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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Bringing fully autonomous rides to Nashville, in partnership with Lyft
drnick1 wrote 14 min ago:
Meh, I'll stick to driving my own car or renting one. The last thing I
want is paying for the "privilege" of being rated by the driver or
spied on my an autonomous car.
Animats wrote 1 hour 41 min ago:
Not, Lyft, Flexdrive. Flexdrive is a fleet management company which
Lyft owns. They have the things Waymo needs - parking lots and vehicle
maintainers.
Waymo doesn't need the rideshare service and Lyft app.
In San Francisco, Waymo has already passed Lyft in number of rides, and
is projected to pass Uber by the end of the year.
boulos wrote 1 hour 34 min ago:
Both Lyft and Flexdrive:
> Riders will hail via the Waymo app, and as our service grows,
riders will also be able to use the Lyft app to match with a Waymo
vehicle.
(Disclosure: I work at Waymo, but not in partnerships)
bluGill wrote 4 hours 0 min ago:
I wish they would target mass transit not rideshare cars. A bus with
this technology could immediately run a lot more frequent with shorter
buses, and because the route is fixed they don't have to verify the
entire city, only the roads the bus will travel on. Fix route buses
running at high frequency is the key to getting people to ride mass
transit, but it isn't affordable because drivers are so expensive if
you can even find them to hire.
Karrot_Kream wrote 3 hours 19 min ago:
On BART safety concerns and union contracts restrict automation. This
fun article from 2017 [1] could have been written today but shows why
it's so hard for public infrastructure to be effective. Every actor
is incentivized to get something out of public infrastructure. In the
current AI mood I suspect opposition to automation by unions would be
even stronger.
The Abundance movement has put a good moniker to this concept:
Everything Bagel Liberalism.
[1]
URI [1]: https://sf.streetsblog.org/2017/03/06/lets-talk-seriously-ab...
majormajor wrote 3 hours 23 min ago:
Are driver costs really the primary thing stopping increased bus
route service? Or is it the chicken-and-egg of "ridership isn't high
enough to demand more frequent service" + the distraction of shinier
rail projects? Bus drivers would be cheaper than rail construction, I
think you need to sell "more busses" politically first.
reaperducer wrote 2 hours 5 min ago:
Are driver costs really the primary thing stopping increased bus
route service?
It's usually that $transit_company needs $xxx,xxx,xxx to do a good
job.
Politicians will only give it $yy,yyy,yyy to do the job.
bluGill wrote 3 hours 5 min ago:
The total cost of a bus is just over $100/hour (I last checked in
2019, so a bit more from inflation), and a driver directly makes
around $30/hr plus benefits easially will put you over $50. Now
add in all training and management that isn't directly per hour but
if you didn't have a driver you wouldn't pay. You do have
maintenance and fuel costs per hour, insurance and the cost of a
bus. There are are a lot of "it depends" and I've never seen a
formal analysis of the true costs, but to round numbers we can say
half the costs are the driver and be close enough for discussion.
If we take the same $ and get rid of the drivers we can run twice
as many buses and that increased service will get a lot of riders
who previously thought the service was too bad. Though you will
need to run the additional service for a few years before people
figure out service is no longer bad and start using it.
Now we do have to assume some intelligence in bus routing. There
are a lot of bad bus routes in cities that will never get more
riders because of how stupid they are.
Of course you are right that politics gets in the picture. Rail
gets far too much attention for projects where the lowly bus is
cheaper for otherwise identical service (and where rail is needed
it is often done wrong). As already pointed out unions will hate
this plan and they have power to screw the rest of the population
(who because they don't ride now don't think they would if this
plan happened) and the environment (they care about the environment
only after their own self interests.
Still the numbers work on paper: self driving buses should get a
lot more riders on yoru bus system because you can afford to run
more service.
Karrot_Kream wrote 3 hours 11 min ago:
> Are driver costs really the primary thing stopping increased bus
route service?
On rail I'm not as sure but on bus yes. Drivers are the largest
cost associated with a bus line. There's also a whole set of
downstream costs like bathroom breaks which requires that routes
are aligned with bathroom stops and that bathrooms are kept in good
working order. Breaks also decrease bus frequency (humans need
breaks!) and running more buses is often limited by the number of
drivers you can hire.
However bus drivers often play a dual role in US transit of
discouraging anti-social behavior so it's unclear to me if you
could even get rid of the bus driver and the associated
inefficiencies or you'd just need to replace them with a police
officer and deal with the exact same problems.
Many bus drivers are unhappy having to play this role, so that's
also a factor.
bluGill wrote 2 hours 54 min ago:
On rail the largest costs are building and maintaining the rail
until you get to very high frequency. For most rail in the US the
largest factor in maintenance is weather and so you could run a
lot more trains without changing the costs much. You do need to
buy more trains, and they will need to be cleaned, but it
wouldn't be hard to get enough to people on board to pay those
incremental costs. (in the US the bottleneck is often an
expensive tunnel that is shared between several not busy lines,
each line could itself handle many more trains all day than they
have at the peak without changing maintenance costs - but the
tunnel is full and it costs too much to build a new one - this is
why so many in transit are focusing on construction costs - if we
can build a short tunnel we unlock a lot of better transit)
reaperducer wrote 2 hours 2 min ago:
On rail the largest costs are building and maintaining the rail
until you get to very high frequency.
In the cities I've lived, it's not quite that.
Building rail is a lot of dollars, but politicians are often
happy to throw money at that problem. It's good for a dozen
industries, like construction.
But that money cannot then be used to operate the rail
long-term. That burden is on the city entirely.
I've lived in two cities that turned down millions of dollars
in federal transit grants because they didn't have the money
for maintenance and operation.
bluGill wrote 1 hour 51 min ago:
Capital costs are paid differently and so we can often safely
ignore construction costs as they are a different budget.
Putting maintenance into that capital bucket though is
accounting fraud and illegal. If you have a rail line the
largest cost is regular maintenance which is based on time
not wear until you have a very large number of trains
running. So my point stands even if you separate the
buckets.
idiotsecant wrote 3 hours 39 min ago:
People in cities don't like to ride with strangers if they can help
it, generally. This isn't absolute - if density gets high enough and
people get used to it, they will absolutely do it, but if they have
the choice to avoid it they generally will.
No amount of self-driving busses fixes that.
bluGill wrote 2 hours 59 min ago:
The only people who say that are people who are justifying their
not riding the bus - which is probably not usable for them anyway.
Too many people do ride the bus all over the world (even in the US)
to think that is really true. Statisticians and Psychologists have
long known people lie about their reasons for doing something.
lotsofpulp wrote 16 min ago:
idiotsecant wrote "if they can help it". Which means people take
into account things like travel time, congestion, safety risks,
general comfort, etc.
