We took a self-driving Waymo car for a test ride on LA freeways. Here’s how it went

Whether you love Waymo’s self-driving cars, or love to hate them, the vehicles are becoming more and more common throughout the Los Angeles area — including on freeways.

When Waymo announced last month that it would offer select freeway trips in L.A.’s 120-square-mile service area, my colleague Kevin Tidmarsh and I knew we’d be reuniting for another round of rides. We took a test trip on city streets last fall.

Admittedly, I’ve been nervous about trusting the autonomous tech, especially at higher speeds and merging in our region’s infamous traffic.

But freeways are actually easier for self-driving cars to maneuver than surface streets, according to Rahul Jain, professor and director of the USC Center of Autonomy and AI.

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“City driving is more challenging because there are pedestrians and bicyclists and lights and stop signs and whatnot,” Jain told LAist. “On a freeway, it's relatively unencumbered.”

The set up

We teamed up to take a roundtrip Waymo ride from downtown to the Arlington Heights neighborhood of L.A.

According to the company, riders who have opted into Waymo’s freeway list on the app will be matched with those routes when they’re “meaningfully faster,” so we chose destinations with the guidelines in mind.

A side view of a Waymo car from March 2023.

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We called the first ride shortly after 10 a.m. on a Friday to take us from downtown’s Sante Fe Avenue to the intersection of Washington Boulevard and Bronson Avenue in Arlington Heights. The Waymo took about 6 minutes to arrive and cost a little more than $17.

We called the second ride back downtown shortly after 10:30 a.m. The car took 7 minutes to arrive and cost a little more than $15, which was both quicker and cheaper than our test rides from downtown to Koreatown last year.

The positives 

Our Waymo got on the 10 Freeway in downtown almost immediately, speeding up to a smooth 34 mph to merge into flowing traffic.

Waymo then moved a few lanes over to the left as it accelerated to 55 mph, squeezing between human-driven cars — and using its blinker every time.

“A lot of people could take notes,” Kevin said during the ride.

The autonomous car made some driving decisions like a seasoned Angeleno, using thru-traffic lanes around freeway off-ramps to bypass stalled traffic.

Kevin, who takes that route often, said Waymo picked the "absolute safest way” to go.

As we exited the freeway onto a packed off-ramp, Waymo was able to merge into the turning lane (although, it did cut a line of cars).

Once we were back on city streets, I was curious how Waymo would handle a run-in with emergency vehicles, especially after one of the cars drove toward a police standoff in downtown L.A. last month. A video shows a Waymo, with a passenger inside, turning toward a man lying on the ground in front of a line of officers with guns drawn and lights flashing.

But our car slowed to a stop until the ambulance, its siren blaring, passed by in the opposite direction.

The negatives

Waymo topped out around 55 mph for the first leg of our freeway trip, which was noticeably slower than other cars that passed us on the right.

But, as Kevin pointed out during the ride, maybe Waymo’s technology was seeing something we couldn’t. Traffic tightened up less than a mile ahead, and dropping back down to 25 mph felt like a smooth transition.

The biggest snafu was when Waymo seemed to get a bit confused by the freeway lanes toward the end of our trip. The car suddenly jerked to the left as if it was trying to merge before retreating back into the far right lane.

“ What is going on,” I said, several times.

“ Thinking with its steering wheel, it seems like,” Kevin replied.

It repeated the move two more times, without any obvious hazards or obstacles ahead.

Final thoughts 

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised with the Waymo freeway rides.

Kevin noted there were a couple of hiccups, including the sudden steering, but the driving was generally smooth and the car seemed to adjust to the various conditions we encountered.

I felt like Waymo handled the stop-and-go traffic better than I would’ve behind the wheel, and both Kevin and I agreed it felt like the autonomous technology has made notable improvements since our last test ride.

“ When it can take me on the Arroyo Seco through Highland Park, then, then I will give everything to our robot overlords,” I joked during the ride. “If it can do the stop sign on-ramp onto 60 miles per hour of that freeway … I'll never drive again.”