I have ridden into the future, courtesy of Waymo.

While I am more likely to travel to Seattle for work than San Francisco, I do make it to the Bay Area on occasion. The last time I was there I kept seeing the Waymo driverless taxis and wanted to try them out. Unfortunately there was a waitlist, and I got the acceptance e-mail while I was in the Uber to the airport to go home.

(sigh)

This trip, however, I had full access to the service and decided to try it out. My first ride was to meet some friends for dinner and, ironically, one of them worked at Google on the technology that powers these cars.

That first ride was really cool, and at the moment Waymo is my favorite new company.

The app works like any other rideshare app: you put in your destination and your starting location, and the app will then tell you when your car will arrive to pick you up.

I experienced three issues over my three rides with Waymo, and the first was that the car seemed determined to pick me up and drop me off on the opposite side of the street from my hotel.

I was staying at the Hyatt Place on 3rd Street, and there is an area right in front of the hotel for picking people up and dropping them off. The Waymo decided that it would be better to stop across three lanes of traffic (3rd Street is one way). Since there are so many Waymos driving around it was a little difficult for me to find the car. The app said it had arrived but I was assuming it would be on my side of the street.

When I realized it was not, I had to go up to the intersection and wait for the light to cross. This was okay since the car told me it would wait up to five minutes, but it would have been a lot easier had it picked me up where I had indicated. Just as a note I did expressly put “Hyatt Place” as my pickup location.

I did learn that the car will display your initials on the display on top of the car to make it easier to identify your ride. When you get close you can tap the “unlock” button on the app and the door handles will pop out.

Waymo uses the Jaguar I-PACE electric SUV as the base on which to build its solution, so the car itself was nice. I slid into the back seat behind where the driver would sit (remember I had to get in from the left as the car was on the other side of the road) and in between the back seats there is a little display showing you a representation of the road and containing controls for temperature and the audio system. I pressed “Start Ride” and we were off.

The car itself is quiet and quick. I kind of expected a self-driving car to be a little more restrained but the car drove with confidence and at normal traffic speeds. Being a big city, sometimes people just have to park in the traffic lane and put their hazard lights on if they need to, say, drop off a delivery. When we got behind one such car the Waymo just went into the oncoming lane to pass (there was no cars coming the other way) without hesitation.

I found myself somewhat mesmerized by the little screen. The Teslas I have ridden in are similar, but I really liked the one in the Waymo. You can see a representation of the road and the route shows up as a bold green line. Cars are in blue, except for other Waymos which are white, and people show up as yellow. Lights, such as brake lights and traffic lights, are also displayed, and once there was a fire truck going the other way that also showed up on the display with its lights spinning.

You can also use the display to change the temperature or the music that plays. The default station was “Ambient” from iHeartRadio, which I quite liked, but I did turn up the volume a bit.

One thing I like when trying out new technology is when things go wrong. How does it handle the situation? So the second issue I experienced was during my first ride when we went up over one of the famous San Francisco hills and the car bottomed out a little coming down the other side. Immediately the hazard flashers came on and the car pulled over to the side of the road.

The display told me that someone was looking into the “interruption” and about two minutes later we were on our way.

Over the week I ended up taking three Waymo rides. The first one was the most expensive by far, so I assume they use “surge pricing”. The ride to the restaurant was a little over $50, but an Uber at the same time would have been the same amount, and there was no tip.

The other two rides were much later in the evening, and ran about $17 a piece. All three rides were about 25 minutes in duration.

The the third and final issue that could be improved concerns seating. I assume the most people a Waymo can carry is four: there are seatbelts in the back enough for three people and there is a passenger seat as well. In the last car I rode in someone had pushed the passenger seat back a bit which decreased my available leg room. I assume I could have sat in the front seat but I sat in the back out of habit, so it would be nice if after every ride the Waymo reset the seating (the electronics are there to make this happen). I mean, I guess I could have opened the front door, moved the seat, and then got in the back but it wasn’t something I thought about while trying to get into the car on a busy street.

Overall, I loved the whole experience, which seems odd since I am into cars and I like driving them. Heck, one of my cars has its own website. But when I’m in an unfamiliar city having an automated driver at my beck is awesome. My friend Nick and I often joke that there should come a time where I can just raise my wrist that wears a smartwatch, wave it a couple of times, and a car just shows up. I believe that can happen, now.

I can’t imagine how much data Waymo has on the streets of San Francisco. My guess is that in order to provide a safe yet efficient experience it takes time to collect street data in detail, which is why you can only use Waymo directly in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles (apparently you can use the Uber app to request a Waymo in Austin and Atlanta). I was also not able to use it to get to the airport to go home. When I tried to request a ride to SFO Terminal 1 I was told it was out of area.

When I travel I always try to book near where I plan to work, and I also like walking, so I don’t take taxi rides much once I get to the hotel from the airport. But often I do need to take one or two trips during a visit, or the weather turns bad and I don’t want to walk, and having a rideshare option is welcome. So far Waymo has provided the best experience I’ve ever had, and I look forward to the chance to use them again.

Oh, since I work for Amazon you might be asking yourself why didn’t I take a Zoox? Well, I tried, but Zoox in San Francisco has a waiting list. As of yet I’m still on it.