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Who Watches the Waymos? I do [video]

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Re: Who Watches the Waymos? I do [video]

#71

Post by ufmace »

spwa4 wrote: post #60

What amazes me about Waymo is how expensive the rides are. They're at least 20% more expensive than Uber (the much more expensive Uber of today, not the Uber of 2-4 years ago), sometimes 100-150% more expensive. If they can't be cheaper, then what's the point?

Having ridden a few of them in the area, I think they're worth it.

Waymos are 100% reliable. If you book it and it says it's coming at X time, it will definitely actually show up at X time. No more of, driver cancelled at the last minute because they don't actually want to drive to destination Y but Uber etc gave it to them anyways and they get dinged if they just cancel instead of claiming not to be able to find the rider etc. Or driver got lost or stopped for food or gas or something so is late.

It also gets to the destination exactly when it says it will. No weird routes because of the driver's whim or driving too fast or too slow. And no chance of bad music, loud conversation in some foreign language, annoying commentary, etc.

And I want them to be profitable to run too, so they have plenty of incentive to expand the program.

Re: Who Watches the Waymos? I do [video]

#74

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

Thorrez wrote: post #57
KellyCriterion wrote: post #55

Very impressive video! What you can clearly see: If you scale this over the next years, "manual driving is over" :-D This is just the very very early beginning, like the first seconds after big bang, we haven really started this whole thing: If you put just more ressources here, we will have giant parking houses for just self-driving-cars, like "coming home over night and recharge" And this technology will come on a…

>If you are today a big insurance like Munich Re, and you see already today that self-driving produces already much less accidents (90% or so I read days ago?), and the tech is really new & "not 100% reliable" and you believe that this tech will be rolled out - one day you will start lobbying politicans that manual driving needs to be forbidden, except some rare cases. Why would insurance companies lobby for that? 90…

Insurance is cheaper on safer vehicles.

A 90% reduction in accidents is a 90% reduction in _paying out_. That reduces operating costs.

Re: Who Watches the Waymos? I do [video]

#75

Post by toast0 »

blackoil wrote: post #43
dllu wrote: post #20

Very neat. I recently went to the Waymo depot in Bayshore (Toland St) and snapped a couple of pictures of the new Zeekrs for Wikipedia. [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waymo_Zeekr_Vehicle_... [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waymo_Zeekr_Vehicle_...

How are Google allowed to get Zeekr? Are they pre tariff or they have some loophole being corporate?

Tariffs are easy, just pay them. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards are harder... But maybe there's a loophole for commercial transport? or maybe they paid to have the testing done?

Re: Who Watches the Waymos? I do [video]

#76

Post by gniv »

spwa4 wrote: post #60

What amazes me about Waymo is how expensive the rides are. They're at least 20% more expensive than Uber (the much more expensive Uber of today, not the Uber of 2-4 years ago), sometimes 100-150% more expensive. If they can't be cheaper, then what's the point?

The novelty premium?

Re: Who Watches the Waymos? I do [video]

#77

Post by toast0 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #70
dangus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which isn’t even really that prohibitive because Chinese vehicles beat Western pricing by five figures. Plus, all the sensor equipment is made in China anyway. There’s almost certainly no way to have it manufactured in the US. On top of that, fleet sales don’t have to deal with the antiquated dealer network laws in the US. And of course American market car manufacturers refuse to produce vehicles that are like this o…

I would pay lots of money for an electric minivan (or van I guess) with removable seats that can fit a 4 ft x 8ft board.

Ford E-Transit is an electric van for a lot of money. But it looks like Ford wants to stop making them, and 2 seat models look much easier to find. But you'd be able to fit your board no problem.

Re: Who Watches the Waymos? I do [video]

#78

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

forinti wrote: post #69
chakintosh wrote: post #68

Waymo's been doing for the past 5 years what Elon's promised to deliver 10 years ago (and is still not delivering)

Probably because their CEOs are focusing on their job and not fooling around.

Plus:

Waymos are safer - they have Lidar and Radar in addition to vision

Waymos have human fallback to remote operators

Google takes responsibility for Waymos, vs Teslas being privately owned

Google took a more regulator savvy incremental approach

Re: Who Watches the Waymos? I do [video]

#79

Post by BurningFrog »

surajrmal wrote: post #66
KellyCriterion wrote: post #55

Very impressive video! What you can clearly see: If you scale this over the next years, "manual driving is over" :-D This is just the very very early beginning, like the first seconds after big bang, we haven really started this whole thing: If you put just more ressources here, we will have giant parking houses for just self-driving-cars, like "coming home over night and recharge" And this technology will come on a…

Unless it comes down massively in price, it's not going to displace manual driving for anything other than Uber/taxi. It's far cheaper to drive your own car in most of the us. If parking lots disappear and the parking that remains becomes similar in price to that of major cities and insurance rates skyrocket, then maybe that will change, but only by increasing the overall cost of transportation.

Self driving taxis should absolutely be cheaper to use than current regular cars.

Because they don't need a steering wheel, backseat, and many other things. They can also run close to 24/7.

How "massive" the price drop becomes I don't date to guess though.

Re: Who Watches the Waymos? I do [video]

#80

Post by rangestransform »

spwa4 wrote: post #60

What amazes me about Waymo is how expensive the rides are. They're at least 20% more expensive than Uber (the much more expensive Uber of today, not the Uber of 2-4 years ago), sometimes 100-150% more expensive. If they can't be cheaper, then what's the point?

the jaguar ipace base vehicle is uber black eligible in some markets, compared to the shitty check engine light hoopties you could risk with uberx
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