>The only people who say that are people who are justifying their
not riding the bus
Is this supposed to be a tautology? Obviously people who justify
it are people justifying it. I would bet real money that the
vast majority of women will choose a private vehicle over a bus
if they were the same price.
quickthrowman wrote 3 hours 43 min ago:
Bus drivers already have to assist handicapped passengers that are
getting on and off the bus (at least for my metro area bus service),
so someone will need to be in there anyways.
bluGill wrote 3 hours 3 min ago:
A better bus and stop design eliminates more of that. You can have
call ahead for help if you need to. A busy bus route normal people
will be glad to help the disabled as well so long as what they need
to do isn't hard and doesn't take much time (which it shouldn't -
see better design...). For the rest paratransit should take them
because despite the higher costs disabled people if they need to
much help are taking time from everyone else who wants to get
someplace not wait while someone is slowly loaded onto the bus.
MostlyStable wrote 3 hours 51 min ago:
Without major cultural shifts, you still need someone on the bus to
prevent them from becoming moving dumpsters. The driving itself would
be much easier, as you point out. That's not the only thing that a
driver does.
lisbbb wrote 32 min ago:
The "driver" could become more armed security and janitor.
999900000999 wrote 3 hours 34 min ago:
You could have a guy making minimum wage sit in the back and tell
people not to act stupid.
That would be much cheaper than a union bus driver who can clear
100k.
Safer too since bus drivers often go tons of overtime which isn't
great for being alert.
Karrot_Kream wrote 3 hours 24 min ago:
In the Bay a police officer staffed on a rapid bus line in 2022
needed ~ $250k benefits included. It won't be that cheap
999900000999 wrote 2 hours 42 min ago:
In LA you have contracted security guards who often just walk
around the metro without the same authority of an actual LEO.
That's typically enough to stop most weird behavior like
throwing trash on the ground.
Karrot_Kream wrote 23 min ago:
Are they a lot cheaper than actual LEOs? I presumed that
going rates would be similar. And I guess the "spicier"
question is, are they cheaper than a bus operator?
rangestransform wrote 3 hours 28 min ago:
Very optimistic for you to believe that politically entrenched
unions in major US cities will allow this
triceratops wrote 2 hours 36 min ago:
Buyouts for the affected bus drivers.
toomuchtodo wrote 2 hours 5 min ago:
For historical reference, this is how
longshoremen/dockworkers were compensated when shipping
containers increased efficiency. [1] (citations)
URI [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30856522
LaffertyDev wrote 1 hour 44 min ago:
That was a very fun sub thread to read, both for the
on-topic and off-topic discussion. Thanks for sharing.
lostdog wrote 3 hours 52 min ago:
For a self-driving company, replacing a lot of drivers servicing some
passengers is much better financially than replacing a few drivers
servicing many passengers. Pencil it out yourself and you'll see that
doing robotaxis is much better than doing robobuses. Plus, have any
cities suggested that they would contract out their business driving
to an automous company? Has anyone asked the unions to see what they
might do about it?
Autonomous buses will come, but only after the approach has fully
taken over the taxi market first.
bluGill wrote 3 hours 1 min ago:
For the company maybe, but for everyone else it is worse. Taxis
are worse for the environment than cars because you have to count
all the driving around empty picking people up (demand is rarely
even in all directions). Rideshare is only of limited use outside
fixed routes as people have places to be an detouring to pick up
someone else makes them mad.
boh wrote 4 hours 48 min ago:
I have a feeling Nashville normies are going to be super psyched having
to drive behind these things.
deathanatos wrote 5 hours 26 min ago:
Nashville's airport suffered gridlock yesterday:
URI [1]: https://fox17.com/news/local/what-caused-the-over-14000-vehicl...
oldjim798 wrote 5 hours 22 min ago:
Autonomous cars are not the solution to traffic issues. At best, the
may make some driving situations slightly safer because humans are
terrible drivers.
What we need is trains. Trains everywhere. We had this once in fact;
we had passenger rail to every corner of europe and north america.
Turning that back on would massively improve traffic.
gs17 wrote 4 hours 25 min ago:
Unfortunately, our airport traffic is getting a Tesla Tunnel
instead of a real train.
cman1444 wrote 4 hours 44 min ago:
I disagree. Building trains in America is next to impossible in the
modern day. Obtaining the property for the railways would be
extraordinarily difficult, because America has such strong property
rights and is such a legalistic society. It's a recipe for way
over-budget and behind schedule projects. Just look at the
California project. There's also very little expertise in the rail
industry in America due to underinvestment in recent decades.
Furthermore, the built environment is so spread out because it was
built for cars, so you don't get the clustering effects of density
around train stations. Rail isn't that helpful if you have to walk
another 30 minutes from the station to actually get to your
destination.
Also, I think your assertion that autonomous cars don't solve
traffic is partially wrong. If entire fleets of cars can "think" as
a whole, you can avoid some traffic problems, such as traffic
waves, that occur due to individual decision-makers.
rangestransform wrote 4 hours 36 min ago:
> There's also very little expertise in the rail industry in
America due to underinvestment in recent decades.
we could solve this by importing entire crews from Europe or
Asia, but knuckledraggers insist on cREaTinG lOCal UNioN jOBs
SoftTalker wrote 3 hours 23 min ago:
I don't believe that anyway. The USA has a very robust rail
network, it's just all dedicated to freight. Building and
maintaining railroads is not some forgotten capability; it's
very high tech with robots/automation doing a lot of the work
now.
choilive wrote 4 hours 51 min ago:
The USA has proven to be... incapable of completing any public
transport infrastructure anywhere near on budget or on time. This
is a deeply rooted problem. Until this gets solved autonomous
electric vehicles could theoretically just leapfrog the problem
altogether. Point to point transportation also mostly solves the
last mile problem.
triceratops wrote 5 hours 20 min ago:
We also need buses and mini-buses and taxis to get people to and
from train stations. Autonomous driving makes this cheap and
feasible.
garrtt wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
Is there any hope of actually being able to fully own a self driving
vehicle as a consumer? Seems that a concerning majority of the
autonomous driving conversation is framed in the context of
ride-sharing.
jonas21 wrote 4 hours 34 min ago:
It makes sense to target ridesharing while the tech is being
developed because:
(a) you can amortize the large up-front cost of the hardware over
many more trips per day.
(b) you can geographically restrict where the vehicle operates to
areas you've mapped in detail and know to be relatively safe
(c) you can collect lots of raw data for training and allow remote
operators to assist if the vehicle gets stuck (many people would have
privacy concerns if their personal car was doing this).
