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Next stop: Miami

waymo.com

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Re: Next stop: Miami

#171

Post by marcosdumay »

mg wrote: post #31
ezfe wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profitable from an operations perspective? Surely close since they charge the same order of magnitude as an Uber/Lyft and have fewer than one driver per vehicle (monitoring the vehicles).

We have to add the deprecation and maintenance of the car. Plus I guess they need high resolution maps? Not sure if that is a significant cost factor.

On the other hand, they certainly have a much better vehicle utilization than the other ride-app companies. They cars are cooperating in covering an area, not competing for the rides there.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#172

Post by bedobi »

whimsicalism wrote: post #160
bedobi wrote: post #61

Imagine if instead Miami built MetroRail extensions to the beach and everywhere else it should go, increased TriRail frequency and express services, built a real network of fully segregated greenways etc etc. It would turn transport nightmare into transport heaven. We don't need more cars on the streets of Miami or the I95...

point to point transport is nice. trains are ridiculously expensive nowadays. US governments largely can't do large infra projects anymore

they can, they just malinvest in roads that only increase traffic and make things worse and cost even more

instead of transit which saves money

Re: Next stop: Miami

#173

Post by ttul »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #102
kieranmaine wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems much more scaleable. Car share services (eg. Evo in Vancouver) seem like good partners as they already have the fleet management services and a recognizable (and hopefully trusted) brand. I'm not sure about other car share services work, but in the case of Evo they have existing relationships with the cities that make up Metro Vancouver. I wonder if this would ease rollout as you'd already know all the req…

B.C. in particular went out of their way to ban autonomous vehicles a few years back, so I'm sure waymo's in no rush to talk to local partners there.

Ugh, don’t remind me of the lost decade or so during which the local taxi lobby captured the regulators and prevented the entry of Uber. It wasn’t until the provincial government was about to be blown away anyhow that they cashed in their chips in a few ridings where the majority of cab owners live…

I have no doubt that BC may be a nice place to live for a variety of reasons, but it will be the last place to have autonomous vehicles.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#174

Post by naming_the_user »

nilstycho wrote: post #63
ethbr1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also relevant, when it rains in Miami during the summer, it pours . As in, zero visibility for 15-30 minutes, then it's past. So if it can handle Miami tropical rain, it should be okay with all sorts of normal rain. Out of curiosity, what's Waymo's current production sensor suite mix? I'd assume lidar and radar would also be very unhappy with the surrounding space suddenly being ~10%(?) liquid water droplets.

Far less than 10%. During a heavy downpour, by volume, about one part in a million is liquid. In a cubic meter of heavily rain, there are only a few tens of raindrops.

Imagine if it were 10%, though. During the time it took for a droplet to fall 1 metre, you’d have 10cm of water on the floor.

I reckon it’d feel quite heavy.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#175

Post by triceratops »

comte7092 wrote: post #26
schiffern wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone know the timeline for Waymo expanding to northern areas outside urban centers? Or are these underserved populations forever stuck waiting hours for an Uber that still cancels half the time?

At the end of the day that isn’t a technical problem but a unit economics one. Removing the driver from a taxi doesn’t bring down costs that much . Self driving cars aren’t going to change the uber/taxi model at a fundamental level. They have a finite fleet that they need to deploy. Urban centers mean that fleet utilization is high, and relatively less time and miles are spent driving with no one on board. In rural a…

> Removing the driver from a taxi doesn’t bring down costs that much

A driver's salary costs as much as a new car. Every year.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#176

Post by ipdashc »

entropi wrote: post #60

I feel like at this point someone needs to take a step back and think about the general vision and overall goals of this whole fully automated ride-hailing service thing. I mean, what is the exact problem that's being solved here? I don't mean "problem" like "solving the technical problem of making a car move autonomously in a chaotic city" sense. I mean what is the need that's being addressed here, exactly? Ride-hai…

> Is the idea of living and moving around in a city full of autonomous vehicles actually appealing to anyone? I personally find the whole idea completely disgusting for a number of reasons.

Assuming they're safe and cheaper than current Ubers/taxis? Yeah I'd be fairly okay with it. I don't think it's necessarily ideal, but I definitely can't relate with "completely disgusting", personally.

Public transit is nice and all but walking to and then waiting around at bus stops (especially in bad weather), squeezing into a crowded bus or train, stopping at intermediate stops, making transfers... there's definitely downsides. I don't use Uber/Lyft/Waymo often but I have to admit walking outside and having a climate-controlled, comfortable ride right there, which takes you straight to where you're going, is pretty nice. If it cost less and was more eco-friendly I'd probably use it more; we'll see if they can tackle that.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#177

Post by tortilla »

drewg123 wrote: post #109
fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #17

This is important if nothing else because Miami sees much more rain than SF and Phoenix: Miami: 57 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... SF: 25 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... ) Phoenix: 7 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... )

When I took Waymo in Phoenix, I booked a ride from a suburban hotel to a restaurant in a strip mall. One of the things I noticed was that I was picked up far away from the entrance of the hotel (eg, not under the overhang that protects from sun and rain, where every Uber has picked me up and dropped me off). I recall thinking that it was good there was no weather in Phoenix b/c I had to walk far enough I'd have gotte…

Also Waymo will not pick you up on private streets. I live in a small community with a private street and I have to walk to the nearest public one (2 mins).

Re: Next stop: Miami

#178

Post by seanmcdirmid »

fixprix wrote: post #85

Waymo is cool, but I have no idea how it is going to compete with the tsunami coming that is CyberCab. Tesla will be mass producing this smaller, cheaper vehicle like nothing else. Covering the entire country with self driving vehicles. I don’t know how Waymo can possibly compete with that. Their deployment by city is slow, their hardware is expensive, slown to produce, and not purpose built for self driving.

I don't see a taxi service from Tesla yet, while I've rode in a waymo in SF, so it is hard for me to see how Tesla is winning in the auto-taxi segment yet. Maybe their bet pays off and they dominate, or maybe waymo keeps expanding while Tesla keeps talking about vaporware, who knows?

Re: Next stop: Miami

#179

Post by tshaddox »

jayd16 wrote: post #77
ecesena wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting random fact: when it rains, waymo turns on the windshield wipers

They would probably have to go out of their way to disable the auto-wipers, no?

They definitely go out of their way to make significant modifications to their vehicles.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#180

Post by whimsicalism »

bedobi wrote: post #172
whimsicalism wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

point to point transport is nice. trains are ridiculously expensive nowadays. US governments largely can't do large infra projects anymore

they can, they just malinvest in roads that only increase traffic and make things worse and cost even more instead of transit which saves money

> that only increase traffic

Increase traffic of people successfully getting from point a to point b, that is what induced demand is.

> instead of transit which saves money

Oh yeah, I'm sure saving on that California HSR project that has been in design since 2008.

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