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Next stop: Miami

waymo.com

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Re: Next stop: Miami

#211

Post by bedobi »

vel0city wrote: post #189
bedobi wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, all of which can be done overnight

You can get expansions in funding approved, solicit bids from multiple firms to make the trains, analyze and approve the bid, get a factory to make potentially several to dozens more trains, ship them across the country (or potentially internationally), hire and train a lot of workers, in less than 24 hours?

you're just being obtuse

in the realm of infrastructure investment, all of that is overnight

vs eg the yet another additional bridge to nowhere they're currently building that is taking decades and costing billions

but tell you and every other frothing at the mouth motorist what, enjoy sitting in traffic

Re: Next stop: Miami

#212

Post by rangestransform »

caadxv wrote: post #191
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.

uber drivers deserve to be eroded entirely if their occupation literally costs lives compared to an autonomous vehicle

Re: Next stop: Miami

#213

Post by teractiveodular »

sixQuarks wrote: post #142
bbor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it's hard to quantify "profit" with such a research-driven org. It's like penciling out the profitability of the metaverse after years of $XX billion dollar losses. In general I get the sense that Waymo is more of a diverse investment than a pure ride-hailing play; for example, as of 2020 they were working for Volvo, Chrysler, Jaguar, and Nissan[1], presumably for $$$. It's also worth remembering that Zoox…

[flagged]

And what makes you believe 13 will finally have decent FSD when the previous 12 attempts using the same hardware did not?

Re: Next stop: Miami

#214

Post by standardUser »

entropi wrote: post #93
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the problem is efficiently moving people around in a city; well to be honest I find this premise a bit ridiculous. Call me a European, but I find the idea that moving 1-2 people in private vehicles on roads being superior than public transit -preferably on rail- simply absurd. Much of the US like Huston and Miami is extremely lacking in public transit, and will likely never build the infrastructure. > Ride-haili…

> Much of the US like Huston and Miami is extremely lacking in public transit, and will likely never build the infrastructure. I am not trying to be a contrarian here, but I fail to see how that is an answer. I feel like what you say boils down to "since we are not solving the problem at hand in a good way, we decided to solve it in a worse way". > ~50% of your fare goes to the driver. Yet these ride-hailing companie…

Forget Houston. Half this country is suburban-to-rural with development patterns that are profoundly ill-suited to mass transit. Yet, all of those areas have a fantastic road system already fully built out. Provide cheap rideshares (by removing most of the labor cost, which are the vast majority of the per-ride costs) and you've solved the previously unsolvable problem of moving Americans from point A to point B without each person needing to own and pilot a car.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#215

Post by standardUser »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #203
comte7092 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*50% of your fare goes to the driver, as well as paying for fuel, vehicle maintenance and depreciation, insurance, etc. Without a driver those other costs don’t go away.

It's ~75% going to the driver if you count the driver's expenses as money that goes to the driver: https://www.hyrecar.com/blog/how-much-does-uber-take-from-dr...

Not to mention tips. I feel an obligation to tip drivers, in part because I know the economics of their job is rough. I don't tip robots.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#216

Post by standardUser »

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…

That doesn't follow from the facts. Rideshare drivers get around 50% of the fare (though this seems to vary from 25%-75%). And many riders tip 10-20% of the total. Most of that cost goes away if a single operator is monitoring ~10 cars. The tip goes away entirely.

An average per-trip reduction of ~50% changes the economics entirely.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#217

Post by vel0city »

bedobi wrote: post #211
vel0city wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get expansions in funding approved, solicit bids from multiple firms to make the trains, analyze and approve the bid, get a factory to make potentially several to dozens more trains, ship them across the country (or potentially internationally), hire and train a lot of workers, in less than 24 hours?

you're just being obtuse in the realm of infrastructure investment, all of that is overnight vs eg the yet another additional bridge to nowhere they're currently building that is taking decades and costing billions but tell you and every other frothing at the mouth motorist what, enjoy sitting in traffic

> but tell you and every other frothing at the mouth motorist what, enjoy sitting in traffic

You're being quite rude here about this for no reason and projecting an identity on me that's not warranted. I'm generally pro public transit, but I'm also a realist and not suggesting it takes practically zero time to procure additional rolling stock and hire a lot more people. A lot of people think having a higher level of service is just run the trains/busses more, but chances are they're already running all the stuff they currently have the capacity to own and operate. It's not like most transit orgs have double the current capacity just sitting idle and nobody thought to run them.

It took them three years after finding the funding and getting all the approvals and signing the contracts to add rolling stock last time. So probably more like four or five years at least to add some additional trains. And that was replacing existing trains, not expanding the fleet, so its not like they had to considerably expand their existing workforce. I imagine most people would consider four or five years not "overnight".

The bus service near me is usually every 20 minutes. That's terrible. I'd absolutely love it to cut that in half. It also means it would cost significantly more to operate. Getting everyone to agree to pay that (a massive task at the start), getting all the proposals put together, soliciting bids, signing the contracts, getting the new busses, hiring the new drivers, and actually increasing the service isn't something that is going to happen in 2025. Probably also not 2026.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#218

Post by kernal »

sixQuarks wrote: post #142
bbor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it's hard to quantify "profit" with such a research-driven org. It's like penciling out the profitability of the metaverse after years of $XX billion dollar losses. In general I get the sense that Waymo is more of a diverse investment than a pure ride-hailing play; for example, as of 2020 they were working for Volvo, Chrysler, Jaguar, and Nissan[1], presumably for $$$. It's also worth remembering that Zoox…

[flagged]

Until you can hop into the back seat of your Tesla and tell it to drive you somewhere with complete confidence then don't even compare the capabilities of Waymo and Tesla FSD.
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