Interesting that Waymo has relationships with both Uber and Lyft now. They can play them off each other for future expansion opportunities, while continuing to learn the nuances of the high-scale rideshare biz from them.
That is why vertically integrated businesses can peel away business from existing non vertically integrated businesses with lower prices (legal liability notwithstanding). Sometimes it pays to have the business with more to lose insulated from liability by having a layer without much to lose.
It's a way for Waymo to prepare to turn on the spigot, too, if they dump a bunch more cars into the market.
It's important for Waymo to do all 3: show they can run the service themselves in a market, and work with both Uber and Lyft, to be able to get fair terms and the option to expand rapidly.
> Or is the idea that Waymo becomes a hardware provider and uber / lyft become operators?
This is one natural way that things may shake out and a natural path to scale. But Waymo needs to have a fallback plan of A) other parties to work with, or B) just doing it themselves to get a good deal with Uber/Lyft in the long term.
Uber/Lyft would like Waymo to not the the sole provider of autonomous technology and to work with them; they can expect to receive rides at just a bit above marginal cost in that case.
Ha! Lyft doesn't own much of its fleet! There's a small fraction of vehicles that lyft rents through Flexdrive.
Just like Tesla Self self-driving, Waymo can ask people, if they want to offset related capital costs, to buy cars and rent them to Waymo to be reconfigured and run as autonomous vehicles on profit profit-sharing basis.
"Use the Waymo app instead, save 10%, and get a guaranteed Waymo!"