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Comment by baggy_trough | Hacker News Reader

I wonder what the ultimate price of this service will be compared to alternatives.

It will remain higher for a while. From reporting I have seen, they are close to maxing out their vehicles, and many people prefer it to other options, so are willing to pay a premium. As long as that is true, it's going to be priced as a premium product. It won't be until fleets grow significantly in size and/or another driverless taxi service enters the market that we will maybe start to see prices driven down closer to marginal cost of a ride.

-edit- multiple other comments apparently disagree with this. I'll defer to people who actually use them over the reporting. Odd that there is that disconnect though.

It's also higher right now because it is a novely. Plenty of people are booking it just to say they rode in a Waymo and take pictures. When that wears off they will have to start competing strictily on price and wait/ride time.

Lots of people, myself included, pay a premium to not have a human at the steering wheel; it's nice to have the car to yourself.

Yourself and three dozen recording devices and call centers full of people tracking the car and reviewing the footage, yes.

To be fair, Waymo claims to not record or transmit audio without you either manually engaging such (by requesting support), or a very unambiguous announcement (presumably when the car gets into some sort of emergency situation). And lying about that claim would probably run afoul of California's 2 party consent law. So still a step up in privacy versus having someone in the car listening in on your conversation.

That said, even if they were listening to you, there's a lot of things that are completely inconsequential from a perspective of an anonymous call center employee far away listening in on, that I probably wouldn't want to talk about in front of a taxi driver.

I still count that as a win.

I know this is somewhat besides the point of the discussion, but.. many Ubers have recording devices inside the car too. The drivers have gotten savvy and protect themselves from false claims or even harassment.

Given the number of dash-cams in human-driven Ubers now, that's not a substantial downgrade.

Like, the driver's presence bothers you? Even if they don't talk?

This is just me, but maybe helps explain it. It's not that the presence of a driver is bothersome, but in the pre-Waymo world your interaction with the outside world starts when you step out the door of your house. Now the interaction with the outside world starts when you get to your destination and step out of the Waymo. I really enjoy the outside world, mind you. But it just feels easier to traverse my local area in solitude and with a consistent and comfortable vehicle, and non-erratic driving style.

I imagine how nice it could (will?) be when you can hop into a self-driving car for a longer ride or even a road trip. I think you'll feel like it's an extension of your living room vs. being in a car.

Christ that's depressing. A 'perfect' world where we never interact with anyone.

We need to stop normalising mental diseases

If you step back do you really think that's indicative of a mental disease? Does it make any difference to you that many times I'm taking a Waymo to go and hang out with friends? Not much of a stretch to say it's allowing me to socialize more because I don't have to worry about my meter running dry, or having one too many drinks to drive myself home, or being able to move around from area to area in comfort. And if you say "you can do that with an Uber too!" it's true! But does it really surprise you that someone would want a car that drives calmly, obeys all traffic laws and gives you a little downtime from the outside world pre or post the activity you'd been doing before stepping in the car? Does that really rise to the level of mental disease?

It seems like a huge catastrophizing stretch to get there based solely on preferring to be in a Waymo rather than a taxi or Uber.

edit: grammar

Well on second reading your comment reads like an ad, given advertising isn't natural either, you can understand the confusion

But I was referring to the wanting the outside world to resemble your house and to have little interaction with humans. No, that's not normal, despite any sophistry or ad speak

By your logic, we would never have normalized running elevators without an operator.

The problem isn't when they don't talk and just drive, the problem is when it's late at night and the passenger is a woman who is inebriated. Not having a driver entirely makes that much harder.

Their goal is to have lower cost Hyundai models hit the market though, right? So the Jags probably remain the premium/higher cost option.

Yeah they need scaling and competition before the prices get lower. As long as supply is saturated with demand and nobody else is on their level, there's little reason to lower prices.

Yeah, and just to add even though it's implied in your comment, there's plenty of reason to keep prices where they are independent of a desire to increase revenue. Customers will not wait forever for the car and so if the demand is high you have to keep the price high to discourage people from using it so wait times remain in check. Tricky tightrope they're going to be walking while they optimize the fleet size for local adoption and geographic expansion.

On other threads I've seen conflicting anecdata regarding pricing being higher or lower than an Uber ride. That's not too surprising since the supply and demand variables are going to be different for Waymo.

I know this is only a single data point, but I recently took one in Hollywood. Uber Lyft quoted $33 and Waymo was $20

In my experience so far, Waymo costs about the same as an Uber when you take into account tipping, but takes longer (they're not yet doing freeways). With the addition of SFO to their zone, I can't imagine freeways are far behind, because getting from the city to SFO without using the freeways would be... a novelty.

That's not been my experience... 90% of the time when I check, Waymo is still a good 20-50% more expensive in SF, when comparing to a tip-included Uber or Lyft price.

I've used Waymo countless times in SF. It's typically 15% cheaper than an Uber/Lyft and trip time/wait are generally the same. I much prefer the Waymo.

I've never encountered it being cheaper, what hours do you generally use it?

Generally between 11a and 7p. Going to lunch/dinner.

Self driving taxis are fundamentally much cheaper to provide.

- No driver to pay. - Smaller simpler car. - Can drive 24h a day. - Needs much less parking space.

But fully realizing these benefits is probably a decade away.

Cheaper than uber rn. Long term once they own the market? Too much.

They still have to compete with alternate modes of transportation such as buses, bikes, trains, e-scooter rentals, self-owned cars, Uber with human drivers.

If it would be "too much", then there's no reason why taxis (incl uber/lyft) wouldn't be too much today.

I don’t really think they have to compete much.

Direct competitors are uber and Lyft which they can undercut since they don’t pay drivers.

The people who want to take buses and trains will continue to do so although Waymo might sway some with their ease and if pricing is reasonable.

Bikes and e-scooters only get you so far. Last time I was in SF I didn’t see too many bikes but I saw a ton of e-scooters. Are you really taking an e-scooter further than a few blocks? And when it rains?

Self owned cars make sense for longer trips out of the city but parking is a pain and driving is stressful so this is an easy win for Waymo.

It’s cheaper now so they can take market share. And their cost will certainly be lower than Ubers so they can win the pricing battle. But long term monopoly gonna monopoly. Perfect pricing is a given with the wealth in SF and how many rides will be on a business CC.

from what I heard, the intention is to make it much more affordable than it is now. I don't remember the source right now but I did think it was a blog post or something like that.

I think if it's affordable then people will easily take that. instead of drinking and driving at night or other unsafe activities. if it's affordable then people can just take a waymo home and then back again to get their car when it's safe again.

Certainly they aim to make it affordable now in order to undercut Lyft and uber. Long term they will own the market and jack up prices as monopolies do.

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