> Drivers will only be able to make two trips per day, and the software will ensure they only travel from their home neighborhoods to their workplaces.
> There also won’t be a ton of money changing hands as a passenger will pay the driver only a nominal fare for the trip
I wouldn't have called Uber a "taxi rival" when they were an app for hiring a town car either. Things change.
This is Google's first toe-in-the-water for apps to request a ride, but it obviously won't be their last. Considering how much they've invested in autonomous vehicles only a crazy person would believe they're going to leave the entire market for self-driving taxis wide open for Uber etc. Google will have a taxi request service within a couple of years.
UBER plans to attack the "drive to work" segment of the transportation market, and it's potentially a huge opportunity for UBER.This Google service, if successful, might fill that role very well.
And the fact that it's cheaper is basically "disruption from below" - a proven strategy in many businesses. While this exact transport service model generally failed , it did succeed in France(blabla car), and Google has unique marketing advantages that might make it succeed elsewhere.
Also, the main competitive barrier for UBER is that many consumers have the habit of ordering transportation through it's app. If Google gets that , the rest is relatively easy.
I keep seeing a bunch of Google Express vans sitting around idle because they don't have any goods to deliver, this sort of thing could easily capture a bit of revenue from those idle vehicles. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw that Uber was doing deliveries.
I suspect many of these things will change as features like only two trips per day doesn't seem very sustainable. Right now it's not even close to being a rival, but what it evolves into very well may.
The legal implications of this approach (compared to uber's) are way easier to deal with.
They are not trying to fix taxis, they are trying to fix car-pooling.
The title is misleading. RideWith isn't a direct Uber rival, as it's a feature of the Waze app matching people doing similar trips on a regular basis. It is therefore closer to ride sharing/carpooling than to private transportation.
Note: We have built a marketplace to connect drivers and passengers, so we understand some of the challenges in scaling a business like this.
Like all marketplaces, you are faced with the chicken and egg problem. The market place is supply constrained. There is demand for rides but not enough matching supply. People with cars much prefer to travel alone due the inconvenience of picking up others.
So, in order to get the drivers you need to give them a VERY convenient option. Someone that is along their route, that would not add more than 5-10 mins of extra commute time, this is also dependent on how long the total commute is. You also need to reach these drivers, without them searching for a solution. Which is insanely expensive since the cheap acquisition strategies do not work.
The best way to solve this IMHO is seeding the market with drivers (supply side). Once you have the scale to guarantee a ride in a specific area you open up ride-sharing.
* Uber is doing this by incentivizing drivers who want to make a profit.
* Google is uniquely positioned to do this as well, since they have the treasure trove of Wayze data
Google knows where every Android user and most of everyone else lives and works.
Frankly it would be trivial to ask Android users a question: "Are you interested in carpooling? [Y/N]" and then prompt them when the guy three doors down also answers yes.
Sometimes when I read about Google dipping their hands into totally new things (another example is Google +) I think, "those greedy ...", etc., but then sometimes I read it and think, "perhaps Google is simply trying to prevent monopolies in tech fields where competition is sparse.".
If the latter possibility is sometimes the true motive, even if it is done out of self interest, the result tends to be good for all of us (except for the monopolists themselves), because Google doesn't tend to be able to maintain a monopoly in any techs other than search and advertising.
One example of the benefits of this kind of competition is the advent of larger iPhones. If not for Google's Android and subsequent proliferation of large-sized phones that evolved out of customer demand, Apple might have ignored (or not been nearly as aware of) the demand for a larger iPhone.
Forgive if I am misunderstanding, but Google Ventures invested in Uber, not Google itself. Wouldn't this statement from the article be half incorrect: "This puts Google squarely in competition with Uber, which is both an investment and customer of its Google Maps product."
Some of it is probably a bit of me-too-ism, but keep in mind that both Microsoft and Google are huge companies with a large number of people working semi-autonomously. Sometimes a team of a half dozen or so has been working on something just like it for three years on-and-off and, having been beaten to the punch, they go ahead and launch whatever they have rather than let it go cold.
