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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

#291

Post by tialaramex »

wmf wrote: post #283
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.

This is an R&D cost thing and the right analogy is to the telephone operator. It obviously cost a lot more to build even the first electromechanical last mile exchanges (with Strowager / SXS switches) than to hire some young women to work as operators, let alone to design something like System X (a computerised telephone exchange used in most of the UK from the 1980s) but you don't have to keep paying for the R&D on an ongoing basis. The girls married, or got less boring jobs, or just left work, each time you must recruit and train replacements - but you design System X once and use it for forty years no problem.

There are still System X exchanges in the UK to this day, it works fine, so why not. Eventually as copper last miles are discontinued these exchanges will be virtualised, and in some sense System X is then banished to museums like the Strowager electro-mechanical systems I saw as a child.

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

#293

Post by wmf »

tialaramex wrote: post #291
wmf wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is an R&D cost thing and the right analogy is to the telephone operator. It obviously cost a lot more to build even the first electromechanical last mile exchanges (with Strowager / SXS switches) than to hire some young women to work as operators, let alone to design something like System X (a computerised telephone exchange used in most of the UK from the 1980s) but you don't have to keep paying for the R&D on…

No, I think the BOM cost of Waymo is higher.

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

#294

Post by shagie »

JB_Dev wrote: post #250
vasilipupkin wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

give me 3 good software developers and I can give you an Uber app maybe in 3-6 months? but what I can't give you is uber app being on every iPhone in the country.

If my ride-sharing app charges riders half the price, I think we’ll get quite a few riders in a short amount of time. Uber won’t be able to compete.

Uber is losing money and is frequently accused of undervaluing the deprecation and maintenance of the drivers' vehicles.

If Google was to enter a market at a loss in an effort to use its market dominance in Android to drive out a competitor that would potentially be something that would be considered anticompetitive and US regulators would likely be interested in it.

I don't believe that Google can compete with Uber losing money as it is nor that Google has an appetite for purchasing the necessary vehicles and maintaining them outside of a few test cities for a technology demo. Having driverless taxis also means that they would need to do a better job with end user support (compare the urgency of "help, I'm locked out of my email" and their current resolution time to "help, I'm locked in a car and can't get out!").

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

#295

Post by shagie »

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.

Using Google's dominance to expand into other sectors (at a loss) is a perfect example of anticompetitive practices that regulators would likely take a keen interest in investigating.

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

#296

Post by sempron64 »

pwpw wrote: post #199
mrshadowgoose wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would this not lead to induced demand where more people decide to start traveling more frequently once they perceive the roads as having cleared up? An additional consideration would be people incapable of driving would now have greater access to freely take rides.

The notion of shutting down all improvements due to fear of induced demand is ridiculous. Let's also stop building sewage systems because of induced demand and all defecate on the ground. It will reduce water use and be good for the environment by enriching the soil.

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

#297

Post by AlotOfReading »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #278
minwcnt5 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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...

Ah, the internet where people who know absolutely nothing cite a PR blog directly from a company providing bold assertions that then give them 100% confidence. I’ve been in at least four fully self-driving dev / S0 / drivable buck vehicles and they are absolute garbage imo. We had one planned demo that was delayed because of fog in 2020, not road fog, but crap on the LiDAR glass. How many have you directly worked wit…

I'm not the person you're responding to, but I've ridden inside probably dozens of AVs at this point (and my work product is in hundreds). I can't relate to your experiences at all. That's weird, because if you're an EE at one of the major AV companies, we're likely within 1 degree of separation.

Every serious company has put significant effort into testing with weather (note: not all weather conditions and not the same testing as traditional automotive). They've also put effort into handling all the other scenarios you've mentioned. Waymo does pose estimation to better handle construction workers and traffic cops, for example.

Also the TAM numbers should make it clear why long distance freight isn't getting as much attention. Surely your employer has shared their outlook internally?

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

#298

Post by bertil »

elromulous wrote: post #280

I think folks are missing the key here. If waymo offers its own app and there aren't any available vehicles when a user wants a ride, user trust is lost, and people don't bother trying it next time. With the Uber app, Uber will show both options when they're both available. It allows waymo to offer a lower SLA/SLO while still gradually fielding a service. It also allows for easier fallback if a waymo vehicle is takin…

I see the benefits from both for now, but I’m not capturing how they could agree on the long-term negotiation.

There is so much upside in a few months for only one side of that deal… That was always the issue with Uber promising self-driving cars: human drivers have an unknown, uncontrollable deadline.

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

#299

Post by AlotOfReading »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #260
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But have they solved the Trolley Problem?

Mercedes got flack for it, but ultimately they had the right answer. When a sort of pitch was made to an exec where the car has to crash into a tree or a cyclist, he said the bike. Because you aren’t going to pay $80,000 for your car to choose your death. If you look at car ownership as owning a weapon, it does only make sense that you’ll have to prioritize for the owner. But really, we aren’t even remotely to trolle…

The trolley problem is functionally irrelevant to AVs, but even if it wasn't, it's still prohibited if you ever plan to pursue type certification in Europe per 2022/1426, section 2.1.1.

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

#300

Post by bertil »

boh wrote: post #134

One thing that hasn't been addressed, given the limited test markets, is whether autonomous taxis actually will actually be popular and preferable among consumers. Theoretically having a car that drives itself seems like a great product/service, in practice it's more clunky and awkward than you would hope. From the experiences I've had, a human driver is undoubtedly the better option. Many things happen on the road w…

This is very true, but it sounds to me like a classic case of design iterations: find patterns, develop them among users, learn ways to introduce new users… A search engine, an email, chat… non of that was natural, and the first iterations where clunky, but you know can’t imagine they’d be any simpler or that anyone would want anything else.
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