Over time, the hardware cost will come down, geographic availability
will increase, and the need for remote assistance will decrease. Then
you might start to see ones you can fully own.
At that point, though, the question becomes would you want to own
one? Particularly if ride-share vehicles are ubiquitous and you can
nearly instantly summon one that's exactly the type you need no
matter where you are.
ndriscoll wrote 3 hours 30 min ago:
Vehicles also act as large portable storage, which is very
convenient when you have kids. e.g. stroller, diaper bag, change of
clothes, sports equipment, emergency supplies. It would be annoying
to always have to keep things on your person. With a personal
vehicle, you also don't have to worry about something falling out
of a bag and being lost forever after the vehicle drives away, or
accidentally leaving a piece of equipment in it; just go check the
parking lot. Or what if you want to make a trip to multiple stores
and want to keep bags from the first in the car while you're in the
second?
EVs also have the potential to act as large backup batteries for
your home.
You can also choose how to amortize your costs. My mom's been
driving the same car for 22 years now.
brian_spiering wrote 5 hours 23 min ago:
Yes, there is hope to fully own a self driving vehicle as a consumer.
One example is comma.ai, inc.
devinprater wrote 5 hours 28 min ago:
Oh yes please, just a little closer! Come on bring it to Talladega AL
where tons of blind people live!
dkobia wrote 5 hours 31 min ago:
What a time to be alive. 3 companies competing for what might be the
next trillion dollar business.
- Waymo has the advantage of launching sooner but has much more
expensive vehicles which will eat into margins.
- Tesla has the advantage of full vertical integration owns their
hardware and cheaper cars but also trying to do this with vision only.
- Zoox has the advantage of building purpose-built autonomous vehicles
from the ground up with Amazon's deep pockets behind them, but faces
the challenge of manufacturing at scale for a novel vehicle.
UltraSane wrote 2 hours 34 min ago:
Tesla isn't really in the game. Their robotaxi's only purpose is to
inflate the share price. Tesla hasn't driven a single mile without a
safety driver in the car.
hibikir wrote 5 hours 13 min ago:
If there's a trillion dollar business there, it's on transporting
goods, not people. Ultimately a self driving car is a cheaper
chauffeur or a cheaper taxi. The addressable market doesn't change
that much because of price, and the more it changes it, the worse it
is for infrastructure. Deadhead miles traveled are not better for
traffic because there is no human driving them. All we get is more
miles traveled over the same limited infra.
oldjim798 wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
Why do we want a trillion dollar business? Why is that good for
society/the world?
Tesla also seems to have the 'advantage' of ruthlessly exploiting
labour; I very much hope they do not succeed.
Zoox being owned by Amazon also makes me deeply suspicious of their
business practices.
charcircuit wrote 5 hours 5 min ago:
The value of a business is based off how much value they will
provide to others. In order to be a trillion dollar business you
have to be providing a lot of value to others in the current or
people are speculating you will provide value in the future.
groggo wrote 3 hours 30 min ago:
And you have to have a monopoly though? Farms provide the most
value to the world but there's so much competition that it's
commoditized, so as far as I know there's no super valuable
farms... Hopefully the same thing happens with autonomous cars,
cloud computing, etc.
elzbardico wrote 3 hours 48 min ago:
Do we still believe this propaganda? Really?
oldjim798 wrote 4 hours 57 min ago:
The value of a business is entirely the part the second of the
line - its entirely people speculating on the future value. Thats
why Telsa is worth so much compared to other auto makers - its a
small, niche player who makes poor quality cars - but investors
believe it will take over the world hence its 'valuation'.
This is assuming you mean just the economic definition of value.
If you mean value more broadly, then your statement is even less
true; in that case hedge funds would be worth nothing.
bpodgursky wrote 5 hours 23 min ago:
Because Americans spend 93 billion hours driving each year and tens
of thousands of people literally die each year in car crashes.
Unlocking that time and those lives is an unimaginably large
quality of life improvement.
grues-dinner wrote 4 hours 48 min ago:
Probably not ideal if one company controls the whole shebang
though.
Fricken wrote 4 hours 39 min ago:
Currently it's looking like Waymo's most viable competitors are
in China, namely Pony.ai and Baidu's Apollo.
Even without competition it will be a long time before Waymo is
operating in most American cities.
grues-dinner wrote 4 hours 26 min ago:
Assuming Chinese competitors get cut off as a "threat to
national security", I'm sure Waymo would behave
responsibility as a monopoly and won't be driving for a
system that "accidentally" end with private car ownership
being eroded along with public transport options in favour of
their product.
It would be crazy if a self driving car company would
undertake projects that undermine public transport, for
example. Proposing mad things like vacuum pod trains to head
off conventional HSR for example. Imagine!
astrange wrote 1 hour 51 min ago:
Americans are incapable of constructing HSR all on their
own. It doesn't matter if anyone tries to distract them,
they'll be tied up in 200 years of lawsuits over whether
the fake environment reports are long enough anyway.
McAlpine5892 wrote 5 hours 16 min ago:
We already have solutions for this called trains, buses, subways,
etc. Public transportation. Yes, America is huge but look at
China building out high-speed rail at an incredible pace. The
amount of money dumped into self-driving could have built out an
impressive amount of infrastructure for public transportation.
Not to say this isnât a worthy problem to solve or that cars
have no use. Theyâre great for rural life. But maybe 80% of the
use-case for self-driving cars is pretty much solved by trains.
Theyâre fast, generate no traffic, are very safe, and reduce
pollution in urban areas. Even electric cars produce noxious
break dust.
Addendum
The âAmerica is too bigâ argument drives me nuts. (1) Again,
look at China. (2) The EU is decently large and connected very
well by rail. (3) Weâre America. We went to the frickin moon.
Defeated the Nazis. Etc. We can build trains. Not to mention what
a boost it would be to the economy with all the jobs a project
like that would create. Sure, we wouldnât have an Elon but
thatâs fine by me.
llbbdd wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
This argument never makes a lick of sense, these are entirely
different problems. Trains, buses, subways, do not go to my
house, and they do not go to my destination. They (sometimes)
get close, and then I have to get through the last mile
somehow, often a taxi or Uber. That transfer alone is annoying
and it often makes sense to just take the taxi the whole way,
even if it costs more, and it's a better experience than any
public transit, so why not?
Maybe that setup works in China where everyone lives on top of
each other in shoeboxes and you can just route a monorail
through an apartment building, but I like both having my space
and living adjacent to a large city. You could put a teleporter
to the train station on my boulevard and I'd stand next to it
while I wait for an Uber. You could build a train station a
block from my house and I'd move somewhere else. I would pay
multiples of any train ticket price to get into an autonomous
sleeper Waymo and wake up in a city hours away in front of my
hotel. You literally could not pay me to take more public
transit if I have any other option, and I don't think I'm alone
in that, and building more of it doesn't solve that.
