Waymo does over 150k paid trips and over 1M autonomous miles every week
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I try to take an actual taxi (Flywheel) whenever possible, because Uber and Lyft feel... I dunno, exploitative to me. But my last 3-4 cab rides have been annoying and/or terrifying. One cabby stopped in the middle of a busy intersection to check directions. Another cabby got lost the minute I got into the cab, and I had to guide him. Then he kept peppering me with personal questions. Another cabby tried to convert me to Islam...
Waymo was quiet. Obeyed traffic signals. Took a rather tricky backroad to get to my apartment, and navigated it flawlessly. Tried to convert me to the Cylon god.
I'm gonna root for the robots on this one, I'm afraid.
A ride takes 15 minutes. Costs $20. 15 minutes, on average, of downtime between rides (late-night offsets shorter during day/evening)? So $20 per 30 minutes. 24 hours in a day. 48 rides per day. $960 per car per day. Holidays/weekends probably fewer riders so say 300 days per year to keep it conservative. $288,000 revenue per year. Car costs $150,000 per year (costs are going to drop dramatically as they scale up, I would think. And I'm assuming that after driving 300,000 or so miles per year that the car will be cooked, but that's probably overly conservative). Still, though, good gross margin (or at least the margin on the vehicle cost alone; maintenance is going to cost something but tires and a few other things are not going to be material relative to the cost of the car itself). Note that a quick Google (eh) search shows Google overall gross margin of 58% so this wouldn't be too far off of that. That is to say, pedal to the metal on the roll out if these numbers are even marginally accurate.
Please pick apart at your leisure. I'm most interested in knowing the truth, but just thinking through this and how it might look internally at Waymo/Google. If anyone has actual numbers (maybe they talked about on earnings call?) would love to hear them.
That said if it is then 2x would drop the margin in half. Still a healthy margin and I do wonder what the Geely car cost will be. Note when I say "car" I mean everything for the car to drive itself, which is the car, the sensor suite, etc. I did not figure on the operational staffing as another comment pointed out.
edit: changed thread to reply in first sentence
> Let me paraphrase it like this: If we equip a Chrysler Pacifica Van or a Jaguar I-Pace with our sensors and computers, it costs no more than a moderately equipped Mercedes S-Class. So for the entire package, including the car - today,
So I think the $150k is a good estimate.
They’d just make their own like zoox.
But still your point stands that maybe that $150k car cost would be spread out over a longer time frame, which makes the economics much better. Like I said was trying to be conservative.
As for the $250k price point, when I search for that most pundits think that figure is several years old and may have been overly high to begin with, but if it's true at $250k then obviously a lot of margin pressure there. Still think it's likely the car cost will drop precipitously and the $150k figure won't be far off.
Might not be addressing your question with that, but I think that's what you're asking. And I think you're assuming the opposite of me which is that they haven't yet productized their offering, but I think they actually have at this point. I definitely could be wrong about that. Just an opinion.
Of course, however, your can't forget about the literally billions of dollars and decades of time that were plowed into R&D for them to get this far. All that wants to be recouped at some point.
But also, each intervention only makes up a fraction of the trip's duration. So one operator might be enough for hundreds of cars. That doesn't include operators for cleaning, charging, maintenance, and other downtime activities though.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/ehicle-use-by-time-of-da...
I'm not convinced that's true, esp since Covid and WFH. Since they only travel within SF/LA/Phoenix, it doesn't follow typical suburban commuter patterns, nor totally Uber/Lyft ride patterns either since they can (currently) travel further.
though it's not at all their style. And realistically I'm glad they're being methodical and prioritizing safety.
Waymo was doing winter testing in Buffalo, NY in February of this year: https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/inside-the-self-driving...
Waymo decided to solve the problem using whatever they deemed necessary.
Solving the technical side is only half the problem, otherwise we'd all be flying in Concorde jets.
I'm curious to see if Waymo can scale up to mass production of their sensor suite and maintain them economically, where it makes sense as a business. There may be a big business in LIDAR factories and repairmen soon.
That means very limited routes. That is a technical problem.
Hopefully, NASA solves the technical problem and commercial supersonic flight returns
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/armstrong/taming...
Waymo is currently limited to a small amount of towns for a mix of economic, policy, and social reasons. Probably in that order. Just being sufficiently better than human drivers was never the entire barrier to entry for this to be a real business for Google, at least one that becomes nation-wide or global.
