It’s wild that $goog is so undervalued (p/e 27) given Alphabet owns Waymo in addition to everything else, and yet Tesla is so overvalued (p/e 243!!!) despite zero Robotaxis in the near (or far) future and lackluster sales.
Goes to show empty promises and fraudulent showmanship sell better than actual working products that people use.
aaronharnly · 2h ago
This sentence was a bit cute: "Waymo has received our pilot permit allowing for commercial operations at San Francisco International Airport." Yeah, that kind of pilot.
I really had to read through it twice to make sure they were just talking about car taxis picking up travelers, rather than some kind of prototype pilotless commuter helicopter or something.
danielvaughn · 1h ago
That was my first interpretation, and I was very surprised and kind of afraid. Glad to know they aren't trying for autonomous flight yet.
bdcravens · 1h ago
I have zero expertise for my claim, but I feel like autonomous flight is easier than autonomous driving.
jerf · 1h ago
The hard part of automated driving is dealing with all the ground clutter that planes serenely fly over. If pedestrians could charge out in front of a 777 going 650 mph at 34,000 feet... well... we'd be living in pretty different world! And in that world, flying would be much more difficult. Not just for computers but for humans too.
Flying is obviously much harder than driving, but it's a sort of harder that is generally more amenable to automation, though I still think pilots are a good idea because when it goes wrong it goes wrong much worse.
bluGill · 56m ago
Flying is almost always easier than driving. landing is hard. Bad weather is hard. But just flying - human pilots have napped many times over the years and it only rarely is an issue. Airplanes with primitive autopilot are very good.
Sohcahtoa82 · 8m ago
Yeah, a primitive autopilot in a plane just needs an altimeter and compass, but a AoA sensor, speedometer, fuel level sensor, and pitch sensor help to detect unsafe conditions like runaway pitch, stalling, overspeed, low fuel, etc. Each of those sensors is providing a simple 1-dimensional data point. Redundancy is relatively inexpensive.
Automatic lane keeping in a car requires cameras that software needs to then analyze to find the lines in the road in real time. But if you want a "set it and read a book for an hour", then you have to respond to other traffic. No longer just some simple PID controllers, the software now needs to plan and execute based on surrounding traffic.
tim333 · 9m ago
It depends a bit on your safety standards. There are already autonomous flying things delivering blood and blowing up oil depots where it doesn't matter so much if stuff goes wrong, but to be an airline pilot you have to know how to deal with a huge range of emergencies and systems packing up.
With a car if the engine fails you just pull over. With an airliner it's not so simple. As a result the training for a pilot is much longer than for a bus driver say.
0_____0 · 1h ago
In the abstract yes but in practice the economic (ratio of cost of pilot to pax miles) and safety context of aviation mean fully autonomous flying has to be extremely robust before it has actual utility in industry.
rkomorn · 1h ago
In practice, you're also currently very reliant on infrastructure that is definitely not as solid as you want (eg: ILS and GPS can be interfered with quite nastily).
ILS being under maintenance and unavailable for certain runways is also far from unusual.
dcrazy · 1h ago
On the happy path, yes. Though I don’t think takeoff is automated yet.
Currently we rely very much on the problem solving abilities of human pilots to deal with troublesome situations. Autopilot will disengage in many scenarios.
seanmcdirmid · 1h ago
I'm pretty sure drones can already take off on their own. Taking off is a lot easier than landing, and planes have auto-landing tech already.
nradov · 42m ago
Drones (both autonomous and remote piloted) have much higher mishap rates than crewed aircraft. Taking off is "easy" until something goes wrong, like a mechanical failure or runway incursion. It's impossible to anticipate and explicitly code for every possible failure mode, so developing autonomous flight control systems that would be safe enough for commercial passenger flights is extremely challenging.
Category IIIC ILS (full auto-land) does exist but requires special equipment for both the aircraft and airport. Human pilots have to actively monitor the system and take back control if anything goes wrong (which does happen).
Garmin also has the Autonomí auto-land system for certain general aviation aircraft which can attempt to land at the closest suitable airport. But this is only used for single pilot operation in case the pilot becomes incapacitated. It isn't suitable for regular flights.
dcrazy · 1h ago
Takeoff at a commercial airport is a very challenging and potentially dangerous situation. There’s way more margin to abort a landing than a takeoff.
prmoustache · 47m ago
OTOH takeoff and landing could in theory be operated by people on the ground, flying simulator style.
I still believe that having an actual pilot inside the plane that care for his own life is not a bad idea vs someone remote feeling a bit disconnected with the reality of a crash.
dcrazy · 10m ago
The pilot’s self-preservation instincts aren’t the most important reason to have them onboard. It’s that any loss of communication between the ground and the airplane at any point during either procedure would turn it into an uncontrolled cruise missile.
nradov · 39m ago
Remote piloting is how the military operates certain drones like the MQ-1 Predator. The mishap rate is very high relative to crewed aircraft due to network lag and sensor issues. The military is willing to accept some level of equipment loss in order to accomplish their mission but this would never be allowed for commercial airliners.
xyzelement · 34m ago
I am not sure why you were down voted. The original meaning of the word pilot is someone who comes aboard a ship for "the last mile" - getting in and out of the harbor and what you are talking about is kinda like that - a person associated with the airport rather than airplane to guide the planes in and out - perhaps using more reliable local communication technology vs what is used to control drones half way around the world.
I have no idea if that works but I thought you were making a good contribution to the conversation by proposing a potential solution to the exact problem everyone is talking about.
csours · 1h ago
It's kind of funny how you can both be right.
lawlessone · 1h ago
It's the failed takeoffs that lead more often to jets leaving the run way and crashing into buildings or trees.
snickerdoodle14 · 1h ago
I also feel like the demand is way, way lower. A pilot can't be that large a % of the cost of a flight. Maybe if we lived in the jetsons era.
rkomorn · 1h ago
Depends on the size of the plane, really. One of the reasons a few companies were investing in fully autonomous air taxis is because the math on a small piloted aircraft wasn't realistic for a low enough price point to be competitive.
seanmcdirmid · 1h ago
The problem is actually safety. As automated systems get better, the pilot is left with not much to do, and has to maintain vigilance while being really really bored. It is almost better to have fewer automated systems and give the pilot more things to do during the flight so it is easier to keep them paying attention, or all automated with no human pilot to mess things up.
efavdb · 1h ago
Don’t have a ref but heard that it’s been safe for quite a while but they keep the pilots around due to consumer fear rather than actual improved performance. Curious if anyone can confirm.
rkomorn · 1h ago
No. Airliners can't even take off on their own yet, and are only allowed to auto-land with zero visibility at a few dozen airports when the pilots, plane, and runway are all current/recently checked.
