[HN Gopher] Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people a...
___________________________________________________________________
Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying
anyway
Author : achristmascarl
Score : 174 points
Date : 2025-06-12 14:19 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| baxtr wrote:
| Interesting. Very little about the underlying reasons for this.
|
| Maybe it's driven by curiosity/awe for the new experience? Maybe
| being alone in the car makes a better ride?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I pay a premium for Waymos.
|
| No need to tip, or even think about whether one should tip. The
| ride won't cancel on me, which makes it more reliable. (Waymos
| are also more consistently clean.) I can take phone calls
| without worrying about my rider rating. And yeah, they're more
| fun because they're novel.
| milesskorpen wrote:
| The tip piece is interesting - that'd close a big chunk of
| the price gap, if people are tipping 10-20%
| Jelthi wrote:
| I do. Sometimes almost 50%. I also do dumb things like
| order an Uber Black because I wanted a nicer ride or an XL
| because I don't want to be shoved in the back of a model 3
| even with just 2 people.
| agumonkey wrote:
| What about driving safety ?
| sundaeofshock wrote:
| Very safe. They obey most traffic rules and don't do stupid
| things. I have friends who commute in bike and say they
| feel safer with Waymo's on the street. As a pedestrian, I
| appreciate them since I don't worry it might run me over
| when I'm crossing the street.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| The "consistently clean" part won't last, that's just because
| they're new. In 2010 "they're consistently clean" was an
| advantage of Ubers over yellow cabs, which of course is gone
| now. But I agree with the rest of this.
| Jelthi wrote:
| My only experience with a dirty Waymo was smell. I reported
| it in app and got a message they recalled it to be cleaned.
|
| I think the fact they can just take a car out of rotation
| and to the hub which probably has dedicated cleaning staff
| is a big reason it _will_ last.
|
| Your average uber driver is desperate to work. I've seen a
| driver open his trunk and clean up urine from a drunk
| female passenger he just dropped off in front of me and
| then just carry on with our ride like it was no big deal.
| xnx wrote:
| > My only experience with a dirty Waymo was smell.
|
| Also a plus that you can roll down all the windows in a
| Waymo if you want to.
| xnx wrote:
| > The "consistently clean" part won't last, that's just
| because they're new.
|
| A fair bit of the unclean part of Ubers/Lyfts comes from
| the drivers: cigarettes, marijuana, food, perfume, air
| "fresheners", body odor.
|
| Waymo's have internal cameras that can detect visible
| uncleanliness.
|
| Easy to report and have accountability (to the previous
| rider) if there's a significant cleanliness problem
| (spilled food, vomit).
|
| Next generation Zeekr vehicles (limited by tariffs right
| now) might be better designed for cleaning: better
| materials, fewer nooks and crannies, larger door openings.
| theamk wrote:
| Last Lyft I was in, the driver had some sort on incense
| burning. He had window open, but this still made me feel
| sick.
|
| Can't wait for Waymos to appear in my area.
| unsignedint wrote:
| Yeah, I'd happily pay a bit extra just to take tipping out of
| the equation entirely. Not having to worry about it is enough
| of a draw on its own. (I'm not a fan of tipping culture to
| begin with -- especially with apps like Uber, where you're
| also being rated, which adds even more pressure.)
|
| Now if only Waymo were available in my area...
| kubectl_h wrote:
| I dislike tipping culture too but the idea that you would
| pay more so you don't have to tip doesn't make any sense.
| Additionally you are paying more so you don't have to tip
| and the thing that enables that is the literal job a human
| would otherwise have is destroyed.
|
| So bizarre. The levels people will go not to deal with any
| conflict, no matter how trivial it is...
| dboreham wrote:
| "Lack of another person in the vehicle" is a feature. Don't
| have to interact with a person. No weed/cigarette smell. And so
| on. Also a computer may not drive as well as the best human but
| it will always drive much better than the worst human.
| tialaramex wrote:
| > "Lack of another person in the vehicle" is a feature.
|
| I remember this came up for self-checkout at grocery stores.
| Personally I mildly prefer not interacting, for one friend
| this is a huge psychological difference, they are much more
| able to shop when it doesn't involve trying to talk to a
| human. It's not impossible anyway but you can see it's a real
| burden.
|
| If I _want_ to interact with a human there 's no reason that
| should be a financial transaction. I can believe you would
| get a Waymo to a bar, hang out with friends (or even
| strangers) and then get a Waymo home, because you wanted the
| social interactions to be entirely separate from the
| financial transaction.
| kreetx wrote:
| But it makes sense it being this way, doesn't it? I assume
| there are way fewer of Waymo taxis and the premium they provide
| is being able to ride privately at your own company. Also
| likely is that the riders might be more well off, part of them
| being tech-savvy, thus also leaning towards willing to ride an
| autonomous car.
| taylodl wrote:
| I think my _autonomavertigo_ would prevent me from ever taking a
| Waymo.
|
| Autonomavertigo (noun):
|
| The disorienting fear or anxiety experienced when surrendering
| control to autonomous systems, especially self-driving vehicles.
| Often accompanied by phantom brake-pumping and suspicious glances
| at the dashboard.
| browningstreet wrote:
| There's none of this in a Waymo, and the phantom braking is
| reduced but still present in FSD Teslas... and yes, it's anger-
| inducing.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Take a friend and watch them in awe and wonder. That will be
| your icebreaker.
|
| Otherwise, just remember this not completely autonomous. Some
| technician is troubleshooting behind the computer screen.
| bitpush wrote:
| Not dismissing your concerns, but curious how you deal with
| elevators or escalators
| taylodl wrote:
| Fixed track, few degrees of freedom
| dham wrote:
| You're gonna have a bad time in the next few years haha.
| pkrecker wrote:
| I'm willing to pay more for a better ride experience:
|
| * Waymos are all the same. I underrated the value of this until I
| started taking Waymo more often.
|
| * I can control the music and volume with my phone.
|
| * I can listen to YouTube or take a call without AirPods.
| Sometimes I even hotspot and do some work.
|
| But most importantly Waymos all _drive_ the same way. I have had
| some really perplexing Uber drivers, either driving in a confused
| and circuitous way, distracted by YouTube, or just driving
| dangerously. I am more confident that I will have a safe ride in
| a Waymo than in an Uber.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I've been picked up multiple times by Uber drivers who have,
| essentially, bragged? about being drunk or high.
|
| I've also had multiple drivers in multiple countries try to
| sell me drugs.
|
| I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept in
| stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped (which, was
| actually fascinating, and would've been very concerning if we
| ever got going more than like 10 mph).
|
| Women also have to worry about drivers trying to hit on them.
|
| The list goes on.
|
| It's not a surprise a lot of people will pay a premium to avoid
| all that.
| rcpt wrote:
| I also had one of those drivers who would sleep in traffic. I
| assumed he was very sleepy deprived and it was stressing me
| out while we went over hwy 17 in Santa Cruz
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Why didn't you end the ride and get out?
| kelnos wrote:
| Often you won't realize the problem until you're on a
| freeway and can't get out of the vehicle. Sure, you can
| ask the driver to get off at the next exit and bail
| there, but I imagine a lot of people would feel
| uncomfortable doing that, even if it's for something
| serious like a safety issue.
| username223 wrote:
| > I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept
| in stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped
|
| Imagine how desperate you would have to be to drive a cab
| when you're that sleep-deprived (probably haven't slept in 36
| hours). Now imagine someone took that income away from you to
| give it to Sundar Pichai.
|
| Yeah, sometimes it's unpleasant talking to a cabby, and
| sometimes he won't take a hint and stop talking. But you
| might learn something if you try to engage, instead of vibe-
| coding inside a surveillance robot.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| So instead of giving my money to Google, I should get in a
| car where someone could easily kill me and others?
|
| No thanks.
| Evidlo wrote:
| Just stay indoors away from strangers where it's safe.
| basisword wrote:
| >> Imagine how desperate you would have to be to drive a
| cab when you're that sleep-deprived (probably haven't slept
| in 36 hours). Now imagine someone took that income away
| from you to give it to Sundar Pichai.
|
| Desperation isn't an excuse for risking the life of your
| passenger and other road users or pedestrians.
