Comment by kajecounterhack | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kajecounterhack | Hacker News Reader

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kajecounterhack

> That's exactly what I'm saying would happen. We already have it with Uber Black.

But I'm saying we _don't_ have that for Waymo, and it's very unlikely to happen, for many reasons. A big reason is simply that managing a fleet in heterogeneous fashion as you're describing (different cleaning schedules for the cars) doesn't really make sense IRL. It's a purely imagined scenario on your part.

> Incorrect.

Pray tell how I can pay for a cleaner car when there's only one option, car or no car?

> No, I'm not assuming that.

Then please explain how cars would get dirtier as the service scales up? If today is already seeing the cars at full utilization, barring a cost-cutting measure that determined that cleaning less frequently would be a significant cost savings (which is a big assumption on your part), then we should be seeing roughly how clean the cars will be into perpetuity.

> Again, Uber Black.

Uber Black achieves higher standards for cleaning by farming that out to the people renting out their personal vehicles. The drivers are incentivized to clean the cars more (than UberX drivers) to get more expensive fares.

But again, fleet management companies already do this for _all_ their cars. So for Waymo this is moot.

> A big reason is simply that managing a fleet in heterogeneous fashion as you're describing (different cleaning schedules for the cars) doesn't really make sense IRL.

Of course it does. Pre-Uber, we had both standard yellow cabs and black car services at different levels. (The main reason you see relative homogeneity within yellow cabs is that the government forces it by setting prices, not because of anything intrinsic about a fleet. Black cars are excluded from these rules.)

In shipping we can pay for different speeds and types of handling. On planes and trains we have different class tickets. In the rental car market, we have Hertz and we have rent-a-wreck. And even within Hertz, there are different car quality levels, which somewhat decreases flexibility (since you need to have more cars on hand than you would with a homogeneous fleet), but it's worth the upkeep to charge the wealthy customers more. Etc.

> Then please explain how cars would get dirtier as the service scales up? If today is already seeing the cars at full utilization, barring a cost-cutting measure that determined that cleaning less frequently would be a significant cost savings (which is a big assumption on your part), then we should be seeing roughly how clean the cars will be into perpetuity.

1. Tech prices come down, so the average customer willingness to pay for cleanliness comes down.

2. Services often launch with non-scalable attention to detail to control the initial public impression (eating the cost), and then relax over time.

3. Segmentation that's not feasible at the current scale but will be in the future.

> Segmentation that's not feasible at the current scale but will be in the future.

So you _do_ agree that willingness to pay is only helpful if there is segmentation.

> Pre-Uber, we had both standard yellow cabs and black car services at different levels

There is more to the gap between yellow cab and black car than cleanliness. Stuff like service / helping you with bags, ETAs, partitions between yourself and the driver, niceness of the car itself, etc.

I'm sure we'll see segmentation along the lines of vehicle size and capability, but I expect cleanliness to be the same across those segments.

> Services often launch with non-scalable attention to detail to control the initial public impression (eating the cost), and then relax over time.

I don't think cleaning is the burden you're making it out to be. These cars return to depot when their battery is down. If you're to clean them at all, you should clean them when they return for charging, and then to your set standard. It's not a big knob for controlling costs.

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