[HN Gopher] Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in o...
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Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new
cities
Author : JumpCrisscross
Score : 117 points
Date : 2025-01-29 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| "In addition to ongoing trips to Truckee, Michigan's Upper
| Peninsula, Upstate New York and Tokyo, the expansion includes
| testing in San Diego and Las Vegas, with more cities yet to be
| announced."
|
| Pitching my own book here, but I think Jackson Hole would be a
| great place for Waymo. It's clearly delineated, has basically no
| freeway driving, affluent residents and a constant influx of
| tourists for brand building. The only challenge is snow, but the
| roads are well plowed and drivers generally careful. If you're
| working in Truckee, I can't imagine it will be a much-bigger
| challenge.
| spankalee wrote:
| I imagine they'll need a ton of testing and adjustments for
| driving in snow for all the conditions the car needs to detect
| and plan around, like the wheels slipping, or the car as a
| whole sliding down a hill. This is probably a separate effort
| from mapping out a city, but then needs to be tested in the
| real world.
|
| I think Truckee and Tahoe offer this environment within
| reasonable driving distance to the main Waymo development
| campuses.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| They're testing in Upper Minnesota and upstate New York.
| Upstate New York contains the snowiest city in the US,
| Syracuse.
| spankalee wrote:
| Ah, good point then!
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Truckee/Tahoe is an extremely popular test area for bay area
| AV companies. Waymo's been testing there regularly since at
| least 2017.
| DCH3416 wrote:
| Not so much snow, as you have rapidly changing road
| conditions such as ice and freezing rain. And then factor in
| poor road markings and not always abundantly clear path
| finding.
|
| The nice thing about EVs like they're using now. The electric
| motors are pretty good at responding and handling different
| road conditions, much faster than ICE vehicles since you can
| never quite predict what the engine is doing at a given
| moment.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Biggest difference is climate. Truckee's average highs never
| dip below 40F. Jackson has 2 months average highs below
| freezing -- that means a LOT more residual ice and snow.
| xyst wrote:
| > think Jackson Hole would be a great place for Waymo
|
| billionaire class wouldn't be too happy with getting beta
| tested on raw tech. They will push back because "NIMBYism" runs
| deep.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they will push back because "NIMBYism" runs deep_
|
| Waymo is being adopted in wealthy areas first. To the extent
| there is NIMBY sentiment, it's towards rideshare drivers.
| (Also, billionaires probably wouldn't be taking Waymo. If
| their properties aren't fly in they're driving themselves.)
| proudestmonkey wrote:
| In SF, a lot of billionaires love taking Waymos
| AutistiCoder wrote:
| When will this be rolled out to everywhere else?
| dvh wrote:
| In 2024 it had $365 million in revenue but $1.13 billion
| expenses.
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| I love that you included numbers, but that is for all of
| Alphabet's "other bets" which includes Waymo, so it's not
| entirely Waymo. It still helps give ballpark figures though.
| htrp wrote:
| isn't waymo the majority of alphabets other bets?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| In terms of revenue - but less so in terms of costs.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if WayMo is losing <$200M instead
| of ~$800M like the above post made it seem.
|
| Additionally - the majority of those losses _could_ come
| from expansion efforts.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if WayMo already has profitable
| unit economics.
| standardUser wrote:
| Waymo has deep pockets and an incentive to play it safe. What
| it doesn't have is fierce competition forcing it to rush. Maybe
| that will change if/when Amazon's Zoox premiers this year.
| wolfram74 wrote:
| I wonder if the waymo solution is very vehicle specific or if it
| could be easily applied to say, a 10~12 person van that could
| accommodate a wheelchair? It would be interesting to design a
| transit system around 4~5 times as many vehicles with higher
| interval or more responsive pathing with something like pick up
| kiosks.
| varelaseb wrote:
| Are you... is this the micro-bus?
| ggreer wrote:
| Self-driving makes the most economic sense when fewer people
| are in a vehicle. With a large van or bus, the cost of the
| human driver is split between more passengers. Also van or bus
| service is less compelling to individuals, as it makes them
| beholden to bus stop locations and schedules instead of picking
| them up and dropping them off when and where they want.