America's strength here is that it's full of great places where
you can live like that, take public transit everywhere, walk
everywhere else, if that's what you want, with the compromises
it comes with. But instead of moving to those places people say
"build more public transit", which then just sounds like "I
wish public transit was more accessible to me specifically" and
then we're just back at taxis, or building rail to connect the
front doors of everyone on earth.
oldjim798 wrote 4 hours 35 min ago:
-->You literally could not pay me to take more public transit
if I have any other option
The diversity of the world truly never ceases to amaze me.
Thats a wild take. Driving is an awful experience - its
expensive, its stressful, cars are uncomfortable, and the
whole thing is extremely dangerous.
More over, I would argue that America is very much not a
place where you can live car-free. There are very few places
in the country where you can live without a car, certainly if
you have a family.
That being said, building more public transit everywhere
would allow more people to get out of the way of people like
you who will drive no matter what.
llbbdd wrote 4 hours 10 min ago:
Sure, the alternative view is just as wild to me, and I've
travelled plenty both ways. It's only expensive if you
don't value the advantages, and even in absolute terms it
doesn't cost much more. Public transit is for me way more
stressful because crowds are annoying, train and bus
schedules are annoying, people are inconsiderate and you
have no control over it at all. The worst part of public
transit is the public; I love going to the theatre but I've
mostly stopped for the same reason and got a nice setup at
home instead. It's not IMAX but IMAX isn't that fun anyway
with a bad audience.
Cars are clean and if they aren't, there's a rating system
for that. Bus is dirty? The city will surely see to your
ticket eventually.
Cars are uncomfortable? Pay another couple dollars and Uber
will send you an SUV just for you if you want. Try offering
a couple dollars to the people sandwiching you on either
side on the subway and see if it makes you more
comfortable.
I've never had a license beyond a temp, my family doesn't
own a car. I agree driving is stressful, which is why I
prefer to pay people who drive for a living to do it for
me, so it's not about driving for driving's sake, it's
about what's comfortable to use and convenient. Most public
transit is neither.
grues-dinner wrote 4 hours 39 min ago:
> Maybe that setup works in China
It doesn't, really. China sells absolutely fucktons of cars
domestically. There are also dozens of brands that most
people have never even heard of and don't even get exported
because domestic demand for a functional 10-15,000 electric
car is so high. Every residential complex is absolutely
rammed with cars, ranging from tiny runabouts to Tank 700
plus-sized SUVs.
That demand doesn't exist because everyone lives 5 minutes
walk from work and loves the subway. Though millions upon
millions of people do both, and subways have expanded
probably 1000% or more in the last 15 years, million upon
millions also want a car. In many cases they may not
represent all the miles a person travels (eg subway to work
but car for other trips).
High speed rail also is a replacement for many car miles
driven because while a cross-country ticket is expensive,
driving is still expensive in fuel and wear and takes days to
boot.
llbbdd wrote 3 hours 56 min ago:
There are definitely places in the US that I would like to
see intercity high-speed rail specifically. Flying is
convenient and frankly magical but always feels like a huge
chore to do.
grues-dinner wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
Even in China, flying is usually cheaper than HSR, and
over twice as fast once airborne (300km/hr train vs
800km/hr plane). But getting and through airports is
still more of a hassle than the trains. Even when taxis
are fairly cheap, there's nothing like popping out in the
city.
Though it's not quite like a cosy European station near
the old town: some some stations are the better part of
half a mile across (not along the platforms, across), and
aren't right in the city centre so there can still be
some walking involved!
On the other hand, you can have takeaway food delivered
to the station ahead and receive it at your seat. And
it's far more comfortable even in economy.
jjice wrote 4 hours 56 min ago:
For long distance trains:
While I also love trains and public transit, China is about the
same physical size of the US, but has about four times the
population, so it's four times denser. Definitely makes trains
more appealing for them.
> Weâre America. We went to the frickin moon. Defeated the
Nazis. Etc. We can build trains.
Absolutely we can build trains. It's not that we're incapable.
It's that it's not financially viable based on the usage it'll
get.
Again, I'd love better trains in the US, but it doesn't make
sense in a lot of cases in the US still due to density and
current value props for individuals. If it was valuable,
someone would do it.
Now, for intra-city transit, the lack of trains also drives me
insane.
rangestransform wrote 4 hours 48 min ago:
There are already places in the US that can financially
justify Japan-tier high speed rail (specifically the
northeast corridor), but Connecticut simultaneously wants
high speed rail through the coastal towns and opposes the
land acquisition required to get adequately straight tracks.
If American politics is unable to get out of the way in such
a slam-dunk case for rail, what hope is there to bring public
transit and urbanism to all of the car-dependent suburbia in
the rest of the country?
oldjim798 wrote 5 hours 22 min ago:
Autonomous cars would be safer, I completely agree. They won't
fix traffic though.
robertlagrant wrote 5 hours 11 min ago:
They might fix it a bit. Cars might be able to travel at more
consistent speeds, not speeding up and slowing down, that
causes traffic, and fewer accidents would also reduce traffic.
Maybe in the future they could also travel closer together!
hibikir wrote 5 hours 11 min ago:
They will make it worse, as it makes it easier to move a
vehicle around. When the price goes down, the usage goes up.
And it's traffic whether the vehicle has a human being
transported, it's circling waiting for a fare, or it's on the
way back, empty, from taking a child to school
triceratops wrote 2 hours 31 min ago:
That's what congestion pricing is for.
earthnail wrote 5 hours 2 min ago:
You no longer need inner city parking, and people will be
more willing to jump on public transport to skip traffic
because you are not bound by the location of your own car
anyway.
gtowey wrote 4 hours 7 min ago:
Are all those cars going to keep circling the block at
night when nobody is driving?
Scoundreller wrote 3 hours 15 min ago:
Maybe do some overnight legs to other cities? Need some
sleeper cars.
Covid taught us that we donât really have enough space
to park all aircraft: we expect them to âparkâ in the
sky.
I wonder how downtimes will go when one of the inevitable
duopoly players has a system downtime.
smelendez wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
Theyâll do what taxis have always done when not in use
â go to a lot or garage in a cheap part of town.
gtowey wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
You think taxi companies are paying for enough parking
spaces to store most of their fleet at once? A lot of
those cars are stored on the street in front of the
house of the driver.
Also, the problem of storing something like 10k taxis
pales in comparison to storing 100k+ cars. Some large
cities have millions of cars. When was the last time
you drove to a stadium concert or ball game? It takes
hours to get something like 30k cars in and out of
those parking lots when everyone is trying to use the
same roads at the same time. It's absolute gridlock.