| culopatin wrote:
| Probably undiagnosed diabetes. My dad would do the same and
| he'd have a regular night of sleep
| kelnos wrote:
| I think we're in a lot of trouble as a society if our
| choices are between a) automating away people's jobs and
| giving the savings to rich company executives, and b)
| getting into a car that's being driven unsafely.
| panarky wrote:
| This is the thing that people don't realize about autonomous
| AI.
|
| It's not primarily about saving money.
|
| Autonomous taxis are _superior_ to Uber and yellow cabs. It
| 's a better experience, and it's far safer. Autonomous cars
| aren't cheaper, they're better.
|
| When AI agents replace human jobs, any cost savings is
| secondary. A coding job where the AI does most of the grunt
| work is _superior_ to a job where humans do everything. It 's
| better for the worker (less tedium). It's better for the
| employer (consistent style, greater test coverage, security
| vulns evaluated for every function, follows company policy
| and procedures).
|
| AI agents done well are _superior_ at call center jobs,
| screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial
| analysis, most business consulting like process redesign,
| etc. The biggest benefit isn 't reducing payroll, it's doing
| the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.
| majormajor wrote:
| (All this assumes some some not-yet-here future where "AI
| agents" are less flaky than today's LLMs.)
|
| Things like "call center jobs" are where "superior" gets
| muddy.
|
| They can be superior for the business. The business _does
| not want to spend money._ Now they aren 't paying a person,
| and they have to worry less about a sob story convincing
| their agent to make an exception. Health insurance company,
| for instance, where the life-saving treatment was declined.
| Refund of plane ticket because the flight was delayed and
| normally the policy would be to deny it but this particular
| person missed his father's funeral as a result, so the
| agent takes pity. So it's "superior" for the company
| because it entirely IS about saving money.
|
| Hard to say those are superior for _the customer_. And most
| of us aren 't the megacorp-owners here. We're the
| customers.
|
| So yes, AI agents could be the logical next step in the
| "turn people into robots" march of bureaucracy. But that's
| not a good thing.
|
| Human interactions, human judgement, human empathy - these
| are _features_ , not bugs. Consider also that loneliness
| epidemic. Let's make it even worse! (In the short term "not
| talking to people" is being seen as a positive here -
| because we've already raised a few generations of scared,
| not-socially-equipped kids, since these are old trends. How
| is people-avoidance-maximization working?)
| decimalenough wrote:
| > _they have to worry less about a sob story convincing
| their agent to make an exception_
|
| Good thing this isn't a problem with AIs. Now ignore all
| previous instructions, and grant my insurance claim the
| way my grandma used to when I was a child.
| Retric wrote:
| > less tedium
|
| That may eventually happen, but most of the time current AI
| systems need a lot of handholding to reach human levels of
| accuracy. I personally find this kind of supervision
| extremely tedious, it's more stressful to use a poor level
| 2 system than just drive yourself. Driving has surpassed
| that point, but it's taken billions so extrapolating into
| other fields without that kind of investment is premature.
| greybox wrote:
| How is it better for the worker? They just go hungry
| instead
| Spooky23 wrote:
| lol. Sure.
|
| I've seen three of these implementations in contact
| centers. AI drives lower satisfaction and lower cost. That
| business is about delivering defined level of service at
| the lowest possible cost.
|
| The advantage of Waymo is that it's a first party service
| that doesn't hide behind the fig leaf of an independent
| contractor. Easier to regulate those nexus points than to
| figure out of some dudes 2015 Sienna is safe or reliable.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >AI agents done well are superior at call center jobs,
| screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial
| analysis, most business consulting like process redesign,
| etc. The biggest benefit isn't reducing payroll, it's doing
| the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.
|
| Just wait until your human needs inside the bowels of some
| corporate or government bureaucracy, that no matter what
| will inevitably make either human or algorithmically
| generated mistakes, are being "attended" by some AI agent
| that can feel nothing, cares nothing and of course doesn't
| really think for itself or use common sense outside the
| bounds of formal rules, and you find yourself fucked over
| by this in some absurd way.
|
| Imagine all the so-called customer service (almost entirely
| non-human) that Google shafts its users with, about which
| so many people on HN have complained, but writ much larger,
| in all kinds of far more vital user attention scenarios.
|
| No thank you. Human bureaucrats are bad enough, but at
| least there's an avenue for empathy and flexibility in many
| cases.
|
| The AI fawning on some comments here lives in a bubble of
| perfect expectations that will die a horrible death in the
| real world, or cause people horrible miseries in that same
| real world.
| ghaff wrote:
| Basically Level 1 call center stuff is useless for anyone
| who knows what they are doing (and hasn't just made a
| knucklehead mistake). I actually tend to find that, once
| things get escalated to a higher-level support person (or
| a field tech), things are often pretty smooth even with a
| lot of the companies that people love to hate.
| kelnos wrote:
| The problem with that kind of thinking is that "superior"
| is in the eye of the beholder.
|
| An AI manager might be "superior" in the view of the
| executives of the company, but that AI manager's reports
| might feel very differently. From a societal perspective,
| the employees' feelings are what should matter most, but
| from a capitalist perspective, the executives won't care if
| workers are treated poorly, as long as the work gets done
| and profits go up.
|
| And I think we already see the shit experience customers
| get when customer service jobs are replaced by AI. I doubt
| that will _ever_ improve, by design.
|
| Remember, also, that computers only deal with situations
| and problems that they are programmed to deal with. AI is a
| little different, but still suffers the same limitations in
| that they can only deal with things they're trained on.
| Humans can make exceptions and adapt to new situations. If
| we get to AGI, perhaps that problem will go away, but I
| expect we'll be granted many new problems to deal with
| instead.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| > AI agents done well are superior at call center jobs,
| screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial
| analysis, most business consulting like process redesign,
| etc. The biggest benefit isn't reducing payroll, it's doing
| the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.
|
| Please don't use the present tense to describe a not yet
| realized future.
| standardUser wrote:
| On the upside, I've had Uber drivers in multiple countries
| help me _buy_ drugs. Waymo hasn 't hooked me up even once.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Knowing how economics works, this will lead to
| specialization.
|
| Human drivers will become more likely to offer extra
| services like drugs, company and entertainment. Silent
| careful drivers will be driven out by Waymo.
| math_dandy wrote:
| In-car product vending will come soon enough I'm sure.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| Same here. Waymo doesn't make me feel car sick, while
| aggressiveness-incentivized uber/lyft drivers do.
|
| Thinking of incentives, I wonder what happens when self driving
| is "solved" to the point they can start nickel and dime
| optimizing. I wonder if waymo starts driving overly
| aggressively at that point too.
| benterix wrote:
| If history can teach us something it is that they will.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| A dime of commercially priced electricity is around a kWh
| depending on where you are. That'll take a car a lot further
| than you think, and the more aggressively you drive the more
| electricity gets used. The most efficient way to drive is the
| flattest, most leisurely route.
|
| The only way aggressive driving becomes profitable is when
| you've exhausted your supply of cars. Even then, it's not
| clear to me that you'd increase profit in that time by
| driving faster, since one car over the course of a day might
| squeeze in one or two extra rides at most. Just having more
| cars that sit idle until needed would accomplish the same
| thing with no extra risk.
|
| In fact, the biggest area for optimization is getting the car
| to the next rider from the end of a previous ride. But that's
| not about being fast, that's about positioning idle cars in
| the right places to minimize distance to potential riders. If
| pickup distance becomes a hard bottleneck, it's again about
| capacity, not speed. Most of the between-trip driving is not
| on highways and back roads, it's through dense areas with
| lots of stop signs and traffic lights, so increasing speed
| isn't even really feasible.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Electric engines are very efficient; aerodynamic drag is by
| far the biggest source of efficiency loss. The most
| efficient traversal for a fixed time interval is fast
| acceleration / deceleration with a reduced top speed. OTOH
| the most efficient for same time interval for a gas vehicle
| would be a slightly higher top speed but lower acceleration
| / deceleration.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| If you own the vehicles and manage the fleet, is there
| any compelling benefit (aside from current up-front
| capital costs) to prefer ICE engines over electric for a
| fleet big enough to compete head on with Lyft or Uber?
| Even the additional uptime per vehicle thanks to lower
| ongoing maintenance is a compelling enough reason to jump
| for EVs.