|
| Adding support for wheelchairs introduces new failure modes
| that would require more software and/or human intervention. For
| example: Wheelchairs need to be strapped down for safety, and
| not all wheelchair users can do this themselves.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _With a large van or bus, the cost of the human driver is
| split between more passengers_
|
| It's also increased in that one must manage the passengers.
| jasonpeacock wrote:
| > Also van or bus service is less compelling to individuals,
| as it makes them beholden to bus stop locations and schedules
| instead of picking them up and dropping them off when and
| where they want.
|
| Exactly this. The attraction of self-driving transit is the
| support for individual planning. Everyone gets a direct route
| to their destination, no delays stopping or detouring for
| other people.
|
| There's also increased safety in having a personal ride.
| You're not being hassled, stalked, or threatened by random
| people.
| no_exit wrote:
| > You're not being hassled, stalked, or threatened by
| random people.
|
| That's an odd thing to say. The only times I've ever been
| randomly threatened in public were on the road, by another
| driver.
| Retric wrote:
| That's offset by dramatically lower prices and significant
| service in off peak hours.
|
| Net result bus drivers are still a large fraction of the cost
| of bus service.
| jasonpeacock wrote:
| Many cities are already upgrading their transit systems to
| implement "rapid ride" where they run buses on a 10min schedule
| through popular routes.
|
| This eliminates the need for planning routes - go the nearest
| stop, wait 10-15min (sometimes buses get bunched up so it's not
| really every 10min), and get on the next bus.
|
| Buses already have drivers, wheelchair (and bicycle!) support,
| etc. and the stops usually have live tracking of the next
| arriving buses.
| microtherion wrote:
| I recently came across an article on the early years of the
| Zurich streetcar. In the early 1900s, 5 minute schedules were
| customary, with one especially busy line running a 3 minute
| schedule!
|
| In contrast, nowadays the peak schedule is 7.5min.
| aiauthoritydev wrote:
| Mass manufacturing vehicles is important part of their long
| term strategy. So I am pretty sure a large van with wheelchair
| support will be on cards.
| xyst wrote:
| I hate ADS tech in cities so much. The pedestrian/pet detection
| is god awful. Doesn't matter if you cross at designated
| crosswalks or just crossing the street. Many close calls.
|
| Cruise _was_ the king in this aspect and avoided them completely
| but Waymo is getting up there.
|
| Side note: GOOG and other tech conglomerates are clearly
| monopolizing the tech industry - from ADS to AI/AGI/LLM. It's no
| wonder these companies have kissed the ring of current
| administration to get the green light on acquisitions needed to
| setup monopolies and effectively become a monopsony (particularly
| in labor to keep wages down).
| fragmede wrote:
| > The pedestrian/pet detection is god awful
|
| When I walk in front of a Waymo it stops and gives me space and
| doesn't come anywhere near hitting me. That doesn't qualify as
| "god awful" to me. do you have a different experience?
| gwern wrote:
| Source: https://www.theverge.com/news/600542/waymo-test-cities-
| las-v...
| DaedPsyker wrote:
| Tokyo is one of the new cities, interesting. Is this the first
| non-US city waymo has tested in?
| eachro wrote:
| Thats a great choice. High trust city, super high density.
| astrange wrote:
| Well, low crime, not high trust. Like, noone trusts each
| other to throw out their trash the right way.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| It's the first non-US city that they've done public testing in.
| They've been doing test track work in Europe for awhile now,
| and Cruise did some Japanese/middle eastern testing before they
| folded.
| dageshi wrote:
| I'm convinced that Waymo will quietly continue to roll out self
| driving taxi's to ever increasing areas in "beta" until one day
| they're covering a significant percentage of the most profitable
| areas to be a taxi in.
|
| Instead of trying for universal self driving, they're going to
| prioritise being self driving taxi's for the most profitable
| areas.
| fooblaster wrote:
| yeah, that's exactly what they are going to do. It's how Uber
| worked as well.
