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How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

fortune.com

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Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#91

Post by bigfudge »

dventimi wrote: post #83
codetrotter wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't have to worry about tipping I can almost guarantee that if they don’t already, the robo-taxis will eventually start asking for tips. This is already the case at self-checkout in some stores for example. As long as the companies can get away with it, they will tack on any number of extra fees and charges even if those fees and charges really don’t make any sense. Hell, even tipping people does not really mak…

I do not accept your guarantee.

There will be bullshit booking charges etc though. The thrust of their point is largely correct. I really wish people were more sensitive to being stiffed like we are by these sorts of stupid charges … that they arent means there is often no alternative.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#92

Post by jillesvangurp »

vincnetas wrote: post #79

As a proponent of good public transportation I'm a bit afraid that automated taxis will get big enough in USA that they will start influence city wide decisions on how to develop city transport network even in Europe when time comes for them to expand their business.

No need to be afraid. Public transport will evolve to include small autonomous vehicles. The economies of scale you get by packing people in larger vehicles mostly have to do with the cost of fuel and staffing.

Electrical autonomous vehicles don't have a need for a driver and electricity is relatively cheap. So you don't get much economies of scale by making them bigger. Most city journeys would be under a kwh. Even at current grid pricing that's cheap.

Eventually, cheap autonomous vehicles could be mass produced at low cost and would have very low operational cost. So the ride cost would be comparable to, or lower than, current public transport options.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#93

Post by bigfudge »

charlie0 wrote: post #81
codexb wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if you're under 25 and have always lived in a dense city this seems like a valid take. Taxis aren't new, they have always existed. Just because they're driven by computers now isn't going to magically change all the reasons that people didn't use them before (hint: it wasn't because they were driven by humans). No one with kids wants to ride in taxis with kids all the time. Ditto for anyone with hobbies that re…

This will boil down to availability and price. Taxis are generally just too expensive to use often and also waits are too long. Of course, I'm comparing cost of frequent taxis vs buying a used car.

The other problem is the economics flips over once you also have to own a car. The marginal cost of each trip goes down … but if waymo is good enough for 95% of the time the it might not be necessary any more.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#94

Post by nullc »

jseliger wrote: post #3

I just left a version of this in another thread—I live in Phoenix and now take Waymo regularly, and it seems like we're close to a world in which most people take self-driving cars most of the time, crash rates plummet, and these kinds of articles come to resemble articles from 1910 about horse-related problems. Humans suck at driving: https://jakeseliger.com/2019/12/16/maybe-cars-are-just-reall... Waymos avoid many…

Humans are astonishingly and unreasonably good at driving. There are, indeed, a lot of traffic deaths but this is because we drive a mind-boggling amount so even a very low rate of fatalities adds up to a substantial number.

A significant portion of traffic deaths also occur in special conditions-- at night, with intoxicated persons, in bad weather.

Existing self driving cars won't even drive in those more difficult conditions.

In terms of the passenger miles driven if you compare to non-intoxicate humans the expected number of deaths for self driving cars is still below 1 if they were as safe as non-intoxicated human drivers.

Safer cars are an excellent goal but they're not automatically a given result for self driving.

> Waymos avoid many of the Uber challenges: foul-smelling "air fresheners," dubious music / talk radio choices, etc.

And introduces new ones like being dropped off blocks from your destination because the car refuses to drive on perfectly fine roads, service being unavailable in poor weather, and extending Google's tracking of everything you do online to offline.

:D

Aside, you can just ask uber drivers to turn off the radio.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#95

Post by nullc »

titanomachy wrote: post #10
jseliger wrote: post #3

I just left a version of this in another thread—I live in Phoenix and now take Waymo regularly, and it seems like we're close to a world in which most people take self-driving cars most of the time, crash rates plummet, and these kinds of articles come to resemble articles from 1910 about horse-related problems. Humans suck at driving: https://jakeseliger.com/2019/12/16/maybe-cars-are-just-reall... Waymos avoid many…

In the same vein, I don't ride uber often but when I do I often find that drivers leave their windows closed and car's air circulation turned off completely. When I ask for "a bit of airflow" they apparently hear it as "I'm too hot", so they turn AC to maximum power. I'm not sure whether this reflects their own preferences, what they think customers want, or if they are just completely oblivious.

