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Comment by jdm2212 | Hacker News Reader

Waymo charges more than Uber to supply constraints, not bad unit economics. People (like me) are willing to pay extra for the product Waymo offers, and Waymo is itself supply constrained and has no direct competitors offering driverless rides, so they get to do a bit of monopoly pricing.

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    > Waymo charges more than Uber to supply constraints

To understand this better, is Waymo limited in each location by the number of cars they are allowed to drive? Or, is Waymo too slow to expand the number of cars on their side? As an outsider, if you have very good demand for your product, why not expand? I must be missing something obvious. (Again, I don't write this to doubt your explanation.)

AIUI the issue is just scaling pain. No one has ever run a global network of first-party-owned taxis before, and they're learning by doing, at the same time as they're also solving problems in ML/robotics to make the robotaxis work more reliably in more contexts, and also figuring out how to manufacture reliable robotaxis at scale.

There is a limit on how many they are allowed to operate.

I tried to research this limit. Here is what I found about San Francisco:

    > Waymo is not subject to a regulatory cap or hard limit on the number of cars it can operate in San Francisco.

To be clear, the regulator in question here is California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which is a state-level regulator. Apparently, SF local officials would like to limit the number of vehicles but it not allowed by division of powers.

What's the product vs an Uber? Genuine question.

Drives better, isn't distracted, doesn't get lost, care are always clean, will always take you where you want to go day or night, and yeah, no human.

Yea, it not that most uber/lyft drivers are bad (most are good), it’s just that all Waymos provide a good experience.

It’s the same reason many people will prefer a chain restaurant to an unknown mom & pop. By knowing what you’re getting, you’re willing to give up the potential for something nominally better to avoid something much worse.

    > car[s] are always clean

This is a real surprise to me. I don't write that to doubt you. How do you think it works in practice? My point: If you have a human in the car, they can keep a closer eye on the car between rides and keep it clean. Without a driver, you lose that. How does Waymo know when a car needs to be cleaned?

Waymo regularly brings the cars in to central service depots for cleaning and battery charging. Also, as a passenger you can report that a car is dirty and it will be pulled out of service for immediate cleaning (and you get a small credit towards your next ride).

Waymo has done a great job of making its rollouts into new cities smooth. I have to wonder what will happen once they pivot to profitability in a few years. Will they be willing to lose revenue pulling so many cars out of service? Will they optimize the human costs by not having so many humans on staff?

Maybe they'll kill Uber first and then drop the quality.

"Doesn't get lost" is generous. they always cause so much caos in SF

I don't have to listen to the driver argue with his girlfriend across the entire span of the bay bridge, I don't have to worry the uber reeks of week (or worse, cigarette) smell on the way to an interview etc etc. Given the choice I will choose driverless every time.

Do you report these complaints using the Uber app? To be clear: I have no experience riding with Uber.

I have written about this before in similar discussions. I think men just cannot comprehend how much women are willing to pay to guarantee that they can avoid a scary situation in a car with a stranger driver. Ask any woman: Have you ever had a scary experince in a car with a stranger driver? Probably 100% will say yes. I would say Waymo's primary customer will be middle to high income women in urban environments.

Also middle/high income parents. Shuttling kids to and from school and activities is the real killer use case for driverless cars. They're actively working on getting this legalized.

No human in the car?

This is only a product for anti-social nerds. Most people will not pay a premium for this (this isn't waymo's product).

Edit: lots of people commenting on here how they're normie and they would still prefer waymo. Read what I wrote again - I didn't say normies wouldn't prefer, I said normies wouldn't pay a premium. So unless waymo is planning on being a luxury car service (which it's not) that can't possibly be their intended product/market.

They absolutely will. I'm a very social person but when I'm going home from a date with my girlfriend I always want a Waymo just because I don't want a 3rd person involved. And sometimes I'm having a bad day and don't want to have to make small talk. And it's nice that I can talk on the phone without disturbing someone.

Safety is normally ok in an uber but in a Waymo it’s much higher. Whether I’m talking about driving safety or personal safety from the/for the driver, you pick. But generally you can charge more for a safer product.

This comes up in conversation at office events, every woman in our office always agrees they will choose waymo over uber every time, due to the lack of (presumably male) driver.

My extremely social not-tech nerd wife that hardly uses FSD in her car got HOOKED on Waymo after the first ride. Same with my parents.

huh, definitely will pay more for not having a driver to be constantly on the phone.

yes yes you are the product.

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