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Waymo for Business

waymo.com

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Re: Waymo for Business

#71

Post by tialaramex »

mosura wrote: post #67
asdff wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bike is in fact the more appropriate transport for moving a 200lb person than a 5000lb vehicle. Literally 95% of the energy being consumed is just to move the damned vehicle around, not to do anything productive with it.

Your relative masses are obviously exaggerated. Showering uses hot water and you also must change clothes, which also require cleaning. If you are doing this twice per day in addition to someone using some other means of transportation there is a non trivial energy cost involved. If the car propulsion is non fossil fuel based then the car wins because you are using much less water.

Showering does use hot water, but, it's maybe 20-30 litres, and you're heating up by what 25-30 K ? That's just not very much energy, and since we want heat we can go via a heat pump to do less work, whereas that's not an option for the car.

I did some envelope guesses and I can't see how this can come out for the car.

Re: Waymo for Business

#72

Post by AlotOfReading »

gruez wrote: post #39
Workaccount2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can bulk purchase daily transportation for your employees, so they can work on their commute too. How exciting.

I never heard of companies doing this. The most I've heard of is some sort of shuttle bus service, and even then there's no real expectation that you'll work on the ride there. Taxi-style transport is only for exceptional circumstances (eg. you worked late), or you're on some sort of business trip.

It's a reasonably common perk for tech companies in my experience. Often with limitations on the allowed endpoints and maximum daily cost, but routine use is still expected.

Re: Waymo for Business

#73

Post by thrance »

jeffbee wrote: post #45
thrance wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The waymo carries no passengers when it's driving to pick up its next customer. So, its average occupancy ( even worse than that of a car used exclusively by one person.

This is incorrect, because you have used the wrong denominator. The average occupancy of a private car is approximately zero. Most of the time, it just sits there empty.

Who cares how many passengers it has while not moving? It's not using any energy then, and neither is it participating to traffic.

Re: Waymo for Business

#74

Post by pastage »

fidotron wrote: post #43
delfinom wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is it's green washing. True sustainability is public transit, or biking or walking. This is just a line item got a company to blast as sustainability in marketing. This will let Waymo absorb some money from green washing slush funds.

> True sustainability is public transit, or biking or walking. Surely it's whatever is most sustainable, which Waymo (or equivalent) very well could be.

What? How could it possibly be more sustainable, the self driving parts are more energy hungry than a normal ebike.

Re: Waymo for Business

#75

Post by pastage »

xnx wrote: post #59
asdff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Electric microtransit is awesome in the right situation: able bodied, acceptable weather, minimal cargo, traveling solo, secure vehicle storage at destination. Waymo vehicles will be an excellent tool in the toolkit for moving people safely, efficiently, and affordably.

Everything that's easy to reach on a bicycle is also easy to reach on a mobility scooter, see Netherlands

Re: Waymo for Business

#76

Post by horseradish7k »

thrance wrote: post #44
jeffbee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem right. Taking your own car, which you park at both ends of the trip, is clearly worse from a vehicle utilization and land use standpoint. A Waymo that takes a dozen trips a day and never parks on the street seems obviously superior.

The waymo carries no passengers when it's driving to pick up its next customer. So, its average occupancy ( even worse than that of a car used exclusively by one person.

the more people use it, the more likely there will be someone nearby to pick up next. and this issue is not exclusive to waymos, it applies to taxis in general.

Re: Waymo for Business

#77

Post by jeffbee »

thrance wrote: post #73
jeffbee wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect, because you have used the wrong denominator. The average occupancy of a private car is approximately zero. Most of the time, it just sits there empty.

Who cares how many passengers it has while not moving? It's not using any energy then, and neither is it participating to traffic.

Again, this is not correct. Parked cars absolutely "participate in traffic" by making the other things in the city further apart and less convenient to reach without cars, and cars parked on the curb are taking up an entire lane of the street, which is half the street in many cases, or in some places like Manhattan the parking lanes are 2/3rds of the street.

Re: Waymo for Business

#78

Post by fidotron »

pastage wrote: post #74
fidotron wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> True sustainability is public transit, or biking or walking. Surely it's whatever is most sustainable, which Waymo (or equivalent) very well could be.

What? How could it possibly be more sustainable, the self driving parts are more energy hungry than a normal ebike.

But the energy can be renewable, so it isn't a problem.

Re: Waymo for Business

#79

Post by mmoustafa »

tanseydavid wrote: post #70
mmoustafa wrote: post #41

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.

Currently operating in: * Phoenix * SF * LA * Austin * Atlanta Announced: * Dallas * Denver * Miami * Seattle * Washington, DC * New York City * San Diego * Las Vegas * Philadelphia * London * Tokyo Seems like they are definitely scaling up...

I think maybe unclear in my comment, I’m referring to scaling within the cities they’re in. e.g. in SF it still takes 15m for a Waymo to arrive as opposed to Uber’s 3m and it costs more. I would’ve expected Uber drivers to be out of a job, which is not the case (I also drive occasionally)

Re: Waymo for Business

#80

Post by asdff »

xnx wrote: post #59
asdff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Electric microtransit is awesome in the right situation: able bodied, acceptable weather, minimal cargo, traveling solo, secure vehicle storage at destination. Waymo vehicles will be an excellent tool in the toolkit for moving people safely, efficiently, and affordably.

That right situation describes the vast majority of peoples trips. Not many disabled people hauling a cord of wood through a blizzard very often. Most peoples trips by far are their single occupant commute to and from work.
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