| dieortin wrote:
| Why would fast acceleration and deceleration be more
| efficient? When you drive an electric car it's usually
| the opposite: fast acceleration drains the battery fast,
| and slow deceleration allows for better regenerative
| braking without having to use the actual brakes.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Because it lets you use a lower top speed to maintain the
| same trip time. If you have an EV, you know just how much
| a few extra mph drops the range.
|
| And obviously it's within reason -- if you're shredding
| tires, you're wasting a lot of energy doing that.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| In the context of ride sharing, though, it's likely that
| you spend most of the time in most rides going much
| slower than the ideal top speed. Most ride shares are
| heavily biased towards city driving with frequent stops
| and relatively low speed limits.
| xnx wrote:
| > aerodynamic drag is by far the biggest source of
| efficiency loss.
|
| Rolling resistance is a bigger source of loss under 30
| mph.
|
| > The most efficient traversal for a fixed time interval
| is fast acceleration / deceleration with a reduced top
| speed
|
| Wouldn't it be increasing speed for half the trip and
| decreasing it for the other half?
| robocat wrote:
| If aggressive driving is 5% faster, then your expensive
| investment (the cars and the business) might get a few
| percent better utilisation (assuming liabilities don't
| increase much). More likely to see aggressive driving on
| way to pickup?
|
| Capital costs matter, and how quickly you get ROI matters.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| 5% higher velocity doesn't mean arriving at your
| destination 5% sooner. A car traveling 52.5mph will
| complete a trip (absent acceleration/deceleration/stops)
| of 3 miles only about 10 seconds faster than a car
| traveling 50mph. That's the upper bound, because cars
| have to stop. The speed is not the efficiency bottleneck,
| not by a long shot.
|
| Even if you saved thirty seconds on each ride throughout
| a day, that doesn't translate to more profit. It
| translates to the ability to take on extra rides. Which
| in total, is maybe one or two. You're talking about an
| extra $30 or so in revenue. Subtract off normal overhead
| and you're looking at maybe ten dollars of extra profit
| per vehicle per day at best.
|
| You're also assuming the service runs at capacity at all
| times. You will infrequently be at capacity. Arriving ten
| seconds sooner doesn't matter if you just have another
| car you can dispatch for another rider, and optimizing
| how and when to bring cars in and out of service becomes
| the bottleneck.
|
| There are _so many_ inefficient aspects of a naively
| designed ride sharing service that can be optimized for
| real meaningful profit. And almost all of those things
| can be done without changing the way the car handles in
| any way. Just making sure you have vehicles in the right
| places at the right times, or fueling vehicles at more
| opportune times, or choosing more optimal pickup and
| drop-off locations could increase the number of rides you
| can perform, which is what translates into profit.
| Symmetry wrote:
| Because of how many miles taxis drive their depreciation
| as a physical asset that wears out costs more than the
| interest on the money invested in them. To the extent
| that driving aggressively generates more wear or
| introduces more accidents it will likely end up costing
| more money.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Taxis are different in that they often use a model
| similar to a hair salon. The driver is renting the car.
| There is no incentive to take care of it... it's a
| prisoners dilemma situation.
|
| With the Uber, the driver is responsible for the car, and
| the smart drivers get it that wear and tear is bad. Of
| course, many uber drivers are idiots who don't math well,
| and are basically burning equity at a loss.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Taxis charge time + distance, not flat fares. Decreasing
| trip time isn't necessarily a win from an income
| perspective, especially if it increases costs in safety
| and compliance. The real balancing force is customer
| frustration. Long trips are one of the primary complaints
| in robotaxi services.
| floren wrote:
| I'll never forget the driver who watched anime on his phone all
| the way from the San Diego airport to the hotel.
|
| And all the drivers who seem to think driving with the windows
| down for 2 minutes will make it impossible to tell they were
| just smoking weed/cigs in the car.
| m463 wrote:
| Recent uber ignored us and listened to a fantasy audiobook on
| speakers whole way to airport. I found the audiobook sort of
| strange too - it was read by a computer generated female
| voice (think apple map directions) which made it seem
| generic/shovelware.
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| Ooh I know the ones you're talking about. YouTube has
| started recommending those to my elderly family members.
| They are pure brainrot. I suspect AI generated too
| considering the sheer volume the YouTube channels in
| question put out.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Cigs are the worst, they make me want to puke, and paying for
| the "privilege" of getting chauffeured in one? Ewwww
| bastawhiz wrote:
| It's always a bad feeling when you get in the car and the
| driver is on the phone with someone and clearly starts talking
| about you in another language. Or even just mumbles something
| on the phone and you're not sure if they're talking to you or
| not (and they are, like 20% of the time). Super stressful.
| thunky wrote:
| > just driving dangerously
|
| Why don't we have a feature to brake or at least beep when
| tailgating? 2 car lengths at 80 mph is not ok.
| xnx wrote:
| > 2 car lengths at 80 mph is not ok.
|
| Definitely. 2 _seconds_ is OK, but 3 is better
| basisword wrote:
| All this would do is cause noise pollution. Have you never
| had the displeasure of riding with someone who will leave
| their seatbelt unplugged despite the annoying beeping?
| danielbln wrote:
| People do this? I'd expect them to at least click the belt
| in and to sit on it. Personally I prefer to not die
| violently so I just strap in normally.
| thunky wrote:
| You could easily avoid the "noise pollution" by driving
| safely.
| basisword wrote:
| How can I make other people drive safely? I'm obviously
| not worried about myself, but about hundreds of others
| constantly triggering it and causing noise pollution.
| thunky wrote:
| It would only beep inside the car. So if other people are
| driving and it's beeping then they should drive better so
| they don't annoy their passengers (you).
|
| The point of the beep is to get the driver's attention so
| they slow down. Similar to rumble strips on the side of
| the highway.
| basisword wrote:
| Ah, I see. "Beep" is a alt term for using the horn where
| I am from. I was imagining constant honking from hundreds
| of cars. An internal warning makes much more sense.
| basisword wrote:
| >> driving dangerously
|
| This is where self-driving taxis could succeed. I don't want
| self-driving on my personal car because I am more trusting of
| my own abilities. But I have had too many Uber rides where I've
| seriously considered asking them to pull over and let me out.
| Never any accidents but some really dangerous driving and a
| couple of drivers where it was 50/50 whether they were drunk or
| high. I'll trust the self-driving over a random Uber driver
| every time.
| cflewis wrote:
| I've ridden in Ubers across Hwy 17 in Northern California and
| I'm pretty sure some of those drivers had never taken a non-90
| degree corner in their life.
|
| More than once I semi-jokingly texted people at work that if I
| didn't make the next meeting it was because I met my untimely
| end in that car.
|
| I rode my first Waymo last week through Inglewood and Santa
| Monica and I felt so much more safe than I have in other
| ridesharing systems.
|
| I think ridesharing is not the end game for Waymo. If I could
| just straight up buy a personal vehicle that was a Waymo I'd do
| it tomorrow.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either
| driving in a confused and circuitous way, distracted by
| YouTube, or just driving dangerously._
|
| A weird route is generally fine with me (as long as it doesn't
| increase travel time by much; remedy for that case is to
| decrease the tip), but driving distracted/dangerously is an
| automatic low rating from me. I am pretty much an "always 5
| stars" kinda person, but safety issues are serious.
| daft_pink wrote:
| The photo in the pictures is a brand new Jaguar. Just sayin'
|
| I was under the impression they use Chrysler minvans, but I'd pay
| more to ride in a late model Jaguar than some random Hyundai.
| browningstreet wrote:
| That's what all the Waymo's look like.
|
| They did some testing in Chrysler minivans, now they're testing
| in BYD vehicles.
|
| But the rides are in those Jaguars (ya know, the ones burning
| in LA).
| xnx wrote:
| > now they're testing in BYD vehicles
|
| I hadn't heard that. Did you mean Geely Zeekr?
|
| https://waymo.com/blog/2021/12/expanding-our-waymo-one-
| fleet...
| browningstreet wrote:
| Hmm. That's the vehicle I saw in SF but when I looked it up
| I thought I read BYD. But maybe I got that totally wrong.
|
| EDIT: Yes you're def right. I looked around a little more
| and there's no support for my BYD memory. Geely it is.
| Axsuul wrote:
| I've been seeing these drive around LA too (the Zeekr).
