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Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

nytimes.com

121–130 of 383 posts

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the fact that you can easily tip, knowing how tough things are for drivers with base pricing.

My personal view is that the rates should be set such that tipping is not expected. That remains the main draw of Uber for me.

I don't always tip, but sometimes you meet a driver who deserves a tip or seems like they might need it and it's good to have the option to do that without using cash. The tip is entirely optional and $0 by default so there is really no downside to offering this option, even for people who will never use it.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#122

Waymo will have the first self driving cars on the road. They are so ahead of everyone. I think everyone including regular car companies buy the tech from Waymo in the short term.

I'm curious where Tesla fits into this scheme. In terms of road miles, I reckon Tesla would have Waymo beat easily. They have far too many cars on the road and thus, way more data. Does this factor into the quality of self-driving tech at all?

teslas don't have lidar, so it's hard to say how useful their data will be in the long term

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#123
post #19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Lyft had a black car option, I'd use them constantly; I wonder what keeps them from rolling that out.

Why do you need black cars specifically? More professional?

Not the poster you're responding to, but in my experience the black car service is head and shoulders above uberx or normal lyft - drivers actually _know_ the cities they're driving in, there's no bs about tipping or wanting you to go to some odd pickup location that's more convenient for them, or canceling sketchily because your destination is out of their way. It's just press a button, get a reliable professional ride, no hassle, which was uber's original value proposition, but which you can't get with their standard service anymore.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#124
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious where Tesla fits into this scheme. In terms of road miles, I reckon Tesla would have Waymo beat easily. They have far too many cars on the road and thus, way more data. Does this factor into the quality of self-driving tech at all?

It's not that simple though. What so you consider "data" when it comes to self driving cars? Waymo collects high resolution data with every car (multiple GB or possibly TB of data per car per day). Tesla hasn't sent very high resolution data back home yet. Though they are looking to get video from customers now to help make this go faster[0]. So while Tesla has more vehicles on the road, that doesn't mean they are ge…

They may not be sending data back home via the mobile network, but you can bet your boots they make exhaustive logs of Autopilot disengagements and store them locally to be siphoned off at the next service.

I wonder if they have WiFi base stations collecting data at Supercharger points? That's what I'd do.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#125

When I use lyft now, I'm coming across drivers that only drive for lyft. The tide has definitely shifted against Uber. I'm not really sure there's a way back at this point. The one advantage Uber had was network effect, but in my experience that has diminished. Lyfts come just as fast as Ubers now because they have enough drivers on the road to support the response time. I'll never go back to Uber.

Odd. I'm in the Bay Area and have taken many Lyft's lately both in the south bay and also the peninsula. Usually the drivers I get drive for both even up to this point. Could just be regional, not really sure? I feel like even with Uber's issues many drivers who do ride-sharing as a "job" won't want to just drop Uber as it may mean losing out on income (not sure if they can make up the loss with driving more for Lyft…

I'm in the bay area, and I've chatted about this with many drivers. People USED TO drive for both, but now Lyft has enough network traffic that they're too busy to flip between networks.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#126
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

400k miles, damn.

Not to mention those are city miles, so the engine has been running for quite a long time.

i guess its safe to say those cars have hit a few million nyc potholes in their lifetime

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#127
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lyft barely exists outside of the US. Uber is still on top if you take a global view.

Lyft have a deal with Grab here in Southeast Asia. As I understand I can use Grab to book Lyfts in areas where Lyft operates and Grab doesn't (and vice versa).

As a guy from India, what is Grab?

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#128
Biggest open question: what is the long term value of Lyft to Waymo?

To me, this seems like a way for waymo to pilot autonomous technology for customers with low initial investment, but I don't see the long term value that Lyft provides once testing is complete.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#129
post #50

When I use lyft now, I'm coming across drivers that only drive for lyft. The tide has definitely shifted against Uber. I'm not really sure there's a way back at this point. The one advantage Uber had was network effect, but in my experience that has diminished. Lyfts come just as fast as Ubers now because they have enough drivers on the road to support the response time. I'll never go back to Uber.

Lyft barely exists outside of the US. Uber is still on top if you take a global view.

Yes but other services hurt uber in other markets (didi?).

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#130
post #124
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple though. What so you consider "data" when it comes to self driving cars? Waymo collects high resolution data with every car (multiple GB or possibly TB of data per car per day). Tesla hasn't sent very high resolution data back home yet. Though they are looking to get video from customers now to help make this go faster[0]. So while Tesla has more vehicles on the road, that doesn't mean they are ge…

They may not be sending data back home via the mobile network, but you can bet your boots they make exhaustive logs of Autopilot disengagements and store them locally to be siphoned off at the next service. I wonder if they have WiFi base stations collecting data at Supercharger points? That's what I'd do.

Why not use owner's home network?
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