (The door won't open for you anyway)

[ilaksh]

They are vans.

[dangus]

It blows my mind that someone living downtown in a city the size of Phoenix (relatively large) needs to use a car at all. It’s really a shameful failure of urban planning.

[abecedarius]

Is a 20th-century mass transit system actually preferable to robocars once the technology is mature? My guess is it's the cities like Austin, planning new transit systems without designing for synergies with robocars, who are failing at urban planning.

[icey]

I drive a couple of times a month... It's not the most walkable city but the downtown area is fairly walkable

[unionemployee]

Phoenix and Manhattan have about the same population, but Phoenix has five Manhattans worth of parking.

[dundermuffl1n]

You must not have walked outside in Phoenix - you can't walk a block in that weather.

[zamnos]

If you need a car to get around, day-to-day, it's not a city but a big suburb.

[umanwizard]

You’re right, but it’s a bit of a cherry-picked example. Phoenix is probably the most car-required major city in the world.

[sib]

Phoenix is like LA without the positives

[kortilla]

It’s not a failure when they achieved their goal. Phoenix and the greater metro is a city for cars.

[fooker]

Phoenix has a population density approximately 4.4% of that of NYC.