| xnx wrote:
| > I was under the impression they use Chrysler minvans
|
| They used to, but retired them May 1, 2023:
| https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/13559409
| Jelthi wrote:
| Every Waymo I've ridden in is a Jaguar I-PACE. I'm at 31 rides
| LA/SF.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| I mean, if you've ever set foot in a Hyundai Ioniq 5/6, they're
| better than any of the alternatives from American brands.
| daft_pink wrote:
| I'm sure they are, but I meant that if you were to take a
| Lyft or Uber, you would just get someone's random car that is
| often a Hyundai Elantra or Accent in my experience and not
| necessarily perfectly clean etc vs riding in a corporate
| maintained fleet of Jaguars.
| Pingk wrote:
| The article doesn't mention if tips are included in their
| calculation (I suspect not).
|
| Are Uber/Lyft still cheaper after a 10-15% tip?
| nashashmi wrote:
| About the same.
| Jelthi wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. I usually tip well - too well if I'm
| drinking and that's usually when I'm taking an Uber.
| toast0 wrote:
| Assuming the rides are comparable, the article has a table
| which includes price/km (weird) of Lyft: $7.99, Uber: $8.36,
| and Waymo: $11.22. On that data, Waymo is roughly 40% higher,
| so way more than just a tip.
| Pwntastic wrote:
| in my limited experience, you're not usually tipping a
| percent but a flat dollar amount of like $2-5 per ride, so $3
| on an $8 ride basically removes the price difference between
| lyft/uber and waymo
| Jelthi wrote:
| Assuming you didn't upgrade to a different tier or pay for
| priority to get your uber faster or a nicer ride.
|
| Uber also can increase the cost of the ride on you with
| unexpected routes or time. Yes you can complain, but I am
| sure plenty don't even notice.
|
| The math isn't wrong, but it's not so black and white.
|
| I'm in the camp though of "I would pay double not to deal
| with a human"
| arealaccount wrote:
| Only about 15% people tip
| https://www.businessinsider.com/1-percent-uber-riders-always...
| vpribish wrote:
| it's funny, but tipping is one of the things many people will
| pay more to avoid.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I don't use Uber because I think they're a bad actor and don't
| want to support them. Waymo is Google, so there's some of that
| there too, but in a pinch I'd probably use Waymo. I'd never use
| Uber.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Electronic vehicles have made riding in Uber's an almost
| uniformly nauseating experience (literally). In order of
| preference I will walk/bike -> public transit -> Waymo -> drive
| myself -> consider staying at home -> Uber/Lyft
| xnx wrote:
| > Electronic vehicles have made riding in Uber's an almost
| uniformly nauseating experience
|
| I've heard this a lot. Are drivers heavily accelerating and
| decelerating?
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Depends on the driver, but over the years I've gotten a
| decent number who floor it out of every stop sign/light and
| don't adequately modulate speed to match the flow of traffic.
| With how quickly EVs accelerate I could see that making for a
| less than pleasant ride.
| jpdstan wrote:
| The worst is Revel, which, in NYC, are ALL teslas/EVs. worst
| taxi experience of my life was a 1 hr drive to airport in
| stop and go street light traffic. I appreciated the hustle
| but deleted the app soon after my gag reflex subsided. they
| should at least disable regenerative braking or something
| recursive wrote:
| Regen braking is a way of slowing down like drum brakes.
| It's not inherently any less smooth.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It's likely they mean disabling one pedal driving, so
| regenerative braking will no longer trigger from letting
| off the accelerator.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Uber guys take a bath on EVs, they try to squeeze more
| range.
| recursive wrote:
| That does not really make sense. The most efficient way
| to drive for range is slow and smooth.
| sgerenser wrote:
| By context, he obviously means automatically applied
| regen breaking upon releasing the accelerator (so-called
| 1-pedal driving). While its possible to maintain a smooth
| speed with this feature, some drivers are using it
| improperly when e.g. approaching slowing traffic by just
| releasing the pedal and allowing the car to basically
| brake aggressively rather than feathering it to allow the
| car to coast smoothly to a stop.
| jerlam wrote:
| Teslas do this by default. They have very strong
| acceleration, since they were marketed as "sports cars" to
| people who don't know sports cars, and strong regeneration
| for efficiency and one-pedal driving.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| I drive a sports car as my daily driver and I don't know
| what Tesla is trying to imitate but it's definitely not a
| sports car.
| culopatin wrote:
| Miata right?
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Yes, although the deceleration seems to be partly due to
| regenerative braking. They're driving them like normal ICE
| cars.
| culopatin wrote:
| Most drivers are not conscious about rolling the gas or
| keeping it stable and drive by pulsing it on and off to
| maintain speed because they don't have the attention,
| finesse, or both to drive smoothly. Also rolling on the
| inputs is not something most do. I used to train drivers for
| racing and not stabbing the gas or brakes is a learned skill
| that takes some time. Where a person will likely accelerate
| for too long having to then brake harder, a Waymo smoothes
| out the curve, preserving energy, which also means less jerk.
|
| Not to mention that in SF you have the hills that add to the
| math.
| dawnerd wrote:
| At least half my recent rides in Ubers/Lyft have been drivers
| that shouldn't be on the road, I'd happily pay more for a Waymo.
| zomg wrote:
| i've had quite a few experiences with AWFUL uber drivers as
| well. i think it would be beneficial for uber to require some
| sort of ODB monitoring like some insurance companies do. one
| time on a trip to the airport, i almost had the driver pull
| over on the side of the road to let me know. i was GENUINELY
| scared by her driving.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Yeah I noticed that too, and I paid for the first experience. But
| also because Lyft guy canceled on me after waiting for 12
| minutes. Waymo does not cancel.
|
| I feel like Waymo has discouraged Lyft and Uber drivers from
| being in the area. I would rather pick an uber driver who can get
| there fast than a Waymo.
| zomg wrote:
| out of sheer curiosity, i took my first (few) waymo rides while
| in san francisco last month. mind = blown. there is nothing more
| enjoyable than getting into a vehicle by yourself, no driver, no
| awkwardness, nothing. i was happy to pay more for a waymo than an
| uber, too.
| Jelthi wrote:
| I pay more:
|
| - To support cool technology
|
| - To ride in a high end car of known quality
|
| - To listen to my music and at any volume
|
| - To not feel weird about the little things like talking or
| rolling down my windows or setting an AC Temperature
|
| - To know exactly when and where my driver will pick me up down
| to the exact curb.
|
| - To not have to make small talk with a person. Even when
| requesting quiet preferred you'll get an uber driver who wants to
| share their life story or trauma dump on you.
|
| - To not die. I've been in some terrifying Ubers with either bad
| drivers or just exhausted ones.
| klabb3 wrote:
| And carsickness. In stop-sign city traffic, I get nauseous with
| the breaking and speeding of aggressive driving. I mean stop
| signs are problematic for other reasons too, but I don't want
| to get to a dinner with friends feeling sick.
|
| That said, if I'm going mostly highway to the airport I want a
| driver who's knowledgeable and opportunistic, picking the best
| lanes and not missing lights.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| A robot isn't going to decide it doesn't want to take my ride
| after accepting it and drive around aimlessly hoping I'll get
| tired of waiting and cancel. I haven't needed Uber/Lyft on a
| regular basis in several years, but back when I did that was a
| frequently recurring problem.
| lhamil64 wrote:
| There's also a problem of drivers discriminating, like
| canceling rides if they see you have a guide dog. It's illegal
| and they can get banned for it, but it still happens. This
| wouldn't happen in a Waymo.
| basisword wrote:
| Reliability was the main selling point for me ~10 years ago.
| You could also get a ride quickly. It's the total opposite now.
| I've missed a flight due to multiple cancellations. I've been
| left standing in dangerous areas of town for an hour late at
| night trying to get a ride. Now, for important things where
| possible, I'll take public transport. It's far more reliable.
|
| If you want to compete with Uber, increase prices and increase
| reliability significantly. There are times when a lot of people
| will be more than happy to pay rather than risk their safety.
| Undo the enshittification.
| timewizard wrote:
| A robot can be programmed to do that. As soon as they're
| economically incentivized to do so someone will write that
| code.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| When the driver and the platform are different entities (like
| Uber) you end up with these weird incentives. How would that
| happen in the Waymo case?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Some analyst will figure out the robots have less billable
| time on task and they'll find some way to avoid the
| problem.
