Yes, there are more driverless Waymos in S.F

Post by ec109685 » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 5:25 PM UTC

Jyaif wrote: post #4

You have to read carefully the article to extract the information. This is like the opposite of journalism. tldr: * 903,000 vehicle miles traveled during commercial driverless ride-hailing in May (57% increase from April). * Waymo increased from 250 taxis last August to 300 in May. So there's almost no new taxis, the increase comes from an increased utilization of the fleet.

Post by geraldwhen » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 5:28 PM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #21

stopachka wrote: post #10

I rode my first Waymo last weekend. It's _significantly_ better than an Uber. You get an almost 'white-glove' experience getting inside. Then, you have complete privacy. I could get work done in the car guilt-free. I was very surprised with the experience

> I could get work done in the car guilt-free. ...have rideshare drivers guilt-tripped you about working? Or is this just some kind of reflexive response? If the addition of a human per se produces guilt, I want to gentle suggest that work on boundaries is in order, and that no amount of automation is likely to fix the underlying problem. It's OK to meet your wants and needs (such as getting some work done - a want I…

Post by implr » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 5:29 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #9

klooney wrote: post #3

I wonder how far they are from profitability on a cost per ride basis. The biggest long term risk to self driving cars is probably that number being unreachable. The super expensive base vehicles don't help either. They need lidar hats for the Kia Forte or whatever

Replacing ~minimum wage drivers in conventional cars with expensive cars backed by expensive software developers and operations staffs is almost certainly not a business model. There may be (probably will be) a business model behind autonomous driving technology in some undefined future. But there's no guarantee Waymo won't be another killed by Google in the interim. The thought from a decade ago that the average tee…

Post by skywhopper » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 5:30 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #16

ghaff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replacing ~minimum wage drivers in conventional cars with expensive cars backed by expensive software developers and operations staffs is almost certainly not a business model. There may be (probably will be) a business model behind autonomous driving technology in some undefined future. But there's no guarantee Waymo won't be another killed by Google in the interim. The thought from a decade ago that the average tee…

If there were a fleet of a million Waymo cars, 2,000 support staff, and 2,000 engineers keeping a stable technology running, and vehicle wear and tear was low (possibly lower than a human driver running an ICE car ragged)...it could work. But they're going to be unprofitable for a long, long time.

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 5:31 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #18

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were a fleet of a million Waymo cars, 2,000 support staff, and 2,000 engineers keeping a stable technology running, and vehicle wear and tear was low (possibly lower than a human driver running an ICE car ragged)...it could work. But they're going to be unprofitable for a long, long time.

It's hard for me to believe that Alphabet/Google even wants to be this huge robo-taxi service in the long run. I have to believe they want to be a technology supplier. Which means they need to enable robo-taxis-are-us to be a cheaper taxi service than Uber et al.