Look up the Airbus ATTOL project's first automated takeoff a few years ago.
Also, there's virtually no automation when it comes to interacting with ATC.
johnisom2001 · 3m ago
> Also, there's virtually no automation when it comes to interacting with ATC.
Check out the Cirrus Autoland feature in their aircraft. They are all small personal aircraft, but the tech is pretty cool. Will talk to ATC and fully auto-land for you in the event of an emergency where the pilot is incapacitated.
SoftTalker · 49m ago
An airplane will take off when it is properly configured and it hits a certain speed. It's simple aerodynamics/physics. Pilots are there to react to failures and unexpected events.
3ple_alpha · 27m ago
There's a bit more to it since you do need to do last bit of configuration (pull up the nose) just as you hit the target speed. But yeah, automatic take-off is quite a bit easier than automatic rejection of take-off.
Sohcahtoa82 · 3m ago
Even manually pulling up the nose once you reach Vr isn't necessary if you just trim for a little extra nose-up. It'll eventually get off the ground with just enough speed.
rkomorn · 33m ago
Sure. It'll also land if you don't care about anyone surviving.
csours · 48m ago
If you can design the product and environment to fit automation, then automation can be quick and effective.
The less you can change about the product and environment, then automation run slower and less effectively.
Air liner operations could be automated, but the minimum equipment list would be more stringent, the destination airport would not be able to take any equipment out of service for maintenance, visibility minimums would increase, takeoff and landing operations would require more slack time.
Besides all of that, the owner of the airplane would still want to have some crew on board.
In short, it's not worth it yet.
===
There is also the paradox of automation: Automation generally makes the hard parts harder and the easy parts easier.
anonymars · 1h ago
In a pinch, a car can just put on its hazards and pull over
dcrazy · 1h ago
That “just” is doing some heavy lifting! The car still has to deal with all the normal hazards of the road while pulling over, plus the hazards it is itself creating by acting abnormally.
amelius · 1h ago
"Autopilot" already exists when it comes to flying.
bdcravens · 1h ago
Sure but it's not autonomous in the sense of Waymo (ie, driverless)
In fact, it's pretty routine. Don't have the source at hand, but somewhere around 1% of all landings (at airports with ILS) are autolands.
I think it was Boeing that even requires at least 1 autoland per plane every 30 days or so.
You can find videos of this on YouTube. Completely hands-off.
danielvaughn · 1h ago
Yes but it should have been obvious that in the context of Waymo + SFO, the implication was autonomous flying of commercial airlines.
seanmcdirmid · 1h ago
Yes, but autopilot usually just keeps the plane flying in a straight line at some specified altitude, which have been around since 1912. It isn't full self-flying (although we definitely have drones that can fly themselves already, so that tech already exists).
dawnerd · 1h ago
That's an oversimplification of autopilot systems. They can follow flight routes, avoid traffic (TCAS), even auto land to name a few.
seanmcdirmid · 1h ago
Auto-landers are not simply classified with autopilots. An autoland system is an advanced function that is part of a modern aircraft's overall autopilot capabilities. A basic autopilot can control an aircraft's attitude and heading, but an autoland system can automatically execute the full landing procedure.
loeg · 29m ago
The flying kind is a license, not a permit.
simonbw · 22m ago
There are driver's licenses and learner's permits. This could be the flying equivalent.
As a European, I can’t help but feel a bit sad that we’re missing out on the driverless side of things. It seems like most of the meaningful deployments are happening in the US (Waymo, Cruise).
I’d really like to see either a Waymo competitor emerge in Europe, or even Waymo themselves operating here. The regulatory environment is obviously more complex, but it’d be great if we didn’t end up years behind on something this transformative.
arcticbull · 42m ago
Cars of any sort, self-driving or otherwise, do not solve traffic any more than Uber does because you need to have enough of them to get everyone to and from work at basically the same time. Trains are the only way to address traffic. Trains are self-driving. Europe already has the better self-driving system. It's just boring because self-driving is much easier when you build the road to support it instead of removing all constraints and adding GPUs, lidar sensors, cameras and an army of fall-back operators in overseas call centers.
balfirevic · 1m ago
[delayed]
durandal1 · 30m ago
Trains will fairly unreliably take you from one place that is not your home, to another place, which is not where you want to go, at a time that is probably not exactly when you wanted to arrive. Freedom of movement is incredibly important, and trains are very rigid in this aspect.
mint5 · 26m ago
Well That’s certainly not been my experience when visiting Europe. In fact, it many cases it’s been the opposite - having a car would have been restrictive in any major city and a source of friction.
BurningFrog · 7m ago
Trains are great when going to tourist attractions, especially in the center of old cities.
When you live and work in a city, they're much less practical.
grandinquistor · 19m ago
I think the answer to this is microbility bike/scooter sharing (ex: lime)
Trains to cover the longer distance and micro mobility options to get to exactly where you need to go
dieortin · 28m ago
Fairly unreliably? Unlike cars, trains do not typically suffer from traffic jams.
durandal1 · 2m ago
This is based on my personal experience, I used to ride trains for travel a lot. I grew up in Europe and lived there for 31 years so this is not based on ignorance.
arcticbull · 29m ago
Try a bicycle or a stroll instead of embracing the WALL-E.
If you feel that way about transit you may not have tried a good transit option like Hong Kong MTR with 90 second headways and travel from and to substantially everywhere you want to be.
There's some self driving tech being developed in Europe, but AFAIK nothing is at the current deployment level of Zoox or Aurora, let alone Waymo.
carlhjerpe · 26m ago
Does it matter where it's developed though? Once it's good enough to expand into all major US cities they could look into deploying in Europe too.
Im happy to let Americans be the beta testers
JumpCrisscross · 48m ago
> I’d really like to see either a Waymo competitor emerge in Europe, or even Waymo themselves operating here
I think you’ll see American and Chinese self-driving kit in Europe once it matures. It’s just easier to iterate at home, so while the technology advances that’s where it will be.
leesec · 21m ago
Cruise is basically winding down. Tesla is the other major competitor
tuxone · 41m ago
Maybe there just not enough interest? After all there is good public transportation (especially rail), increasing biking habits and just loving the driving experience.
leetharris · 11m ago
Cruise has been out of business for almost a year I think.
ghurtado · 49m ago
> As a European, I can’t help but feel a bit sad that we’re missing out on the driverless side of things
I don't know about other countries, but Spain will probably be one of the last ones to get it, thanks to the Uber-powerful (heh) taxi driver lobby
petters · 19m ago
We can’t even use Waymo when we land at SFO for a visit
standardUser · 55m ago
Apollo Go (the Chinese Waymo owned by Baidu) is planning to start road testing in Germany and the UK in 2026, in partnership with Lyft.
aaomidi · 18m ago
US and China basically.
archagon · 46m ago
As an American with extensive time spent in Europe, I’d much, much rather have European-style metros and tramways than self-driving cars.
