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Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

blog.waymo.com

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Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#281

Post by [deleted] »

wefarrell wrote: post #148
yalogin wrote: post #89

I still don’t understand the strategy for Waymo. After running that taxi service in phoenix for this long they resorted to partnering with Uber, it’s a huge failure. What does Uber bring to the table at all? An app that is easily replicable and with google’s reputation they can easily get customers off of Uber to their own platform. It’s a colossal failure. I was really hoping they would use Waze for this purpose. In…

It's a signal that ride share apps won't be 100% autonomous anytime soon. If you're a consumer and you want to go from point A to point B you don't want to have to think about whether your route will be in the AV coverage area, or if AVs are able to operate in current weather conditions, or if there are enough AVs available. You just want to press a button and have some vehicle take you from point A to point B, wheth…

[deleted]

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#282

Post by paulcole »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #122
015a wrote: post #113

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. Like how they can "just spin up" a messaging app? Building companies and customer bases is really, really hard. Microsoft tried like three times to build a Github competitor. They still have at least one of those attempts (Azure DevOps). They still bought Github. An interesting product technically, sure, but: i…

Spinning up a messaging app without a compelling differentiation is hard. It's much easier with a compelling differentiation. Waymo could just set prices at half of Uber and boom instant market share.

Instant market share if they're willing to lose 2x the money that Uber is losing. It's not like drivers are going to be falling over themselves to sign up if it's a 50% paycut.

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#283

Post by wmf »

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…

Does Waymo get to demand human-driver level prices and therefore capture loads of value

I'm pretty sure the Waymo Driver costs more than a human driver at this point. Obviously they want to make it cheaper eventually but who knows when that will happen.

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#284

Post by wmf »

makestuff wrote: post #38
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…

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.

Y'all are talking as if the Waymo app doesn't already exist. https://waymo.com/waymo-one/

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#285

Post by tialaramex »

minwcnt5 wrote: post #224
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automotive EE here, I could not disagree with you more on the state and expectations of self-driving vehicles. I can tell you with confidence they have not really put effort into weather and it’s a problem “to be solved later”. It’s all a joke. If we actually wanted this, it would be long haul A to B routes. Turning semi trucks into rail. Self-driving was already slowing down before the era of free money. So I expect…

"I can tell you with confidence they have not really put effort into weather" Ah, the Internet, where people who know absolutely nothing about a topic make bold assertions about it with 100% confidence. https://blog.waymo.com/2022/11/using-cutting-edge-weather-re...

Even more so, if they "have not really put effort into weather" then apparently they didn't need to, there are videos of Waymo drives through SF at night in rain for example, it seems to work fine whether it took "real" effort or not

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#286

Post by andruby »

lukeschlather wrote: post #194
andruby wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name recognition and installed user base in a 2-sided marketplace. That's huuuge. Google owns the action "to google something". Uber owns the action to "get an Uber". Also, don't underestimate the value of a working business. Google has only ever been successful with a search engine and an ad platform. They've never been success in a consumer product/service. I don't think their corporate structure and business cultu…

The idea is to make it a 1-sided marketplace. Uber's entire business model is focused around squeezing vendors - now they think they can squeeze Google if Google becomes their vendor instead of a bunch of independent contractors who are legally inhibited from collective bargaining? Uber has no idea how to be successful when the seller side of their marketplace is organized and plays hardball at the negotiating table.

The 1-sided marketplace is a good point.

Tesla and Waymo are arguably pretty close in self-driving technology, so there's already another player. Uber could just buy a bunch of Tesla's once their tech is good enough for autonomous driving.

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#287

Post by davey48016 »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #238
panarky wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's missing piece isn't the app. And it isn't the lawyers. It's the network of riders. Waymo promised to 10x their scale this year. Waymo could saturate the territory with empty vehicles waiting for riders on the Waymo app, or it can tap into a fraction of Uber's volume.

I don’t think people’s brand loyalty for Uber is very high these days, is it?

I don't know a lot of people who love Uber, but I know a lot of people who are only ever going to use one ride sharing app. If Waymo's app is limited to a 180 sq. mile territory and only half of their trips are in that territory, they won't bother. The first time the Waymo app tells them they're going outside their territory, it will be back to Uber forever.

I may have an unusually lazy social circle.

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#288

Post by shagie »

gnicholas wrote: post #231
panarky wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's missing piece isn't the app. And it isn't the lawyers. It's the network of riders. Waymo promised to 10x their scale this year. Waymo could saturate the territory with empty vehicles waiting for riders on the Waymo app, or it can tap into a fraction of Uber's volume.

As others have pointed out, Google could scoop up tons of riders in a heartbeat, by announcing a ride share platform publicly (which would get tons of news coverage) and by advertising the feature within Google Maps, Waze, etc. Google only needs to put together a one-sided marketplace, where Uber/Lyft had to build a two-sided marketplace. And Google already has a connection to billions (at least hundreds of millions)…

It would also need to invest in the vehicles and the technology and the maintenance and the garage to store them in and pay the insurance on the vehicles.

All this to try to compete with Uber (which isn't profitable) in a few areas where the legal, political and climate ("we have cars in Chicago but they only run from March 1st to November 1st") options are favorable.

The marketplace is not the biggest issue that Google would need to overcome.

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#289

Post by AlotOfReading »

metalspot wrote: post #171
nerdchum wrote: post #91

Why is autonomous driving being pursued but not remote driving? Why can I have a seat at my house with controls and drive my Uber/18 wheeler from my house?

"autonomous" vehicles are remotely monitored and controlled. that is just not part of the marketing. the big blocker, and why autonomous/remote vehicles are not being rolled out more widely, is that remote requires lots of very reliable low latency bandwidth. 5G (mmWave 5G in particular) is a key enabling technology. until you get mmWave 5G or some comparable technology the bandwidth for remote at scale doesn't exist…

The Waymo vehicles being discussed in the article are not remote controlled like the GP is talking about. Remote assistance isn't controlling the vehicle, the autonomy stack remains in control throughout. They're just giving it additional information that it can't determine for itself. They're also not a part of the typical operation, but rather for infrequent, exceptional circumstances.

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#290

Post by nerdchum »

spiderice wrote: post #127
nerdchum wrote: post #91

Why is autonomous driving being pursued but not remote driving? Why can I have a seat at my house with controls and drive my Uber/18 wheeler from my house?

Somehow this seems scarier to me than self driving cars. 1. Driving without the physical feedback that comes from acceleration, braking, taking a turn too fast, etc.. is really hard. Maybe they could overcome this with simulators of some sort, but I expect that would be too cost prohibitive. 2. I want the driver that can think to have skin in the game. I don’t want them to be able to drive off a cliff, or in to a cro…

Yeah ultimately it could be a sort of hybrid where the AI drives until it encounters a situation it is high risk to handle, like crowded street, then a human is alerted to take over. A pool of humans could then manage exponentially far more than one to one vehicles depending on how good the AI is.

That's a huge money saver.

Additionally recruiting truck drivers is difficult to do so maybe having a work from home job would make it easier.

It's not that it's point less it's that some people just don't see the point.

I don't know just seems like an idea worth pursuing for a million reasons, including being able to outsource driving or find the best drivers in the world. Also.mikitary reasons. Save lives with a remote controlled tank.

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