It's not terribly surprising that some of these ventures are short-lived and half-baked; there's a reason they hadn't launched earlier. But once you've spent three goddamn years of your life on something, you might as well try a Hail Mary before the project is shut down.
It's usually a knee-jerk reaction to not being able to buy the original. Big and hairy company threats small company that they'll "crush them" if they refuse an acquisition offer, small company actually refuses, big and hairy company rushes to launch competitor just to follow through, even if it makes little business sense, big and hairy company knock off fails to get traction, small company thrives, and everyone forgets.
Unlike Microsoft, who had the will and executive ability to expand to new territories and destroy competitors, Google has a remarkable record of half-baked works and giving up. it's a joke.
The premise behind uber's valuation is that they could own the marketplace for transportation. But what if the market is not monopolizable? If users (drivers and riders) can costlessly participate in multiple transportation markets, then it's impossible to form a monopoly. Users will just frictionlessly move to the cheapest market. I operate in multiple of these markets (check all of the apps before committing to a ride) and I know that many drivers do too (lyft on this phone, uber on that phone, etc). So shouldn't this monopoly unravel to the point that all of the transportation markets aren't able to capture any value from the transaction?
Uber's valuation is also based on the perception that Uber can outgun the competition technologically and in global expansion. Uber might face more or less frictionless competition from regional rivals, like Lyft, but will have some durable advantages.
It heard that the branding team ruled out using "Google Hitchhiker".
What's the difference? Google's/Uber's/Lyft's imprimatur that your passenger is trustworthy? More surety of payment? If I want to take the risk, why won't cities let me give hitchhiker's rides for cash (or even credit card payments)?
Every time you launch into something else, like this, I become a bit more convinced that commentators are right and you are slowly turning into Microsoft.
I get the sense that, internally, things are still significantly different than they are or ever were at Microsoft. But I become increasingly concerned about some encroaching "inevitable".
De-fuck Hangouts and your rats nest of "instant" products/services. Beat Verizon over the head until they actually update the Moto X that, at the time of purchase, you sold me. Stop launching the "next great thing" only to kill it 18 months later, over and over.
And as some have said, um, search? Give at least optional specific control back to the power users. And someone the other day raised the pertinent question of why it's not well-integrated into Hangouts.
I suppose RideWith is supposed to eventually overlap with your autonomous cars, or something. But I don't give a crap about the new, until the old and erstwhile reliable -- and so critical to so many -- starts working better, again.
Thanks.
P.S. Ok, that last paragraph is partially rhetoric. But, damnit, if I'm going to invest in your products -- in both dollars and time and effort -- I want some consistency, and an upward trend in features and usability. (See also Tim O'Reilly's recent comments about the -- cough -- "improved" interface in Contacts. (Pop-ups and clipped text -- really?))
5. New functionality - e.g. If you're going somewhere while using Google Maps for navigation and turn on "Carpool" mode, people can see your path and message you for a pick up. They pay you for partial journey via the app.
When google announced Uber integration in their maps, I called it a trojan horse [1] Basically making maps the interface for ride sharing and then adding their own service on top.
I'd assumed that integration was more about learning Uber's fleet size at different times, how long people are willing to wait for a car, what locations they request from, etc.
I think the barrier to this sort of behavior being more common in the masses is that it's difficult to make these sort of connections.
If Google is basically able to say hey - your neighbor down the block drives to within a 5 minute walk of your office, then this could be a really useful tool for this sort of networking.
The benefits of driver-less vehicles in terms of accidents and fatalities aside, consider for a moment just how under utilized the current transportation capacity is in this country. On average, even at peak drive times, what percentage of vehicles are actually being used? Just look down your street or at any parking lot you pass on your way into the office.
In order to get the convenience of not having to call a taxi which could then require a long wait every time we need to go somewhere, we take out loans for tens of thousands of dollars to own a vehicle that is all ours. We then pay to maintain the multi-ton machine, build custom paths and storage buildings on our homes just to store them, and everywhere we go large swatches of land are set aside just to give us temporary storage for our vehicles since we can't reasonably visit any location without this machine in tow.
In a reality where we must own a vehicle in order to move around quickly and easily, all of these things make perfect sense and are just a part of our lives so much so that we don't even think about them most of the time. This one "little" change can completely transform it all.