Waymo (though a technical marvel) is a bandaid over our inability to build and maintain public infrastructure. Be sure to cherish what you’ve got.
dgfitz · 35m ago
As an American, I think you’re naive and short-sighted.
You must realize that, at some point, self-driving cars will be ubiquitous. Maybe not for 50 years, but they will be.
What you’re actually saying is “I’m virtue-signaling with Europe because that’s what the cool kids do”
archagon · 27m ago
…What? What sort of terminally online strawman would be spending his free time “virtue-signaling with Europe” to some anonymous bozos on a tech forum? What a dull and intellectually uncurious reply.
I think self-driving cars may eventually become common in areas where cars are currently common. I think public transit will continue to dominate in parts of the world where it currently dominates, because it is simply a superior user experience for the majority of people when the government cares to invest in it. (Not to mention far cheaper and more egalitarian.)
I am conveying my lived experience in most European cities I've been to.
whiplash451 · 31m ago
EU’s amazing infrastructure is the Minitel that will prevent it from getting the internet of self-driving.
Subways don’t solve last-mile problems or trucking.
archagon · 24m ago
Good. Cars ruin walkable cities, and the last-mile problem can be solved in other ways.
And it's not just the EU. I'm sure that e.g. China and Japan will continue to invest in their excellent public transit infrastructure even when there are more self-driving cars on the road.
mtoner23 · 1h ago
Regulation and under investment
unfitted2545 · 27m ago
Those darn regulators, don't they realise companies just want what's best for us?
whiplash451 · 34m ago
Wayve?
softwaredoug · 40m ago
Don't worry, we're missing out on a lot of "progress" on this side of the ocean thanks to Trump's dislike of wind farms and RFK Jr's whole anti-vaxxer thing
Hilift · 58m ago
One thing you are missing out on: mandatory loud (97 to 112 db) 1000 Hz audible beep when the vehicle reversing, oh so slowly, such as at the recharging station. Also, constant shop vac five horsepower vacuum cleaner sound. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Oh wait, you thought those would be in the middle of nowhere? Nope.
Unless and until those noises that you mention are as annoying as those made by present time ICE vehicles, your point will remain irrelevant.
AlotOfReading · 1h ago
I'm surprised and incredibly impressed at this announcement. It seems trivial, but the general feeling in the industry has been that SF would fight tooth and nail against robotaxis at SFO.
The NIMBY/landlord supervisors who controlled SF, such as Aaron Peskin and Dean Preston, are now a thing of the past.
mmmore · 1h ago
I genuinely think things have changed with Lurie as mayor and 6 growsf endorsed people on the board.
quotemstr · 42m ago
It's going to take a long time for SF to overcome the reputation it built for itself in the 2010s.
khuey · 1h ago
Recent changes in the composition of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (i.e. Peskin being out of government) may have something to do with it being easier than expected.
Animats · 1h ago
Waymo got approval for SJC last week. That probably accelerated approval for SFO, which had been stalling. Nice.
When they get clearance to drop people off at the main terminals, that will be more convenient. Pickup at the terminals is harder. There will be a need for a staging area somewhere in the parking structures.
standardUser · 1h ago
Few major airports I've been to allow Uber/Lyft anywhere near the pickup area, so many fliers are already accustomed to walking a quarter mile or so to their rideshare. But their inability to use the drop-off area is a new inconvenience, and I can see it limiting the appeal.
JumpCrisscross · 46m ago
> Few major airports I've been to allow Uber/Lyft anywhere near the pickup area
Few major airports have Waymo at all. Phoenix has allowed pick-up at the airport for ages. (EDIT: Never mind.)
standardUser · 36m ago
I'm talking about Uber/Lyft drivers being required by many airports to pick up away from the normal pick-up area, usually down the road a bit or in a parking garage.
dilyevsky · 42m ago
Uber black and at least lyft extra room have no problem picking you up at the arrivals
egypturnash · 4m ago
Okay what're the odds on how long it is until there's a stray Waymo on the tarmac. Hopefully with enough warning to divert any planes about to land on it.
ajmurmann · 2h ago
Looks like this Kiss & Fly area where pickup will be is at the car rental center.
kotaKat · 1h ago
Oh, this makes a bit of sense. The Avis/Budget fleet team will be part of managing the vehicles, so they can be quickly cleaned and fueled up when they slide into the airport, too.
Same. I go to the rectal car center at least 4 times each year. I just was there on Saturday and had no idea either. Still don't know what it is other than Waymo pickup.
owlninja · 2h ago
>rectal car center
Known nickname or typo?
ajmurmann · 1h ago
Definitely phone autocorrect issue. I'm gonna leave it though
blindriver · 1h ago
How often do you type "rectal" for that to become an autocorrect default for you??
ghurtado · 43m ago
If you are over 50, and serious about not getting colon cancer, maybe a little bit more than one would expect.
buckle8017 · 1h ago
I use Google keyboard without customized auto correct.
It really likes to change random words to inappropriate things.
But I guess that's the people who are typing on phones a lot are typing about.
apwell23 · 1h ago
OP is a urologist
pryelluw · 1h ago
Otherwise known by its popular name “Cloaca-Rent—A-Car”
SirFatty · 2h ago
Or both :-D
bombcar · 2h ago
It - along with cell phone waiting lots - are ways for people to drop others off and avoid the traffic around the terminals themselves.
Which can be bad - I often find it easier to just pay for a few minutes parking on dropoff/pickup.
smelendez · 43m ago
I did always find the term kiss and fly confusing and weirdly intimate, as if everyone is getting a ride to the airport from a spouse or parent. Definitely a throwback to another era.
bombcar · 14m ago
I think it's also a regional thing; I'd never heard of it.
whycome · 1h ago
> rectal car center
That's way mo' information than needed thanks.
But seriously. I wonder why they have a designated pickup point if it would make sense to spread the cars out to alleviate traffic bottlenecks.
ghurtado · 44m ago
What's even better is the variety of names this thing has. I'm my area, it's the "cell phone lane"
Tossrock · 2h ago
Does this mean they'll be able to take the freeways to get there? Surface streets from SF to SFO would be pretty slow.
nickvec · 2h ago
I'd hope so. As an aside, I wish Waymo was more transparent on the app that their cars are not allowed to take passengers on the freeway. I was unaware of this restriction when I booked a ride from SF to Burlingame last month and I was stuck in a Waymo for an hour going down residential streets!
bitpush · 2h ago
Doesnt it show the route and the ETA before your book the ride?
eptcyka · 1h ago
No, they need to add a pop up with even more text users will not read.