So to implement anything like what you're talking about
you'd need a network of garages and lots in the
periphery of a large city, and the road infrastructure
that can handle 100k cars driving from outside the city
to your home all in time to whisk you away on your
morning commute.
For that kind of civic planning & engineering
complexity you could just build public transportation
based on trains, light rail and busses.
willahmad wrote 5 hours 17 min ago:
you are right, it probably won't fix the traffic, but it
doesn't matter because if you are not steering the wheel then
you can work or study while in the traffic.
there is a huge economic impact
oldjim798 wrote 4 hours 55 min ago:
Oh good, even more hours of the day my boss can take from me
to wring even more labour out of me
warkdarrior wrote 3 hours 7 min ago:
Or you could use that time for your own purposes, no reason
to allow for your boss to control your commute.
trevor-e wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
Why would a company like Lyft/Uber partner with Waymo at this point?
That sounds like doing a deal with the competitor who _will_ completely
kill them off in the future.
zhengyi13 wrote 5 hours 32 min ago:
Not necessarily. Does Waymo really want to run all the additional
infra and services and people ops required to be a full soup-to-nuts
ride hailing service?
I mean, they do today, but maybe they don't want to be in that
business.
bigyikes wrote 5 hours 19 min ago:
Owning the user base seems like a huge strategic advantage.
yalogin wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
Uber and Lyft are sitting pretty for the moment. They donât own any
cars anyway, now they donât even have to deal with drivers. Also I am
glad google finally found a GTM strategy for their tech. They are
building these machines themselves though. These are expensive and cost
a lot in maintenance, wonder how the numbers look for them
evgen wrote 5 hours 31 min ago:
> Uber and Lyft are sitting pretty for the moment.
The two completely replaceable components of this project are
'sitting pretty'? They should be scared to death because this is in
fact the death knell for both companies. If the market decides that
they are going to be nothing more than 'fleet management' companies
for waymo then their share price will crater.
xnx wrote 5 hours 34 min ago:
> Uber and Lyft are sitting pretty for the moment
Maybe they get something out of it in the short term. Longer term,
they are janitorial and service staff that are interchangeable with
any number of companies.
noahmbarr wrote 5 hours 46 min ago:
Donât rule out Teslaâs Robotaxi. Iâm 10 rides in (Bay Areaâ
around SF proper), and itâs clean, cheap, and efficient. As good or
better than Waymo.
IMO:
- Tesla is pushing Waymo on pricing and service areas
- Tesla will drop the safety monitor in the next 6 months**
**I say this as a FSD subscriber on my own car and seeing the arch of
progress, albeit with a software branch thatâs supposedly 3-6 months
behind Robotaxiâs
YeCKqkhM wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
I'm always flabbergasted by Tesla fans' commitment to vastly inferior
product and their insistence that the big breakthrough is "just
around the corner bro, believe me". I'm pretty sure you all just have
Stockholm Syndrome after paying for FSD in like 2019 and ingesting
copium for over 5 years. I hope you reach a place in your life where
you have the confidence to ask for a higher standard.
dawnerd wrote 5 hours 38 min ago:
Tesla lost the race and wonât even be in the space in any
meaningful way in a few years. Theyâre only limping along because
they have some guy pumping the stock.
cbdumas wrote 5 hours 40 min ago:
As I commute on a motorcycle (often in the rain, causing lower
visibility) this is terrifying to me and I hope regulators in my
state don't let it happen here until Tesla can prove their "camera
only" approach is safe.
URI [1]: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/nhtsa-...
lokar wrote 5 hours 41 min ago:
6 normal months, or 6 Elon months?
kamranjon wrote 5 hours 41 min ago:
Is Tesla robotaxi actually even close to Waymo? I thought they still
needed someone in the car with the robotaxi and Waymo had been
operating fully autonomous for quite a while already. My
understanding is that this is one of the reasons people really like
Waymo, itâs like a private ride.
Hamuko wrote 5 hours 45 min ago:
Are you talking about the Robotaxi where thereâs a man sitting
behind the steering wheel?
mwigdahl wrote 1 hour 21 min ago:
Or the one with the fake man behind a white lever?
URI [1]: https://youtu.be/eAkeZqAN_qU?t=20
barbazoo wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
His name is Rob. Rob-o-taxi.
dwood_dev wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
Next to, not behind. I see a strong future for both Waymo and Tesla
in the driverless car biz.
Tesla is probably a year behind on their software, but they can
scale out infinitely faster than Waymo on the hardware.
Either way, we win.
Hamuko wrote 3 hours 46 min ago:
No, I'm pretty sure this one is the one where he is behind the
steering wheel.
Atlas667 wrote 5 hours 55 min ago:
Nobody needs this.
This is incentivized as private enterprise developing autonomous
warfare tech.
rangestransform wrote 5 hours 33 min ago:
any technology is dual use if you squint hard enough
Atlas667 wrote 4 hours 58 min ago:
It doesn't really help consumers whose whole point is to get from
point A to B in the quickest and most comfortable manner.
It doesn't help traffic, and it only will if self driving cars are
already the majority, which is a convenient perspective for
developers of this tech, but is not viable and not a true
statement.
I don't want to be that guy, but we all know trains and trams are
the better tech. Luxury trains/trams would be a banger. Private
rooms with better amenities than a car, why not?
The autonomous car industry is a few things: car protectionism, oil
protectionism, autonomous warfare development and gimmicks.
gs17 wrote 3 hours 46 min ago:
> but we all know trains and trams are the better tech
Great, but I'm actually in Nashville and I know there's about
zero chance we get a (real) train, and that the train stops would
definitely be no closer than the bus stop that's already
inconvenient enough to not be worth it. The bus system used to (I
think they still have it in one area) have a program where you
could get free Uber/Lyft rides to/from bus stops, and cheaper
autonomous rides could definitely make that more feasible to
continue offering.
> oil protectionism
The Waymo vehicles I've been in were electric. If electric cars
are "oil protectionism", then you can probably warp trains into
it too (the bus certainly would be).
rangestransform wrote 4 hours 44 min ago:
> It doesn't really help consumers whose whole point is to get
from point A to B in the quickest and most comfortable manner.
It does, I'm certainly more comfortable in an i-Pace than most of
the economy hoopties I've ubered in. The time penalty is minimal
(except for that time I had to chase a waymo around the block),
and worth it for the comfort and safety.
> It doesn't help traffic, and it only will if self driving cars
are already the majority, which is a convenient perspective for
developers of this tech, but is not viable and not a true
statement.
It certainly helps me arrive to my destination quicker than muni
metro which I can often run faster than. Throwing individual
benefit under the bus for collective benefit is rightfully a
non-starter in the US.
