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Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

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Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#181

Post by tedajax »

cortesoft wrote: post #167
tedajax wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know it's funny though because I stopped using Uber with the most recent update that completely screwed up the UX. There's a billion variables that will go into which companies succeed and fail.

What was the change that did it for you? I didn't notice that much different, at least in how i use it.

It became very difficult to override the position of the pin after the GPS decided it just had to know where I was instead of me.

Also the tracking you for 5 minutes after a ride is completely unforgivable.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#182

Post by itsadok »

tedajax wrote: post #156
bambax wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive But how is this going to work? In cities, everyone uses their car at exactly the same time: roughly, between 8-9 in the morning and 5-7 in the evening. If you don't own a car, chances are you won't get one when you need it to get to work on time. Or, if there are enough cars for peak hours, then demand for new cars will…

Fully autonomous fleets of cars will push societal changes we can't yet predict. Right now everyone shows up to work at about the same time. Is that a fixed position society will always uphold? I don't know, there's a lot of things I don't know. The only thing I can predict is that in the same way the personal automobile upended the social structures of the day, autonomous vehicles will likely do something similar.

While people still drive themselves, there's a huge incentive to come to work early or late, to avoid traffic. I don't see that incentive increasing with autonomous cars. If anything, I predict that more people will join rush hour traffic if they don't need to do any actual driving. However, this might be mitigated by the better driving of autonomous cars.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#183

Post by cakeface »

arijun wrote: post #116

I still don't understand why every company doing self driving cars is focusing on consumer cars while no major player is doing interstate trucking. Interstate trucking could pretty much be done now, and has several advantages. Driving on interstate freeways is orders of magnitude easier than driving in a city with pedestrians, bikes, cars parked in the road, etc. And there is a great monetization scheme--no driver me…

I think that we'll see a ton of companies going after this space, but they'll be as quiet as they can. Why? Jobs. You are directly competing with humans in this space. Truck driver is one of the most common jobs in many states[1].

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t...

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#184

Post by untog »

ryandrake wrote: post #175
scarmig wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the worst case scenario is here. I'll put Muni-level syringes and human waste as the worst. But (1) fare evasion wouldn't be a problem and (2) the 1% of worst offenders who account for 99% of the disgustingness can be readily blacklisted. I suspect the typical case will be a drunk person throwing up in it on the way home. Hopefully they self-report; if they don't, it comes to the next rider to report it…

But who's going to want to deal with that? Not most people. I would not rent out my car for the same reasons I'm not a landlord.

Another reason why private ownership won't make sense. You don't clean it, X Company does.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#185

Post by rajathagasthya »

Camillo wrote: post #173
tedajax wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know it's funny though because I stopped using Uber with the most recent update that completely screwed up the UX. There's a billion variables that will go into which companies succeed and fail.

I stopped using Uber because it completely stopped working once I set location access to "only while in use".

AFAIK, Uber doesn't even allow to set location access to "while in use". It's either "always" or "never".

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#186

Post by ForHackernews »

stormbrew wrote: post #59
joeguilmette wrote: post #49

I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…

Uber is literally all over the world, though. Google can barely launch a keyboard app outside the US. Or a payment system. Lyft is still constrained entirely to the US and a handful of large Asian cities. I think people severely underestimate Uber's worldwide push in preparing themselves to be a force to be reckoned with when the autonomous vehicle takes off.

I don't think it matters. The economics of Uber are pretty grim: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver...

Furthermore, if there are a bunch of self-driving car services, that service will be commoditized the same way cabs are. These ride-giving services will [and kind of already do] only compete on price.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#187

Post by bduerst »

stormbrew wrote: post #59
joeguilmette wrote: post #49

I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…

Uber is literally all over the world, though. Google can barely launch a keyboard app outside the US. Or a payment system. Lyft is still constrained entirely to the US and a handful of large Asian cities. I think people severely underestimate Uber's worldwide push in preparing themselves to be a force to be reckoned with when the autonomous vehicle takes off.

The key is in the hardware.

Yes, Uber may have a global precense, but that's from burning VC cash and they're not exactly successful in major markets like China. And for what? Uber is essentially a messaging app between users and drivers, and their users/drivers are not loyal.

Uber as a self-driving company would need to sell hardware to drivers to convert their vehicles into self-driving cars, and I don't think they'll have the bank to get that far, especially against larger companies with deeper pockets and existing hardware experience/partnerships.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#189

Post by rubicon33 »

rorykoehler wrote: post #95
stormbrew wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is literally all over the world, though. Google can barely launch a keyboard app outside the US. Or a payment system. Lyft is still constrained entirely to the US and a handful of large Asian cities. I think people severely underestimate Uber's worldwide push in preparing themselves to be a force to be reckoned with when the autonomous vehicle takes off.

It won't be worth anything because autonomous ride-sharing will be a pricing game. Anyone who undercuts Uber, and there will be plenty of willing and able companies, will beat them.

Here's a crazy business idea:

You know how a person nowadays can register for uber and drive people around?

In the future, maybe people will register their CAR (which can drive itself). So they sit at home, getting work done, while their car is off autonomously driving itself and picking people up. When you want it to come home, just call it home.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#190

Post by agumonkey »

joeguilmette wrote: post #49

I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…

Reminds me how quickly I forgot about Uber test fleet from not long ago.
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