51–60 of 83 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Filling the roads with single person occupancy vehicles is not a replacement for "legacy public transportation".
GP said upgrading, not replacement. Bus or train currently can’t do last mile. Without a viable option people may opt for cars instead of bus or train. This will help, not replace, public transportation. It may make bus/train more popular.
I hope they'll support car pooling, and bigger vehicles for the same.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I agree that it’s kinda unpleasant to get all sweaty before work, many larger corporations have offices (usually with gyms) have locker rooms and showers to support bikers. While I’m able to take transit, many of my coworkers do bike+shower at the office for commuting.
Is all that showering better or worse for the environment than using more appropriate transport in the first place?
Why are they not hyper-focused on scaling the number of vehicles on the road now that they have a working system? Is Waymo afraid of flooding the supply and crashing prices? Are they too expensive to build/maintain to justify a lower price point? What is going on, if you have PMF the logical next step is scale.
Another thing to keep in mind is that rideshare revenue in the US is extremely geographically concentrated in urban cores. This is why every AV company was targeting SF as their first city (excepting Waymo, which did some stuff in PHX). 'Hyperfocused expansion' probably looks a lot closer to tackling new, novel areas in different metro areas rather than, say, expanding down in to San Jose and the central valley.
These things, they take time.
They've clearly hit (or projections confidently show they'll hit) a point where each car is profitable. I worked in the space for a while - platform upgrades (new cars, sensors, etc) are planned out years in advance and are pretty complex processes. But generally, each upgrade was a massive decrease in cost per car. (usually 50% cheaper or more). So also possible they want to wait for the next platform transition.
I hope they'll support car pooling, and bigger vehicles for the same.
The next generation vehicle is much bigger https://waymo.com/blog/2024/08/meet-the-6th-generation-waymo...
Why are they not hyper-focused on scaling the number of vehicles on the road now that they have a working system? Is Waymo afraid of flooding the supply and crashing prices? Are they too expensive to build/maintain to justify a lower price point? What is going on, if you have PMF the logical next step is scale.
The Zeekr vehicle was announced in 2021: https://waymo.com/blog/2021/12/expanding-our-waymo-one-fleet...
100% tariff in 2024: https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/14/joe... ; https://www.reuters.com/business/us-locks-steep-china-tariff...
Hyundai partnership announced a few months later: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/10/waymo-and-hyundai-enter-partn...
Plus what others have said about sheer number of vehicles not being the only obstacle to scaling.
Cool and natural expansion of their ride services to match Uber for Business. Not mentioned that I could find in the materials, but ride-sharing/shuttle service would be a natural option to first pilot with Waymo for Business. That would put Waymo one step closer to upgrading legacy public transportation systems.
I guess by "legacy public transportation systems" you're thinking buses? GoA 4 trains exist today. GoA 3 is usually more practical and is widely used today. So Waymo would be very late to that and have all the wrong technology stack. But sure, there could be room for the Waymo Driver driving a bus, that may not make as much sense as you imagine but anything is possible.
I hope they'll support car pooling, and bigger vehicles for the same.
maybe some car pool services for the most frequent routes could run at regular intervals. there could even be some predefined stops to efficiently batch many people getting on and off the car pool at once
Earlier quoted context omitted.
GP said upgrading, not replacement. Bus or train currently can’t do last mile. Without a viable option people may opt for cars instead of bus or train. This will help, not replace, public transportation. It may make bus/train more popular.
A 5000lb car to move a <200lb person is a terrible last mile option. There has never been a better time for last mile options than today. On the train I see all sorts of bikes, ebikes, escooters, and skateboards being used.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
GP said upgrading, not replacement. Bus or train currently can’t do last mile. Without a viable option people may opt for cars instead of bus or train. This will help, not replace, public transportation. It may make bus/train more popular.
Bus gets me from 50m from my house to 50m from my office. How is that not doing the last mile?