MostlyStable · 2h ago
They have had permission to be on freeways for a while [0], although so far they have only done employee testing (I believe)
I wonder how that'd feel. I took a Waymo in SF last fall and I was pretty impressed. But it was also slow city speeds. I wonder if it feels different going at freeway speeds with "no one" at the wheel.
mynameisvlad · 1h ago
While the margin of error is much lower on a freeway due to the speeds, other drivers are generally a lot more predictable (also in part due to the speeds).
davidw · 1h ago
Sure - a good freeway is actually a lot more predictable in most circumstances than city driving, so as a problem to solve it's likely a little bit less complicated. What I wonder about is what it feels like as a passenger. I wonder if it would be more or less frightening than being a passenger when my 17 year old is driving.
jdeibele · 41m ago
I use adaptive cruise control a lot, where I rely on the car for keeping a safe distance.
I have a limited version of SuperCruise which means it operates hands-free on freeways but nowhere else. My wife's Equinox EV has the regular version, which operates on a lot of arterials near us and has more capabilities. The first time that the Equinox signaled, changed lanes to pass, signaled, then changed lanes back was shocking.
We moved to a small town and drive a lot more than we used to and I find that having those capabilities really helps relieve the stress.
I will say that I move to the center lane when going through a notorious set of curves on I-5 in Portland because my Bolt doesn't steer as smoothly as I'd like near the concrete barricades. I wanted SuperCruise because it has a fantastic safety record. There are lots of times it's not available but when it is, I have near-total confidence in it.
rdoherty · 25m ago
I took a Waymo that drove on an 'expressway' which had a speed limit of 40mph and it was definitely a different feeling. I did feel a bit scared, at 25mph it feels like a gentle theme park ride, at 40mph it's beyond that and feels dangerous.
transitorykris · 24m ago
From the article “ Pickups and dropoffs will initially start at SFO’s Kiss & Fly area – a short AirTrain ride from the terminals – with the intention to explore other locations at the airport in the future.”
TulliusCicero · 43m ago
They're still working on freeways, doing employee riding testing.
buckle8017 · 1h ago
The surface street route that bypasses 101 near Brisbane is surprisingly often faster than 101.
People love crashing there.
roughly · 2h ago
Boy, if they could actually navigate terminal traffic, I’d give ‘em true self driving.
wagwang · 2h ago
SFO traffic is not bad at all. Send them to LAX and we're talking.
jayd16 · 2h ago
Its not true self driving until the Waymo asks if dropping you off at arrivals is ok.
andy99 · 1h ago
There's the big sign there telling you to go to arrivals for drop-off. This is probably a stupid question but can Waymo cars interpret those temporary display signs and follow them? Would it?
OkayPhysicist · 1h ago
It seems to handle the standardized ones (think "construction ahead, detour left") perfectly well from the rides I've taken, but there's all sorts of ways they could be 'cheating' on that.
apwell23 · 1h ago
Thats AGI
ian-g · 1h ago
I'll be honest, I think LAX's traffic is better than SFO's.
It feels like there's a lot less spaghetti at LAX, the shortcuts are reasonable, and you don't have separate international and domestic loops.
rkomorn · 1h ago
LAX's many parking lots with left lane entrances definitely threw me for a loop the first couple of times.
Overall though, I think I agree with you.
whippymopp · 1h ago
JFK is probably the 10th circle of hell
lunarboy · 8m ago
I don't touch JFK with 10mi pole. I've always found EWR to be much more consistent and easier to get to
javiramos · 1h ago
Send them to BOS and we're talking
dgacmu · 1h ago
Is the mark of intelligence being able to navigate to BOS, or refusing to drive through the big dig in the first place?
Andrex · 8m ago
The Big Dig, for all the digs it rightfully got for taking forever and costing a shitton, actually does the job it's supposed to (mostly). I'm generally pleasantly surprised how few problems it had when I lived there.
I didn't go to Logan a ton though.
asah · 1h ago
JFK has entered the chat
mtalantikite · 1h ago
I'll take JFK over LAX. The construction going on right now at JFK sucks, but LAX is comically bad. Just last week I was on a rental car shuttle at LAX and watched 3 separate groups of people at different terminals miss their flights because traffic just wasn't moving.
ra7 · 2h ago
They already do in PHX.
caycep · 9m ago
at first I thought they were doing those cargo quad copter things...
phendrenad2 · 1h ago
Hopefully Waymo does a better job than SF Uber drivers. I can't tell you how many times I've had drivers make a wrong turn trying to find their way to the pickup point.
phkahler · 1h ago
Can you handle parking structures? I heard a lot of the autonomous cars were using 2D maps and couldn't handle multiple levels. Haha! This was just a year or two ago.
lunarboy · 6m ago
Do they need a "map" of a parking tower though, just like how humans don't exactly need Google Maps inside of one? I feel like this is something self driving + vision (exit signs and arrows) can handle
cperciva · 53m ago
Google maps has been able to figure out parking structures for me recently. Not sure what technology is involved (gps isn't great for vertical) but it's clearly possible.
kayamon · 1h ago
Do taxis need to park tho?
mystifyingpoi · 55m ago
I mean, depending on the situation, of course. Do taxi drivers in US drop people right in the middle of a busy street?
kayamon · 18m ago
Kinda yeah? They certainly don't navigate into long-term multi-storey parking structures.
fnord77 · 1h ago
one of the waymo depots in SF is a multi level parking building
amykhar · 29m ago
Cause what this country needs is to automate away even the gig economy jobs that are out there. Let's keep making a few people rich and screw all the normal people out there.
olivermarks · 1h ago
Waymo ride costs are getting really expensive in SF.
harmmonica · 1h ago
Not sure if you have a recent side-by-side example with Uber, but this seems like it would have to happen if the demand is there. How else can you offer a quality product (i.e., car shows up in a reasonable amount of time) if you don't have enough cars to satisfy the demand? Pricing is the primary demand lever.
There's so much polarizing opinion on Tesla's offering and whether they'll get to Waymo's level sooner than later, but this seems like it's going to be or already is a huge issue for Waymo where they can't manufacture the vehicles fast enough to satisfy the demand as they expand both locally (because they capture more of the market) and into new geographies. Will they try and acquire a manufacturer? I don't think that's economically feasible for Waymo (Geely market cap is $25b, per Google snippet fwiw), and obviously being in the car business is different than autonomous, but I'm sure Google would bankroll a purchase if they thought it was the right growth strategy.
I guess Tesla, even if their autonomous is on par with Waymo tomorrow, also has to manufacture the fleet, but it seems extremely beneficial to have that capacity in house vs. relying on partners. Maybe I'm wrong and it's not that much of an advantage, but at first glance it would seem to be.