| kart23 wrote:
| Are they even profitable in SF or LA? I don't disagree with
| you, but if being profitable means charging more than Uber/Lyft
| and having slower trips on average than a human, thats not
| gonna work out too well. And these are the highest CoL cities
| in the us, meaning that if its not profitable there, might not
| be profitable anywhere.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| >but if being profitable means charging more than Uber/Lyft
| and having slower trips on average than a human
|
| thats just a function of the numbers of cars on the road
| dageshi wrote:
| I'm pretty certain they won't undercut Uber or other taxi
| services any time soon because they don't want to provoke the
| political headache that comes with it. That type of politics
| could shutdown their licenses, I'm sure they want to avoid
| that at all costs so they're pricing above existing services.
|
| What they may do is refuse to raise prices and eventually
| inflation will make them the cheapest.
| Rodeoclash wrote:
| They can charge more in Melbourne and I'll happily pay it
| to avoid drivers that cancel the trip after accepting or
| accept the trip and drive away from me until I cancel.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Charging about as much as their competitors is probably the
| profit-maximizing strategy.
| standardUser wrote:
| They're already the cheapest if they match prices because
| there is no tip required. In the long run they'll
| inevitably be cheaper because of higher utilization of
| their vehicles and (vastly) lower labor costs.
| aiauthoritydev wrote:
| Operational profits is not really a goal for Waymo in near
| term. The current goal is to be many years ahead of
| competition, getting permits to operate in major profitable
| cities with profitable routes.
|
| The cost of a Waymo car right now is around $150K. Soon,
| Waymo will build its own cars (with partnership with some car
| manufacturer) from scratch which will bring this cost to
| around $40K.
|
| currently WayMo has around 2 people per car employed in
| service roles which will be like 2 people per 50 cars. At
| that point they will be swimming in profits.
| ugh123 wrote:
| > currently WayMo has around 2 people per car employed in
| service roles
|
| Do you have a source for this? I'm curious about their
| operations
| RivieraKid wrote:
| It's almost certainly not true.
| rob74 wrote:
| > _The current goal is to be many years ahead of
| competition_
|
| The problem with this is that one of their competitors
| (Tesla) now has very powerful friends in the government
| which are certainly not above using that power in their
| favor...
| dageshi wrote:
| This is another reason why I think they will remain low
| key.
|
| They'll perpetually be in "beta" until they're so
| ubiquitous that the idea of getting rid of them is
| unthinkable.
| spjt wrote:
| I would pay more for a slower ride just to avoid having to
| pay a tip.
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| You will certainly be happy to learn that Waymo is in fact
| introducing tipping.
|
| https://x.com/wongmjane/status/1884136644238008334
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| It goes to a charity of the rider's choice [1].
|
| [1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/28/waymo-is-
| reportedly-buildi...
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| They're probably within reasonable distance of gross profit,
| and much farther from net profit because of the imbalance
| between their current fleet size and the massive ongoing
| manufacturing and R&D costs. The organizational goal is not
| immediate net profits though.
|
| Take this with the grain of salt it deserves. No one relying
| solely on publicly available information can give you
| anything more than highly speculative guesses.
| jedberg wrote:
| Why do you think the trips are slower than a human? I've only
| taken one Waymo trip (and my wife two) but in each case it
| didn't feel any slower than a Lyft. But it felt a lot safer!
| They definitely drive better than any human Lyft driver I've
| ever had.
|
| And the prices seems to roughly match Uber/Lyft. Sometimes
| they're higher sometimes lower. The one ride I took I chose
| the more expensive Waymo just for the better experience. You
| don't have to worry about what the driver might say or do
| that makes you uncomfortable or unsafe.
| someperson wrote:
| Waymos are terrible at taking unprotected left turns into
| bumper to bumper traffic during peak hour.
|
| They aren't aggressive like a normal driver when traffic is
| stopped and there's a clear but small gap that would result
| in the car being at an angle crossing traffic.
|
| The lidar can't see any gap between cars when trying to
| turn into a more distant lane, so any obstruction to a
| close lane due to traffic kills them.
|
| Source: been stuck in and observed Waymo in this situation
| for 10+ minutes several times.
|
| A human driver is willing to make the turn much sooner.
|
| Don't take a Waymo if you're in a hurry and the route will
| have such a left turns.
| strifey wrote:
| Anecdotally, they've gotten much more proactive at taking
| unprotected lefts in my experience.