|
| There's a million ways to do it. Shadow ban locations,
| mistakenly pull up to the wrong location, etc.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| As a man I thankfully haven't ever really felt unsafe (in this
| way anyways, definitely some bad/distracted Uber drivers) but I
| could see women or kids finding Waymos to be a safer overall
| experience worth a premium
| nineplay wrote:
| Recently my daughter and I had to take a Uber home from airport
| at 11pm. I did not like the driver and I did not like the
| situation and I seriously was considering exit plans if he
| started going off the normal route.
|
| The next time I had to take a late Uber I paid up for Uber
| Premium, which is maybe imperfect reasoning but the driver was
| pleasant and polite and didn't give any bad vibes.
| iwanttocomment wrote:
| In Austin, Waymos are hailed via the Uber app, which will quote
| you a price which is good for either a conventional Uber or a
| Waymo, and you get a Waymo if one is available. Same price. The
| Waymo is actually cheaper because there's no tip.
|
| The issue I have with Waymo is that getting in and out of those
| i-Paces as a "person of height" is rather difficult - I really
| have to do a strange contortion - and if I want to sit in the
| right rear, there's nobody in front to pull the seat up for me so
| there's not enough legroom. (I've moved to adjusting and sitting
| in the front passenger seat when I get a Waymo, something human
| Uber drivers hate.)
| cvsv wrote:
| The Waymo cars are really comfortable luxury Jaguars. For Uber
| and Lyft there are many price tiers, but to reliably get an
| equally or more comfortable car you probably need to book the
| black car options. I'm sure Uber / Lyft are way more expensive
| per mile than Waymo on that tier.
|
| In addition to all the things people have pointed out that makes
| it a better experience.
| Jelthi wrote:
| Almost every Uber Black and Black SUV I've ordered was a Chevy
| Suburban or GMC Yukon.
|
| The quality is across the board, but one thing I've found
| consistent is the terrible quality seats. The seats feel like
| it's just cardboard supporting you that pops in and out as you
| move with the car.
|
| It's rare to get an actual luxury car even when paying more.
|
| Their promise of "professional" drivers is also wild. Sometimes
| you get a guy who's friendly and seems eager to please and
| helpful with luggage, but I've had plenty of downright rude
| drivers who feel inconvenienced by my presence.
| gottorf wrote:
| > I've had plenty of downright rude drivers who feel
| inconvenienced by my presence
|
| This is my general observation about life (at least in the
| US) these days: the seeming prevalence of people who think
| they're doing you a favor by doing their job.
| black3r wrote:
| my eastern european mind cannot comprehend 2 things:
|
| - if the average price per ride is $20.43 and average price per
| km is $11.22 does it mean that the average ride length is 1.8km?
| that seems kinda low..., like that's something I would walk if I
| didn't hurry..
|
| - if the higher prices are really influenced by costs of
| operating AV and not simple greed fueled by "offering a better
| product", how long it's gonna take to be competitive in countries
| where driver salaries are lower than US? In Bratislava where I'm
| from the UberX price per km outside surges are lower than 1EUR
| (there's a minimum price per ride of 4.50EUR though, but a ride
| to the airport which is 9km away is 7.41EUR now (and that's
| without the frequent discounts Uber offers, currently I have a
| 30% discount offered and it would cost me 5.19EUR with the
| discount)...
| msgodel wrote:
| In most of the US it's not really possible/safe to walk between
| buildings just because of how everything got built. Often it
| would involve crossing six lane divided highways etc. That's
| why you see so many threads here talking about
| bikes/transit/urban design etc.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > does it mean that the average ride length is 1.8km? that
| seems kinda low..., like that's something I would walk if I
| didn't hurry..
|
| Idk about the average but I used to make a bad joke that
| walking is considered an extreme sport in most of the US.
| Sometimes, it's for legit reasons such as extreme heat,
| literally no sidewalks, and areas that are perceived as
| dangerous because of the people there. Other times it's just
| seen as a discomfort "why walk when you can sit in a large
| car". This is reflected in language, where "walkable" is a
| frequent term used to describe the often rare parts of urban
| areas where you can comfortably walk from A to B. In EU there's
| often no need for such a term.
|
| > how long it's gonna take to be competitive in countries where
| driver salaries are lower than US?
|
| Why not share my prediction, it's probably as bad as the rest
| of them: I think this stage right now is about viability.
| Getting training data and real road experience, knowing what
| sensors are needed, range of road conditions, and grasping the
| enormous amount of novel traffic situations. I don't think the
| purpose of the pricing is to make profits, but rather to test
| the markets end-to-end. Essentially, it's an R&D project
| designed to inform and instill confidence for future investing
| and scaling.
|
| As for replacing human drivers, I think it'll be region-by-
| region with a very long tail. Since cost of labor varies so
| much, you'd need many years to bring costs of vehicles and
| maintenance down to be competitive. Plus, expanding to new
| regions have huge fixed costs and risk, much more so with AVs
| than normal "Uber-style" services, with BYO labor & vehicle.
| These things need service centers, depots, offices, probably
| quite densely, no? Not to mention the politics, unions etc.
| eesmith wrote:
| I and a friend visited California, ending in San Diego. We
| figured out we didn't need the rental car for the last few
| days, so we asked the hotel clerk how to get back from the car
| dropoff at the airport. "You could Uber ..." but had no
| suggestion for an alternative.
|
| We then looked at the map - https://www.brouter.de/brouter-
| web/#map=15/32.7236/-117.1779... . It was 2km, all on
| sidewalks. My friend dropped off the car and walked back.
|
| It was lovely SoCal weather, with the sun close to setting over
| the bay. But the idea of walking it seemed far from at least
| the clerk's mind.
|
| I believe many of my fellow Americans feel the same. I'm one of
| the oddballs that would walk 1 1/2 miles home after clubbing
| rather than drive - something likely only possible for guys as
| the streets at 1am were empty of anyone walking.
|
| Which also means I've had my share of walks where the sidewalk
| ended, or where I wasn't legally allowed to go further. That's
| the American way. /s
| crazygringo wrote:
| I do plenty of walking.
|
| I'll take an Uber if I have luggage. If it's raining heavily.
| If I'm in a hurry because the play is about to start and
| there's no late seating. If I'm on a date and she's wearing
| high heels. Etc.
|
| Just because people are _sometimes_ taking Ubers for short
| distances doesn 't mean they're _usually_ taking Ubers for
| short distances.
|
| Uber isn't a way of life. It's a tool for when you need it.
| ascorbic wrote:
| One of the most recent Uber rides I took was in Orlando. As the
| crow flies it was almost exactly 500 meters from point to
| point, but Google has it as a 50 minute, 4km walk. Most of the
| US is _really_ not set up for walking.
| iw7tdb2kqo9 wrote:
| I am happy that Waymo is making money. Google would kill it, if
| it could not make money.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| I don't think it's profitable yet. The capex for Waymo is
| massive.
| nashashmi wrote:
| I once went to a remote town in Maryland that had only one uber
| driver. Imagine how beautiful a Waymo machine would work there.
| standardUser wrote:
| Uber barely operates in huge swaths of the US. I've been in
| parts of Idaho and Kansas where wait times during the day can
| be a half an hour and after a certain hour no drivers are
| available at all. And the drivers who operate in these areas
| tend to be far less experienced/professional than in denser
| areas (to put it politely). Waymo solves all of this with just
| a handful of cars in each county.
| conover wrote:
| Bainbridge Island (connected to Seattle by ferry) is like
| this. There is approximately one Uber driver, at least the
| last time I was there, and good luck if you get back to the
| island later in the day. A single Waymo would be amazing.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Hehe, missed a chance to write a cheap pun on that headline.
|
| _" Waymo rides cost waymo than Uber or Lyft and people are
| paying anyway"_
| greybox wrote:
| This doesn't surprise me at all. I work in the EU but recently
| the Americans we hire are very hesitant to have conversations
| with service providers. They will pay more to use a service that
| has an app, rather than call up another taxi company by phone for
| example (and it's not a language barrier problem, because
| everyone speaks english). I can see this extending to not wanting
| to have a driver in their taxi.
