I took my first self-driving car ride with my teenage son and it felt comfortably dull
I signed up to try Waymo as soon as it became available in San Francisco, and this weekend Alphabet’s self-driving car company finally invited me to give it a shot.
My son Marlon has been obsessed with self-driving cars this year, as we’ve seen more and more Waymos and competing GM Cruise vehicles tootling around San Francisco without safety drivers. We thought we noticed them getting more aggressive in recent months — nothing frightening, but they seemed to be pulling into intersections and merging into lanes more assertively, just like a normal San Francisco driver would do.
Last month, Waymo and Cruise won approval to operate driverless cars in San Francisco at any time of day. So with self-driving cars a common feature of our local landscape, we were excited to give one a try.
Saturday morning, we headed down to the local drugstore to buy sunglasses, then used the Waymo app on my phone to order a ride home. It would be about a five-minute drive, but would save us a steep uphill walk.
The car pulled up with my initials, MR, on the display below the rotating lidar sensor on the roof. The door handles were flush with the side of the car until I selected the “unlock” option from the app, at which point they popped out like normal door handles.
We both climbed in. The A/C was blowing cool air. The interior was bathed in light pink light from the iPad-sized console at the front of the back seat, and soft ambient music was playing. It definitely had a “welcome to the future” vibe. A female recorded voice gave us some instructions to fasten our seatbelts and not touch the brakes or steering wheel, then it pulled into motion.
The car performed as if a competent human were driving. It didn’t hesitate to cross the (imaginary) center line when it had to get around a parked car on a narrow street, and stuck toward the middle on a very narrow section with cars on both sides. The ride was smooth and the speed constant at just under 25 miles per hour.
We fiddled with the interior console to try and connect it to my iPhone to play music from my library, but the ride was so short that I only had time to download the Google Assistant (required for that function) before it was over.
For some reason, the Waymo wouldn’t drive us right to our door. Our house is at the top of a very steep crest on a narrow street that has four buses running up and down it every hour, so maybe it was too much to handle. As it approached our drop-off point, the voice told us that we’d be ending our ride soon, and to touch the handle twice — once to unlock the door, a second time to open it. We did as instructed, walked out of the car, and it pulled slowly off.
The trip cost $8, about the same as a Lyft or Uber. As my son pointed out, Alphabet doesn’t have any drivers to pay, so the money all goes straight to the company as revenue.
The ride itself was completely uneventful. A little boring, even. The whole experience reminded me of the way smartphones or the internet were miraculous at first, but now seem mundane.
I was a skeptic about the promise of self-driving cars. It seemed like one of those technologies that’s been perpetually a few years away. But after taking this ride, I can absolutely see it becoming a very common way to get around for short urban trips, as long as Waymo and its competitors can scale up in a cost-effective way.
Consumers, investors and regulators better get ready, because the technology is here and it’s so advanced it seems natural and safe upon first use.
WATCH: NBC Bay Area reporter takes a ride in a malfunctioning robotaxi
Rene Haas, CEO of chip tech provider Arm Holdings, holds a replica of a chip with his company’s logo on it, during an event in which Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim officially announces a $250 million deal with the company, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 5, 2025.
Hasnoor Hussain | Reuters
Arm shares dropped more than 8% in extended trading on Wednesday after the chip-design company issued weaker-than-expected guidance for the current quarter.
Here’s how the company did in the fiscal fourth quarter compared with LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share: 55 cents, adjusted vs. 52 cents expected
- Revenue: $1.24 billion vs. $1.23 billion
While Arm topped estimates for the quarter ended March 31, Wall Street is looking ahead to the company’s forecast for the first quarter.
Arm said revenue will be between $1 billion and $1.1 billion. The middle of the range is below the $1.1 billion average analysts estimated, according to LSEG. Earnings per share will be between 30 cents and 38 cents, while analysts were expecting 42 cents.
SoftBank controls about 90% of Arm, and took the company public in 2023. It now has a market cap of over $130 billion as of Wednesday’s close.
Arm designs the fundamental architecture upon which many chips are built, and sells licenses for its designs to companies such as Qualcomm and Nvidia, charging royalty fees on each sale they make. The company claims 99% of premium smartphones are powered by Arm technology.
Royalty revenue in the quarter rose 18% from a year earlier to $607 million.
Net income fell 6% to $210 million, or 20 cents a share, from $224 million, or 21 cents, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue jumped 34% from $928 million a year earlier.
Thomas Fuller | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
AppLovin shares soared as high as 15% in extended trading after the company reported earnings and revenue that beat expectations and announced the sale of its mobile gaming business.
Here’s how the company did compared to LSEG consensus estimates:
- Earnings: $1.67 per share vs $1.45 per share expected
- Revenue: $1.48 billion vs $1.38 billion expected
AppLovin also agreed on Wednesday to sell its mobile gaming business to Tripledot Studios in a deal worth $400 million in cash considerations. The advertising tech company will also obtain a roughly 20% ownership stake in Tripledot Studios, which makes mobile games like Sudoko Friends, Puzzletime and Solitaire Classic.”
The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2025.
AppLovin said second-quarter sales should come in the range of $1.2 billion to $1.22 billion, trailing analysts expectations of $1.38 billion.
The company reported first-quarter net income of $576 million, or $1.67 per share, up from $234 million, or 67 cents per share, in the same quarter of 2024.
AppLovin total costs and expenses for the first quarter came in at $820.55 million, representing a 14% increase from the previous year during the same quarter.
The ad-tech firm said in February that it had signed a term sheet to sell its apps business for “total estimated consideration” of $900 million, which included $500 million in cash.
AppLovin’s business has been split between advertising and apps, which is primarily made up of game studios that the company has acquired over the years. With the historic growth in its advertising unit, due to rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, the apps business had become much less important.
The company logged $1.16 billion in first-quarter advertising sales, up from the $678 million it recorded a year ago during the same period.
Sales of the company’s apps-related business for the quarter came in at $325 million, which was a 14% decline from the prior year.
This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.
WATCH: Activist Robby Starbuck on why he’s suing Meta for defamation
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway