Opinion: Waymo’s Bay Area depot is a glimpse of autonomous vehicle future

A Waymo self-driving test vehicle is seen in Mountain View, California. Due to the extensive usage of the vehicles, AVs will account for over 15% of total electricity demand of the passenger electric vehicle fleet. — Sipa USA/TNS

They say seeing is believing. On a brisk and sunny February morning, a ride around San Francisco in a Waymo fully autonomous vehicle and a walk around the company’s depot was indeed eye-opening.

I’m Ryan Fisher, and along with my colleague Andrew Grant, we saw a trip to the West Coast for BloombergNEF’s San Francisco summit as a chance for some on-the-ground research. Once our work at the conference was complete, we headed to the Bayview district to see Waymo’s operation in action.