Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 916 posts

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#291

Post by jart »

Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #176
tempestn wrote: post #154

This makes a lot of sense to me. When you ride in an Uber or a taxi, you're a guest in the driver's space. In a Waymo, it's your own space. You can play music, talk on the phone, etc. without worrying about disturbing the driver. You're not likely to have strong odors, or driver's phone conversations. And the experience will be roughly consistent each time. In an Uber, you have no idea what the car or the driving sta…

Maybe it's my rampant misanthrope leanings, but even in more trivial things like choosing automated kiosks other staffed in CVS, I'm just more comfortable not having to make small talk with a person, worry if they're having a good day or not etc. I'd happily pay 20 percent more to Waymo for that personless experience too.

[flagged]

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#292

Post by basisword »

thunky wrote: post #269
basisword wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can I make other people drive safely? I'm obviously not worried about myself, but about hundreds of others constantly triggering it and causing noise pollution.

It would only beep inside the car. So if other people are driving and it's beeping then they should drive better so they don't annoy their passengers (you). The point of the beep is to get the driver's attention so they slow down. Similar to rumble strips on the side of the highway.

Ah, I see. "Beep" is a alt term for using the horn where I am from. I was imagining constant honking from hundreds of cars. An internal warning makes much more sense.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#293

Post by duxup »

Jubijub wrote: post #277
jghn wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they bin vehicles by available seating and not by things like luggage.

+1 So you may get say a 7 seater where the seats are folded in the trunk, so you can carry 7 people XOR 5 people + light suitcases There is no option to say “send me a mini van”

Agreed. I want van.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#294

Post by sanswork »

jopsen wrote: post #170
harmmonica wrote: post #137

As a Waymo-booster on HN for a while now, here's my latest anecdote. I tried to figure out how to take Waymo to LAX even though it's not actually in their territory yet just because I value the experience so much. I was borderline going to take it within walking distance (about half a mile), but got lazy at the last minute. I took Lyft instead, and, as if the universe cursed my laziness, I booked a "comfort" car for…

$3 isn't this kind of a small problem? I miss rideshare service, in Denmark we have mess of expensive high quality taxis that you cannot get hold of when you need one.

$3 is small enough that almost everyone will just eat the cost. I have a theory that they do this intentionally in some things(well Uber I've never used lift). Almost every time I order food and something is wrong or missing they'll give me a refund that is $2-3 off what it should be. Like if I order a $5 item and it's missing their service will refund me $2. At that point I can chose to spend literally an hour going through different support flows to try to reach a human who will correct it and give me the extra $2 or I can eat the loss. It's happened to me at least a dozen times now so I imagine it's common enough across the whole world to add millions of revenue each year.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#295

Post by OkayPhysicist »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #180
rossdavidh wrote: post #118

The last time I got an Uber, it was driven by a young fellow who looked to be in his first year of driving (I could be wrong), the car smelled like mothballs and was obviously in poor shape, and he accidentally drove on the wrong side of a divided road for a block or so (he was apologetic). The last time I tried a regular taxi stand, the car looked even worse, and it broke down. So, we called Lyft, and the driver cou…

This is amazing. Don't forget that by you doing this you're taking us one step closer to AI replacing not just the job of drivers but the jobs of all of us. Good sides and bad sides. Hopefully we won't get there and only uber drivers are the ones screwed. Since you and I aren't uber drivers, we don't really care do we?

Imagine how backwards our socioeconomic order is that "people are no longer needed for grueling work" is a bad thing.

I mean, you're not wrong, but I feel like it's a condemnation of out economic system.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#296

Post by flutas »

bertil wrote: post #286
matthewdgreen wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re experiencing the early pre-enshittified product. Ubers used to be cheap and excellent too, but then they started optimizing for profit. I assume this will happen even faster for Waymo, just because tech firms have more experience now.

Which point would you expect to deteriorate?

not op but cleanliness would be my first expectation

I've seen many reports of dirty waymos on reddit recently for example.

second I'd assume they would start charging you for point 3, "loading delay fee" when you take too long to load, after all that's missed profit from other rides.

after that point 1 and 2, with you getting either a Jag (nice car), a Zeekr (unknown to me, Chinese company), or a Ioniq 5 (much cheaper feeling car than a Jag, with hard plastic everywhere). You want the jag? Expect to pay for it. So suddenly all cars aren't the same, and only some are comparable to Uber Black.

To summarize:

Point 4, followed by 3, followed by 2 and 1 (which imo are just one point). 5 I don't expect to change unless they have to start cost-cutting on compute and sensors, but I HIGHLY doubt that.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#297

Post by kaonwarb »

Jubijub wrote: post #277
jghn wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they bin vehicles by available seating and not by things like luggage.

+1 So you may get say a 7 seater where the seats are folded in the trunk, so you can carry 7 people XOR 5 people + light suitcases There is no option to say “send me a mini van”

There is a newer option that is closer to that - "Uber XXL." (https://www.uber.com/newsroom/airport-travel/)

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#298

Post by AlotOfReading »

oblio wrote: post #267
AlotOfReading wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never really understood this "improve public transit instead of autonomous vehicles" argument. They're two entirely distinct funding sources. Nothing is preventing us from improving public transit except the same things that always have.

People funding autonomous driving will obviously lobby against increased funding for public transit and they will also fund demonizing public transit. Look at Musk and Vegas. The vast majority of mass transportation in Vegas should be handled by actual public transit, most likely high speed rail from LA and light rail along the Strip to downtown Vegas and a few other places. Instead Vegas has a silly monorail, a few…

Musk doesn't need autonomous vehicles to derail public transit. Hyperloop predated FSD, to use your example. Moreover, the objection applies equally to taxis and Uber/Lyft.

It's also not an actionable objection. Let's say we go and ban autonomous vehicles. Why wouldn't the same billionaires simply continue lobbying against public transit improvements and for the repeal of the ban? They have the money to do both.

We haven't failed to invest sufficiently in public transit for 50+ years solely because of billionaire lobbying. That's not the blocker.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#299

Post by antasvara »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #257
pokot0 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't hate automation. They hate BAD automation. From your description seems like: Waymo -> Good Automation, Call Center -> Bad Automation. The day we will have a chatgpt level automated customer care experience, we will complain every time humans answer our requests, with their accents and attitudes!

>> People don't hate automation This is not true.

In the broad sense, people are in favor of automation. Most people aren't clamoring for the days before the stove, dishwasher, and car (all automated versions of past technologies).

That being said, I think a lot of people are against automation when it does something worse than the manual version. Think automated customer service over a human being.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#300

Post by dilyevsky »

Animats wrote: post #132

Waymos will get cheaper to make as they scale up. The Ioniq version [1] costs less to build. All the sheet metal and mechanical mods for Waymo are done at the Hyundai factory in Georgia.[2] Waymo just mounts the electronics. Jobs at the Hyundai factory start at $23.66/hour, with reasonably good benefits.[3] [1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/10/waymo-and-hyundai-enter-partn... [2] https://www.hmgma.com/ [3] https://care…

jags and ioniqs are a midway stop for sure. there's no need to have a seat you can't use with a steering wheel and windows that are not totally blacked out. the final product would probably resemble something closer to Cruise One concept.
Post reply on HN