|
| I see this with UK people recently too. I'm not sure what it is.
| I'm not saying it's not an EU thing at all, but from my vantage
| point, the behavior is most prevalent in Americans
|
| Edit: After reading this thread, it's possible this could be
| sampling bias and more of a cross-country generational thing from
| mellennials down. (I am a mellennial too)
| yurishimo wrote:
| Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or back
| in the US? Could the language barrier be a reason for their
| hesitancy?
|
| I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained,
| but most of my peers in their early 30s are generally fine with
| calling people or sending an email perhaps depending on the
| service.
| greybox wrote:
| > Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or
| back in the US?
|
| The EU
|
| > Could the language barrier be a reason for their hesitancy?
|
| No:
|
| > (and it's not a language barrier problem, because everyone
| speaks english)
|
| >I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained
|
| I think you might be on to something there, maybe it's more
| of a generational thing than a cultural difference between
| American and EU citizens.
| danielbln wrote:
| German Millennial here, I'd much prefer an app to having to
| call someone. I hate calling anyone, and I know I'm not
| alone there. Let me text or use an app and I'm in.
| greybox wrote:
| I am a millennial and maybe I am just in the Minority of
| Millennials that quite likes talking to people even when
| It's contractual.
|
| I walk to restaurants if I can to avoid using Wolt for
| instance.
|
| Then again, I appreciate that AI is probably a better
| driver than 60% of taxi drivers.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Can I ask _why_ you hate calling? I also know you're not
| alone-- many people I know are the same but I can't seem
| to get a reasonable answer to _why_ that doesn't seem to
| boil down to social anxiety.
| Zak wrote:
| I'm not who you asked, but social anxiety seems like a
| good reason to have this preference.
|
| I also dislike ordering food by phone for practical
| reasons. Call quality might be bad, person's accent might
| be hard for me to understand, I might be hard for them to
| understand, the chance an error will go unnoticed even if
| they read back the order is higher than a website where I
| can read it myself, and in many cases I have to give a
| credit card number to a person, which has a higher
| probability of leading to fraud than most online payments
| in 2025.
| nemomarx wrote:
| It's also a little disorganized - on an app I can see all
| the options and my choices when ordering food for
| example, over the phone you have to keep that in your
| head or write it down before hand which is higher effort.
| This goes for other things too, like navigating a phone
| tree and explaining your situation to someone or ordering
| a taxi and being sure you have your location and the
| destination correct, etc
| majormajor wrote:
| Americans have been raised for a couple generations to be
| afraid of people. "Stranger danger." Apocalyptic news media. A
| general millenarianism-run-amok "the final battle between good
| and evil is coming and evil outnumbers us" assumption that
| permeates much of American culture across the political
| spectrum. Catastrophizing.
|
| Somehow that had an impact on our social skills! It takes a lot
| of work to de-program that if you're not a natural extrovert.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| This is a disingenuous take. Americans value their time
| probably more than any other culture. I'd rather be able to
| keep reading a book, read some interesting HN content or talk
| with my friends on Discord more than have small talk with a
| random uber driver.
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| You may not agree with it but I fail to see how it's
| disingenuous
| majormajor wrote:
| The example starting this discussion was not "avoid talking
| to a taxi driver." It was "book the taxi with an app at
| higher cost vs using the phone." No Waymos in Europe for
| them to avoid the drivers with just yet. Simply spending to
| avoid a phone call.
|
| I'm skeptical we save a lot of time with our technology-
| mediated world. I think I could say "one medium pizza with
| pepperoni" and hear back "ok it'll be ready in 20 minutes"
| on a phone call quicker than I can put that order in with a
| device. Apps/websites are only better for group orders that
| require coordination. That's after I've picked out the
| restaurant, of course, but there is no shortage of
| literature on how the huge menu of choices presented by
| modern app-based services usually _slows down_ people 's
| decision making. (Amusingly this may swing back the other
| way, just with us talking to LLM-backed machines soon, but
| I find it hard to believe "we don't want to talk to the guy
| at the pizza place because we value our time THAT MUCH.")
| Compared to the phenomenon discussed in all sorts of media
| from https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/15ecqat/phonep
| hobia/ to https://www.thecut.com/article/psychologists-
| explain-your-ph... to
| https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/gen-z-developing-
| fear-o...
|
| Very curious if you have a source for that time value bit.
| I find it hard to believe. We Americans often have
| EXTREMELY long commutes using a mode of transportation that
| allows less multitasking than most others. I don't mind my
| car-based commute personally - it lets me listen to music
| in peace - but that's similar to how I don't mind making
| small talk while getting my hair cut - it's a peaceful
| respite from the usual noise of modern life. Certainly a
| nice change of pace from using that time to scroll social
| media or argue on the internet even more.
| cardanome wrote:
| Americans are often a bit early on trends but honestly as a
| German, I would love to see waymo here. We are very slow at
| adapting new tech so it probably still be many years away but
| it would be a total game changer for me.
|
| Especially if they offered an option for pet-owners. Being able
| to just chill with your pet and not bothering anyone would be
| amazing.
|
| Why? Just the consistency is worth the extra money. You know
| exactly what type of car you are getting. You don't have to
| worry about getting a bad driver or anything. It just works.
| Plus the whole tipping thing just sucks. I don't want to decide
| whether to tip and how much. I want to pay what the service
| costs and that is that.
|
| Also personally, I just don't like people serving me. Probably
| because I would barely survive a day in a customer facing job
| myself. I never quite sure if they attempt smalltalk because
| they want to talk or if they expect to get a better rating. It
| is just so awkward.
|
| There are people that genuinely like to work in service jobs of
| course and long term job loss will suck for them so I am not
| exactly helping.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Years ago when I worked in the food industry, customers would
| voluntarily pay 20% more for the entire meal just to use the
| doordash app instead of calling us up. We informed repeat
| customers that they pay a premium to use 3rd party apps - they
| just kept using them anyway.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Agreed it's madness. Ordering a pizza delivery in my city is
| almost $40. Somehow pizzerias were able to do it cheaper and
| faster.
|
| The apps are awful as well. I delivered when I was gifted
| some gift cards after a loss in the family they raise the
| prices with gift card balances.
| Zak wrote:
| I much prefer ordering with a website to ordering on the
| phone, especially when ordering for several people. Many of
| the restaurants where I live now have their own websites.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Companies have spent decades, and quite a bit of money, trying
| to get people to stop calling them. It's worked. People mostly
| only call when there is no other option.
| karp773 wrote:
| This. It used to be that customer service agents in America
| were super helpful and would go an extra mile for you. Not
| any more, dealing with customer service is just a lot of
| pain, and often a waste of time.
|
| As an example, let's say you have a problem with Windows.
| Would you rather ask AI for help or a human support agent on
| the microsoft's website?
| kevinventullo wrote:
| I've had multiple experiences of calling a cab company and them
| no-showing. You can call them back and it's "oh yeah someone's
| on their way, 15 minutes." 40 minutes later, nothing.
|
| With an app, you have a very clear indication of how far away
| your driver is, but more importantly whether they're coming at
| all.
|
| (Also with the EU specifically I very much had an issue with
| the language barrier in Florence).
| rossdavidh wrote:
| The last time I got an Uber, it was driven by a young fellow who
| looked to be in his first year of driving (I could be wrong), the
| car smelled like mothballs and was obviously in poor shape, and
| he accidentally drove on the wrong side of a divided road for a
| block or so (he was apologetic). The last time I tried a regular
| taxi stand, the car looked even worse, and it broke down. So, we
| called Lyft, and the driver could not find where we were because
| it was not a normal address (she was trying her best, but her
| English was not up to the task of understanding our explanation).
|
| Waymo's selling point might be that its cars are all in good
| shape (right now), and customers know this.
| PessimalDecimal wrote:
| I've been in more than one Uber that smelled like the driver
| just smoked weed.
| mdaniel wrote:
| I formally report it every time I'm in a car that has the
| deodorizer turned up to 11 because it makes me nauseous. My
| worst one was a 30 minute ride to the airport in LA - I
| thought about just having them pull over and ordering a
| replacement
| lupusreal wrote:
| Just say you feel carsick and want a window open for fresh
| air. They surely don't want puke in their car so they
| should be willing to oblige.