One big advantage of Google's solution over Uber's is the relative climate change impact of your transportation choice. In reverse order of benefit, based on my amatuer analysis:
* For a baseline, let's use one party (generally a person or a couple) with a personal car. Traveling someplace creates P marginal greenhouse gasses (GHG), plus there is the fixed cost of manufacturing the car (but I have no idea how much that is).
* Uber and taxis net GHG emissions should be worst and greater than P: Your trip uses P but added to that is the GHG generated when the taxi/Uber car has no passenger and is 'cruising'. Also, I expect taxis/Uber cars are larger on average than personal cars, and thus less fuel efficient, because they need to fit several adults comfortably in the back. If you give up a personal car for Uber/taxis, then you get the manufacturing benefit.
* Car share services (e.g., ZipCar) should net less than P emissions, if you give up a personal car when you join. The car is parked when nobody is driving it, so the marginal cost of one trip is P. But it also eliminates the emissions created from manufacturing the car, whatever that is. EDIT: As hayksaakian points out below, this is the same as buying a used car.
* Google's RideWidth's net GHG emissions should be much less than P: For every added passenger, one less car is on the road emitting P.
* Public transit probably is second best. The marginal GHG emissions of the bus/train carrying your fat a-- on its normal route probably don't amount to much. On the other hand, it probably depends on the average passenger load of the vehicle -- certainly a train/bus with only you on it costs much more per passenger than P, but those fixed costs are spread over many more passengers than Uber/taxis.
* Best of all, of course, are biking or walking. Though has anyone calculated the GHG emissions of the human energy cycle, from growing the cattle feed to transport to refrigeration to cooking to human methane emissions?
Also not calculated are the effect your use of one service or another has on demand, driving up the number of Uber/taxi/busses, etc. on the road.
Carpooling has fundamental challenges that are perhaps impossible to overcome.
For one, dynamic routing for two or more people is always going to hurt the user experience. Imagine you're running late and your car re-routes to pick up another passenger - ugh!
Shared transportation for anything more than a neighbourhood trip should be professionally driven and to a schedule. That schedule can be dynamic as anything but must be solid and offer guarantees BEFORE the trip starts as to start point, route, etc.
In Germany, carpooling has been a mainstream thing since the mid-90ies or perhaps even earlier. The majority of trips are long-distance, i.e across-country. You are right that carpooling has has some shortcomings but it's so ridiculously cheap that many people happily accept those shortcomings. I used it many times when I was a student and 90% of the trips went as planned.
On the other hand, for commutes from, say, SF to Mountain View, or Mesa to Scottsdale, I bet a lot of drivers would love to have an extra passenger so they could use the HOV lane. During rush hour, the difference between being able to use the HOV lane vs. not could easily be 30 minutes.
Correct me , I don't find it as a Uber rival . I think they are trying to promote car pool which is much needed here in India , only problem I see is security of passsengers
Doesn't sound like a play against Uber -- seems more like a companion concept to self-driving cars, which would naturally be good candidates for commuter ride-sharing.
[+] [-] abluecloud|10 years ago|reply
> There also won’t be a ton of money changing hands as a passenger will pay the driver only a nominal fare for the trip
I'd hardly call it a Uber rival
[+] [-] onion2k|10 years ago|reply
This is Google's first toe-in-the-water for apps to request a ride, but it obviously won't be their last. Considering how much they've invested in autonomous vehicles only a crazy person would believe they're going to leave the entire market for self-driving taxis wide open for Uber etc. Google will have a taxi request service within a couple of years.
[+] [-] minthd|10 years ago|reply
And the fact that it's cheaper is basically "disruption from below" - a proven strategy in many businesses. While this exact transport service model generally failed , it did succeed in France(blabla car), and Google has unique marketing advantages that might make it succeed elsewhere.
Also, the main competitive barrier for UBER is that many consumers have the habit of ordering transportation through it's app. If Google gets that , the rest is relatively easy.
[+] [-] chockablock|10 years ago|reply
[Edit: except you can set up rides the night before; see Haaretz link in my other comment.]
