[a9a]

This is a bit of a let down and suggests to me that either they are not confident in the tech arriving at scale any time soon or they are not serious about directly challenging Uber. These are expensive vehicles and not custom-designed for a self-driving transportation service. I would be surprised if they were much cheaper per ride than Uber in cheap markets.

If they were serious about taking on Uber/Lyft soon I would expect them to be willing to make a bet on a long-life, extremely cost-focused custom vehicle. Maybe this is a stop gap to keep proving the tech until someone else (Uber?) gets impatient, licenses their tech, and spends the vehicle capital.

[jonknee]

The cost of the kit Waymo will add to the cars is surely more than enough to make any vehicle choice quite expensive by conventional standards.

It shouldn't matter too much though, drivers are very expensive compared to cars. Not paying a hypothetical Uber driver $100 a day could easily finance a supercar, let alone a Jaguar. And the autonomous car can work triple shifts.

[sauwan]

Why can't they have both low cost and premium versions? Even if going high end first is the strategy here (I'm not sure it is considering them getting deals for outfitting Pacifica's), Tesla focused on the premium market first and was able to create a luxury image that makes the mass market crave it.

[notahacker]

Google are going to scope out basic partnership agreement frameworks with the companies interested in making partnership agreements with them, and if that happens to be a premium vehicle manufacturer then so be it. If they wanted to invent a new kind of "long life, extremely cost-focused vehicle" it would take them much longer anyway, and be entirely unnecessary to successfully challenge an app company making a loss in most markets and running out of runway. What really matters is if, when and where Waymo have self driving tech adequate and legal for commercial operations.

In the unlikely event of Waymo actually ordering 20k Jags, the economies of scale they'd get would be enormous even compared with non premium Uber vehicles bought on finance at dealer prices even before the driver gets paid, and many taxi markets use premium vehicles by default.

[stocktech]

It read as a positive to me. Uber is losing in Asia and here's Google partnering with Jaguar who's owned by Tata Motors. This sets Google up for North America, Europe, and Asia.

For a self driving taxi, I don't understand the need for a cost focused option.