> I don't want to be that guy, but we all know trains and trams
are the better tech. Luxury trains/trams would be a banger.
Private rooms with better amenities than a car, why not?
How much would a private room cost, even if we had ubiquitous
Japan-tier rail?
> The autonomous car industry is a few things: car protectionism,
oil protectionism, autonomous warfare development and gimmicks.
And fulfillment of individual desires
Atlas667 wrote 3 hours 42 min ago:
My whole argument is that you can fulfill individual desires
better through other means.
> It does, I'm certainly more comfortable in an i-Pace than
most of the economy hoopties I've ubered in.
The lack of choices due to monopoly capitalism is a self
fulfilling prophecy. (regular capitalism after some time is
monopoly capitalism)
> Throwing individual benefit under the bus for collective
benefit is rightfully a non-starter in the US.
This is a false dichotomy brought about by living in an economy
controlled by finance capital. Individual benefit does not have
to look like this and can be more internally and externally
consistent.
Especially since this industry contains the seeds of its own
destruction IN its own logic. Like I said, its more expensive
than rail and to have any speed benefits it requires the
majority of cars to be autonomous, which most likely will never
happen. Not to mention physical safety and cyber
security/privacy.
> How much would a private room cost, even if we had ubiquitous
Japan-tier rail?
A private room would cost less because there are less costs
involved overall. Rail/tram is cheaper and better.
-
I am, generally, arguing for medium and long distance travel
tho. But in regards to short-distance specifically I think my
argument still stands. I dont think it presents any greater
benefit than the alternatives, of which some are definitely
better. You'll see how mass use, if it even gets there, will
make it just "another one". It doesn't scale.
Plus autonomous warfare dev right under our noses.
barbazoo wrote 5 hours 40 min ago:
People do âneedâ it but for the wrong reasons such as failures
around zoning urban planning, public transportation, etc.
komali2 wrote 5 hours 31 min ago:
Privatization of many things is turning out to be a failure.
Sewage, water - see the UK, failure. Healthcare: USA, failure.
Utilities: UK, USA, failure. Mail: Denmark, failure.
Transportation: UK, USA, utter failure. Further privatization will
deepen this failure.
Atlas667 wrote 4 hours 53 min ago:
Yeah. Almost as if capitalism seeks to generate profits at the
expense of the consumer especially if they have limited choices,
which capitalism itself produces.
blinding-streak wrote 6 hours 0 min ago:
Interesting that Waymo has relationships with both Uber and Lyft now.
They can play them off each other for future expansion opportunities,
while continuing to learn the nuances of the high-scale rideshare biz
from them.
groggo wrote 3 hours 34 min ago:
That's how competition should work. Every layer should have multiple
providers until the companies get all of their profits squeezed away
and users get the best possible price.
lotsofpulp wrote 26 min ago:
A "layer" itself represents costs that can be eliminated which can
lead to lower prices for buyers.
That is why vertically integrated businesses can peel away business
from existing non vertically integrated businesses with lower
prices (legal liability notwithstanding). Sometimes it pays to
have the business with more to lose insulated from liability by
having a layer without much to lose.
rangestransform wrote 3 hours 24 min ago:
I sometimes prefer to enjoy the benefits of vertical integration,
like Apple being able to codevelop hardware and software
unrestricted from having to provide a public API at every layer
(e.g. airpods device switching), and being able to unilaterally
dictate user experience guidelines to app developers (e.g. ask app
not to track).
_fat_santa wrote 3 hours 48 min ago:
Hoping someone in the rideshare space could shed some light on this
for me but why would Waymo partner with rideshare providers instead
of just going in by themselves? Is it just marketing/exposure
(Uber/Lyft both have tons of users, Waymo could instantly tap into
that user base instead of trying to grow their own) or is it more of
a regulatory thing?
pkaye wrote 25 min ago:
I think they will license the technology and get a cut of the
profits. They want to focus on the technology, not building parking
garages and maintenance lots everywhere. The local ride share
companies will do that.
throwup238 wrote 2 hours 21 min ago:
I think itâs more a matter of capital rather than marketing.
Having hundreds or thousands of cars per city/metro is going to be
capital intensive and that has to show up on someoneâs books and
financed somebow. They were bound to partner with rideshare sooner
or later to derisk their own operation.
mandeepj wrote 1 hour 8 min ago:
> Having hundreds or thousands of cars per city/metro is going to
be capital intensive
Ha! Lyft doesn't own much of its fleet! There's a small fraction
of vehicles that lyft rents through Flexdrive.
Just like Tesla Self self-driving, Waymo can ask people, if they
want to offset related capital costs, to buy cars and rent them
to Waymo to be reconfigured and run as autonomous vehicles on
profit profit-sharing basis.
mlyle wrote 3 hours 44 min ago:
Yup, marketing. And Waymo can launch at a smaller scale in the
market knowing that overflow and rides that Waymo can't do can be
done by human drivers.
It's a way for Waymo to prepare to turn on the spigot, too, if they
dump a bunch more cars into the market.
It's important for Waymo to do all 3: show they can run the service
themselves in a market, and work with both Uber and Lyft, to be
able to get fair terms and the option to expand rapidly.
idiotsecant wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
What do uber and lyft get out of it, though? If Waymo succeeds
they're out of business, right? Or is the idea that Waymo becomes
a hardware provider and uber / lyft become operators?
astrange wrote 1 hour 54 min ago:
Uber and Lyft's business model is that they don't own cars.
Waymo owns cars, so is at a disadvantage to them. Cars are
still expensive and need maintenance even if they don't have
drivers.
mlyle wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
Uber and Lyft calculate that their cooperation doesn't affect
Waymo's trajectory too much, and they immediately benefit from
"more drivers."
> Or is the idea that Waymo becomes a hardware provider and
uber / lyft become operators?
This is one natural way that things may shake out and a natural
path to scale. But Waymo needs to have a fallback plan of A)
other parties to work with, or B) just doing it themselves to
get a good deal with Uber/Lyft in the long term.
Uber/Lyft would like Waymo to not the the sole provider of
autonomous technology and to work with them; they can expect to
receive rides at just a bit above marginal cost in that case.
jerlam wrote 4 hours 30 min ago:
I wonder if Waymo is allowed to charge different prices, or advertise
their own direct services, in these partnerships.
