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Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

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Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#111

Post by recursive »

jpdstan wrote: post #30
xnx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electronic vehicles have made riding in Uber's an almost uniformly nauseating experience I've heard this a lot. Are drivers heavily accelerating and decelerating?

The worst is Revel, which, in NYC, are ALL teslas/EVs. worst taxi experience of my life was a 1 hr drive to airport in stop and go street light traffic. I appreciated the hustle but deleted the app soon after my gag reflex subsided. they should at least disable regenerative braking or something

Regen braking is a way of slowing down like drum brakes. It's not inherently any less smooth.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#112

Post by culopatin »

xnx wrote: post #12
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #10

Electronic vehicles have made riding in Uber's an almost uniformly nauseating experience (literally). In order of preference I will walk/bike -> public transit -> Waymo -> drive myself -> consider staying at home -> Uber/Lyft

> Electronic vehicles have made riding in Uber's an almost uniformly nauseating experience I've heard this a lot. Are drivers heavily accelerating and decelerating?

Most drivers are not conscious about rolling the gas or keeping it stable and drive by pulsing it on and off to maintain speed because they don’t have the attention, finesse, or both to drive smoothly. Also rolling on the inputs is not something most do. I used to train drivers for racing and not stabbing the gas or brakes is a learned skill that takes some time. Where a person will likely accelerate for too long having to then brake harder, a Waymo smoothes out the curve, preserving energy, which also means less jerk.

Not to mention that in SF you have the hills that add to the math.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#113

Post by culopatin »

CSMastermind wrote: post #93
jerlam wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teslas do this by default. They have very strong acceleration, since they were marketed as "sports cars" to people who don't know sports cars, and strong regeneration for efficiency and one-pedal driving.

I drive a sports car as my daily driver and I don't know what Tesla is trying to imitate but it's definitely not a sports car.

Miata right?

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#114

Post by yurishimo »

greybox wrote: post #107

This doesn't surprise me at all. I work in the EU but recently the Americans we hire are very hesitant to have conversations with service providers. They will pay more to use a service that has an app, rather than call up another taxi company by phone for example (and it's not a language barrier problem, because everyone speaks english). I can see this extending to not wanting to have a driver in their taxi. I see th…

Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or back in the US? Could the language barrier be a reason for their hesitancy?

I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained, but most of my peers in their early 30s are generally fine with calling people or sending an email perhaps depending on the service.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#115

Post by pedrosorio »

timewizard wrote: post #101
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #32

A robot isn’t going to decide it doesn’t want to take my ride after accepting it and drive around aimlessly hoping I’ll get tired of waiting and cancel. I haven’t needed Uber/Lyft on a regular basis in several years, but back when I did that was a frequently recurring problem.

A robot can be programmed to do that. As soon as they're economically incentivized to do so someone will write that code.

When the driver and the platform are different entities (like Uber) you end up with these weird incentives. How would that happen in the Waymo case?

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#117

Post by m463 »

floren wrote: post #35
pkrecker wrote: post #6

I'm willing to pay more for a better ride experience: * Waymos are all the same. I underrated the value of this until I started taking Waymo more often. * I can control the music and volume with my phone. * I can listen to YouTube or take a call without AirPods. Sometimes I even hotspot and do some work. But most importantly Waymos all _drive_ the same way. I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either drivi…

I'll never forget the driver who watched anime on his phone all the way from the San Diego airport to the hotel. And all the drivers who seem to think driving with the windows down for 2 minutes will make it impossible to tell they were just smoking weed/cigs in the car.

Recent uber ignored us and listened to a fantasy audiobook on speakers whole way to airport. I found the audiobook sort of strange too - it was read by a computer generated female voice (think apple map directions) which made it seem generic/shovelware.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#118

Post by rossdavidh »

The last time I got an Uber, it was driven by a young fellow who looked to be in his first year of driving (I could be wrong), the car smelled like mothballs and was obviously in poor shape, and he accidentally drove on the wrong side of a divided road for a block or so (he was apologetic). The last time I tried a regular taxi stand, the car looked even worse, and it broke down. So, we called Lyft, and the driver could not find where we were because it was not a normal address (she was trying her best, but her English was not up to the task of understanding our explanation).

Waymo's selling point might be that its cars are all in good shape (right now), and customers know this.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#119

Post by greybox »

yurishimo wrote: post #114
greybox wrote: post #107

This doesn't surprise me at all. I work in the EU but recently the Americans we hire are very hesitant to have conversations with service providers. They will pay more to use a service that has an app, rather than call up another taxi company by phone for example (and it's not a language barrier problem, because everyone speaks english). I can see this extending to not wanting to have a driver in their taxi. I see th…

Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or back in the US? Could the language barrier be a reason for their hesitancy? I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained, but most of my peers in their early 30s are generally fine with calling people or sending an email perhaps depending on the service.

> Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or back in the US?

The EU

> Could the language barrier be a reason for their hesitancy?

No:

> (and it's not a language barrier problem, because everyone speaks english)

>I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained

I think you might be on to something there, maybe it's more of a generational thing than a cultural difference between American and EU citizens.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#120

Post by math_dandy »

standardUser wrote: post #88
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been picked up multiple times by Uber drivers who have, essentially, bragged? about being drunk or high. I've also had multiple drivers in multiple countries try to sell me drugs. I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept in stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped (which, was actually fascinating, and would've been very concerning if we ever got going more than like 10 mph). Women al…

On the upside, I've had Uber drivers in multiple countries help me buy drugs. Waymo hasn't hooked me up even once.

In-car product vending will come soon enough I’m sure.
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