[treis]

We got these in Atlanta. I haven't had the chance to ride yet but watching them it's pretty clear that they're legit.

I think we're on the cusp of something that will change the landscape of our cities. It's going to revolutionize getting around and take a chunk out of the land dedicated to parking.

[nerdsniper]

It will also funnel large amounts of revenue out of every city into s/SF/Bay Area. Currently around 35% of the money spent on Uber/Lyft stays in the local economy. Waymo in SF still employs a large number of highly paid engineers who are paid the money which used to move through SF via Uber/Lyft. And those SF engineers spend a decent chunk of it locally on food, art, entertainment, and various other services - so it has (somewhat) less of an effect on the city's overall economy/total employment.

Waymo in Miami won't be locally re-spending nearly as much of Miami's money as Uber/Lyft did. Significantly more of it will be removed from Miami with each ride. This might be even more pronounced for cities like Houston, which don't attract tourism from Waymo staff.

[seanmcdirmid]

> It will also funnel large amounts of revenue out of every city into SF.

Why SF? Does Google even still have an engineering office in the city? Alphabet is a publicly traded company with employees all over the USA and the world, even if you said the money would be funneled into Mountain View you'd be incorrect. The money will be funneled into 401Ks would be more accurate, and a lot of snowbirds in Florida are living off of their 401Ks and stock investments (which probably have a lot of Alphabet in them), so it is definitely something for Florida.

But I think your point is that gig workers won't be making the money anymore. That's definitely true. That is just like when loom machines took money away from weavers back in the 19th century, or computers took money away from typists/secretaries in the 20th century. We should carefully consider whether or not that is a net good for society.

[treis]

I think the pie will grow more than Waymo takes out. Stuff like a plumber realizing they're missing a part. What might be a trip to the supply house can be a self driving delivery instead.

Either way, it's not all that much different. Most of the money spent on getting around a city goes elsewhere through vehicle and gas purchases. Adding the cost of self driving to that probably won't move the needle all that much.

[tanseydavid]

IMHO you are thinking too much in the near term.

I strongly believe that if you extrapolate 5-10 years then at that point the really big revenue stream(s) that self-driving cars will be funneling to themselves will revenue poached from the legacy auto manufacturers and adjacent industries.

And I also think this is a good thing.

[dtran]

To the best of my knowledge, Waymo still has humans in the loop as Fleet Response agents that the vehicles can call for remote assistance when they aren't sure what to do. Caveat that the number needed likely isn't on the same order of magnitude as human drivers, but the job is likely higher paying. I could see a scenario where these should be locals for both latency (ChatGPT says SF to Miami RTT latency might be 80-100 ms and I don't believe the humans really teleoperate the vehicles, so that may not be meaningful, but that might be a bigger deal for international expansion) and knowledge of tricky intersections or road quirks in the city. They could also potentially help with labeling quirky city-specific scenarios and other various evals.

[eweise]

Isn't that how it always is when new technology disrupts an existing market? We no longer have telephone operators, toll booth agents, gas pump attendants, etc

[fragmede]

> It will also funnel large amounts of revenue out of every city into s/SF/Bay Area.

I have some bad news for you about Amazon, Facebook (+Instagram), TikTok...

[Zanni]

If the cost per ride is 35% cheaper than Uber/Lyft, then that money stays in the local economy, just in the hands of the consumer rather than the gig worker. Currently WayMo is more expensive, but I see that changing as they scale. And certainly CyberCab is promising to be much cheaper.

[RationPhantoms]

You don't think this will also have an effect on improving life in the cities where Waymo is utilized? I understand there is the threat to induced demand with too many waymo's being on the road but this is going to help improve city living and in turn, help increase people wanting to live there.

[whynotmaybe]

Not sure about the 35% here.

If I spend 100$ on an uber ride, 65$ goes to Uber while only 35$ is local ?

I thought it's was the other way around with a margin of 30% for Uber.

[ricksunny]

Good illustration of input/output economics; a discipline that mainstream economics tends to elide over for reasons that escape me.

