Mario Sanoguera had never been so nervous to order a robotaxi. On Dec. 20, just two days after the birth of his first child, Mia, the 32-year-old and his wife, Rachel Wu, stood outside Kaiser Permanente hospital in Anza Vista and summoned a Waymo.
They’d had plenty of bad Uber and Lyft experiences with human drivers who smelled like weed or cigarette smoke — or were just driving like they were on drugs. But their Waymo rides have all been pleasant, Sanoguera said. And with a newborn in tow, the calculus changed: “We decided, when we were planning this, that we’d take a Waymo home.”
Welcome to San Francisco parenting in 2025 — where self-driving strollers, smart bassinets, and remote night-nanny baby monitors are de rigueur for a certain tribe of early-adopting, tech-employed parents. (Sanoguera is an engineer at smart-gym startup Tonal; Wu is a product designer). Though taking an autonomous car home from the hospital is in no way the new normal, Waymo-addicted riders are increasingly open to the option, according to hospital workers, midwives, and doulas.
“It makes sense to people who have tried it,” Sanoguera said of riding around San Francisco in a robotaxi, but others “might say, ‘Is it safe? What if something happens?’”
“The technology is still too new for most people, especially if they’re newborn parents,” said Jennifer Darwin, owner of Golden Gate Doula Associates and The Village Postnatal Retreat Center, a $1,040-per-night facility in Cathedral Hill. “An autonomous vehicle makes even them more nervous.”
More commonly, new parents will call Uber, which provides a car seat for a $10 surcharge.
However, Sanoguera was skeptical of that approach. How could he be sure that the Uber driver wouldn’t be impaired or aggressive, or would simply get impatient as he tried to install a car seat for the first time? “We don’t have a car, so we didn’t spend much time learning how to set it up,” Sanoguera reasoned.
When the Waymo pulled up at the hospital, it took him a couple of minutes to install the car seat and make sure Mia, who was named after Sanoguera’s mother, was secure. The drive home took 15 minutes.
Although Waymo could not provide the number of riders who have used the white Jaguar sedans as postpartum chauffeurs, a spokesperson confirmed that Sanoguera and Wu weren’t the first. “We’re honored to provide a safe, comfortable, and predictable ride [to new parents] so they can focus on what matters most: being together,” the representative said.
Sanoguera’s family was supportive of the robotaxi birth plan. His mother, who lives in Spain, had tried Waymo in San Francisco and found it to be safe and convenient. “When we told her, she was like, ‘Wow, that’s a good decision.’” The couple also took a Waymo on the way to the hospital, where Wu had to be induced. “We took one intentionally, because we didn’t want to deal with potentially suspicious drivers,” he said. “We waited about three minutes.”
Despite their faith in autonomous cars, Sanoguera and Wu have some ground rules. The most important: Mia should never be the first one or the last to enter the car. That holds with human drivers too, Sanoguera said, because the car “could just leave with the baby.”
When traveling with Mia now, they exclusively take Waymos. The family has a routine: Sanoguera sits in front, and Wu sits in back beside Mia, in case she’s irritable.
He’s aware it all sounds a little nuts. “Ten years ago, I would’ve thought this was science fiction,” he said. “Even when robotaxis came out, I was like, ‘How safe is this?’” But after six or so rides, he said, he felt comfortable.
By the time Mia was barely 6 weeks old, she’d already taken around 30 Waymo rides, mostly for doctor visits. “She is super calm in the car,” Sanoguera said. “Sometimes she is fussy at home — and then she gets into the Waymo and falls asleep.”