| pesus wrote:
| They seem to be getting more proactive in general. I was
| surprised last night when the one I was in went full
| barrel through a light that was already yellow and turned
| red while we were still in the intersection.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| When was the last time this happened to you?
| someperson wrote:
| Last Thursday. I called support after 10 minutes to
| cancel the ride but the car started moving while I was on
| the call.
|
| That particular one was a traffic light green light with
| a "do not queue over intersection" area specifically
| designed to allow cars in my lane to turn onto the main
| road. The Waymo can't see that there's a gap in the lane
| it wanted to turn into, and was too conservative about
| queuing over the intersection at an angle when the light
| was green like any human would do.
| strifey wrote:
| Their wait times tend to be worse, but that's getting
| better too. The trip speed has also noticeably improved.
| I've taken about 50 over the past 2 years.
|
| Even if they're sometimes slower in pickup or trip time, on
| average, I greatly value the consistency of the experience
| over everything else.
| bps4484 wrote:
| I should first note that I'm a big fan of waymo and want
| autonomous to succeed generally.
|
| I take both waymo's and lyft/uber all the time in sf and
| waymo's are way slower. I'd estimate it at 10-15% slower.
| Once the novelty of a waymo wears off you realize that they
| drive like a high anxiety teenager and going 15 mph on a 15
| mph road, coming to gentle full stop at every stop sign,
| and being very tentative on turns and passing people all
| add up to a very slow ride.
|
| You're right though it definitely feels safer.
| esafak wrote:
| That's a product decision, though. They want people to
| feel safe, and to build a sustained record for being
| safe. They could easily hit the pedal if they wanted to.
|
| They are doing the right thing.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >They want people to feel safe.
|
| "Lawful to a fault teenager" is not what people want in a
| taxi driver. That type of chauffeur doesn't make people
| feel safe. It makes them on edge. That's what regulators
| want.
|
| I agree it's the "right" way to do it from a PR
| perspective though.
| miki123211 wrote:
| The sad truth about Waymo is that they have to aim for a
| 0 (or extremely close to 0) accident rate for
| PR/regulatory reasons, especially so for accidents caused
| by Waymo, and that's always going to heavily influence
| the way they drive.
|
| Uber drivers cause accidents sometimes, just like all
| drivers do. Whenever this happens, we generally blame the
| driver and not Uber. It's a completely unremarkable event
| that the media will not pick up on, because everybody
| knows that car accidents are just a fact of life.
|
| If a Waymo causes just one fatal accident, people will be
| up in arms and demand a ban on self driving. That means
| they have to be extremely conservative in how they drive,
| especially as more and more of them appear and the
| probability of one causing an accident goes up due to
| simple statistics.
| pesus wrote:
| The calmness is a major selling point for me, personally.
| Beyond just the safety aspect, I can't count how many
| times I've gotten nauseous from Uber and taxi drivers
| swerving and accelerating/stopping abruptly, often for no
| actual speed gain.
| astrange wrote:
| Were those rides in hybrids? I've noticed the way they
| brake is a lot more likely to get me carsick if I'm
| sitting in the back, especially Priuses.
| alistairSH wrote:
| It stopped at a stop sign?!?!? THE HORROR!
|
| Kidding but not kidding. Easily half my Uber rides have
| been legit scary. Yellow cabs only slightly better.
|
| How does Waymo do for cleanliness and odor? That would be
| another selling point vs regular Uber/Lyft and many
| yellow cabs. These days they all seem to douse the
| interior with cheap cologne.
| esafak wrote:
| I stopped using Lyft after two close calls with riders
| who must have faked their papers. One car collided with a
| postal truck causing the front to fall off, like that
| Australian ship:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
| RivieraKid wrote:
| They're already covering 0.25% of total US paved road network
| per my napkin calculation.
| danvoell wrote:
| I feel like some people have been using "most profitable areas"
| instead of saying dense urban areas and upset that it might
| take a while to reach rural and suburban areas. Is that what
| you are saying? What business is not in the business of
| pursuing the most plausible profitable direction first?
| simonw wrote:
| I honestly don't understand the appeal of a private self-
| driving vehicle as opposed to a taxi-style rental service.