[+] [-] TorKlingberg|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dataker|10 years ago|reply
Google still holds 5% of Uber.
For commuting, I'd call it Uber's abandonment and Lyft's death.
[+] [-] electric_sheep|10 years ago|reply
> ...allows users to share rides to work and back
I'm not sure how many people take Uber to and from work every day. I'd imagine it doesn't contribute to the bulk of ridership, though.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephengillie|10 years ago|reply
Isn't this what Lyft does? I'm guessing Uber put some money in a reporter's pocket to submarine them in this article instead.
[+] [-] peterjlee|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vinnyc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bl4ckm0r3|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rendambathu|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sebastianavina|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andybak|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gregoire|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RodericDay|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ismail|10 years ago|reply
Like all marketplaces, you are faced with the chicken and egg problem. The market place is supply constrained. There is demand for rides but not enough matching supply. People with cars much prefer to travel alone due the inconvenience of picking up others.
So, in order to get the drivers you need to give them a VERY convenient option. Someone that is along their route, that would not add more than 5-10 mins of extra commute time, this is also dependent on how long the total commute is. You also need to reach these drivers, without them searching for a solution. Which is insanely expensive since the cheap acquisition strategies do not work.
The best way to solve this IMHO is seeding the market with drivers (supply side). Once you have the scale to guarantee a ride in a specific area you open up ride-sharing.
* Uber is doing this by incentivizing drivers who want to make a profit.
* Google is uniquely positioned to do this as well, since they have the treasure trove of Wayze data
[+] [-] jellicle|10 years ago|reply
Frankly it would be trivial to ask Android users a question: "Are you interested in carpooling? [Y/N]" and then prompt them when the guy three doors down also answers yes.
[+] [-] chockablock|10 years ago|reply
"Google's Waze to launch worldwide carpooling pilot in Israel"
http://www.haaretz.com/business/1.664577
[+] [-] mangeletti|10 years ago|reply
If the latter possibility is sometimes the true motive, even if it is done out of self interest, the result tends to be good for all of us (except for the monopolists themselves), because Google doesn't tend to be able to maintain a monopoly in any techs other than search and advertising.
One example of the benefits of this kind of competition is the advent of larger iPhones. If not for Google's Android and subsequent proliferation of large-sized phones that evolved out of customer demand, Apple might have ignored (or not been nearly as aware of) the demand for a larger iPhone.
[+] [-] dpflan|10 years ago|reply
1. https://www.gv.com/about 2. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/funding-rounds
[+] [-] tdaltonc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wheaties|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saalweachter|10 years ago|reply
It's not terribly surprising that some of these ventures are short-lived and half-baked; there's a reason they hadn't launched earlier. But once you've spent three goddamn years of your life on something, you might as well try a Hail Mary before the project is shut down.
[+] [-] Mahn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crazychrome|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfar1|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tdaltonc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zigurd|10 years ago|reply
Google is a different kind of competitor.
[+] [-] hackuser|10 years ago|reply
What's the difference? Google's/Uber's/Lyft's imprimatur that your passenger is trustworthy? More surety of payment? If I want to take the risk, why won't cities let me give hitchhiker's rides for cash (or even credit card payments)?
[+] [-] pasbesoin|10 years ago|reply
Every time you launch into something else, like this, I become a bit more convinced that commentators are right and you are slowly turning into Microsoft.
I get the sense that, internally, things are still significantly different than they are or ever were at Microsoft. But I become increasingly concerned about some encroaching "inevitable".
De-fuck Hangouts and your rats nest of "instant" products/services. Beat Verizon over the head until they actually update the Moto X that, at the time of purchase, you sold me. Stop launching the "next great thing" only to kill it 18 months later, over and over.
And as some have said, um, search? Give at least optional specific control back to the power users. And someone the other day raised the pertinent question of why it's not well-integrated into Hangouts.
I suppose RideWith is supposed to eventually overlap with your autonomous cars, or something. But I don't give a crap about the new, until the old and erstwhile reliable -- and so critical to so many -- starts working better, again.
Thanks.