"Use the Waymo app instead, save 10%, and get a guaranteed Waymo!"
kunjanshah wrote 3 hours 51 min ago:
In Austin, Waymo app directs you to use uber instead.
mlyle wrote 3 hours 44 min ago:
Almost certainly Waymo has given Uber some kind of time-limited
exclusivity in that market.
adrr wrote 4 hours 39 min ago:
Curious what these ride sharing companies take for providing the
platform. 30%? Having two play off each other they can probably
push it down to 15% or lower.
xnx wrote 5 hours 55 min ago:
They've also partnered with Moove in Miami and with Avis.
ddeck wrote 5 hours 48 min ago:
And GO in Tokyo.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(Japan)
willahmad wrote 6 hours 1 min ago:
From market standpoint I am curious if Google or Amazon is willing to
acquire Lyft for the tech and customer base.
Lyft is a good distribution channel for their self driving car
initiatives with good coverage, Uber is too expensive at this moment.
sib wrote 5 hours 45 min ago:
What customer base (at least in the US) does Lyft have that Google or
Amazon don't? Estimates for Amazon are ~250M and Google ~275M users
in the US.
willahmad wrote 5 hours 38 min ago:
it's not only about number of users. You also have regulations in
different cities and states, existing models trained based on past
supply demand behavior, somewhat optimized workflows for the ride
hailing industry, payments, risks.
They both can build themselves, but if you provide solely
self-driving ride hailing, a lot of times customers might not be
able to find cars in upcoming 6-7 years until they ramp up full
production to meet demand.
sib wrote 4 hours 30 min ago:
>> willing to acquire Lyft for the tech and customer base
Sure - that seems like "tech" - I was asking about "customer
base"
AnishLaddha wrote 5 hours 56 min ago:
what moat does lyft have? i know san francisco is a special case but
waymo is already beating out lyft, with its own app:
URI [1]: https://www.fastcompany.com/91347503/waymo-is-winning-in-san...
willahmad wrote 5 hours 43 min ago:
moat is in institutional knowledge of operations in ride hailing
industry.
Also, pleasing the customer, imagine opening Waymo app and not
being able to order a taxi 40% of the time. With Lyft/Uber you can
easily switch the ride mode and get a car with driver if all self
driving cars are busy
losvedir wrote 6 hours 7 min ago:
This feels like an inflection point.
We're now at San Francisco, SFO airport, Austin, Nashville, and NYC, is
that right?
marcellus23 wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
No, not NYC. They have a testing permit but it's not even listed in
"coming soon" on their site.
mcoliver wrote 4 hours 43 min ago:
And Los Angeles
gol706 wrote 5 hours 2 min ago:
They have hired staff in San Antonio but not officially announced a
launch yet.
panarky wrote 5 hours 21 min ago:
And Dallas, Denver, Seattle, Tokyo
jayd16 wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
Los Angeles
dehrmann wrote 5 hours 50 min ago:
And "Silicon Valley" (Palo Alto, Mountain View, Menlo Park, Los
Altos). Quotes because that excludes San Jose, Santa Clara,
Sunnyvale, Cupertino, and Milpitas.
zbrozek wrote 5 hours 18 min ago:
There are a ton of them in Sunnyvale, so I expect that area to flip
to public availability soon.
baseballdork wrote 6 hours 6 min ago:
They're in the Phoenix area as well.
List of cities here:
URI [1]: https://waymo.com/rides/
yiweig wrote 6 hours 6 min ago:
And Atlanta via Uber
avs733 wrote 4 hours 43 min ago:
and RAPIDLY growing in Atlanta from what I see as I wander the
city. I just saw one of their new Geely based vehicles today for
the first time.
I will say as someone who is suspicious of self driving cars...they
are not really worse than Atlanta drivers as a typical pedestrian.
They are dangerous in different ways...but not necessarily more or
less.
Zigurd wrote 6 hours 16 min ago:
I strongly suspect Waymo has hit break-even. If Google's published
numbers on rides per week and fleet size are accurate, and the
estimates of price per ride are close, expansion isn't going to be
capital constrained.
ra7 wrote 5 hours 45 min ago:
In a recent interview, Waymo strongly hinted they now have positive
unit economics in markets like SF.
From [1] :
> âEach car, the amount of revenue it's making would be shocking to
most people,â Panigrahi said, without elaborating. âBecause it
just continuously keeps delivering ride after ride. On a per asset
basis, itâs doing really well. Thatâs making progress in terms of
unit economics very, very positive.â
So much so that in busy markets like San Francisco, Waymo could soon
move into the black. âNot making specific statements about if
weâre positive or not, but what I can tell you is that yes, key
markets are showing us that we are,â Panigrahi said.
URI [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2025/09/03/waymo-co...
eatonphil wrote 5 hours 6 min ago:
What is the reason or benefit of them being so secretive about
this?
maxerickson wrote 3 hours 41 min ago:
They have to follow SEC rules about disclosing it.
actinium226 wrote 3 hours 59 min ago:
Usually, though not always, a company will tell you if they're
making money on something, and if they're not they beat around
the bush like this. Notice how, for example, Gywnne Shotwell
never beats around the bush like this when talking about
Starlink.
Notice the weird language:
> Thatâs making progress in terms of unit economics very, very
positive.
He says the "progress" is "very, very positive," but if you're
not paying close enough attention you might come away thinking
that the unit economics are what's very very positive.
All that said, what he's saying makes sense. They're able to
charge more for their rides since they offer the convenience of
not having to deal with a driver, and they're not paying the
driver, who is the most expensive part, so yea, I'm bullish on
them.
boh wrote 4 hours 49 min ago:
Because no highly indebted company is going to "strongly hint"
that they aren't just hemorrhaging cash like everyone
assumes--they will absolutely let you know. "Hints" are just best
effort accounting aesthetics to seem like the dream is just
around the corner.
weatherlite wrote 5 hours 3 min ago:
They don't gain much from disclosing anything imo , their
competition reads every word they say. I'm not sure it matters
that much but as a habit I don't see why they should disclose
exact numbers.
PhantomHour wrote 5 hours 1 min ago:
Waymo doesn't gain anything. Google i.e. Alphabet Inc, does.
Especially these days. Every scrap of news that could pump the
stock price is publicized aggressively.
And this makes the absence of such actions suspicious.
leetharris wrote 5 hours 58 min ago:
Even with expensive vehicles and hardware? Plus they are revenue
sharing with the host Uber/Lyft platforms.
Feels very unlikely. I think they will need to bring car cost down to
hit break even.
vineyardmike wrote 4 hours 51 min ago:
Think about it in comparison to a real-life taxi or Uber and the
math is surprisingly strong.
A real human driver needs to (vaguely) make a human salary, and
cover things like gas, cleaning, car maintenance, car payments etc.
That human salary is probably at least $50k if working full time in
high end markets like SF. That âsalaryâ also covers most OpEx
costs for Uber like periodic cleaning and gas/charging of vehicles.
Lately, Uber has been $1.50-$3.00/mile in SF while Waymo has been
$3.00+/m most times. Waymo also can drive 24/7/365 so should be
able to command a higher per-car income.
