PJ Vogt

RoboTaxi's poll hilariously badly.

According to J.D.

Power, a data analytics firm, among people who've not ridden in one, consumer confidence is at 20%.

But among people who have taken a ride, the number shoots up to 76%.

It's a thing I didn't capture in this story, but when I sat in one a couple years ago, I just found it persuasive as an experience.

It wasn't driving fast.

It wasn't jerking.

So I guess that's one of the big selling points.

Chris Urmson, the methodical team leader, had left Google years ago.

But he told me about his experience as a civilian consumer trying a Waymo out in the world.

And then, you know, 10 minutes in, people are looking at their phone.

People tend to feel safe in these cars.

But are they, actually?

So we know that the Waymo driver has now driven over 200 million real-world miles.

And they've released safety data so far for the first 127 million miles.

Waymo's fairly transparent.

They released their crash and safety data unredacted to the public.

By contrast, Tesla redacts the details of its crashes.

The company says they are confidential business information.

In Waymo's case, I've looked at the data.