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Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities

reuters.com

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Re: Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities

#61

Post by RivieraKid »

ugh123 wrote: post #40
aiauthoritydev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Operational profits is not really a goal for Waymo in near term. The current goal is to be many years ahead of competition, getting permits to operate in major profitable cities with profitable routes. The cost of a Waymo car right now is around $150K. Soon, Waymo will build its own cars (with partnership with some car manufacturer) from scratch which will bring this cost to around $40K. currently WayMo has around 2…

> currently WayMo has around 2 people per car employed in service roles Do you have a source for this? I'm curious about their operations

It's almost certainly not true.

Re: Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities

#62

Post by RivieraKid »

dageshi wrote: post #33
kart23 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they even profitable in SF or LA? I don't disagree with you, but if being profitable means charging more than Uber/Lyft and having slower trips on average than a human, thats not gonna work out too well. And these are the highest CoL cities in the us, meaning that if its not profitable there, might not be profitable anywhere.

I'm pretty certain they won't undercut Uber or other taxi services any time soon because they don't want to provoke the political headache that comes with it. That type of politics could shutdown their licenses, I'm sure they want to avoid that at all costs so they're pricing above existing services. What they may do is refuse to raise prices and eventually inflation will make them the cheapest.

Charging about as much as their competitors is probably the profit-maximizing strategy.

Re: Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities

#63

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #54
actinium226 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In addition to ongoing trips to Truckee, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Upstate New York and Tokyo, the expansion includes testing in San Diego and Las Vegas, with more cities yet to be announced.

They list a few cities but not 10 cities.

Presumably this is counting Atlanta, Miami, and Austin - which were already announced as expansion markets for 2025.

See "coming soon" on the WayMo homepage: https://waymo.com/

That's 9 total.

Re: Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities

#64

Post by bps4484 »

jedberg wrote: post #45
kart23 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they even profitable in SF or LA? I don't disagree with you, but if being profitable means charging more than Uber/Lyft and having slower trips on average than a human, thats not gonna work out too well. And these are the highest CoL cities in the us, meaning that if its not profitable there, might not be profitable anywhere.

Why do you think the trips are slower than a human? I've only taken one Waymo trip (and my wife two) but in each case it didn't feel any slower than a Lyft. But it felt a lot safer! They definitely drive better than any human Lyft driver I've ever had. And the prices seems to roughly match Uber/Lyft. Sometimes they're higher sometimes lower. The one ride I took I chose the more expensive Waymo just for the better exp…

I should first note that I'm a big fan of waymo and want autonomous to succeed generally.

I take both waymo's and lyft/uber all the time in sf and waymo's are way slower. I'd estimate it at 10-15% slower. Once the novelty of a waymo wears off you realize that they drive like a high anxiety teenager and going 15 mph on a 15 mph road, coming to gentle full stop at every stop sign, and being very tentative on turns and passing people all add up to a very slow ride.

You're right though it definitely feels safer.

Re: Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities

#65

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

htrp wrote: post #27
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that you included numbers, but that is for all of Alphabet's "other bets" which includes Waymo, so it's not entirely Waymo. It still helps give ballpark figures though.

isn't waymo the majority of alphabets other bets?

In terms of revenue - but less so in terms of costs.

I wouldn't be surprised if WayMo is losing Additionally - the majority of those losses could come from expansion efforts.

I wouldn't be surprised if WayMo already has profitable unit economics.

Re: Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities

#66

Post by Retric »

ggreer wrote: post #16
wolfram74 wrote: post #7

I wonder if the waymo solution is very vehicle specific or if it could be easily applied to say, a 10~12 person van that could accommodate a wheelchair? It would be interesting to design a transit system around 4~5 times as many vehicles with higher interval or more responsive pathing with something like pick up kiosks.

Self-driving makes the most economic sense when fewer people are in a vehicle. With a large van or bus, the cost of the human driver is split between more passengers. Also van or bus service is less compelling to individuals, as it makes them beholden to bus stop locations and schedules instead of picking them up and dropping them off when and where they want. Adding support for wheelchairs introduces new failure mod…

That’s offset by dramatically lower prices and significant service in off peak hours.

Net result bus drivers are still a large fraction of the cost of bus service.

Re: Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities

#67

Post by esafak »

bps4484 wrote: post #64
jedberg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the trips are slower than a human? I've only taken one Waymo trip (and my wife two) but in each case it didn't feel any slower than a Lyft. But it felt a lot safer! They definitely drive better than any human Lyft driver I've ever had. And the prices seems to roughly match Uber/Lyft. Sometimes they're higher sometimes lower. The one ride I took I chose the more expensive Waymo just for the better exp…

I should first note that I'm a big fan of waymo and want autonomous to succeed generally. I take both waymo's and lyft/uber all the time in sf and waymo's are way slower. I'd estimate it at 10-15% slower. Once the novelty of a waymo wears off you realize that they drive like a high anxiety teenager and going 15 mph on a 15 mph road, coming to gentle full stop at every stop sign, and being very tentative on turns and…

That's a product decision, though. They want people to feel safe, and to build a sustained record for being safe. They could easily hit the pedal if they wanted to.

They are doing the right thing.

Re: Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities

#69

Post by miki123211 »

bps4484 wrote: post #64
jedberg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the trips are slower than a human? I've only taken one Waymo trip (and my wife two) but in each case it didn't feel any slower than a Lyft. But it felt a lot safer! They definitely drive better than any human Lyft driver I've ever had. And the prices seems to roughly match Uber/Lyft. Sometimes they're higher sometimes lower. The one ride I took I chose the more expensive Waymo just for the better exp…

I should first note that I'm a big fan of waymo and want autonomous to succeed generally. I take both waymo's and lyft/uber all the time in sf and waymo's are way slower. I'd estimate it at 10-15% slower. Once the novelty of a waymo wears off you realize that they drive like a high anxiety teenager and going 15 mph on a 15 mph road, coming to gentle full stop at every stop sign, and being very tentative on turns and…

The sad truth about Waymo is that they have to aim for a 0 (or extremely close to 0) accident rate for PR/regulatory reasons, especially so for accidents caused by Waymo, and that's always going to heavily influence the way they drive.

Uber drivers cause accidents sometimes, just like all drivers do. Whenever this happens, we generally blame the driver and not Uber. It's a completely unremarkable event that the media will not pick up on, because everybody knows that car accidents are just a fact of life.

If a Waymo causes just one fatal accident, people will be up in arms and demand a ban on self driving. That means they have to be extremely conservative in how they drive, especially as more and more of them appear and the probability of one causing an accident goes up due to simple statistics.

Re: Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities

#70

Post by pesus »

strifey wrote: post #53
someperson wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymos are terrible at taking unprotected left turns into bumper to bumper traffic during peak hour. They aren't aggressive like a normal driver when traffic is stopped and there's a clear but small gap that would result in the car being at an angle crossing traffic. The lidar can't see any gap between cars when trying to turn into a more distant lane, so any obstruction to a close lane due to traffic kills them. Sou…

Anecdotally, they've gotten much more proactive at taking unprotected lefts in my experience.

They seem to be getting more proactive in general. I was surprised last night when the one I was in went full barrel through a light that was already yellow and turned red while we were still in the intersection.
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