Don't be too timid to tell them what you want. If they turn out the AC to max instead, just say "Sorry, I'm not hot I just want some fresh air."

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#96

Post by bigfudge »

threeseed wrote: post #68
1oooqooq wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's cool. until it's not. it's very easy to release an upgrade of stopping less on stop signs and see data increasing profit and not increasing accidents. same with code updates that will make cyclist life worse, unless there's actual change in a kpi they track. you're not really their main concern, specially after they ipo and get acquired by Apollo or billionaire du jour

Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet. And not sure why you think running stop signs or any anti safety measures would increase profits.

Because once the current safety scrutiny has passed you might get more trips done by setting the ai to be more aggressive in traffic. Then you are into VW style software updates with a profit motive and no mechanism to hold them accountable?

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#97

Post by inlined »

dventimi wrote: post #83
codetrotter wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't have to worry about tipping I can almost guarantee that if they don’t already, the robo-taxis will eventually start asking for tips. This is already the case at self-checkout in some stores for example. As long as the companies can get away with it, they will tack on any number of extra fees and charges even if those fees and charges really don’t make any sense. Hell, even tipping people does not really mak…

I do not accept your guarantee.

I actually wonder if “tip the development team” makes sense (assuming tipping is gratuity and not because an employer pays below-living wages). Weirdly it might even lead to quality improvement because low tip areas could be detected and debugged.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#98

Post by Denvercoder9 »

bigfudge wrote: post #91
dventimi wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not accept your guarantee.

There will be bullshit booking charges etc though. The thrust of their point is largely correct. I really wish people were more sensitive to being stiffed like we are by these sorts of stupid charges … that they arent means there is often no alternative.

I'll take bullshit charges that I can know about upfront over being nagged for tips every day.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#99

Post by thih9 »

spiderice wrote: post #71
codexb wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if you're under 25 and have always lived in a dense city this seems like a valid take. Taxis aren't new, they have always existed. Just because they're driven by computers now isn't going to magically change all the reasons that people didn't use them before (hint: it wasn't because they were driven by humans). No one with kids wants to ride in taxis with kids all the time. Ditto for anyone with hobbies that re…

I have kids and don't like Taxis, but I'm not sure I entirely agree with your take. The idea of a humanless Taxi showing up to my house sounds way more appealing to me. I can take my time to get car seats in and kids buckled, without feeling the pressure to hurry from the human driver. I don't have to feel like my kids misbehaving are going to annoy a human driver, or get me a bad review in Uber/Lyft. I don't have to…

> I don't have to worry about tipping, or the driver taking a longer route to charge me more. I don't have to worry about small-talk, or awkwardly sitting in silence when I normally would be talking with those I'm driving with.

This or an equivalent will arrive to a robo taxi near you when the service inevitably gets enshittified to hell and back.

Ads, trips shared with other humans, pay extra for heated seats, etc.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#100

Post by Denvercoder9 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #92
vincnetas wrote: post #79

As a proponent of good public transportation I'm a bit afraid that automated taxis will get big enough in USA that they will start influence city wide decisions on how to develop city transport network even in Europe when time comes for them to expand their business.

No need to be afraid. Public transport will evolve to include small autonomous vehicles. The economies of scale you get by packing people in larger vehicles mostly have to do with the cost of fuel and staffing. Electrical autonomous vehicles don't have a need for a driver and electricity is relatively cheap. So you don't get much economies of scale by making them bigger. Most city journeys would be under a kwh. Even…

> The economies of scale you get by packing people in larger vehicles mostly have to do with the cost of fuel and staffing.

Trains (and train-like options such as metros) are vastly more efficient than cars in number of people moved per unit of time per area used. That might not be a big deal in suburbia, but in dense inner cities it's one of the most important drivers of public transport.

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