Iâve heard rumors that a Waymo vehicle cost $200k to build with
the sensors. Surely theyâre aggressively lowering that cost now
too. Thatâs 4-5 years of driving to pay off IF theyâre making
what Uber drivers make, but theyâre almost certainly making much
more.
Like Uber and Lyft before them, their biggest barrier to
profitability is likely their HQ costs full of expensive
engineering jobs - and they also have the R&D costs of training the
car.
Zigurd wrote 5 hours 33 min ago:
Waymo can hit break even even with the relatively expensive Jaguar
SUVs and Driver 6 hardware suite. As someone else pointed out,
Google is making more money than most people realize on a per unit
basis. My back of the envelope estimate is at least $2000 per
vehicle per week. That easily covers financing the capex with
thousands left over for opex and overhead.
Just switching to the Hyundai SUVs takes tens of thousands of
dollars out of capex.
seanmcdirmid wrote 5 hours 51 min ago:
LIDAR prices are falling fairly rapidly over time (although Iâm
not sure about the impact of tariffs). The car and computing
resources are otherwise boring costs, maybe they are at around
$200k/vehicle? That would be pretty easy to pay for a with a few
months of rides. If most of the rides are going through the Waymo
app, they arenât paying a lot to uber and Lyft, and I doubt they
are paying the full 30% to the ride sharing platforms anyways.
Closi wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
> maybe they are at around $200k/vehicle? That would be pretty
easy to pay for a with a few months of rides.
The 'few months' bit doesn't seem quite right - the cost to get a
human to drive a car would maybe be $50k per year, so i'm not
sure how a $200k vehicle can pay itself off in a few months vs a
$50k car + $50k per year driver.
I'm aware that the cost / ride is higher for Waymo, but it
doesn't sound like that would be enough to cover the extra $200k
and not certain that scales to other geographies outside of SF.
I mean to pay off a $200k vehicle in a few months you would need
each car to be clearing $3k a day in revenue or something like
that.
It's probably a few years per car if they are at $200k. If they
are 'in the black' or not will probably depend more about their
accounting rules (i.e. depreciation) more than anything else.
maxlapdev wrote 4 hours 5 min ago:
Note that you probably need 2 or 3 drivers per car to get a
similar level of usage of the car that Waymo can do.
ddeck wrote 4 hours 52 min ago:
Just to add another data point, the co-CEO indicated on a
podcast 18-months ago that the sensor package cost was <=$100k
for the then current generation:
"But saying, you know, picking an upper bound, $100,000 worth
of equipment on it, you amortize it over, you know, the
lifetime, call it, say, 400,000 (miles), 25 cents per mile.
Right. And, you know, it gives you some margin compared to the
cost of paying a human driver."
He also mentioned that the next generation would see a "drastic
reduction in the cost". [1] - ep41
URI [1]: https://www.shack15.com/podcast
Zigurd wrote 3 hours 8 min ago:
Waymo Driver 5 was introduced in 2020. Driver 6 was
introduced August of last year. So if the interview was 18
months ago he would be referring to Driver 5.
Driver 6 hardware is probably built in batches of a few
hundred each. Still a low volume CM job, but incrementally
cheaper. Probably. If they start building in batches of
thousands, that's going to drive costs down significantly.
SoftTalker wrote 3 hours 36 min ago:
Those Jaguars they drive are not going to last 400,000 miles
without several significant overhauls. And interiors will
wear out and have to be refurbished. Exteriors will get
dented and scratched. Is all that part of the $100k they are
amortizing?
leoc wrote 5 hours 44 min ago:
They're also spending an unclear amount of money on human
driving-assistance workers [1] and the supporting infrastructure.
Presumably it works out to a lot less per vehicle-hour than an
in-vehicle, US-resident human driver, but a lot more than
nothing.
I suppose another wrinkle is that driverlessness isn't only a
cost saving (aspirational or real), it's also a positive
attraction eg. for anyone who worries about their safety with a
rando taxi driver or Uber guy. There are also cost savings
achievable by timeshifting antisocial-hours work to elsewhere in
the world, though presumably a significant part of the savings
will be simply be the result of outsourcing to lower-wage
countries.
URI [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/03/technolog...
Scoundreller wrote 3 hours 22 min ago:
Also cost savings because you can do things like work the 8AM
rush on the east coast and then 3 hours later start picking up
the 8AM rush on the west coast with its 3h time zone
difference.
Zigurd wrote 4 hours 47 min ago:
Waymo has published videos about how their remote operator
system works. Waymo's are never remotely driven. They're just
told what the operator thinks is the best place for them to go
next in a situation where the vehicle can't make that decision.
This is critical to controlling opex. Waymos operate 24/7, that
means three shifts of operators plus coverage for weekends,
vacation, and sick time. This is where the difference between a
demo and a product is going to be decided. Alphabet could be
reckless about spending on remote operators. But I think
they're still processing the trauma of buying Motorola and
won't tolerate a big jump in headcount.
Animats wrote 1 hour 31 min ago:
> Waymo has published videos about how their remote operator
system works.
Although not, as far as I've been able to find, videos that
actually show the control center. Just semi-animated videos
of the advising process. The number of customer support
people per vehicle is not disclosed.
Employee stats are available.[1] Unclear how accurate they
are. According to Unify, Waymo has 2,406 employees. Headcount
is up only 6.6% since last year, even though the number of
vehicles deployed has reportedly tripled. So they seem to
have a big fixed labor cost in engineering, and but a low
variable cost per car. Which means this scales well and
becomes profitable.
URI [1]: https://www.unifygtm.com/insights-headcount/waymo
voxic11 wrote 3 hours 24 min ago:
Also (at least in the SF market anyways) their operating
license does not allow cars to be remotely controlled.
xnx wrote 5 hours 54 min ago:
The Zeekr vehicle would've brought costs down, but it is now
subject to a huge tariff. No telling how much that has set them
back.
testfrequency wrote 6 hours 18 min ago:
âAs families and businesses move to Tennessee in record numbers, our
state continues to lead the nation in finding innovative solutions to
transportation challenges," said Governor Bill Lee.
Innovative. That must have felt nice to claim
telotortium wrote 6 hours 24 min ago:
Is this the first time Waymo has partnered with Lyft? Iâve only heard
of Uber partnerships before? From what I can find, previous Lyft
collaborations were only pilot testing, not commercial rollouts.
daemonologist wrote 6 hours 16 min ago:
Also interesting that it's not exclusive - they're saying you'll be
able to use either the Waymo app or the Lyft app (and get a Waymo at
random, presumably). I believe the previous deals with Uber have all
been exclusive - no Waymo app in that market.
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