[dageshi]

I'm convinced that Waymo will quietly continue to roll out self driving taxi's to ever increasing areas in "beta" until one day they're covering a significant percentage of the most profitable areas to be a taxi in.

Instead of trying for universal self driving, they're going to prioritise being self driving taxi's for the most profitable areas.

[Animats]

> 'm convinced that Waymo will quietly continue to roll out self driving taxi's to ever increasing areas in "beta" until one day they're covering a significant percentage of the most profitable areas to be a taxi in.

Makes sense. Ten cities are most of the US taxi market.[1] New York City alone is about a third. New York will be tough in several directions, but Waymo will probably succeed there eventually. Meanwhile, they can just scale up in LA.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxis_of_the_United_States

[danvoell]

I feel like some people have been using "most profitable areas" instead of saying dense urban areas and upset that it might take a while to reach rural and suburban areas. Is that what you are saying? What business is not in the business of pursuing the most plausible profitable direction first?

[dageshi]

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.

[kevlened]

This doesn't align with what they've said publicly. The intent is to eventually make this technology available to own:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCY214KiwNs&t=1329s

[dageshi]

Yes, I know they've said that. I don't believe them. Or rather even if they do sell them I think it will be at a point where their robo taxi's are complete ubiquitous already.

[dtmooreiv]

I think you mean their stated intent is to eventually make this technology available to own (I haven’t watched the video you linked but I’m going to charitably assume they say what you’re asserting).

I, and many others, are past the point of trusting their words.

[HPMOR]

Most startups actually.

[kart23]

Are they even profitable in SF or LA? I don't disagree with you, but if being profitable means charging more than Uber/Lyft and having slower trips on average than a human, thats not gonna work out too well. And these are the highest CoL cities in the us, meaning that if its not profitable there, might not be profitable anywhere.

[jedberg]

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.

[strifey]

Their wait times tend to be worse, but that's getting better too. The trip speed has also noticeably improved. I've taken about 50 over the past 2 years.

Even if they're sometimes slower in pickup or trip time, on average, I greatly value the consistency of the experience over everything else.

[someperson]

Waymos are terrible at taking unprotected left turns into bumper to bumper traffic during peak hour.

They aren't aggressive like a normal driver when traffic is stopped and there's a clear but small gap that would result in the car being at an angle crossing traffic.

The lidar can't see any gap between cars when trying to turn into a more distant lane, so any obstruction to a close lane due to traffic kills them.

Source: been stuck in and observed Waymo in this situation for 10+ minutes several times.

A human driver is willing to make the turn much sooner.

Don't take a Waymo if you're in a hurry and the route will have such a left turns.

[strifey]

Anecdotally, they've gotten much more proactive at taking unprotected lefts in my experience.

[pesus]

They seem to be getting more proactive in general. I was surprised last night when the one I was in went full barrel through a light that was already yellow and turned red while we were still in the intersection.

[guiambros]

Ha, I had the exact same experience on a Waymo last night.

The light had just turned yellow before we entered the intersection, and I was sure it would slam the brakes (there was no one behind, so no risk of being read-ended). Yet it accelerated and cleared the intersection as the light turned red. It was what any reasonably good driver would do, but certainly edgy for a 100% law-abiding robot.

Pretty flawless experience.

[usefulcat]

I’ll definitely take that over the Lyft driver I once had who went through a red light 1-2 seconds after it turned red. Not that that’s typical for ride share drivers in my area, but still.

[RivieraKid]

When was the last time this happened to you?

[someperson]

Last Thursday. I called support after 10 minutes to cancel the ride but the car started moving while I was on the call.

That particular one was a traffic light green light with a "do not queue over intersection" area specifically designed to allow cars in my lane to turn onto the main road. The Waymo can't see that there's a gap in the lane it wanted to turn into, and was too conservative about queuing over the intersection at an angle when the light was green like any human would do.

[bps4484]

I should first note that I'm a big fan of waymo and want autonomous to succeed generally.

I take both waymo's and lyft/uber all the time in sf and waymo's are way slower. I'd estimate it at 10-15% slower. Once the novelty of a waymo wears off you realize that they drive like a high anxiety teenager and going 15 mph on a 15 mph road, coming to gentle full stop at every stop sign, and being very tentative on turns and passing people all add up to a very slow ride.

You're right though it definitely feels safer.

[pesus]

The calmness is a major selling point for me, personally. Beyond just the safety aspect, I can't count how many times I've gotten nauseous from Uber and taxi drivers swerving and accelerating/stopping abruptly, often for no actual speed gain.

[astrange]

Were those rides in hybrids? I've noticed the way they brake is a lot more likely to get me carsick if I'm sitting in the back, especially Priuses.

