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Comment by harmmonica | Hacker News Reader

One thing is for certain: this will be one of the most scrutinized product launches in a long while. Assuming they're able to continue rolling this out (that assumes no major incidents) we will know every last misstep these cars make en route to a proper "driverless" service (ie no safety driver). Then the question will be whether the lack of trust amongst some members of the public towards Tesla/Elon costs them adoption, or if there are enough Tesla boosters/agnostics to get them the growth they want/need. And then at some point, if those rides with the boosters/agnostics all go well (months or even a years from now?), I would assume all but the most fervent anti-Tesla folks will become customers.

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"product launches" - keep in mind this is Tesla's product launch.

They launched Tesla Semi 8 YEARS ago, and the truck is nowhere to be seen. Not even official specs have been released.

This product launch was for influencers only, paying 4.2$ per ride.

I'm not gonna lie - I hate the world where it's possible to become the richest person in the world, while being a snake oil salesman.

You can see Tesla Semis driving around the SF Bay Area sometimes.

You are missing a key factor: Waymo. Tesla has to deliver a product that is at least as good as Waymo. If they can’t do that, why would a person switch to Tesla?

Waymo has a multi-year head start; that’s going to be hard to overcome without a superior experience from Tesla.

I don't think I'm missing it. I won't rehash a bunch of my comment history on Waymo, but if Tesla can actually do this, without the costs Waymo has, it'll be quite the coup. And as others have pointed out, Tesla already has all the manufacturing in place and though I'm super doubtful they'll offer a "hire your car out" service anytime soon (or ever!) having the whole vertical offering and using fewer sensors puts them at a distinct advantage from a margin standpoint so they could conceivably offer rides at a significantly lower price than Waymo.

Obviously the "if Tesla can actually do this" is doing a lot of work here! I would not surprise me if they had a crash sooner than later and that scuttles the whole thing. But it's also possible that doesn't happen and this works. Or at least I'm not smart enough to know for sure that it won't.

Is there that substantial of a difference in hardware and manufacturing cost?

I don't know the absolute answer to that, but there's a belief, based on commenters on HN, pundits online and even (one of) the Waymo CEO's stating that the current Jaguar is north of $100,000 per vehicle (that's equipped with the sensor suite for self-driving; note I've been in threads on HN where people are guessing that the current Waymo is minimum $150k up to $200k+). I think you can get a Model Y for $50-$60k. So I think the answer is yes to the cost of the hardware and manufacturing. That's of course not the full picture on the cost side as a sibling comment points out about in-person or remote drivers.

My info is only as good as what I've read and I'm trying to present that here as well as I understand it.

At current prices, Waymo may actually be generating operating profit with the current vehicle costs and opex. Driver 6 hardware and Ioniq 5 cars will cut the vehicle costs sharply. I don't think Waymo wants to make a big deal out of this because it would be disruptive, but they are either at the point or very near to it where they can undercut human powered ride hailing.

A big cost driver is invisible, at least once Tesla gets their safety monitor out of the vehicle, which is the ratio of safety monitors to vehicles. You need three shifts of safety monitors seven days a week. It adds up. Google wouldn't be expanding if they had to hire a building full of safety monitors.

Yep, I tend to think you're right about most of this. At some point we're going to find out how much a Waymo costs and that will be super telling because we don't really know how good or bad it looks financially because the cost of the car itself is (duh) so important to figuring that out.

Until they are no longer needed in the vehicle, the safety monitor with his thumb on the kill switch is one per vehicle. Waymo has built out remote monitoring infrastructure, and in car intelligence that enables one remote monitor to cover a large number of vehicles. The vehicles ask for help when they are unable to confidently make a decision about how to proceed. The remote monitors never actually steer a Waymo vehicle. They pick from a set of choices, or they decide to take the vehicle out of operation.

In the short to medium term, safety monitoring will be the limiting factor.

As certain as forgotten about in a week’s time.

In today's environment, pretty much hits the nail on the head....

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