To me it sounds like you’re just being sort of vague. Yes, absolutely everyone knew there were social issues too.
Where will self driving be in 5 or 10 years?
My interest atm is mostly the economics question of whether LIDAR will scale widely in near term combined with the social risks (ie, millions of cars with $30-50k in sensors, which atm cost as much as the car itself, so basically only e-taxis, no personal ownership + high cost of maintenance) vs cameras being good-enough... that's a far more interesting question. It's pretty obvious LIDAR/ultrasonic or a combination with cameras is superior. So maybe some ambitious person will find some mass-producible middle ground within <5yrs shrug
I don't think this is how most people expected this to go. My personal belief was that self-driving cars would be limited to medium-density suburban areas initially (i.e. places where the driving is relatively simple, but there's still enough demand for it to be economically viable). It's astonishing that they were able to move from suburban trials to high density environments so quickly.
I have doubts the very slow pace of expansion was just a matter of regulations and nailing down the tech. It has to make sense as a business otherwise they aren’t going to dump billions into sensor factories (where each LIDAR suite currently costs around $75k to make), cars, and service infrastructure.
Just like how Tesla wasn’t just a of matter of making the first prototypes of electric sports cars. The real magic and barrier to entry was the factories and infrastructure to make the economics work.
This was when I really started to doubt that guy's genius. That was a phenomenally stupid assertion. I can drive with 2 eyes because I have a bunch of other sensors as well as an entire world model in my head with 30 years of driving experience.
Is it Halloween tonight? Better drive extra slowly. Did that white semi with the bright background sky just disappear? Probably not. Is that deer going to bolt in front of the car coming the other way? Maybe. Is the road slick because it recently rained here? etc.
Still pretty cool.
I think in a few more years with the amount of training their AI will have Waymo will be a truly incredible taxi service. It can only get better!
One concern I had is that once self-driving cars are widespread people might take advantage and treat them poorly with no human driver watching. Where a human would likely notice and deal with weird smells or things added by the past customer. Waymo-type service probably rely on reporting by passengers once the car already arrives, no? (I've never driven in one)
People might be treating them nice today because Waymo is a fancy new service in Jaguars that people treat as a novelty. Once those e-taxi services are under aggressive economic demands I'm curious to see how it plays out.
If you purchase a GoPass, you'll receive a 10% discount on all rides, and 5 free cancellations.
Or will you ever be able to reach support once car takes you to wrong location?
https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/11/san-francisco-robotaxi-cru...
Waymo is closer to a proper liveried taxi service than a rideshare. The only time I use rideshares is for NEMT. I use a human-driven taxi, albeit much less than Waymo, and I book through the taxi company's app.
The taxi company uses traditional medallions allocated by the authorities here. Their dispatch is traditionally over-the-phone, in fact they require me to answer the phone if I expect to get a ride. Their drivers--I don't know their employment status--seem to own their vehicles, which are fleet models, liveried, and usually identical. So I can always count on uniformity when I get in a car like that.
The human taxi service usually charges/estimates prices at least 20% higher than an identical itinerary with Waymo.
Waymo service is not Uber or Lyft. First of all, it's a liveried fleet vehicle. When I summon a Waymo, I know that they'll send a Jaguar I-PACE, and I'll know how to board it and fasten my seatbelt. That is absolutely golden knowledge to have. (Rideshares routinely give me panic attacks as I try and figure out how to seat belt when they've already started moving.)
The Waymo has an absolutely uniform experience, because it's always "the same Driver". Human drivers I've met have been drunk, belligerent, rude, scammers, incompetent, unsafe, late, lost, wrong car, overly friendly/nosy, you name it. Waymo is none of these.
Waymo's power trunk door means I can always stow my cargo, because the driver isn't living out of his car. Unfortunately, there is no human to assist me in lifting it, but there's room and there's a button to close it again.
Of course the in-car experience is luxurious and relaxing. I don't have to be concerned with a jerk driver or entertaining the guy or pretending to ignore him. I can basically curl up and zone out. I feel safety and security in Waymo alone.
The in-car display has plenty of telemetry to watch the 3D visualization, play music, adjust temperature, do what I want. There are always charging ports for my phone, cup holders, and sun visors.
Waymo is a Godsend for me. And it's a Godsend for anyone in a vulnerable population who may be at-risk while alone with another human like that. It's about time.