[lotsofpulp]

So many things wrong with the assumptions and chain of reasoning in this comment.

The easiest example is to look at Detroit.

Although, perhaps the username is a signal, and I fell for it.

[milkytron]

I wonder how they will impact traffic. Rideshare has already added traffic according to some studies I've read.

Basically, instead of someone going from point A (current location with own car nearby) to point B (destination), Point A becomes the destination of the previous passenger, and point B and C were the previous points A and B. So a single trip adds one more leg.

It might reduce the need for parking... potentially. But there will still need to be a certain amount of time dedicated to charging for these cars that requires parking.

If private car ownership continues increasing in cost, and households become increasingly cost burdened (transportation is already the second highest cost for households), then I wonder how this will impact demand for housing in areas dependent on cars.

Curious on the outcomes here. I think the best thing we can do for city transportation is increasing the number of viable transportation options. Waymo is one option amongst the options dependent on roads, but walking, biking, and transit should still be a priority so that we maintain competition amongst transportation modes.

[cman1444]

Parking for charging can be done en masse though. For example, waymo could have a single large charging facility somewhere out-of-the-way. Small price to pay in my opinion.

The parking gains are huge though. As adoption increases, parking demand for shopping centers, apartments, workplaces, etc. should all decrease. Say hello to higher density cities. Although I imagine it will take quite a while (decades) for these pressures to have a real effect.

[dougb5]

We've had it for a few years in SF and, while it's very convenient, I haven't witnessed the revolution you speak of. Judging from the traffic, people still mostly get around in their personal vehicles. There's about as much parking as before and it's still a nightmare. But I'd like to believe.

[londons_explore]

I forsee the cost of travel increasing quite a lot.

Private cars will end up 2nd class citizens with 'waymo lanes' and sky high insurance costs, pushing everyone to self driving taxi services who have a really high cost per mile compared to your own car, since they have a huge debt to pay back to investors so will never get down to the $0.15 per mile that driving your own old car costs.

[tim-fan]

On the other hand, insurance costs for robotaxis should be lower if they are able to drive significantly safer.

Then the one I'm more interested / excited for: optimizing the fleet for the cargo. If most trips involve single passengers, then most cars can be small electric single seaters. This can further reduce insurance costs as well as fuel, maintenance and depreciation.

I'd hope that's enough to offset the price of the sensors, compute hardware, and engineers to maintain the system.

But yes paying back investors; not sure how long that would lead to elevated costs for riders.

[londons_explore]

[delayed]

[mekdoonggi]

If the cars are commodity, wouldn't someone make a ton of money by making a cheaper/better model and undercutting?

Seems implausible but then there are examples like deepseek.

[krashidov]

My prediction is it will make our cities worse. In 30 years every family will want one self driving car per person in the household

[jandrewrogers]

When I was working for the automotive industry their models and projections suggested that ubiquitous self-driving cars would reduce the total market for cars to ~15% of its current size. As in, sales would drop by 85%. The addressable market for automotive OEMs is set to undergo a dramatic reduction in size.

Few automotive companies have a coherent plan for how they were going to survive that existential risk.

[tanseydavid]

If they can figure out how to really take advantage of economies of scale, and drive the costs down quite a lot -- the desirability of car ownership will drop dramatically.

Everyone I know under 40yo already professes to hate driving and hate car ownership.

[wooger]

Why?

At worst you can just pay extra to have a smaller or more luxurious private self driving taxi vs. something more like a bus, shared with others. The appeal of owning and having to maintain something like this is nil. You're not in control, there's no ownership of the driving experience, and if appropriately compliant with the law, they should all drive the same speed.

[dfxm12]

Can you elaborate? Are you saying you think people are going to give up their cars because Waymo is available?

[treis]

I think it fundamentally shifts the cost of transport from marginal to capitalized. Meaning a 20 minute trip is $0.50 of gas and some fraction of the manufacturing cost of the car. Today it's that plus $5-10 to the driver.

It's somewhat equivalent to the advent of trains but on a personal level. In the way that trains made shipping goods across the country more or less free once the rail was built that's what's going to happen to people and packages getting around cities.

