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Waymo Premier

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Re: Waymo Premier

#152

$30/mo is slightly mind boggling for this. I’ve enjoyed the ~70 or so Waymo rides I have taken but to me Waymo, Uber, and Lyft are methods of last resort. My feet, BART, and SFMuni are my primary methods of transportation and for $104/mo I can take an unlimited number of trips, usually very conveniently.

I take public transport a lot and walk a lot (I live 3h walk from central London - I know because I've walked it, for fun), but I still also use Uber regularly because sometimes I simply don't have time. If I lived in the centre I probably would have very little use for it, but for people even slightly outside the core of cities well served by public transport, it's usually nice to have options.

Re: Waymo Premier

#153

$30/mo is slightly mind boggling for this. I’ve enjoyed the ~70 or so Waymo rides I have taken but to me Waymo, Uber, and Lyft are methods of last resort. My feet, BART, and SFMuni are my primary methods of transportation and for $104/mo I can take an unlimited number of trips, usually very conveniently.

It seems to me a lot of people just really don't like to be associated with public transit or anything associated with anything remotely underclass. It's a class marker to be driven around in an autonomous 6000lbs tank rather than move your legs a bit.

> It's a class marker

> autonomous 6000lbs tank

Hmmm. The meta here made me chuckle. Calling cars tanks is certainly a class marker.

Re: Waymo Premier

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me a lot of people just really don't like to be associated with public transit or anything associated with anything remotely underclass. It's a class marker to be driven around in an autonomous 6000lbs tank rather than move your legs a bit.

Not saying you're 100% wrong, but there are tons of markets where Uber is robust enough to rely on and get you where you need to go, and public transit absolutely is not. (I'm half an hour outside of Pittsburgh.)

Yes, and this is a policy failure.

Re: Waymo Premier

#155

It will pay for itself if you spend >300$ per month. I personally wish Waymo have a 399$ per month subscription that give 2 free ride per day so I don't need to own a car just for work.

That sounds more expensive than just owning a car.

Paying for the cost of the car, gas, maintenance, insurance, parking is way above $399/mo in every market which waymo operates.

Re: Waymo Premier

#156

$30/mo is slightly mind boggling for this. I’ve enjoyed the ~70 or so Waymo rides I have taken but to me Waymo, Uber, and Lyft are methods of last resort. My feet, BART, and SFMuni are my primary methods of transportation and for $104/mo I can take an unlimited number of trips, usually very conveniently.

Can someone help me put this into context?

$30/month is way cheaper than $104/month.

How would you compare the base metrics?

Time to start traveling, average walk amount per trip, total trip duration, coverage parity, etc.

I suspect you can get into a waymo quicker and with less walking than a subway, unless you live very close. I imagine total trip time is pretty variable. Coverage parity is hard to guess about - in theory a waymo can go anywhere but I suspect public transport has longer "tendrils."

Re: Waymo Premier

#157
post #66
post #61

I'd be more interested in a $29/month surcharge if Waymo weren't already significantly more expensive than Uber/Lyft to begin with.

When you consider the required tipping, the cost is quite close. And the Waymo is nicer.

Tipping is not required and I don't do it, especially in areas with laws about guaranteed minimum wages for workers.

I wrote about this before but I've been using Empower app recently as an Uber competitor, it acts as a subscription for drivers where they pay 50 bucks a month to get on the platform and then keep any and all fees from riders, so it keeps the prices very low for riders while drivers make more money. Essentially Empower cuts out their middleman profit margin to act more like Costco making money on subscriptions alone rather than the price of goods.

Re: Waymo Premier

#158

$30/mo is slightly mind boggling for this. I’ve enjoyed the ~70 or so Waymo rides I have taken but to me Waymo, Uber, and Lyft are methods of last resort. My feet, BART, and SFMuni are my primary methods of transportation and for $104/mo I can take an unlimited number of trips, usually very conveniently.

It'll depend on your use cases, probably.

If 15 rides a month averaging $30 a ride can remove your need to own a car, that's $450. In that range the subscription would pay for itself.

Compare that to a car payment, insurance, maintenance, and gas. Pretty favorable!

Re: Waymo Premier

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying you're 100% wrong, but there are tons of markets where Uber is robust enough to rely on and get you where you need to go, and public transit absolutely is not. (I'm half an hour outside of Pittsburgh.)

Yes, and this is a policy failure.

...that's a totally different argument right?

Re: Waymo Premier

#160
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil changes cost like $35/year if you do it yourself. Decent tires last 4-5 years, so that's like $100/year (to be generous). Air filters are so cheap and need replacement so infrequently as to not even be worth counting.

yep, it's dirt cheap to maintain yourself. and only a few hours per vehicle per year tbh. lots of people on hn don't know basic real life skills so this all seems insurmountable to them, and there's the ev cope that somehow your 60+ grand car is going to save you money in gas and maintenance in the long run. I have 8 cars and motorcyles for less than the cost of that one car lmao

Oil changes are cheap. A lot of places will put your tires on for free or cheaply if you buy tires from them. Assuming the car is free, the cost of car ownership is dominated by gas, insurance, and the raw cost of materials needed to maintain it. Whether you do it yourself or have someone else do it isn't going to move the needle much.
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