Zigurd · 24m ago
The CEO of Uber was quoted as saying Waymos complete more rides per day than 99% of Uber drivers. He didn't give a precise ratio but this makes me think that hundreds of Waymos can replace thousands of Uber drivers and their cars.
CMs like Magna have the flexibility to manufacture, at the low end, hundreds of vehicles, and at the high end thousands. I doubt Waymo will ever make their own vehicles. They are already working with Toyota on adapting Waymo technology to privately owned cars. That implies mass production. That would be a supply of vehicles that are probably simple to adapt to robotaxi use.
harmmonica · 4m ago
That's a crazy statistic and an interesting one for him to actually say out loud. Was that in the context of Uber partnering with Waymo in Austin? And thanks for the insight on the manufacturing side. Sounds like it might actually be to their advantage to use third parties because you can spread the demand around and since auto margins are not high the added cost for that benefit is minimal.
JumpCrisscross · 45m ago
Waymo is a premium ride product that happens to be self driving.
yetiofparis · 1h ago
just use Robotaxi. 1/3 of the price, sometimes less
natch · 21m ago
How much per mile? For some recent example rides, let's say. One I took was exactly $2 / mile but not in SF.
xvedejas · 1h ago
What's that? An app? I see a Chinese app of that name in the android play store, but it only has about 1k downloads
The Tesla service is colloquially called "Robotaxi".
mbesto · 15m ago
For now...
chucknthem · 49m ago
Not sure why you're downvoted. I've tried Robotaxi a few times and has been great. They still have a safety driver these days and wait time is a big high though.
nashashmi · 42m ago
I see a monopoly about to take shape. DOJ/FTC is sleeping on breakup schemes. USDOT should start government/private ventures in this space.
baggy_trough · 2h ago
I wonder what the ultimate price of this service will be compared to alternatives.
MostlyStable · 2h ago
It will remain higher for a while. From reporting I have seen, they are close to maxing out their vehicles, and many people prefer it to other options, so are willing to pay a premium. As long as that is true, it's going to be priced as a premium product. It won't be until fleets grow significantly in size and/or another driverless taxi service enters the market that we will maybe start to see prices driven down closer to marginal cost of a ride.
-edit- multiple other comments apparently disagree with this. I'll defer to people who actually use them over the reporting. Odd that there is that disconnect though.
lunarboy · 4m ago
I know this is only a single data point, but I recently took one in Hollywood. Uber Lyft quoted $33 and Waymo was $20
Zigurd · 20m ago
On other threads I've seen conflicting anecdata regarding pricing being higher or lower than an Uber ride. That's not too surprising since the supply and demand variables are going to be different for Waymo.
TulliusCicero · 41m ago
Yeah they need scaling and competition before the prices get lower. As long as supply is saturated with demand and nobody else is on their level, there's little reason to lower prices.
harmmonica · 28m ago
Yeah, and just to add even though it's implied in your comment, there's plenty of reason to keep prices where they are independent of a desire to increase revenue. Customers will not wait forever for the car and so if the demand is high you have to keep the price high to discourage people from using it so wait times remain in check. Tricky tightrope they're going to be walking while they optimize the fleet size for local adoption and geographic expansion.
paxys · 1h ago
It's also higher right now because it is a novely. Plenty of people are booking it just to say they rode in a Waymo and take pictures. When that wears off they will have to start competing strictily on price and wait/ride time.
bradleybuda · 1h ago
Lots of people, myself included, pay a premium to not have a human at the steering wheel; it's nice to have the car to yourself.
paxys · 1h ago
Yourself and three dozen recording devices and call centers full of people tracking the car and reviewing the footage, yes.
OkayPhysicist · 1h ago
To be fair, Waymo claims to not record or transmit audio without you either manually engaging such (by requesting support), or a very unambiguous announcement (presumably when the car gets into some sort of emergency situation). And lying about that claim would probably run afoul of California's 2 party consent law. So still a step up in privacy versus having someone in the car listening in on your conversation.
That said, even if they were listening to you, there's a lot of things that are completely inconsequential from a perspective of an anonymous call center employee far away listening in on, that I probably wouldn't want to talk about in front of a taxi driver.
mystifyingpoi · 51m ago
I still count that as a win.
octo888 · 1h ago
Like, the driver's presence bothers you? Even if they don't talk?
harmmonica · 11m ago
This is just me, but maybe helps explain it. It's not that the presence of a driver is bothersome, but in the pre-Waymo world your interaction with the outside world starts when you step out the door of your house. Now the interaction with the outside world starts when you get to your destination and step out of the Waymo. I really enjoy the outside world, mind you. But it just feels easier to traverse my local area in solitude and with a consistent and comfortable vehicle, and non-erratic driving style.
I imagine how nice it could (will?) be when you can hop into a self-driving car for a longer ride or even a road trip. I think you'll feel like it's an extension of your living room vs. being in a car.
kylehotchkiss · 1h ago
Their goal is to have lower cost Hyundai models hit the market though, right? So the Jags probably remain the premium/higher cost option.
OkayPhysicist · 2h ago
In my experience so far, Waymo costs about the same as an Uber when you take into account tipping, but takes longer (they're not yet doing freeways). With the addition of SFO to their zone, I can't imagine freeways are far behind, because getting from the city to SFO without using the freeways would be... a novelty.
kelnos · 14m ago
That's not been my experience... 90% of the time when I check, Waymo is still a good 20-50% more expensive in SF, when comparing to a tip-included Uber or Lyft price.
ru552 · 2h ago
I've used Waymo countless times in SF. It's typically 15% cheaper than an Uber/Lyft and trip time/wait are generally the same. I much prefer the Waymo.
WorldPeas · 1h ago
I've never encountered it being cheaper, what hours do you generally use it?
ru552 · 59m ago
Generally between 11a and 7p. Going to lunch/dinner.
bix6 · 2h ago
Cheaper than uber rn. Long term once they own the market? Too much.
gretch · 2h ago
They still have to compete with alternate modes of transportation such as buses, bikes, trains, e-scooter rentals, self-owned cars, Uber with human drivers.
If it would be "too much", then there's no reason why taxis (incl uber/lyft) wouldn't be too much today.
bix6 · 8m ago
I don’t really think they have to compete much.
Direct competitors are uber and Lyft which they can undercut since they don’t pay drivers.
The people who want to take buses and trains will continue to do so although Waymo might sway some with their ease and if pricing is reasonable.
Bikes and e-scooters only get you so far. Last time I was in SF I didn’t see too many bikes but I saw a ton of e-scooters. Are you really taking an e-scooter further than a few blocks? And when it rains?
Self owned cars make sense for longer trips out of the city but parking is a pain and driving is stressful so this is an easy win for Waymo.
It’s cheaper now so they can take market share. And their cost will certainly be lower than Ubers so they can win the pricing battle. But long term monopoly gonna monopoly. Perfect pricing is a given with the wealth in SF and how many rides will be on a business CC.