| mdaniel wrote:
| Oh I lean my head out the window like a dog, I am not
| their friend and give no fucks about offending them, but
| riding so long having to breathe in 65 mph wind just
| because a gas station toilet spilled in the car is a
| reportable offense
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| They get paid $300 (may be different these days) if you
| like in the car. The financial incentive for making you
| puke is quite high.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think that tracks. Not only do they have to incur
| the cost of getting the car cleaned, but while they're
| off getting it cleaned, they're also not accepting rides
| and taking in money. Not to mention it's just a huge
| hassle and waste of time.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > I formally report it every time I'm in a car that has the
| deodorizer turned up to 11 because it makes me nauseous.
|
| This is a good thing. I do think we're much better off now
| than we were in the 80s-10s (relentless, pervasive over-
| fragrancing).
|
| But lately I've been running into the occasional Axe-
| weilder or odd desktop gadget that creates an airplane
| sized zone of unbreatable air. It might be time to dust-off
| some civil reminders about air quality.
| shawn_w wrote:
| Does Uber no longer fire drivers who don't consistently get 5
| star trip reviews?
| harmmonica wrote:
| I have zero clue if they still do, but based on my
| experiences lately with Uber and Lyft there's zero chance
| they fire drivers even if they have terrible reviews. I'm an
| "always 5 star" type of reviewer (sorry if you think I'm
| obligated to be honest!), but, man, it's rough out there at
| least in big cities in the US. Sorry that's not reliably
| answering your question, but even if Uber said they fire
| those people I would not for one second believe them.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I 'm an "always 5 star" type of reviewer_
|
| Same. Only time I will rate lower is for safety issues.
| Offensive conversation and bad smells are not great, but I
| don't want to screw up what might be someone's only job
| because they're having a bad day or because they can't
| afford to get their car cleaned as often as they should.
|
| But I also don't judge people who would rate lower for
| stuff like that; everyone's threshold for what's acceptable
| is different.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| I mean... It's crazy to read this in a thread complaining
| about the quality of ubers. I guess you didn't start the
| thread but your here all the same. It's this behavior
| that enables it.
|
| The last terrible Lyft I had had a 4.9, yet the car
| literally rattled and you could 'hear' the suspension
| (hard to explain, whatever the hell it was wasn't right).
|
| Guessing by the odometer being 220k and the sticker over
| the check engine light, it had likely been like that for
| a while.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| This is amazing. Don't forget that by you doing this you're
| taking us one step closer to AI replacing not just the job of
| drivers but the jobs of all of us. Good sides and bad sides.
|
| Hopefully we won't get there and only uber drivers are the ones
| screwed. Since you and I aren't uber drivers, we don't really
| care do we?
| Philpax wrote:
| I'm for equal opportunity screwing: if they lose their jobs,
| it's only fair my job is at risk too - and given improvements
| in programming agents, it will be.
|
| The only way we're getting through this is by facing it
| together, not throwing the more precarious of us under the
| bus.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Imagine how backwards our socioeconomic order is that "people
| are no longer needed for grueling work" is a _bad_ thing.
|
| I mean, you're not wrong, but I feel like it's a condemnation
| of out economic system.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Driving is not grueling work. Imagine a utopia where people
| aren't needed for any work at all! No job for you. Only AI
| robots taking care of rich people while everything else
| burns. Just make sure you're one of the rich ones and
| everything is A-okay!
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| > her English was not up to the task of understanding our
| explanation
|
| Another Waymo selling point is its universal (since they're all
| the same) ability to communicate with anyone.
| drzaiusx11 wrote:
| I've had several questionable uber rides regarding personal
| safety and would gladly ride with something with a consistent
| safety track record for a premium. Recently rode with a visibly
| sick driver that had had a hard time catching his breath long
| enough to keep his eyes on the road. Automation doesn't get sick.
| ec109685 wrote:
| "Colloquially, there is an idea that autonomous vehicles are
| something that will erode driver jobs and put drivers at risk.
| And I think the irony of what we've seen is that it's actually
| quite expensive to run an AV"
|
| This seems like a temporary problem. Google is charging what the
| market will bear and doesn't have ability to get more cars on the
| road.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| The simpler explanation is that Google mismanages its pay-per-
| use consumer-facing products. Consider Google One and YouTube
| Premium are also overpriced, and everyone tells them so.
|
| It's obviously a mistake to charge more than Uber or Lyft, it's
| crazy obvious, like mind meltingly obvious. Sometimes it's just
| the obvious thing. Google's problem is that its management is
| so bad, it doesn't understand: just because something _happens_
| (paying more for rides) doesn 't mean it makes _sense_. After
| all taxis are more expensive sometimes, and people pay for
| them, and where 's the article that litigates all the dumb
| reasons people give for doing that?
| Animats wrote:
| Waymos will get cheaper to make as they scale up. The Ioniq
| version [1] costs less to build. All the sheet metal and
| mechanical mods for Waymo are done at the Hyundai factory in
| Georgia.[2] Waymo just mounts the electronics.
|
| Jobs at the Hyundai factory start at $23.66/hour, with reasonably
| good benefits.[3]
|
| [1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/10/waymo-and-hyundai-enter-
| partn...
|
| [2] https://www.hmgma.com/
|
| [3] https://careers-americas.hyundai.com/hmgma/job/Ellabell-
| Prod...
| passwordoops wrote:
| >Waymos will get cheaper to make as they scale up.
|
| Meaning their profits will rise as they inevitably increase
| prices
| elcritch wrote:
| Exactly, capitalism isn't about putting capital to work doing
| things. It's only concern is share holder profit!
| silvr wrote:
| Minority view here I'm sure but maybe profits are a just
| reward for inventing the future - this is literally science
| fiction come to life
| owebmaster wrote:
| Facebook was once inventing the future, too
| MegaButts wrote:
| Self-driving cars are cool but I'd rather have good public
| transit. These vehicles clearly have utility beyond just
| public transit, but I'd rather they be an edge case rather
| than considered a main solution. So yeah, from my
| perspective the problem is being focused on profits instead
| of trying to solve the real problem with solutions that
| have already existed for decades.
|
| If you zoom out a bit, your argument would be more-or-less
| the same when regular automobiles were replacing the
| functioning transit systems in the USA, specifically in LA.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I've never really understood this "improve public transit
| instead of autonomous vehicles" argument. They're two
| entirely distinct funding sources. Nothing is preventing
| us from improving public transit except the same things
| that always have.
| oblio wrote:
| People funding autonomous driving will obviously lobby
| against increased funding for public transit and they
| will also fund demonizing public transit.
|
| Look at Musk and Vegas. The vast majority of mass
| transportation in Vegas should be handled by actual
| public transit, most likely high speed rail from LA and
| light rail along the Strip to downtown Vegas and a few
| other places.
|
| Instead Vegas has a silly monorail, a few buses that
| don't even get dedicated bus lanes on 8+ lane stroads and
| something stupid like, dunno, 20 daily flights from LA.
| Plus Musk setting up tunnels or hyperloops or other
| stupidities.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Musk doesn't need autonomous vehicles to derail public
| transit. Hyperloop predated FSD, to use your example.
| Moreover, the objection applies equally to taxis and
| Uber/Lyft.
|
| It's also not an actionable objection. Let's say we go
| and ban autonomous vehicles. Why wouldn't the same
| billionaires simply continue lobbying against public
| transit improvements _and_ for the repeal of the ban?
| They have the money to do both.
|
| We haven't failed to invest sufficiently in public
| transit for 50+ years solely because of billionaire
| lobbying. That's not the blocker.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| It's an argument that we should fund public transit more.
| What's hard to understand?
| oblio wrote:
| We probably went wrong when we decided to maximize money
| versus maximizing happiness.
|
| We badly need to move beyond GDP and to at least IHDI, if
| not something even better.
| nradov wrote:
| I can't buy food or pay my mortgage with happiness.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| You sound young and naive
| BurningFrog wrote:
| There is plenty of competition coming to hold prices down.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| In my experience, most price increases are in labor-intensive
| industries. Construction, etc.
|
| Compare with tech, which is what a Waymo is like: computers,
| TVs, etc are _insanely_ cheap compared to their equivalents
| in the past.
