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.
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.
Uber without the expense or problem of a driver.
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.
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%!
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.