alt Hacker NewsWaymo in Portland
Comments
I've got to retract some shade I've thrown at Waymo when discussing Tesla FSD in the past.
Like others, my biggest objection with it was their approach to scaling. Tesla aimed for the vision-only general solution with FSD, while Waymo held strong to its LIDAR-first geofence strategy. I held this opinion before using Waymo, as it wasn't available in my city (Houston, TX).
I've used it several times after being invited into their Early Access earlier this month...and, wow, I couldn't have been more wrong.
Waymo drives incredibly well. Like, INCREDIBLY well. Tesla FSD v14 drives well too, but Waymo feels more confident in edge case situations (of which there are many in the city driving space) and, well, I can be on my laptop or whatever during the trip.
Ironically, Waymo pushed me towards using public transit in Houston, so it's incredibly sad to read that this expansion is happening as Portland's public transit system is getting defunded. The time and mental sanity I've gotten back from not driving has been immense and undeniable. (It's weird how "bus-pilled" I became after my first few Waymo trips given that I grew up in NYC taking the bus and subway all of the time.)
All that said, based on how slowly Tesla is scaling their (inexcusably much more nascent) Robotaxi offering, I don't think ANY of our cars are going to get "unsupervised" FSD with the hardware they were shipped with.
I've determined that my ultimate dream car would be something like a Rivian but with Waymo tech, so I can drive it manually when I want/need (snowstorms, off-road), but I can also let it drive me across the country at night while I camp in the back. Would absolutely change the way we move across the US, especially if you have hobbies that involve a lot of gear and equipment.
I live in Portland. Took an Uber to the airport early in the morning. The driver was extremely reckless. Nearly wrecked several times. This has never happened before. We reported him. But, yeah, looking forward to using Waymo.
If they don't show up as green Subaru Outbacks with a bunch of bumper stickers on the back they'll stick out like a sore thumb.
A Waymo was recently stuck on some light rail tracks in Phoenix this year [1]. Portland has a rather diverse bunch of streetcars and trams concentrated in its downtown core. Hopefully they don't get stuck on the tracks or block the trams.
[1] https://www.azfamily.com/2026/01/08/waymo-passenger-flees-af...
I wonder if at some point we'll see a hockey stick adoption of self-driving cars. For now every new city is worth a blog post, eventually they'll allow intercity drives. Will international adoption take off? Will I be able to use it on a country road to visit my family in 10 years?
Stiff competition for humans, especially drivers outside the top quartile or so. Waymo appears to its passengers to drive much more competently than certainly any sub-average rideshare driver.
Although I like jobs for humans, I hope these aren’t all just set on fire because there is promise in reducing fatalities. Want to find a way for offline vehicles that can go 65MPH to remain legal though. Without Flock every block either unless we (in USA) forget what the whole USA thing’s about.
Edit: @Waymo would LOVE to see an industry-leading privacy pledge so good the EFF slaps their logo on it (even caveated), also your engineers are amazing
This is exciting! I wonder how they determine which cities are next in line? Probably regulation and governance?
Thank goodness that Waymo has no plans to use the cameras recording you in the car for targeted ads.
I will feel so secure and private being recorded at all angles in a car I don't own and can't sue.
"Waymo: ‘no plans’ to use in-car camera data for targeted ads"
(https://www.theverge.com/news/644770/waymo-interior-camera-a...)
I wonder how long Google will continue to subsidize this at a substantial loss? Estimated $30–40 billion spent in the last decade that only really pays off if they dominate the market.
Why would anyone take a Waymo when you can ride the Trimet MAX for $2.50?
I'm a little sad to see this because I'm moving northward to Seattle next month, I've lived in Portland proper for over 16 years, and Seattle doesn't have Waymo yet. Great timing lol.
Portland will probably be a great testing ground for them because generally speaking you have a lot of tech curious and tech averse people here living together. When we got electric scooters there were both tons of people using them and a lot of people throwing them in the Willamette. Pretty big artistic community that doesn't look kindly on AI right now. This has no real bearing on Waymo's success, but I'll be interested to see how they navigate the PR part of it.
I wonder how large the footprint will be. I live in the greater Portland area, but not in the city proper. There are definitely situations where Waymo would be great, but my guess is that they won't start off serving my specific area.
wonder if these will end up in the willamette too https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/06/divers-pull-11-e-sco...
So, these streets are so tiny and pedestrians are used to just walking out on crosswalks because most people stop at crosswalks
They didn't mention it was Oregon. Maybe they're rolling out to Portland, Maine?
The dream of the 90s is alive I take it
Are they sure? Portland is a special kind of crazy. I can say this cuz I’m a native now living in Berlin. locals are going to trash the cars and do all sorts of damage.
Nice, looking forward to all the, ahem, creative protest to be done on the robocars if they ever do show up here. heh
Seems like a hostile market for Waymo. Many Portlanders despise tech giants and are strongly anti-car & anti-AI, far more than SF. Not to mention Portland's political / governance / people problems already inclines the population to anger.
Surprised Portland is allowing Waymo in, considering that they have a decent public transport system (judging by US standards, not European standards), with light rail.
Public transport ridership took a massive hit with the pandemic and never fully recovered.
Waymo does not solve a public transport problem. I don't mind that it takes money from Uber, Lyft, etc., but the damage it also transfers income from human taxi drivers (what little they can salvage from Uber, Lyft) to a large corporation.
I see it as a net negative for society, not a net positive.
The same Waymo that says that they don't give a shit that they're stopping in bike lanes because their selfish passengers pay for it? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47912645
Good luck to Portland getting fucked by Waymo.
Personally never happier to have left Portland than right this moment.
I feel like this post and most (if not all these comments) are an ad.
A population with more spirit to resist than SF. I wonder if they bring out the traffic cones.
What will they tell the unemployed drivers? "Coal miners need to code" doesn't work any more. Become a data thief/labeler perhaps?
> Portland has always been a pioneer in urban design, balancing its independent spirit with a deep commitment to sustainable, forward-thinking living.
People should research the racist history of American cities before publishing broad, vapid, and likely LLM-generated statements like this.
If you're going to say a place has "always been a pioneer in urban design", you should take the time to acknowledge that Portland's early urban-design efforts were deeply racist and explicitly segregated.
https://www.portland.gov/bps/planning/adap/history-racist-pl...
https://habitatportlandregion.org/the-early-history-of-portl...
For context, this is coming in as TriMet is laying off staff, reducing service frequency, eliminating bus lines, and cutting parts of light rail routes due to a $300M budget shortfall. The cuts were exacerbated by state Republicans getting a proposed payroll tax repeal onto the ballot next month; TriMet relies heavily on payroll taxes that are deeply unpopular among the self-employed and small business owners, so the budget is going to get worse before it gets better.
https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2026/04/trimet-official...
https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/trimets-present-crisis-...
At the same time, Portland's city council is debating whether to cap the cut of driver pay that rideshare companies take: https://www.opb.org/article/2026/04/13/uber-lyft-driver-pay-...
So at the same time that public transit is retreating and rideshare company labor overhead is threatening to increase, Waymo shows up with a convenient solution to both problems.