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Next stop: Miami

waymo.com

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Re: Next stop: Miami

#191

Post by caadxv »

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…

The grand vision is to erode the middle class entirely, have undocumented immigrants work in agriculture and automate the rest.

Who can afford a Waymo ride in that scenario is an open question, but perhaps the tech overlords dream of having a tiny "elite" and a robot army that subjugates the farm workers, in which case Waymo will no longer be required.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#192

Post by deepsun »

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.

Yep, but what matters for radar/lidar is the projection. I mean what percentage of 1 _square_ meter (not cubic meter) is occupied by droplet projections. Or, in radial terms, what percentage of "Solid angle" is occupied by rain droplets.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#193

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

bedobi wrote: post #165
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no it would save miami and the state and the federal government billions Have you ever looked at the local budget of a US transit authority? They typically lose $2+ per passenger trip, and get bailed out by the federal government. Mass transit is not going to save Miami any money for decades until ridership approaches Hong Kong levels. Unless you count passing on expenses to the Federal government as savings, and e…

lol the idea isn't to make money off transit, it's to save money on roads roads cost more than transit - a LOT more, and motorists aren't paying anywhere near the cost of road construction and maintenance, they're (quite literally) free-riding subsidized trips on the taxpayer traffic also destroys productivity, public health, life expectancy etc etc so costs money in many more ways than motorists not paying for them

> and motorists aren't paying anywhere near the cost of road construction and maintenance, they're (quite literally) free-riding subsidized trips on the taxpayer

So are public transit riders. And to a worse degree. What's your point?

We should magically spawn mass transit systems overnight and force everyone to ride them?

By the way, I'm a fan of mass transit, and live somewhere in the US - specifically - where that's a viable option.

It just isn't a viable option in ~80% of the US, and even if those areas start doing everything right to be mass transit viable (no indication of that), it still takes decades.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#194

Post by joshjob42 »

Hasu wrote: post #166
Rebuff5007 wrote: post #134

I'm so curious about how the internal dev teams feeling about all this scaling. Four cities across 3 states -- surely there are differences in road signs, lane markings, emergency procedures, etc. Let alone the sheer volume of data of doing hundreds of thousands of miles ever week! Massive kudos to them if they are able to do all this without things being aflame on the inside...

> Four cities across 3 states This is actually a scale up to five cities across four states: > ...which already provides over 150,000 trips per week across Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Austin Which of course only adds to your point!

Actually they Miami would be #6. They are also starting to operate in Atlanta early next year along with Austin. So 6 cities across 5 states.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#195

Post by bloomingkales »

ra7 wrote: post #28
simpleintheory wrote: post #4

I think the most interesting part is that the article says that Waymo's handing its operations to Moove. It seems like Waymo's trying to become a software provider while having other companies handle the capital-intensive parts.

The pivot has already happened. They’re handing over Austin and Atlanta to Uber, and now Phoenix and Miami to Moove. The only places they will continue to own operations for at least the next year are SF and LA.

Pivot to what exactly?

Re: Next stop: Miami

#196

Post by deadbabe »

kemotep wrote: post #147
timerol wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that almost every city believes this about their local drivers? I've gotten it in LA, Boston, NYC, DC, SF, Philly, Atlanta, and Austin. Adding Miami to the list.

In my experience it is a State wide problem. I95 seemed to be a speed minimum of 95 if you didn’t want to get run off the road by everyone else for going too slow. I-4 (Daytona to Tampa, through Orlando) had over 400 deaths caused by traffic accidents one year. More than 1 death per mile of road. I don’t think 75 was any better, of course it was rough in Atlanta too, but still. My experience with Florida driving was…

In Florida it is common to see cars drive at speeds in excess of 100mph.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#197

Post by jsnell »

comte7092 wrote: post #125
xnx wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be profitable with lower utilization, they’ll need to work on reducing how much each car costs somehow. Definitely. Their custom vehicle had optimizations for cost, but seems to be on hold due to tariffs. Waymo also has the option to drop prices lower than Uber/Lyft when vehicles are unutilized, though they still need to stay above their per-mile depreciation and operating costs.

> Waymo also has the option to drop prices lower than Uber/Lyft when vehicles are unutilized I think that’s an unproven assumption. There’s certainly reason to believe it to be true of course, but uber and Lyft are already capturing upwards of 50% of the fares for each ride, and that’s without the capital costs on their books. Removing the driver from the equation can’t lead to much more than that 50% (realistically…

> There’s certainly reason to believe it to be true of course, but uber and Lyft are already capturing upwards of 50% of the fares for each ride,

That's not true. If you check Uber's Q3 financials, gross bookings for "Mobility" were $21B while revenue was $6.5B. That's way lower than 50%.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#198

Post by mikepurvis »

RivieraKid wrote: post #111
1024core wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it make out lane markings? Or is it all just GPS-based?

Maybe similarly how humans do it.

Humans do it super badly in a heavy rain/snow though. We're basically blind and just toodle along following the guy in front and hoping for the best.

A machine driver should not accept these conditions.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#199

Post by danans »

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

The average pay for a gig driver $18/hr. So for your typical 15-minute ride, that adds $4.50 to it.

Let's say that 15 minute ride is 10 miles. Average. Uber rates are about $1.50 a mile, so that ride is $15.

Therefore, the driver costs almost a third of the cost of the fare.

Waymo's operational cost per mile, however, should be much lower than a regular driver because they will pay lower bulk rates for energy (already much cheaper because it's mostly off peak electricity instead of gasoline) and maintenance (standardized vehicles with highly controlled driving patterns and pre-negotiated repair contracts).

Re: Next stop: Miami

#200

Post by ra7 »

bloomingkales wrote: post #195
ra7 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pivot has already happened. They’re handing over Austin and Atlanta to Uber, and now Phoenix and Miami to Moove. The only places they will continue to own operations for at least the next year are SF and LA.

Pivot to what exactly?

To owning just the self driving stack and not the physical operations of running a robotaxi service.
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