Still can't believe the prices are comparable to Uber, sometimes costing even more. It should be significantly less to the point it drives Uber out of business. Is Waymo close to bankruptcy, unable to be profitable, or are they just greedy?
> It should be significantly less to the point it drives Uber out of business.
Prices are rarely based on cost, and more often based on what a customer is willing to pay. Waymo is a better experience than Uber (predictable, safe, clean, quiet, etc.), so it makes sense people would be willing to pay more.
> Is Waymo close to bankruptcy, unable to be profitable, or are they just greedy?
Only if Tesla is able to roll out a competing service. Given that they have zero cars without a safety driver on public roads, I’d say they’re a very long way from doing so, and I have my doubts about their ability to do so at all. Their CEO talks big but doesn’t deliver.
the people competitive in this space - your Waymo's, the Chinese auto co's (banned in the US), Mercedes | GM (won't do this as it cuts into their main profit lines) - so that will only leave Waymo as the only player in automated ride hailing
Are there indications that Waymo vehicles are sitting around idle? If so, then yes, they should reduce the price to attract customers. If they are essentially running at capacity with their current prices, why wouldn't they charge more? For the novelty, etc..
Examining the cumulative hours waiting over time, it is a bit staggering just how much time Waymos are spending without a passenger or even assigned to pick one up. Peaking in March 2025 with over 304,000 hours, the California Waymo vehicle fleet is spending the equivalent of 12,700 days every month operational but without an assigned passenger trip.
If we assume 1,000 Waymos were deployed for public rides during this period (on the conservative side given recent fleet announcements), that ends up being around 12.7 days2 of waiting per vehicle per month. Further, the bias here is to be forgiving, as Waymos are not operational 24 hours a day.
Waymo can easily charge a premium for not having a driver in the seat. Privacy and physical security guaranteed? Also not dealing with the moral implications of what the driver is receiving in terms of compensation (or in the case of uber, not).
They're, in my customer impression, quite a world different.
I assume that's simply a calculation they do of how much their revenue will change if they adjust the prices up or down. Until it makes financial sense to lower prices, they can wait on trying to capture the market. I would guess they're working on making the cars and equipment cheaper before massively scaling up.
Waymo is annoying only _available_ through Uber in some cities - notably Austin. Even more annoyingly, you can't choose whether you want to accept human drivers or just Waymo vehicles.
reading this while at my dads house for christmas. when I left I went in my garage and clicked dads house, then clicked “start self driving” it back out, got out the neighborhood, on the highway, merged onto another, took an exit, drove to his neighborhood and pulled in the driveway. dad needed to get something from the gas station, we clicked the destination and clicked start self driving, it backed out the driveway and chose its own parking spot at the gas station, got back to his house in the driveway. not once today have I touched the accelerator, brake pedal, or turn signal, and I’m 2 cities away from home and have been on 3 drives. just my experience today
Did you drive from LA to NYC without ever touching anything 9 years ago?
Because that would be a refutation of not believing what Musk promises.
Or was your vehicle used as a RoboTaxi beginning half a decade ago and has been returning 10x your initial spend on it on an annual basis? Because that would be another refutation of the idea that we shouldn’t believe Musk’s promises.
Car companies are notorious for having awful software, awful update systems, and awful software teams. So much so that people have come to think that if a car doesn't have CarPlay, that it probably sucks to interface with (which is a safe assumption). Even Tesla is working on adding CarPlay, despite having good software. A lot of people refuse to even consider the idea of a car without CarPlay, and the car companies are to blame
i miss the old facepunch. on gmod i have a couple dozen IP mods. on s&box i made call of duty zombies gamemode and was perma banned. all cause they can make more money, but they forget mods like that is why their games are popular
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