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Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

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Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#31

Post by Isamu »

jbob2000 wrote: post #4
gniv wrote: post #2

The link at the bottom of that article is pointing to another Medium post with details of the launch: https://medium.com/waymo/riding-with-waymo-one-today-9ac8164... Notably, "At the start, Waymo-trained drivers will be riding along to supervise our vehicles for riders’ comfort and convenience." Edit: Re-reading my comment, it sounds negative, so I want to acknowledge that I think this is a big deal. No matter how "s…

Mark these words, "At the start", because we'll be hearing them for the next 10 years until Waymo closes up shop. That they are going to market with drivers in the car means that the business has pivoted from "can we do driverless taxi" to "can we make money as uber-but-with-employees". The next announcement from Waymo will be that they are cutting staff "mostly from R&D". The announcement after that will be that the…

>until Waymo closes up shop

Maybe if this was Microsoft, and Waymo was the Zune.

Alphabet has given it some 9 years just to get to this soft launch, I think they have the patience to see it through. There is enough money and interest in this space internationally that I'd give it some time.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#32

Post by zerealshadowban »

bertil wrote: post #11

They announced a change of brand a month ago. I guess adding “One” at the end of the existing name counts, and I like the implication that they want to communicate clearly on phases of the project but… Was it worth announcing a brand change? I feel like I’m missing something.

Logically, we should expect them to launch a Waymo Two service (or Zero!?) -- and so the relevant question is: what will be different about it?

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#33

Post by tim333 »

jbob2000 wrote: post #8
pliny wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a prediction, but why do you think that's how it'll turn out?

The news would be different. This news item is focused around the driver and safety. They are slowly changing their messaging from being about self-driving to being about safe-driving. They can't come out right away and say "guys we failed at self driving, it doesn't work", that would tank the personal careers of everyone important in the company. They have to slowly move the needle away from self driving, and then t…

As the article mentions they were always about safe driving and saving lives. I remember the founder talking about it ages ago. It's not really a change of messaging.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#34

Post by c22 »

coffeedrinker wrote: post #28
bertil wrote: post #21

We still do not have much clarity on the price point. The screenshot (see gniv’s link) shows that a 24-min ride could cost around $8, with an apparent 20% rebate. I suspect that they won’t try to under-cut Uber too dramatically but the long-term costs are bound to be much lower if you don’t need to pay a driver. That illustrative price seems to match this. They certainly have copied Uber’s focus on identifying the be…

I expect the funding model for self driving taxis will be like validated parking. You ride free (or reduced) if you spend $x at whatever business, shopping mall, etc.

Shouldn't it be enough that the taxi will only drive to one of the businesses that has sponsored it?

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#35

Post by seanmcdirmid »

coffeedrinker wrote: post #28
bertil wrote: post #21

We still do not have much clarity on the price point. The screenshot (see gniv’s link) shows that a 24-min ride could cost around $8, with an apparent 20% rebate. I suspect that they won’t try to under-cut Uber too dramatically but the long-term costs are bound to be much lower if you don’t need to pay a driver. That illustrative price seems to match this. They certainly have copied Uber’s focus on identifying the be…

I expect the funding model for self driving taxis will be like validated parking. You ride free (or reduced) if you spend $x at whatever business, shopping mall, etc.

Why though? Even in places with cheap labor (so cheap drivers), they still don’t have things like that, taxis are just cheaper.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#37

Post by _ea1k »

jbob2000 wrote: post #19
malcolmwhite wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo used "self-driving" in the article's title and twice in its first sentence, literally doubling down with that messaging.

No, that's part of the strategy of shifting the messaging: Use both phrases together so people associate them, and then slowly drop the phrase that you want to go away.

Yeah, but the alternative bet is that they want the "safety driver" part to be the part that eventually goes away. If they want public acceptance, it will make sense to keep safety drivers.

Eventually they will go the way of the elevator operator.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#38

Post by TomMarius »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #17
jbob2000 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark these words, "At the start", because we'll be hearing them for the next 10 years until Waymo closes up shop. That they are going to market with drivers in the car means that the business has pivoted from "can we do driverless taxi" to "can we make money as uber-but-with-employees". The next announcement from Waymo will be that they are cutting staff "mostly from R&D". The announcement after that will be that the…

Mark these words. In 10 years time we'll still be hearing the same comments about Waymo & their competitors because there still will be certain combinations of passenger, route & conditions that Waymo will refuse to take without a safety driver along. But since Waymo will handle the vast majority of rides we'll just tune out those comments. Handling all rides & conditions is a very hard problem and it'll take decades…

I assume we're talking about city driving. I'm not sure about the USA, but being in Europe, the average speed my car says I go is 28.5 km/h. Do you think we could not solve traffic for 10 years if we slowed cars down to 30 km/h? With assumption being that a city-wide driverless system would easily 'swim' through the city without encountering red lights or slowdowns due to unpredictiveness of other drivers. We could even tolerate a little bit more errors because accidents would not be harmful too much.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#39

Post by coffeedrinker »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #35
coffeedrinker wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect the funding model for self driving taxis will be like validated parking. You ride free (or reduced) if you spend $x at whatever business, shopping mall, etc.

Why though? Even in places with cheap labor (so cheap drivers), they still don’t have things like that, taxis are just cheaper.

Because if I'm Safeway and I can get elderly people to come to my business (for shopping, prescriptions, etc.) they won't be shopping somewhere else. The business gains/retains the clientele by providing the driving service.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#40

Post by fma »

bertil wrote: post #21

We still do not have much clarity on the price point. The screenshot (see gniv’s link) shows that a 24-min ride could cost around $8, with an apparent 20% rebate. I suspect that they won’t try to under-cut Uber too dramatically but the long-term costs are bound to be much lower if you don’t need to pay a driver. That illustrative price seems to match this. They certainly have copied Uber’s focus on identifying the be…

I suspect that in the long run they will have a combination of driver assisted and driverless car. If you set a pickup and destination point, Waymo (and other competitors) can calculate the difficulty of the drive. If it's an easy route...send a driverless car. Difficult? Driver assisted.

The driveless car will average out with a lower cost. As a consumer you're guaranteed a ride somewhere and know it will be cheaper than Uber.

I'm optimistic in driveless car, but we need to be realistic that it wont be solved 100% in the near term...and it doesn't need to be for the taxi service to be profitable.

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