ElijahLynn · 1h ago
from what I heard, the intention is to make it much more affordable than it is now. I don't remember the source right now but I did think it was a blog post or something like that.
I think if it's affordable then people will easily take that. instead of drinking and driving at night or other unsafe activities. if it's affordable then people can just take a waymo home and then back again to get their car when it's safe again.
bix6 · 12m ago
Certainly they aim to make it affordable now in order to undercut Lyft and uber. Long term they will own the market and jack up prices as monopolies do.
airstrike · 2h ago
That's great to hear
The title makes it sound like GA but it's still in testing
Traubenfuchs · 1h ago
Seems like Tesla keeps talking big, while waymo conquers city by city.
fnord77 · 1h ago
Too bad waymo is more expensive than uber most of the time
SoftTalker · 46m ago
Why is that too bad?
perfmode · 1h ago
Is Waymo L5?
bryanlarsen · 1h ago
L5 means the car can drive everywhere a human can. Waymo's refuse to drive outside of a constrained area, and occasionally stop to ask for assistance, so that makes them L4.
horhay · 56m ago
This whole autonomous driving levels kinda muddies the waters. Some would argue this isn't full L4 even. But it is a self driving car in the places it offers its services.
AlotOfReading · 42m ago
What would be the argument that Waymo is anything except L4?
yakz · 1h ago
No, L5 is a car that can drive itself anywhere in any conditions.
TulliusCicero · 40m ago
I think there's an implicit "where a decent human driver could drive safely" for L5, otherwise you get increasingly ridiculous scenarios like, "can Waymo drive safely in a whiteout blizzard?" or "can Waymo safely escape an erupting volcano??"
amelius · 1h ago
Wait, what is special about driving to/from airports?
yonran · 1h ago
What’s special about the airport is that the City of San Francisco owns and regulates it (as opposed to the streets that are regulated by the state CPUC), and the Board of Supervisors previously were regulatory captured by taxi medallion owners and Teamsters union (https://missionlocal.org/2024/12/waymo-rolls-toward-san-fran...). Specifically, Aaron Peskin (BoS supervisor from 2001–2009, 2015–2025, and board president for the last 2 years) said, “Their entire M.O. is, ‘The state regulates us; we don’t have to work with you, we don’t have to partner with you.’ My response is: There are things we do control. Including where you charge your cars. And the airport. What I intend to do, is condition their deployment and use of the airport property on their meeting a number of conditions around meeting this city’s minimum standards for public safety and transit.” https://missionlocal.org/2023/11/waymo-rebuffed-by-sfo-sf-gu...
pryelluw · 1h ago
I’d say it puts a lot of Uber (and similar) drivers at risk because airport rides are a good source of income. Waymo undercutting them will reduce the amount of passengers available for pick up.
Not saying it’s a bad or good thing. Just that it has real world impact on people and the economy.
WorldPeas · 1h ago
Usually you'd have to take the BART one stop then the waymo, which seems to be a common tourist attraction for fresh deplaners. Perhaps the airport was afraid without that step of friction, too many people would try this and cause a waymo-jam
Chabsff · 1h ago
Isn't it by far and wide the most common use of taxi services? It certainly is basically the only time I ever use one.
Waymo getting into that space seems like a pretty big step up in market penetration.
tantalor · 1h ago
Looks like this would (eventually) include service to not just San Francisco, but also the Peninsula (Silicon Valley) via freeways.
tonyhart7 · 1h ago
is waymo really that good???
how good it compared to Tesla FSD/Robotaxi ???
djsavvy · 1h ago
haven ridden in both a few times, yes, Waymo is head and shoulders better. It's smooth and I don't think I've ever seen any false alarms or behavior that made me feel unsafe in a Waymo, while I've had a few scary or annoying situations in the Teslas. I took a 6-minute robotaxi in drizzling weather where it parked in intersections twice because the cameras were obscured. Meanwhile Waymo can drive perfectly in heavy fog.
Both the Waymos and Teslas have that central display that shows you what the car sees (pedestrians, dogs, traffic cones, other cars, etc). The Waymo representation of the world reaches pretty far is is pretty much perfect from what I've seen. Meanwhile the Tesla one until recently had objects popping in and out.
Neither is perfect, of course; both will hesitate sometimes and creep along when (IMO) they should commit. But they're both still way better in that regard compared to the zoox autonomous cars I see in SF.
TulliusCicero · 39m ago
Tesla doesn't have a real robotaxi yet, they're still in the testing/prototyping phase where they need a safety driver or safety monitor in the car.
They might be close to a real robotaxi in some areas, but it's hard to say until they actually pull the trigger on removing any employees from the car.
dboreham · 51m ago
Until just now I had no idea Tesla had a taxi service. Otoh I've seen hundreds of Waymos in SF and the west side of LA.
Zigurd · 3m ago
An interesting thing about this is that there are fewer than 1000 Waymos in the SF service area. I don't know today's total, but I'm pretty certain that there are fewer than 5000 Waymos in existence. Maybe as few as half that.
Some months ago Waymo claimed to be providing 250,000 rides per week. If the fleet size was 2500 at the time, that would be 100 rides per vehicle per week.
fnord77 · 59m ago
tesla robotaxi is worse than waymo was 3 years ago when I was a tester
pastureofplenty · 1h ago
Hope you like traffic!
Zigurd · 2m ago
Waymo can deliver as many rides as Uber with a small fraction of the number of vehicles.
thinkingtoilet · 1h ago
How would this reduce or increase traffic? The demand is staying the same.
Rebelgecko · 44m ago
Presumably the increased supply of "drivers" going to SFO will lower rideshare prices for everyone and make public transit less appealing
jgalt212 · 1h ago
surge pricing FTW!
james_marks · 2h ago
Have you priced this out compared to a regular taxi or Lyft?
It’s waaaay mo’
OkayPhysicist · 2h ago
Inside SF, my experience is that Uber and Lyft are ~10-15% cheaper than Waymo, but that's before tipping. I don't have to tip a robot, so they work out to nearly identical prices.
rowls66 · 1h ago
You don't have to tip an Uber or Lyft driver either.
mystifyingpoi · 48m ago
Preach.
gkbrk · 2h ago
You also don't have to tip a taxi driver. They get paid for giving rides, it's not an extra service.
bitpush · 1h ago
Yup, but it is kinda culturally expected to tip. You're right, you dont need to, but then again we do a lot of things just because it is .. polite.
kylehotchkiss · 1h ago
Waymo food delivery will be incredible. You won't even get your food if you don't tip your ubereats.