P.S. Ok, that last paragraph is partially rhetoric. But, damnit, if I'm going to invest in your products -- in both dollars and time and effort -- I want some consistency, and an upward trend in features and usability. (See also Tim O'Reilly's recent comments about the -- cough -- "improved" interface in Contacts. (Pop-ups and clipped text -- really?))
[+] [-] taigeair|10 years ago|reply
5. New functionality - e.g. If you're going somewhere while using Google Maps for navigation and turn on "Carpool" mode, people can see your path and message you for a pick up. They pay you for partial journey via the app.
http://www.quora.com/How-will-Google-monetize-Google-Maps
[+] [-] salimmadjd|10 years ago|reply
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7705706
[+] [-] eli|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shostack|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abalos|10 years ago|reply
If Google is basically able to say hey - your neighbor down the block drives to within a 5 minute walk of your office, then this could be a really useful tool for this sort of networking.
[+] [-] MarcScott|10 years ago|reply
Or maybe your personal self-driving car will inform you that there are people travelling your route that you can share fuel costs with.
[+] [-] stoshe|10 years ago|reply
The benefits of driver-less vehicles in terms of accidents and fatalities aside, consider for a moment just how under utilized the current transportation capacity is in this country. On average, even at peak drive times, what percentage of vehicles are actually being used? Just look down your street or at any parking lot you pass on your way into the office.
In order to get the convenience of not having to call a taxi which could then require a long wait every time we need to go somewhere, we take out loans for tens of thousands of dollars to own a vehicle that is all ours. We then pay to maintain the multi-ton machine, build custom paths and storage buildings on our homes just to store them, and everywhere we go large swatches of land are set aside just to give us temporary storage for our vehicles since we can't reasonably visit any location without this machine in tow.
In a reality where we must own a vehicle in order to move around quickly and easily, all of these things make perfect sense and are just a part of our lives so much so that we don't even think about them most of the time. This one "little" change can completely transform it all.
[+] [-] hackuser|10 years ago|reply
* For a baseline, let's use one party (generally a person or a couple) with a personal car. Traveling someplace creates P marginal greenhouse gasses (GHG), plus there is the fixed cost of manufacturing the car (but I have no idea how much that is).
* Uber and taxis net GHG emissions should be worst and greater than P: Your trip uses P but added to that is the GHG generated when the taxi/Uber car has no passenger and is 'cruising'. Also, I expect taxis/Uber cars are larger on average than personal cars, and thus less fuel efficient, because they need to fit several adults comfortably in the back. If you give up a personal car for Uber/taxis, then you get the manufacturing benefit.
* Car share services (e.g., ZipCar) should net less than P emissions, if you give up a personal car when you join. The car is parked when nobody is driving it, so the marginal cost of one trip is P. But it also eliminates the emissions created from manufacturing the car, whatever that is. EDIT: As hayksaakian points out below, this is the same as buying a used car.
* Google's RideWidth's net GHG emissions should be much less than P: For every added passenger, one less car is on the road emitting P.
* Public transit probably is second best. The marginal GHG emissions of the bus/train carrying your fat a-- on its normal route probably don't amount to much. On the other hand, it probably depends on the average passenger load of the vehicle -- certainly a train/bus with only you on it costs much more per passenger than P, but those fixed costs are spread over many more passengers than Uber/taxis.
* Best of all, of course, are biking or walking. Though has anyone calculated the GHG emissions of the human energy cycle, from growing the cattle feed to transport to refrigeration to cooking to human methane emissions?
Also not calculated are the effect your use of one service or another has on demand, driving up the number of Uber/taxi/busses, etc. on the road.
[+] [-] svs|10 years ago|reply
For one, dynamic routing for two or more people is always going to hurt the user experience. Imagine you're running late and your car re-routes to pick up another passenger - ugh!
Shared transportation for anything more than a neighbourhood trip should be professionally driven and to a schedule. That schedule can be dynamic as anything but must be solid and offer guarantees BEFORE the trip starts as to start point, route, etc.
Basically a very smart and discoverable bus.
[+] [-] tmalsburg2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjmahone17|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linux_devil|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] electric_sheep|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gossilla|10 years ago|reply
I assume this is from the driver-as-employee lawsuits Uber is facing and Google wants to be safe.