|
| I _like_ that Waymo has human backup! Knowing that if the car
| gets into a tricky situation there 's someone who can remote
| control it back out again is very reassuring.
|
| I also like not having to think about where it parks, what it's
| doing when I'm not in it etc.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| The article does not actually list the 10 cities. Nor does it
| link to a source or say the source.
| actinium226 wrote:
| > In addition to ongoing trips to Truckee, Michigan's Upper
| Peninsula, Upstate New York and Tokyo, the expansion includes
| testing in San Diego and Las Vegas, with more cities yet to be
| announced.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| They list a few cities but not 10 cities.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Presumably this is counting Atlanta, Miami, and Austin -
| which were already announced as expansion markets for 2025.
|
| See "coming soon" on the WayMo homepage: https://waymo.com/
|
| That's 9 total.
| jsight wrote:
| I've been poking at Uber forums and other places, and I'm
| noticing that a _lot_ of people are underestimating this. Waymo
| is growing by >100%/year at the moment and this is a significant
| part of that growth.
|
| It'll make a huge dent in demand for Uber/Lyft over the next five
| years.
| sadeshmukh wrote:
| Interestingly, they're currently partnering with Uber in
| Florida if I remember correctly.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Unless those companies stumble on competing solutions that they
| can use to level the playing field. Waymo doesn't have this
| market to itself in perpetuity. Uber and Lyft basically have
| lots of revenue and can afford to take some bets on
| experimenting with different partners for self driving at a
| relatively low risk.
|
| There are plenty of other companies experimenting with self
| driving taxis, cars, trucks, etc. And not just in the US. China
| is probably a lot further than Waymo on this front. In the end
| it boils down to cost at scale. Waymo has some early learnings
| for this, which is great, but it's no guarantee that somebody
| else won't come along and match what they are doing. Or
| massively improve on what and how they are doing what they are
| doing.
|
| Tesla is the controversial one to mention in this context but I
| no longer believe that they'll get there first or exclusively.
| They might still get there. And maybe it won't even take that
| long. But they have a lot to prove and there are lots of other
| companies field testing working taxis with real passengers
| (unlike Tesla) at this point.
|
| I wouldn't count Uber out. I'd say they are well aware of the
| challenges here and have a huge stake in ensuring that there
| will be multiple autonomy providers for them to choose from
| that all need the same thing to succeed: access to paying
| customers. Which is something that Uber has. The near future is
| likely to be mostly non-autonomous with specific geofences
| running experiments with autonomous driving in a limited number
| of places. Uber works in all those places and all they need is
| access to autonomous options in areas as that becomes
| available. They don't need to own or develop this in house.
| They just need access and some revenue share deal. More
| providers means more competitive deals.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised to seem them close multiple, non-
| exclusive deals on this front in the next years. Possibly even
| with Waymo or Tesla. Or both. And then some.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Uber and Lyft basically have lots of revenue_
|
| Waymo is level with Lyft in San Francisco [1].
|
| > _plenty of other companies experimenting with self driving
| taxis, cars, trucks, etc._
|
| None with a track record. The only wild card is Tesla.
|
| [1] https://www.ktvu.com/news/waymo-ridership-skyrocketed-in-
| sf-...
| miki123211 wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if Uber/Lyft essentially end up as
| aggregators for autonomous cars.
|
| You'll have multiple (local) companies, possibly Uber
| franchisees, maintaining autonomous fleets and doing the low-
| margin work of car cleaning, acquiring the vehicles,
| servicing them etc. Uber will be the interface between the
| passenger and those companies.
|
| Uber could even keep some human drivers for peak-traffic
| situations that it would be uneconomical for a ppurely
| autonomous fleet to handle.
| vaughnegut wrote:
| Anyone know how it does in wintery places? I'm seeing that it's
| in Michigan now
| kouru225 wrote:
| You bring that crap to nyc and we're making a special new waymo
| congestion price
| rangestransform wrote:
| I can't wait until this hits NYC and the subway is forced to
| compete on all 3 of price, comfort, convenience
| ugh123 wrote:
| So you prefer human taxi drivers?
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