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Comment by standardUser | Hacker News Reader

I was very bummed on a recent trip to SF to find there was a waitlist for Waymo and I couldn't use the service! But I've since been 'accepted' so my next West Coast trip I'll definitely be taking a driverless car. I was a long time SF resident so I'll use my local knowledge to choose the most ratchet route possible.

The potential for self-driving cars to bring down the cost of rides is very exciting to me. I've been carless for decades and though I'm a huge proponent and user of mass transit, we have to be realistic. Most of this country is exceptionally ill-suited to mass transit and is custom-built for car traffic.

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For now, Waymo in SF costs significantly higher than Uber. I just checked and was quoted double - $25 to go from the outer richmond to Japantown.

Hmm, in my (limited) experience, I've seen Waymo being within +/- $1-2 of Uber.

This is what I'm more accustomed too, in this particular instance though there was a 25 minute wait.

I'm guessing the rain right now might be increasing demand for rides.

Yes, Waymo often has a much longer wait time (fewer cars).

But then the Uber drivers often cancel. So maybe it comes out in the wash.

From my not-so-limited experience, it's often double.

I also see 2x prices for Waymo.

It is still a fun novelty mode of ride with limited supply and is priced accordingly and is not a mass transport option yet. Once the supply of cars rises the prices will fall to establish a new equilibrium hopefully much lower than Uber.

There are tons of waymos, pretty much everywhere you look. I think it's beyond the novelty stage now.

Let's simplify this. Do you think there is a long term incentive for Waymo to not maximize utilization of waymo cars by pricing "correctly" (based on supply, demand and costs)?

I don't know about bringing down costs. The amount of money that's been invested in this wants to get paid back, so they're gonna be charging as money they can for this to be worth it.

As long as there is competition the prices will be low (eventually). Labor is almost always the most expensive part of any service and these technologies reduce the need for labor considerably.

That's only true if there's competition with similar costs, though. Uber and Lyft can't reduce prices without collapsing, so Waymo has no incentive to charge anything less than what they charge minus one cent and they'll have all the demand they can handle.

I am assuming this technology will not be hoarded by a single company indefinitely.

> As long as there is competition the prices will be low (eventually).

We don’t have to wait here. Is BigCo lowering prices on YouTube subs? Are they lowering ad spend for people?

You could claim that they’re a monopoly in those cases, but then that would undercut your expectations above.

> amount of money that's been invested in this wants to get paid back, so they're gonna be charging as money they can

As they should be. They’re currently competing with Uber and Lyft, and charging a novelty/quality premium. There will be a halcyon period as they scale and print money, but others will notice and start fighting that monopoly.

If I’ve learnt anything over the last 10 years it’s that self driving is hard and Google has a huge moat with how good Waymo already is.

If apple spent 10B on their car, I wouldn't be surprised if Waymo spent 50 or 100 over 15 years and they invented the modern robotaxi. I think they've earned the ability to charge whatever they like. I'd also happily pay more than Uber rides whenever it comes to my area. Riding a couple in Arizona was amazing.

> I think they've earned the ability to charge whatever they like.

They can charge what people will pay, not whatever they want.

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