AIBRIEF
Prices track Uber and Lyft, but DIA, Aurora, and Lakewood are excluded. A Colorado poll says 60% of Denver voters still wouldn't take one. The launch is built to test whether they will.
Starting Tuesday, anyone with the Waymo app can hail a driverless ride inside a roughly 60-square-mile zone in central Denver. Prices track Uber and Lyft and vary with demand. Denver International Airport, Aurora, and Lakewood are excluded. The zone runs from Cory-Merrill in the south to Villa Park in the west, City Park in the east, and past the city limits along I-25 into Adams County.
The launch lands on a skeptical public. A Colorado Polling Institute survey found about 10% of Denver voters had ridden in a Waymo, roughly a third of non-riders would, and nearly 60% said they were unlikely to. Waymo spokesman Dan Mahoney called that skepticism "natural and temporary" and said "people's views of fully autonomous driving technology totally change as soon as they can access our service" (Daily Camera).
The prior week brought a rear-end crash: a driverless Waymo made a gradual stop mid-block to let a pedestrian cross, a van behind it stopped, and a third vehicle struck the van and pushed it into the Waymo. Waymo confirmed the gradual-stop account (Daily Camera, via CBS News Denver).
Waymo's blog frames Tuesday as a three-city opening that also includes San Diego and Tampa (Waymo blog). Denver's fleet will run the company's newest robotaxi, the Ojai, with larger screens and more legroom than prior models (Denver Post).