Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

Post by hunter2_ » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:07 PM UTC

bartwr wrote: post #51

makestuff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty confident google could spin up an org to replicate the uber app in a few months/maybe a year. However, Uber obviously cannot spin up an org to replicate self driving vehicles in a few months. By that logic I would say Waymo has all of the power since they could develop their own app and undercut uber on pricing. The customers would instantly leave as it is a race to the bottom with ride share.

Spinning up the Uber App is most likely trivial. Spinning up the legal structure, figuring out all the local regulations and getting permits (it's not 2010 anymore! Many countries and cities regulate ride sharing pretty heavily) in a sane timeline is close to impossible. And it might be not something that an Alphabet company wants to do risk/ reputation-wise. Better to offload bad press (both related to ride sharing…

Post by id00 » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:11 PM UTC

ra7 wrote: post #188

lhorie wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The backstory that seems to have been forgotten here is that self driving cars are still a money bleeding endeavor. It's why Uber sold its own self driving division and it's something Cruise has said in the past still needs to be figured out. Uber has pivoted to doing partnerships with any self driving player that is looking for a customer base. Waymo doesn't have the tech nor the desire to figure out logistics to co…

> The backstory that seems to have been forgotten here is that self driving cars are still a money bleeding endeavor. It's why Uber sold its own self driving division and it's something Cruise has said in the past still needs to be figured out. Uber sold their self driving division because they killed someone in Arizona due to negligence. And then Anthony Lewandowski happened. Those two incidents complete deflated Ub…

Post by Tepix » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

krebby wrote: post #154

SilverBirch wrote: post #2

This is fascinating, obviously it makes a tonne of sense for uber as a platform to offer waymo's autonomous vehicles. The first question I had though was "who extracts value here". Does Waymo get to demand human-driver level prices and therefore capture loads of value or does Uber actually capture the value because they're where the customers are. But then I realised... it doesn't matter. Waymo is part of Alphabet, a…

If no one steps up to challenge Waymo in this space in a reasonable timeframe, Waymo wins. If they do, Uber wins. Uber's play is as a platform. They win if there are several SDC providers (with working autonomy). As an analogy, they're Android; they want to own the network and have multiple operators plug into the Uber app, while the hardware makers don't want to do the work to spin up an expensive 2-way marketplace.…

Post by iinnPP » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:16 PM UTC

anaganisk wrote: post #111

makestuff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty confident google could spin up an org to replicate the uber app in a few months/maybe a year. However, Uber obviously cannot spin up an org to replicate self driving vehicles in a few months. By that logic I would say Waymo has all of the power since they could develop their own app and undercut uber on pricing. The customers would instantly leave as it is a race to the bottom with ride share.

The power of Uber doesn't lie in it's app, Google famously has been forever trying to have a chat app and we all know how many times it's failed. Then comes Google+, Google's attempt to get into social networking. Unless Google came up with something novel or something different from incumbents it never ever succeeded. Any SWE worth his salt can build a ride booking app in a month or two, but the traction and confide…

Post by pwpw » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:17 PM UTC

mrshadowgoose wrote: post #184

sofixa wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone still takes the taxi everywhere, what would be the reconfiguration about and where would it come from? Everyone will be still stuck in traffic due to the physical impossibility of fitting everyone in an individual vehicle on the roads at the same time.

This is false. It's been shown through computer modeling that road congestion emerges as a function of both vehicles/road segment/time unit and human driving behavior. Remove the humans from the driver's seat, and your effective road capacity goes up significantly without doing anything else.