Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities

I think the general public has believed that self driving would arrive as some big bang moment where it just "worked" in 95%+ of environments where people drive. One morning there'd be an announcement it was cracked and then in six months you'd be able to buy a new car with it.

I don't think from either a business, technical or legal perspective google ever wants to sell or license their tech directly to a car being sold to the public.

They want to run a taxi service, they plan on running a taxi service, they're never going to sell it directly to consumers but they don't want consumers thinking about the implications of that.

They're just going to keep expanding Waymo in the background till it's ubiquitous.

Most startups actually.

Why do you think the trips are slower than a human? I've only taken one Waymo trip (and my wife two) but in each case it didn't feel any slower than a Lyft. But it felt a lot safer! They definitely drive better than any human Lyft driver I've ever had.

And the prices seems to roughly match Uber/Lyft. Sometimes they're higher sometimes lower. The one ride I took I chose the more expensive Waymo just for the better experience. You don't have to worry about what the driver might say or do that makes you uncomfortable or unsafe.

Operational profits is not really a goal for Waymo in near term. The current goal is to be many years ahead of competition, getting permits to operate in major profitable cities with profitable routes.

The cost of a Waymo car right now is around $150K. Soon, Waymo will build its own cars (with partnership with some car manufacturer) from scratch which will bring this cost to around $40K.

currently WayMo has around 2 people per car employed in service roles which will be like 2 people per 50 cars. At that point they will be swimming in profits.

I'm pretty certain they won't undercut Uber or other taxi services any time soon because they don't want to provoke the political headache that comes with it. That type of politics could shutdown their licenses, I'm sure they want to avoid that at all costs so they're pricing above existing services.

What they may do is refuse to raise prices and eventually inflation will make them the cheapest.

They're probably within reasonable distance of gross profit, and much farther from net profit because of the imbalance between their current fleet size and the massive ongoing manufacturing and R&D costs. The organizational goal is not immediate net profits though.

Take this with the grain of salt it deserves. No one relying solely on publicly available information can give you anything more than highly speculative guesses.

Maybe not profitable yet. But each generation Waymo car seems to cost about half of the previous generation.

I would pay more for a slower ride just to avoid having to pay a tip.

>but if being profitable means charging more than Uber/Lyft and having slower trips on average than a human

thats just a function of the numbers of cars on the road

I would love to have one! Imagine all the benefits you just listed, but it's just mine so I can keep my stuff in it. Maybe my car seat or my work equipment or my shopping bags.

I get where I'm going and I send it over the the parking garage a mile away that's cheap, and then summon it back when I'm done with my event, so I never have to circle for parking. If enough people to it, they would probably develop a protocol so that they can be parked at a lot that is super dense and it's a puzzle to get the cars in and out.

And they could still be sold with remote human backup services (as well as giving you the owner the ability to take over if you want to).

I could also send it on errands. Go to Target and pick up my curbside order. Go to the pizza place and have them drop it on the front seat. Pick up my kid from school and bring her home. Go pick up my mother in law and bring her to my house so I don't have to go get her!

And I could use it to drive me to my parents house 350 miles away while I sleep.

I can think of a million reasons I'd want one.

> Uber and Lyft basically have lots of revenue

Waymo is level with Lyft in San Francisco [1].

> plenty of other companies experimenting with self driving taxis, cars, trucks, etc.

None with a track record. The only wild card is Tesla.

[1] https://www.ktvu.com/news/waymo-ridership-skyrocketed-in-sf-...

I wouldn't be surprised if Uber/Lyft essentially end up as aggregators for autonomous cars.

You'll have multiple (local) companies, possibly Uber franchisees, maintaining autonomous fleets and doing the low-margin work of car cleaning, acquiring the vehicles, servicing them etc. Uber will be the interface between the passenger and those companies.

Uber could even keep some human drivers for peak-traffic situations that it would be uneconomical for a ppurely autonomous fleet to handle.

I recently came across an article on the early years of the Zürich streetcar. In the early 1900s, 5 minute schedules were customary, with one especially busy line running a 3 minute schedule!

In contrast, nowadays the peak schedule is 7.5min.

> Also van or bus service is less compelling to individuals, as it makes them beholden to bus stop locations and schedules instead of picking them up and dropping them off when and where they want.

Exactly this. The attraction of self-driving transit is the support for individual planning. Everyone gets a direct route to their destination, no delays stopping or detouring for other people.

There's also increased safety in having a personal ride. You're not being hassled, stalked, or threatened by random people.

> With a large van or bus, the cost of the human driver is split between more passengers

It's also increased in that one must manage the passengers.

I'm seeing a lot of talk of there being a shortage of bus drivers in many places, so self-driving could probably still help increase service

That’s offset by dramatically lower prices and significant service in off peak hours.

Net result bus drivers are still a large fraction of the cost of bus service.

Well, low crime, not high trust. Like, noone trusts each other to throw out their trash the right way.

They list a few cities but not 10 cities.

They're testing in Upper Minnesota and upstate New York. Upstate New York contains the snowiest city in the US, Syracuse.

Not so much snow, as you have rapidly changing road conditions such as ice and freezing rain. And then factor in poor road markings and not always abundantly clear path finding.

The nice thing about EVs like they're using now. The electric motors are pretty good at responding and handling different road conditions, much faster than ICE vehicles since you can never quite predict what the engine is doing at a given moment.

Truckee/Tahoe is an extremely popular test area for bay area AV companies. Waymo's been testing there regularly since at least 2017.

> they will push back because “NIMBYism” runs deep

Waymo is being adopted in wealthy areas first. To the extent there is NIMBY sentiment, it's towards rideshare drivers. (Also, billionaires probably wouldn't be taking Waymo. If their properties aren't fly in they're driving themselves.)

I love that you included numbers, but that is for all of Alphabet's "other bets" which includes Waymo, so it's not entirely Waymo. It still helps give ballpark figures though.

Good - a few months after Y2K38 so they'll have worked out all the problems by then.

The subway already wins the competition with uber and drivers. 1 million drivers per day and 2 million riders per day. The subway is king . I love it so much.

Pull up the MTA tracks and let Waymo better use the right of way.

I prefer streets that don’t have traffic so pedestrians can walk freely, and watching these waymo cars trap themselves and cause 30 minute long traffic jams because their code accidentally put them in a holding pattern is a genuine nightmare