[deeg]

I live in the city and as much as I'd like to be car free waymo doesn't do it (yet). I take frequent weekend trips that travel (I assume) outside of waymos range. Once waymo supports car rentals I could consider getting rid of mine.

[btmiller]

I’m skeptical. Is the presence of a human driver keeping you from using Uber/Lyft/taxis more than you currently are? Why would you think removing a driver will lead to more ride share trips? Capitalism is going to do its thing, so between the touted benefits of driverless ride shares and capitalist economics, could you please explain how exactly our city landscapes, namely parking lots, will be revolutionized in any way, shape, or form other than zombie lots occupied Waymos endlessly arranging and charging themselves? Forgive my cynicism, it feels like I’ve seen this how this dream turns out many times before.

[dc396]

> Is the presence of a human driver keeping you from using Uber/Lyft/taxis more than you currently are?

Yep. A couple of bad experiences with Uber/Lyft drivers put me off using them. Waymo is honestly more comfortable/less stressful for me. Similarly, I just read an article discussing parents making use of Waymo to schlep their kids to sportball practice/friend's house/wherever kids hang out these days, even though it is against Waymo's terms of service. The article indicated those parents didn't trust their kids to be in a car along with a strange human, but were ok with an automated system (and violating the ToS of that system).

> please explain how exactly our city landscapes, namely parking lots, will be revolutionized in any way, shape, or form other than zombie lots occupied Waymos

Today parking tends to be located near the shop/restaurant/office people want to go to. If people no longer need to park to go to where they want to go, parking (for charging) can relocate and be concentrated, thereby freeing up the parking spaces for other uses.

[dispersed]

> Is the presence of a human driver keeping you from using Uber/Lyft/taxis more than you currently are?

I have no horse in this race, but for my female family members, the answer is absolutely yes. The odds of getting a weirdo driver are just too high. One of them lives in a Waymo-supported city and uses it all the time.

[bsder]

> Why would you think removing a driver will lead to more ride share trips?

The last couple of drivers I had were so actively dangerous on the road that I quit using ridesharing completely.

After experiencing Waymo, I'll actually use ridesharing again.

[Nemi]

I've never been as scared in a car as I was in an Uber in Chicago going to the airport. That man drove around cars like we were bleeding out in his car and had to get to the hospital or someone was going to die.

[treis]

The zombie lots can be consolidated and moved to less desirable areas.

And I think there's some demand shifting that can happen. People get driven to the office in the morning. Deliveries happen during the day and then people are driven home.

It also eliminates the need for parking for a lot of places. A restaurant doesn't need a parking lot if people are primarily arriving in self driving cars.

[giancarlostoro]

Any idea how much they cost? Because for me the main use is mostly one off rides to the city to have drinks with friends and go there and come home safely. I live in Central Florida, I mostly use Uber or Lyft for these scenarios.

[OkayPhysicist]

In SF, Waymo costs about the same as an Uber or Lyft after factoring in a couple buck tip. For awhile, I checked both Uber and Waymo when I wanted to get somewhere, but after not seeing significant price differences I stopped bothering.

[keeda]

I would hope so, but it's not yet clear if the economics pan out for large scale deployment. The ride is amazing, but the sensor-laden cars are also very expensive.

The only sensible aspect of Elon's boneheaded move to remove non-camera sensors from Tesla models is the drive to reduce costs, because low costs are essential for mass adoption. Yes, sensors are rapidly dropping in cost, making the move even more boneheaded, but the theory is sound.

Some Waymo exec claimed that they are seeing very encouraging unit economics, which gives me hope for mass diffusion, but we'll only know when the rubber actually hits the road (heheheh).

[dyauspitr]

LiDAR is actually quite cheap now.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Have you watched them operate in a downpour? They've so far only been tested in semiarid locales.

[xnx]

> Have you watched them operate in a downpour?

Waymo in heavy rain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG6u6QfTv6s

> only been tested in semiarid locales

Is San Francisco semi-arid?

[andsoitis]

Waymos are prevalent in LA.