[pesus]

Cars of all kinds, really. But It seems to be more common in either crappy old gas cars or Teslas. I know Teslas have weird brake settings, but every ride I've experienced this has definitely been from aggressive and reckless driving.

[alistairSH]

It stopped at a stop sign?!?!? THE HORROR!

Kidding but not kidding. Easily half my Uber rides have been legit scary. Yellow cabs only slightly better.

How does Waymo do for cleanliness and odor? That would be another selling point vs regular Uber/Lyft and many yellow cabs. These days they all seem to douse the interior with cheap cologne.

[esafak]

I stopped using Lyft after two close calls with drivers who must have faked their papers. One Lyft drive ran a red light into a postal truck at an otherwise empty intersection causing the front to fall off, like that Australian ship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM

[potato3732842]

Stopping at a stop sign isn't just stopping at a stop sign. The way you pull up to it conveys a rough picture of your intentions to other drivers, or at least the ones that are on the ball. Good drivers actively time their arrival to avoid potential confusion with other traffic.

[miki123211]

The sad truth about Waymo is that they have to aim for a 0 (or extremely close to 0) accident rate for PR/regulatory reasons, especially so for accidents caused by Waymo, and that's always going to heavily influence the way they drive.

Uber drivers cause accidents sometimes, just like all drivers do. Whenever this happens, we generally blame the driver and not Uber. It's a completely unremarkable event that the media will not pick up on, because everybody knows that car accidents are just a fact of life.

If a Waymo causes just one fatal accident, people will be up in arms and demand a ban on self driving. That means they have to be extremely conservative in how they drive, especially as more and more of them appear and the probability of one causing an accident goes up due to simple statistics.

[jltsiren]

There is a simpler explanation: every Waymo vehicle is effectively the same. If one makes a mistake, every vehicle will likely keep making the same mistake over and over again, until it's fixed. If the mistake causes harm, there is often a clear causal link from a flaw in the system to the harm, which can be a pretty good incentive to fix it.

Human drivers are all different. They also learn from their mistakes and change unpredictably over time. Humans can get away with all kinds of unsafe behavior, because bad outcomes are unlikely in any particular situation. If something bad happens, it could easily be a one-off issue. And even with systemic issues, it's easier to change the environment / regulations / vehicles than the drivers.

[esafak]

That's a product decision, though. They want people to feel safe, and to build a sustained record for being safe. They could easily hit the pedal if they wanted to.

They are doing the right thing.

[potato3732842]

>They want people to feel safe.

"Lawful to a fault teenager" is not what people want in a taxi driver. That type of chauffeur doesn't make people feel safe. It makes them on edge. But unfortunately that's the kind of AI chauffeur regulators want.

I agree it's the "right" way to do it from a PR perspective though.

[jedberg]

They don't drive like teenagers do (the Tesla FSD does, but that's another story).

A Waymo drives more like a 50 year old who's seen some shit and drives well but defensively.

[GrzegorzWidla]

Having more people drive like Waymo would likely result in faster travel times for all. It’s a well studied phenomenon. In cities the intersections are a bottleneck and driving at slower average speed often means stopping less often.

Also, don’t you think it’s weird that you complain that the car goes 15 on a road with speed limit equal to 15?

[kccqzy]

I'd rather do that than fear for my life when an uber driver decides that the 65mph speed limit should be understood as 85mph. Waymo doesn't even get on the freeway.

[aiauthoritydev]

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.

[ugh123]

> currently WayMo has around 2 people per car employed in service roles

Do you have a source for this? I'm curious about their operations

[RivieraKid]

It's almost certainly not true.

[rob74]

> The current goal is to be many years ahead of competition

The problem with this is that one of their competitors (Tesla) now has very powerful friends in the government which are certainly not above using that power in their favor...

[dageshi]

This is another reason why I think they will remain low key.

They'll perpetually be in "beta" until they're so ubiquitous that the idea of getting rid of them is unthinkable.

[dageshi]

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.

[Rodeoclash]

They can charge more in Melbourne and I'll happily pay it to avoid drivers that cancel the trip after accepting or accept the trip and drive away from me until I cancel.

[RivieraKid]

Charging about as much as their competitors is probably the profit-maximizing strategy.

[standardUser]

They're already the cheapest if they match prices because there is no tip required. In the long run they'll inevitably be cheaper because of higher utilization of their vehicles and (vastly) lower labor costs.

[rwmj]

This is a misunderstanding of the economics of taxi firms. Taxi companies don't pay for purchase or depreciation of their cars (the drivers do), but Waymo does.

[standardUser]

There are no drivers with Waymo. Believe it or not, a living annual wage for a person (or close to it) is vastly more expensive than the annual maintenance and depreciation on even a very expensive vehicle.

[AlotOfReading]

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.