WorldPeas · 1h ago
The inherent problem there is the edges, most food delivery isn't the trip, it's the person getting out of the vehicle and putting it on your doorstep or going through the building. Zipline and their droneports for buildings seem to have the better solution, at least until waymo has some sort of legged robot that can bring the bag the last meter(s)
kylehotchkiss · 1h ago
I think the frustration with tips is so prevalent that the advertising could just be "Skip the tip, simply walk to the street to pick up your order!"
Would work great in suburbs where a robot car could pull in front of home for a minute or two, your food will be bid to another customer if you don't pick it up in 5 minutes. maybe the little robots in NYC are better.
WorldPeas · 58m ago
I would argue that the sidewalk robots are too hard to coordinate and not strong enough to hold up against crime, the solution is somewhat closer to my other comment below, a vehicle with maybe 4 or 8 food cells that can fill up at various locations then make its journey around the city. At that point the problem would be idle timeouts and how to handle disgruntled consumers that lost their window for pickup
rkomorn · 1h ago
Aren't the "first meters" also pretty problematic? Are Waymos going to double park in front of a restaurant waiting for someone to come out and put the right order in the right vehicle?
WorldPeas · 1h ago
That's easier to do with training, and the business is usually more willing than a consumer as it increases their business. Anecdotally, see how many of them (at least locally to myself) have adopted the doordash/grubhub tablets in their kitchen ordering system. I imagine it would be a co-packing situation with lockers on wheels similar to the vehicle KFC uses in China: https://www.mashed.com/284555/the-futuristic-way-kfc-is-sell...
Nuro is an independent company from Uber, the latter just has a partnership with and some investment in the former. Uber has similar relationships with more than half the industry at this point.
Dylan16807 · 38m ago
A lot of restaurants already have dedicated parking spots where they'll bring the food out.
corysama · 1h ago
I have a relative in Texas who is looking into leasing a drone to operate for food delivery. Apparently, that's already a thing there? If we could get food/small packages delivered to our building's roof instead of the front door, it would be a huge win for everyone in the building.
asdff · 1h ago
Using an otherwise empty 5 person vehicle to move a grocery bag worth of food is pretty stupid though
ForHackernews · 1h ago
>I don't have to tip a robot
Now that tips are tax free, it's only a matter of time before some clever SV accountants figure out how make everything a tip.
OkayPhysicist · 1h ago
Self-serve ordering terminals already often ask for tips. Presumably to be legal they're being paid to the kitchen staff, but I think sticking to "tips are for workers who have to pretend to like me" is a pretty firm boundary to stick to.
(Also, arbitrarily reclassifying things as tips is hard, because legally 100% of tip revenue has to go to workers, not management, and certainly not the company's investors or coffers).
ForHackernews · 1h ago
That's why they're clever accountants.
Tax-free tips paid to robots go to the hardworking AI engineers -> AI engineers voluntarily donate part of their tips to a 501(c)(3) that helps support struggling venture capitalists.
Something like that. We'll work it out the details once the right PAC donations are in place.
Goes to show empty promises and fraudulent showmanship sell better than actual working products that people use.
I really had to read through it twice to make sure they were just talking about car taxis picking up travelers, rather than some kind of prototype pilotless commuter helicopter or something.
Flying is obviously much harder than driving, but it's a sort of harder that is generally more amenable to automation, though I still think pilots are a good idea because when it goes wrong it goes wrong much worse.
Automatic lane keeping in a car requires cameras that software needs to then analyze to find the lines in the road in real time. But if you want a "set it and read a book for an hour", then you have to respond to other traffic. No longer just some simple PID controllers, the software now needs to plan and execute based on surrounding traffic.
With a car if the engine fails you just pull over. With an airliner it's not so simple. As a result the training for a pilot is much longer than for a bus driver say.
ILS being under maintenance and unavailable for certain runways is also far from unusual.
Currently we rely very much on the problem solving abilities of human pilots to deal with troublesome situations. Autopilot will disengage in many scenarios.
Category IIIC ILS (full auto-land) does exist but requires special equipment for both the aircraft and airport. Human pilots have to actively monitor the system and take back control if anything goes wrong (which does happen).
Garmin also has the Autonomí auto-land system for certain general aviation aircraft which can attempt to land at the closest suitable airport. But this is only used for single pilot operation in case the pilot becomes incapacitated. It isn't suitable for regular flights.
I still believe that having an actual pilot inside the plane that care for his own life is not a bad idea vs someone remote feeling a bit disconnected with the reality of a crash.
I have no idea if that works but I thought you were making a good contribution to the conversation by proposing a potential solution to the exact problem everyone is talking about.
Look up the Airbus ATTOL project's first automated takeoff a few years ago.
Also, there's virtually no automation when it comes to interacting with ATC.
Check out the Cirrus Autoland feature in their aircraft. They are all small personal aircraft, but the tech is pretty cool. Will talk to ATC and fully auto-land for you in the event of an emergency where the pilot is incapacitated.
The less you can change about the product and environment, then automation run slower and less effectively.
Air liner operations could be automated, but the minimum equipment list would be more stringent, the destination airport would not be able to take any equipment out of service for maintenance, visibility minimums would increase, takeoff and landing operations would require more slack time.
Besides all of that, the owner of the airplane would still want to have some crew on board.
In short, it's not worth it yet.
===
There is also the paradox of automation: Automation generally makes the hard parts harder and the easy parts easier.
In fact, it's pretty routine. Don't have the source at hand, but somewhere around 1% of all landings (at airports with ILS) are autolands.
I think it was Boeing that even requires at least 1 autoland per plane every 30 days or so.
You can find videos of this on YouTube. Completely hands-off.
I’d really like to see either a Waymo competitor emerge in Europe, or even Waymo themselves operating here. The regulatory environment is obviously more complex, but it’d be great if we didn’t end up years behind on something this transformative.
When you live and work in a city, they're much less practical.
Trains to cover the longer distance and micro mobility options to get to exactly where you need to go
If you feel that way about transit you may not have tried a good transit option like Hong Kong MTR with 90 second headways and travel from and to substantially everywhere you want to be.
Moia (Volkswagen) in Hamburg https://www.moia.io/en
Mercedes autonomous driving https://group.mercedes-benz.com/innovations/product-innovati...
There's some self driving tech being developed in Europe, but AFAIK nothing is at the current deployment level of Zoox or Aurora, let alone Waymo.
Im happy to let Americans be the beta testers
I think you’ll see American and Chinese self-driving kit in Europe once it matures. It’s just easier to iterate at home, so while the technology advances that’s where it will be.
I don't know about other countries, but Spain will probably be one of the last ones to get it, thanks to the Uber-powerful (heh) taxi driver lobby
Waymo (though a technical marvel) is a bandaid over our inability to build and maintain public infrastructure. Be sure to cherish what you’ve got.
