[laluser]

Looks like Waymo will be the first Alphabet moonshot that will reach 100B valuation in the not too distant future. Just need to hit the most profitable cities and Uber will have to compete at lower prices, while they're a public company. The nest egg will will be kept full as it's the only working autonomous ride solution out there making any money.

[rwmj]

I think it's great we finally have self-driving cars, but why the huge valuation? Waymo has the enormous capital cost of owning the cars. Unlike taxi companies they don't push that capital cost to their drivers.

[zachthewf]

Ginormous market, 10x better product, no competition is currently close.

Plus although they have the capital cost of owning the cars they don't have the COGS of paying the drivers so presumably much higher margin per ride.

[valval]

You’re right that Tesla’s product is so far ahead that it can’t really be called competition.

[zachthewf]

I love Tesla, I own the stock, but I don't think they can be considered comparable until they have a live autonomous taxi service that regular people can call from their phones and regularly rave about.

[valval]

On one hand, Tesla could roll out a Waymo competitor in all the necessary cities in a matter of months if they wanted to. On the other hand, Waymo will cease to exist as soon as Tesla cracks their robotaxi problem.

[aurareturn]

  I think it's great we finally have self-driving cars, but why the huge valuation? Waymo has the enormous capital cost of owning the cars. Unlike taxi companies they don't push that capital cost to their drivers.

Ultimately, it's still the riders who pay for the drivers and their cars in a traditional taxi company and Uber. The cost of the car doesn't just disappear.

[rwmj]

Unfortunately that's not always true. Taxi drivers often work for below minimum wage, or even occasionally below cost.

[kernal]

>but why the huge valuation?

Uber without the expense or problem of a driver.

[IshKebab]

Well currently Waymo is about double the price of Uber. But yes hopefully one day it will be cheaper.

[phoe18]

> Well currently Waymo is about double the price of Uber.

This is not accurate in my experience in SF. Most of the time, the price is comparable to UberX and during peak-times, the price is upto 20% higher than UberX.

[IshKebab]

I spent a week there very recently (like 3 weeks ago) and checked the prices a lot. It was always around 50%-100% higher than Uber. It was never even close to 20% higher.

I took a couple of trips for the novelty value (as someone else mentioned, it's by far the best tourist attraction in SF at the moment!). The experience was really great - very relaxing - but there's no way I'd use it if I just wanted transport. I can see women paying a premium for it out of fear of taxi drivers, but that's not really an issue for me. I would maybe pay a small premium to avoid awkward lack of conversation, and the bad driving of typical taxi drivers, but not 50%!

[phoe18]

This post compares prices in LA: https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/s/sU6l51A0XD. It's inline with what I mentioned above.

[AceFromOttawa]

They could be scaling price with demand similar to Uber. Could be demand for Waymo was higher than demand for Uber at the time you checked.

[seanmcdirmid]

That wasn't my experience in August, the prices were pretty much at parity whenever I looked.

[fragmede]

Right this second, 11 am Tuesday after Veterans day, 2024, a trip to the Palace of Fine Arts would cost me $15 on Waymo, $24 for a wait and save on Lyft, and $17 for an UberX.

[orangecat]

Also no pressure to tip with Waymo.

[fragmede]

Right this second, 6pm on a Friday night, the Marina, Waymo was $30, Lyft was $25, and Uber was $20.

[fragmede]

9pm, Saturday night, Uber and Lyft to Hibernia bank is $12, Waymo is $17.

[xnx]

> But yes hopefully one day it will be cheaper.

I also hope it will be cheaper, but it's definitely worth paying more for Waymo because of the better experience: safer, smoother, quieter, no weird smells, or conversation, etc.

[written-beyond]

If anything Waymos are much more likely to have weird smells than Ubers since the robot can't smell. Nothing is stopping someone from scrapping some dog doo off their shoe onto the carpet to the pleasure of the next rider.

[acover]

Unless the weird smells come from the driver. If a customer causes a smell the car will be cleaned and the customer fined. If the driver is smelly - like from sitting in a car all day - there's nothing to be done.

[written-beyond]

Who can tell who caused the bad smell? If you have a driver they'd know but how will Waymo know which of the 20 or so riders dragged in dog doo, maybe the doggy doo accumulated through the first 10 rides. Who foots the bill then?

[acover]

The same way as with car shares. You blame the person before the person to report it and have cameras.

[IshKebab]

They are definitely cleaner right now, but that's probably mostly because only rich people and tourists currently use them. If they ever become cheaper than an Uber I would expect them to become smellier too.

[Sivart13]

but anyone who gets into a Waymo that smells like dogshit can get out, report it, and wait for the next one. Are you describing a real problem or just one you imagine?

[written-beyond]

In these scenarios you do understand that there will be a non zero number of smelly Waymos, that was my entire point, also until someone reports it you really won't have that smelly Waymo fixed.

[LanceJones]

The losses are currently in the neighborhood of $1B per year. That may or may not reduce... scaling is hard. For every car they add right now, the worse the loss becomes. So I'm a little skeptical on your valuation estimate.

[Dylan16807]

Are they losing money when they add cars in regions they already support? That's more important than the cost of expanding into new areas.