[Animats]

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

[spjt]

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

[lopkeny12ko]

You will certainly be happy to learn that Waymo is in fact introducing tipping.

https://x.com/wongmjane/status/1884136644238008334

[JumpCrisscross]

It goes to a charity of the rider's choice [1].

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/28/waymo-is-reportedly-buildi...

[rwmj]

I will pay more to avoid having to talk to the driver. Last taxi I took, the driver started talking to me about all the different world religions.

[asdasdsddd]

>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

[simonw]

I honestly don't understand the appeal of a private self-driving vehicle as opposed to a taxi-style rental service.

I like that Waymo has human backup! Knowing that if the car gets into a tricky situation there's someone who can remote control it back out again is very reassuring.

I also like not having to think about where it parks, what it's doing when I'm not in it etc.

[jedberg]

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.

[dageshi]

I've been thinking about this.

In self driving world it no longer makes sense for a car to look like they do now.

Instead I think they operate a bit like Coach and Horses used to. You the consumer own the "coach", you have it specced out how you want it, your choice of seating (hell even a bed?), your sound system, your big screen tv, whatever you want because you're a passenger not the driver.

The "horses" are the self driving bit + batteries. The ubiquitous taxi service owns these. Maybe you permanently rent a low range model (100 miles) that is attached to your "Coach" at all times for quick errands. For longer range journeys you hire a model with more battery and longer range that drives over and attaches automatically to your coach.

For really long range journeys, your self driving "horse" drives into a coaching station along the way, detaches and another one attaches in 30 seconds and off you go.

[djhn]

Ooh interesting vision! Are any companies pursuing this avenue?

[dageshi]

The self driving bit has to be nailed down first I think, once that's done nothing I've described is even remotely difficult to implement, it's more a matter of peoples thinking around driving evolving.

I think it might go this way because people feel like they want to "own" their "cars". Especially in America it's a big part of the culture, so I can see being able to buy the coach part as being a popular compromise.

Powering electric cars is already cheaper, but right now they're less convenient, with self driving they become as convenient or more than gas vehicles. You no longer have to stop and charge anywhere because there's a fresh "horse" waiting to be hooked up while your existing one drives off to a charging station, all the downsides are automated away.

[bryanlarsen]

BYD is doing something related in China. They've got a fairly popular battery swapping service that can swap in and out batteries of different sizes.

[AlotOfReading]

Maintaining an autonomous vehicle comes with a significantly higher maintenance burden than a regular car right now. Even if the sticker price were the same, would you be willing to check the air pressure regularly, take the vehicle in for calibration, clean the sensors, do software updates, implement the legal reporting responsibilities, etc? That's the current reality.

Most people don't want that and there's no market for it. Consumers (rightly) expect a vehicle that just works. It's still early days for this technology and building something that works as reliably/independently as the rest of a car isn't possible yet.

[jedberg]

> Maintaining an autonomous vehicle comes with a significantly higher maintenance burden than a regular car right now.

Sure, and the cost would be really high too, but for a very wealthy person it might be worth it.

> would you be willing to check the air pressure regularly

I have to do that on my regular car, but it only needs air once every six months or so. New tires are pretty good about holding air. Also, no different than a regular car.

> take the vehicle in for calibration

I already have sensors on my car that require calibration, and I do that when it goes in for maintenance, about once a year. I wonder if these sensors need calibration more often.

> clean the sensors

You mean, wash the car? :)

> do software updates, implement the legal reporting responsibilities, etc?

I assume that would all be automatic over the air. And again, we're talking about someone who could afford a $150K car. There is a good chance they could hire someone to do that stuff too.

[AlotOfReading]

Generally, all of these (except sometimes calibration) are done on a weekly/monthly basis for testing fleets. Software updates and diagnostic reads can be automatic, but in practice there's enough moving parts that they require fairly regular intervention for safe operation. Legal reporting is not automatic currently. Tesla implemented that for their ADAS solutions and has been repeatedly grilled by NHTSA on their incomplete reporting. All of the commercial fleets implement reporting semi-manually because of the existential danger getting it wrong represents.

[adamanonymous]

I think most people would rather have their car circle the block indefinitely, rather than pay for parking and wait for their car to summon, which would create so many new traffic problems.

I'm picturing herds of empty Model 3's endlessly circling every city's downtown office district

[GrzegorzWidla]

Careful what you wish for. Cities that don’t fight back such a mass influx of self-driving cars running errands for everyone would become absolutely non-livable.

[xnx]

> but it's just mine so I can keep my stuff in it

In the distant future (10 years?) we may have private trailers/pods that are moved by self-driving vehicles. Best of both options.

[RivieraKid]

They're already covering 0.25% of total US paved road network per my napkin calculation.

[fooblaster]

yeah, that's exactly what they are going to do. It's how Uber worked as well.