You must realize that, at some point, self-driving cars will be ubiquitous. Maybe not for 50 years, but they will be.
What you’re actually saying is “I’m virtue-signaling with Europe because that’s what the cool kids do”
I think self-driving cars may eventually become common in areas where cars are currently common. I think public transit will continue to dominate in parts of the world where it currently dominates, because it is simply a superior user experience for the majority of people when the government cares to invest in it. (Not to mention far cheaper and more egalitarian.)
I am conveying my lived experience in most European cities I've been to.
Subways don’t solve last-mile problems or trucking.
And it's not just the EU. I'm sure that e.g. China and Japan will continue to invest in their excellent public transit infrastructure even when there are more self-driving cars on the road.
Oh wait, you thought those would be in the middle of nowhere? Nope.
https://www.karmactive.com/waymo-charging-noise-blasts-112-d...
When they get clearance to drop people off at the main terminals, that will be more convenient. Pickup at the terminals is harder. There will be a need for a staging area somewhere in the parking structures.
Few major airports have Waymo at all. Phoenix has allowed pick-up at the airport for ages. (EDIT: Never mind.)
https://www.avisbudgetgroup.com/avis-budget-group-announces-...
(Dallas, but they do this in other cities, too.)
Known nickname or typo?
It really likes to change random words to inappropriate things.
But I guess that's the people who are typing on phones a lot are typing about.
Which can be bad - I often find it easier to just pay for a few minutes parking on dropoff/pickup.
That's way mo' information than needed thanks.
But seriously. I wonder why they have a designated pickup point if it would make sense to spread the cars out to alleviate traffic bottlenecks.
[0] https://sfstandard.com/2024/03/01/waymo-san-francisco-cpuc-e...
I have a limited version of SuperCruise which means it operates hands-free on freeways but nowhere else. My wife's Equinox EV has the regular version, which operates on a lot of arterials near us and has more capabilities. The first time that the Equinox signaled, changed lanes to pass, signaled, then changed lanes back was shocking.
We moved to a small town and drive a lot more than we used to and I find that having those capabilities really helps relieve the stress.
I will say that I move to the center lane when going through a notorious set of curves on I-5 in Portland because my Bolt doesn't steer as smoothly as I'd like near the concrete barricades. I wanted SuperCruise because it has a fantastic safety record. There are lots of times it's not available but when it is, I have near-total confidence in it.
People love crashing there.
Overall though, I think I agree with you.
I didn't go to Logan a ton though.
There's so much polarizing opinion on Tesla's offering and whether they'll get to Waymo's level sooner than later, but this seems like it's going to be or already is a huge issue for Waymo where they can't manufacture the vehicles fast enough to satisfy the demand as they expand both locally (because they capture more of the market) and into new geographies. Will they try and acquire a manufacturer? I don't think that's economically feasible for Waymo (Geely market cap is $25b, per Google snippet fwiw), and obviously being in the car business is different than autonomous, but I'm sure Google would bankroll a purchase if they thought it was the right growth strategy.
I guess Tesla, even if their autonomous is on par with Waymo tomorrow, also has to manufacture the fleet, but it seems extremely beneficial to have that capacity in house vs. relying on partners. Maybe I'm wrong and it's not that much of an advantage, but at first glance it would seem to be.
CMs like Magna have the flexibility to manufacture, at the low end, hundreds of vehicles, and at the high end thousands. I doubt Waymo will ever make their own vehicles. They are already working with Toyota on adapting Waymo technology to privately owned cars. That implies mass production. That would be a supply of vehicles that are probably simple to adapt to robotaxi use.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tesla-robotaxi/id6744257048
-edit- multiple other comments apparently disagree with this. I'll defer to people who actually use them over the reporting. Odd that there is that disconnect though.
That said, even if they were listening to you, there's a lot of things that are completely inconsequential from a perspective of an anonymous call center employee far away listening in on, that I probably wouldn't want to talk about in front of a taxi driver.
I imagine how nice it could (will?) be when you can hop into a self-driving car for a longer ride or even a road trip. I think you'll feel like it's an extension of your living room vs. being in a car.
If it would be "too much", then there's no reason why taxis (incl uber/lyft) wouldn't be too much today.
Direct competitors are uber and Lyft which they can undercut since they don’t pay drivers.
The people who want to take buses and trains will continue to do so although Waymo might sway some with their ease and if pricing is reasonable.
Bikes and e-scooters only get you so far. Last time I was in SF I didn’t see too many bikes but I saw a ton of e-scooters. Are you really taking an e-scooter further than a few blocks? And when it rains?
Self owned cars make sense for longer trips out of the city but parking is a pain and driving is stressful so this is an easy win for Waymo.
It’s cheaper now so they can take market share. And their cost will certainly be lower than Ubers so they can win the pricing battle. But long term monopoly gonna monopoly. Perfect pricing is a given with the wealth in SF and how many rides will be on a business CC.
I think if it's affordable then people will easily take that. instead of drinking and driving at night or other unsafe activities. if it's affordable then people can just take a waymo home and then back again to get their car when it's safe again.
The title makes it sound like GA but it's still in testing
Waymo getting into that space seems like a pretty big step up in market penetration.
how good it compared to Tesla FSD/Robotaxi ???
Both the Waymos and Teslas have that central display that shows you what the car sees (pedestrians, dogs, traffic cones, other cars, etc). The Waymo representation of the world reaches pretty far is is pretty much perfect from what I've seen. Meanwhile the Tesla one until recently had objects popping in and out.
Neither is perfect, of course; both will hesitate sometimes and creep along when (IMO) they should commit. But they're both still way better in that regard compared to the zoox autonomous cars I see in SF.
They might be close to a real robotaxi in some areas, but it's hard to say until they actually pull the trigger on removing any employees from the car.
Some months ago Waymo claimed to be providing 250,000 rides per week. If the fleet size was 2500 at the time, that would be 100 rides per vehicle per week.
It’s waaaay mo’
Would work great in suburbs where a robot car could pull in front of home for a minute or two, your food will be bid to another customer if you don't pick it up in 5 minutes. maybe the little robots in NYC are better.
Uber's NURO seems to be developing a vehicle with a similar form factor as seen on this page: https://www.nuro.ai/first-responders
EDIT: see comment below, uber does not own NURO
Now that tips are tax free, it's only a matter of time before some clever SV accountants figure out how make everything a tip.
(Also, arbitrarily reclassifying things as tips is hard, because legally 100% of tip revenue has to go to workers, not management, and certainly not the company's investors or coffers).
Tax-free tips paid to robots go to the hardworking AI engineers -> AI engineers voluntarily donate part of their tips to a 501(c)(3) that helps support struggling venture capitalists.
Something like that. We'll work it out the details once the right PAC donations are in place.