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

nytimes.com

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

#281

Post by _jal »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #249
jorgenev wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've also heard more than once that Lyft customer's tend to be more well behaved in the car for whatever reason. I have also heard this as well from lyft drivers and I am very curious as to why

I know some passengers (myself included) prefer Lyft because they do more driver vetting. For instance, to drive for Lyft you actually have to have someone from Lyft get in the car and ride around with you, which is not a requirement for Uber. Perhaps the people who value that sort of thing are better behaved? Or more likely, it's probably because the people who are willing to pay slightly more for a better experienc…

Anecdata: Before I deleted Uber, I had two bad interactions with drivers (including one who threatened violence in response to I have no idea what, some misunderstanding). Since only using Lyft: zero.

That also stand in contrast to exactly one two experiences with cabbies over ~25 years.

I conclude, based on my limited personal experience, that vetting drivers makes a noticeable difference in driver quality.

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

#282

Post by fragmede »

neosat wrote: post #117

This could be a longer term death blow for Lyft, ironically. If Google has the self driving tech, the car & car partnerships, the money, maps, access to end consumers, what exactly does it need Lyft for? Lyft will be a vehicle for Google to kickstart and test this out with a current ride sharing network before Lyft is cut off ...

And when Facebook came out with Google Plus, we all switched away from Facebook, right? All the engineering genius in the world couldn't do enough for Google Plus (hint: it's not the engineering), why would they do any better with supplanting Lyft unless they copied Uber and lit money on fire by offering free rides for a year like they did with (domestic US) phone calls.

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

#283

Post by CaptainZapp »

mi100hael wrote: post #274
mstade wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdata to support your point: in Stockholm the taxi companies have caught up in terms of convenience vis-à-vis apps, registering payment methods etc., to the point where I just use them rather than Uber. To me, Uber never competed on price, it was the convenience, and the competition has caught up to the point where Uber now seems clunky almost.

Uber definitely competes on price. Their fares are almost always the lowest of any competitor, especially compared to traditional cabs. That's essentially their only strategy other than allowing mobile hailing & payment (which is not particularly hard to replicate). The reason Uber is blowing through so much venture capital is because they are bleeding cash in all directions on fare subsidies.

Are you willing to let Uber spy permanently on you in order to save a few bucks?

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uber-track-location-data-upda...

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

#284

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

cool_shit wrote: post #168
alistproducer2 wrote: post #14

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.

I just had a really bad experience with Uber myself. Here's my data point: I was just trying to get an Uber the other day in a large city and I waited over an hour in the rain. The first N-1 drivers that accepted my request cancelled on me after 5 minutes. Eventually, a driver picked me up. He didn't want to pick me up where I was, and had a very hard time communicating to me where he was. After some back and forth w…

> The whole ride was quiet until the driver decided to break the silence with full-volume anti-slavery rhetoric on the radio.

You prefer pro-slavery rhetoric on the radio?

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

#285

Post by eric_h »

Asooka wrote: post #245
ysavir wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's.... Sad. I think I will take what little authority I (don't) have and veto that definition, seeing as it literally defeats the purpose of definition #1. And I was invoking definition #1 there, in case that wasn't clear.

It's not quite as bad as you think, literally is usually used figuratively in "A is literally B" to indicate that while A is obviously not literally B, the outcome that A will have will be practically the same as that from B.

That's actually a pretty reasonable defense of what I've generally considered a cringe worthy usage of the word "literally".

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

#286

Post by lern_too_spel »

paulddraper wrote: post #63
lern_too_spel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, some clients would be offended just for ordering an Uber for them, black car or not.

Huh? Why?

Have you seen the #DeleteUber backlash? Do you think the people who participated in that would appreciate having an Uber called for them?

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

#288

Post by fragmede »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #143
BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming you mean the first ones without human chaperones? Because I've seen plenty of self-driving Uber cars shuttling passengers around the streets of SF over the past year.

I thought Uber stopped that program after the red light thing? I assume they mean the same though because Google have had self driving cars in Mountain View for years - this article claims 2 million miles last October : https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-self-driving-car-progra... I'm not sure how that stacks against competitors but I imagine they're a long way ahead.

Uber backed down, though I would say I've only seen them once and not "plenty".

http://fortune.com/2017/03/27/uber-self-driving-cars-san-fra...

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

#289

Post by solipsism »

yellow_postit wrote: post #116
omarforgotpwd wrote: post #104

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.

Tipping is actually expected by your Uber driver, though, despite what Uber says. The difference is that Lyft drivers will never know whether you tipped or not. Uber drivers, on the other hand, might give you a poor rating for not tipping.

As someone who also is skeptical of tipping, I can't for the life of me see why you'd prefer the Uber model.

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

#290

Post by solipsism »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #145
ma2rten wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of 2013 Google's self-driving cars collected about 1 GB per second of data [1], today it must be even more. There is no way Telsa can upload nearly as much data from customer's cars. I also belief that their team is smaller and they started much later. [1] http://www.kurzweilai.net/googles-self-driving-car-gathers-n...

You shouldn't need to upload the entire 1gb. The central AI can query the cars to get just the bits it has questions about. Part of the AI's job is learning which data to care about and which data to ignore. The fact that the trees got new leaves again this year and it's dark at 2am and the sign at the Chinese Restaurant is still red don't to be relayed. More data isn't automatically better. The hard part isn't getti…

This is naive. You don't know what data you will care about in a year. The ability to have and keep all the data is incredibly valuable.
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