- states where the major cities commonly have snow for > 3 months
- states where the major cities commonly have snow for < 1 month
Inclement weather is likely the differentiator. Blue state California gets Waymo in its biggest cities, which handily do not get much snow. The other Waymo cities are all below the Mason-Dixon Line.
Boston, according to Waymo[1], is dependent on the legislature making autonomous vehicles legal. Apparently NY state laws also require a human driver at the wheel.
The only surprising thing about this is that other states did not require changes in law. It's Good, Actually, that big companies are (sometimes) bound by the same laws that bind the rest of us.
In any case, there are more than 2-3 "blue" states. We can note that it's also not running in cold "red" states either. The climate angle fits the data best and aligns with what Waymo says, which aligns with what we have known about the tech for at least a decade.
(That note also suggests they are still testing their cold-weather kit and are not quite ready.)
> Apparently NY state laws also require a human driver at the wheel.
Earlier this year, Waymo had a permit to test 8 autonomous vehicles with safety drivers in NYC. The permit was not renewed [1]. Waymo can no longer drive autonomously (even with a safety driver) in NYC.
What changed between when the testing permit was issued and when a renewal of permit was declined? NYC had a political shift in leadership.
Yup. And I invest there. I’m pulling back from New York, which is a shame, because I love it and still have interests there.
> Having companies ignore the law is not an alternative to the democratic process
Straw man. Nobody said this. The point is the current system of incumbent worship is not working. If it takes flipping parties to prove that, I guess yeah, but that won’t result in more rule of law.
> States won't adapt to new technologies at the same time, this is embedded in the design of federalism
…how are you missing this.
I’m saying the states failing to adapt need to do so or have their governments replaced. That all of these states are also facing multi-party insurgencies doesn’t strike me as a coïncidence. Pretending the corruption in e.g. New York around this is fine is just such a weird take.
Yeah, you added that in a later comment because your original comment did read as "ignore stupid laws."
Yes, I agree state governments should be responsive to the citizens. Corruption is bad. Ignoring "stupid" laws also goes hand in hand with corruption, and is antithetical to responsive government.
> multi-party insurgencies
This is interesting in that we kind of expect a healthy representative government to have vigorous competition among multiple groups. I'm not sure this is bad...
But a key point of federalism is that each state will adapt in different ways due to having different priorities. Mississippi adapts to the realities of 2026 in very different ways than California. I suspect the same will be true in 2056 and 2096.
At the start of this year, Waymo had a permit to test eight autonomous vehicles with a safety driver behind the wheel in NYC. The permit expired March 31st [1]. Waymo may no longer test autonomous driving (even with a safety driver) in NYC.
Waymo is not currently testing in NYC for political reasons.
Seattle was announced as a Waymo upcoming city nearly 2 months before Houston, gets a foot less of rain than Houston each year, and usually has only 2 or 3 snow days a year. That's at least one counter example to your theory.
NYC has Mamdani, who is a very progressive populist mayor, and a longtime (active) supporter of the taxi drivers union.
There is close to zero chance it gets approval in NYC before 2030. I'd be totally floored if he goes against the union, but the optics are absolutely terrible for cabs.
Waymo has logged 67M miles in the SF Bay Area and 50M miles in LA of autonomous miles driven with a passenger [1]. It looks like the rollout is going quite well in California.
It is unfortunate, but we're still in the early days of AV's. I think that more cities and states will be amenable to them once they have proven themselves as indispensable.
Road salt means I can drive as if it was summer a few hours after the snow stops falling. While the snow is falling I still have to be careful. Ideally I would never drive when the snow is falling, but I live where that happens often enough that we cannot shutdown life for a little snow/ice so we try to make it work - as a result people go in the ditch a lot.
maybe weather events that disrupt travel, but impact things like visibility, lane definition, etc? That's still super-common in Chicago and a lot of the US.