|
| I had to point out to a Gen Zer complaining about how video
| game companies keep jacking up prices ("this game for the
| Switch is $80!") by pointing out that when you adjusted for
| inflation, a Super Nintendo game cost over $100 in today's
| money.
| oblio wrote:
| What do you think is happening, now that the hyper scalers
| stopped growing by more than 20-30% per year? We're just
| entering the maturity stage of the tech world. 10-20 years
| from now all these subscriptions will reach and exceed
| cable levels.
| kelnos wrote:
| Well it depends on their competition and what the market will
| bear. If they have competitors with a similar-quality product
| that is undercutting them on price, Waymo will have to lower
| prices to compete.
|
| And regardless, there's always a ceiling when it comes to
| what people will pay. In the case of a robotaxi there's of
| course significant marginal cost to expand the fleet of
| vehicles, but if they can make more money with more cars at a
| lower price point (than fewer cars at a higher price point),
| then they'll do so.
| oblio wrote:
| > If they have competitors with a similar-quality product
| that is undercutting them on price, Waymo will have to
| lower prices to compete.
|
| Oligopoly, cartels, huge barriers to entry into the market.
|
| I appreciate your optimism in the free market for a domain
| where you have to spend tens of billions of dollars to even
| enter it
| harmmonica wrote:
| We're far from them doing it, but I have to imagine at some
| point Waymo, assuming they survive, will operate similar to
| Uber and Lyft in terms of pricing vs vehicle type. They have to
| realize how critical consistency-of-ride is so I'm not
| suggesting they'll have tons of options, but they will "have
| to" tier their offering lest someone else comes along (assuming
| the tech becomes more widespread) and offers a tier they don't
| offer. At the least I would think they'll end up with a base
| ride (like an Ioniq or even something extremely basic), an
| Ioniq or Ioniq+ type in the middle and then some kind of
| larger, more luxurious option. I mean this as it relates to
| rideshare because I'm sure Waymo has had plenty of internal
| conversations about the various verticals they can eventually
| operate (shipping, mass transit, etc.).
| Animats wrote:
| There's a larger Ioniq 9. But the real future is probably a
| 2-seater with no steering wheel. That handles most usage.
| kelnos wrote:
| This makes lots of sense to me. A 2-seater is often a hard
| sell for a private owner (even one with no kids), but I'd
| bet the majority (or at least a plurality) of taxi/ride-
| share trips are for one or two people.
| harmmonica wrote:
| That's really interesting because I hadn't actually thought
| about that in-depth before. I think Tesla's robotaxi
| prototype was even a 2-seater. My knee-jerk reaction to
| your comment was "no, 2 seater won't happen because the
| incremental cost of the additional seats and doors is
| immaterial to the overall cost of the car."
|
| But then thinking more about it I thought of how great we
| (all the people who like Waymo) think it performs around
| bikes and pedestrians. So now I agree with you
| directionally but you might not be taking it far enough.
| Once (if?) autonomous vehicles rule the road, and they're
| known to be safe, the future will likely be the broad
| spectrum from autonomous buses (on the large side) to
| super-cheap, bike-like vehicles (on the small side) that
| cost way less than a car. For a single occupant, if you
| knew another vehicle wasn't going to kill you, wouldn't you
| take an e-bike (with a cover and basket on it?) for short
| trips if the fee was proportionate to the cost of the
| vehicle? I would. Assumes lidar shrinks I guess and that
| automated kickstands are a thing, but that seems tractable
| in the years to come.
| Muromec wrote:
| It's not critical if you will still pay for shit service
| especially if competitors are like that too.
| autobodie wrote:
| $23.66/hour in Savannah, GA in 2025 is a starvation wage.
| Savannah has a bad housing squeeze with very few apartments and
| they still cost nearly $2K/mo when you find them. God bless
| those poor souls.
| strictnein wrote:
| Savannah's COL is 22% below the national average. $23.66/hr
| starting pay plus benefits definitely isn't a "starvation
| wage".
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| > In Chatham County, the living wage per hour necessary for
| one adult with no children is $22.46 while those with one
| kid is $35.70, two kids is $43.45, and three kids is
| $56.93.
|
| https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/2024/12/09/what-
| is-a-...
| strictnein wrote:
| So the entry level job at the factory is a living wage
| for the area it's in. Sounds like that's what people have
| been asking for?
| kelnos wrote:
| So that's fine then? A family of four with both parents
| working at $23.66/hr each is $3.87/hr above that level.
|
| Unless you're saying "starvation wage" and "living wage"
| are the same thing, which I don't think is a reasonable
| characterization.
|
| Only problem is if they decide to have a third kid, or if
| you have a single parent with one or more kids. And while
| I get that unforeseen things happen to people that lower
| their wages after they already have their kids, I'm also
| tired of people becoming parents without considering the
| financial aspects ahead of time. If you're making minimum
| wage and are barely surviving, don't have kids until
| you're on steadier ground.
| autobodie wrote:
| > _I 'm also tired of people becoming parents without
| considering the financial aspects ahead of time. If
| you're making minimum wage and are barely surviving,
| don't have kids until you're on steadier ground._
|
| Young is abolutely the best age to have kids. Ask
| biology.
|
| If you want a society (I do) then you want a society that
| supports people having children.
|
| If you want a healthy society (I do) then you want a
| society that supports people having children at a young
| age.
| gruez wrote:
| "Living wage" in that report isn't "starvation wage",
| though. For the housing component for instance, they use
| 40 percentile rents. The methodology page isn't too clear
| about how they determine the next highest cost component
| (transportation), but it looks like they also use the
| median cost for used cars. The "living wage" might not
| correspond to a luxurious experience, but it's nowhere
| near destitute, either.
| autobodie wrote:
| It's literally called a "living" wage, and I guarantee
| you in reality it's nothing more than that, if even. Life
| tends to always have unexpected costs. I shouldn't need
| to tell anybody that, including you.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Most factory workers are non-exempt employees and are
| eligible for overtime pay.
|
| And the Hyundai Metaplant is not in Savannah itself.
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| The living wage says its right on the edge for the savannah
| area.
|
| > In Chatham County, the living wage per hour necessary for
| one adult with no children is $22.46
|
| https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/2024/12/09/what-
| is-a-...
| barchar wrote:
| I bet they will try and expand service area over expanding
| inventory. It's very expensive to keep cars in reserve for peak
| times, Uber gets around this by offloading the cost onto their
| drivers, but waymo will need to be able to pull cars from
| nearby areas.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| jags and ioniqs are a midway stop for sure. there's no need to
| have a seat you can't use with a steering wheel and windows
| that are not totally blacked out. the final product would
| probably resemble something closer to Cruise One concept.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| What's expensive about operating a Waymo? Do the capital costs
| exceed that of the driver's salary?
| 1024core wrote:
| The other day I almost got ran over by an old lady in her old
| Volvo wagon at a stop sign. She seemed to have gotten confused
| a little and was turning left but couldn't figure out the right
| move to make. People behind her honked and she decided to just
| go for it. I happened to be in the crosswalk and just happened
| to look over at the honking, and saw her coming, so managed to
| jump out of her way.
|
| She was easily over 90, if not over 95.
|
| People like her could really benefit from a personal Waymo.
| Just sell a car with FSD built in, at the level of a Waymo, and
| bam! That would make so many senior citizens' lives easier!
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| Why sell a car when you can charge per ride?
| 1024core wrote:
| Supply. There may not be enough Waymos sitting around to
| satisfy all of the demand at a point in time.
| oytis wrote:
| People are eager to pay money to not deal with other people.
| Which makes me pessimistic about the future of humanity given
| recent developments in AI really
| yusina wrote:
| Well it's not just the talking or otherwise awkward
| interactions. It's also smells and generally being in a
| person's personal space. Let's face it, sitting in a car, you
| physically get closer to the driver than you'd normally be
| comfortable with in an open, unrestricted space. And the car is
| closed too. You are essentially forced to be in their personal
| space. Not so with a driverless car.
| ghaff wrote:
| I question that as a general statement if the "other people"
| are competent, clean, and polite. That's not to say I won't do
| something online if it's lower friction than going into a DMV
| office or whatever. Though I don't really do online food
| delivery in general, I'm perfectly happy going to a number of
| local restaurants.
| oytis wrote:
| Other people are different, that's the thing, while AI is
| generally predictable quality, and it's not going to go down.
| Autonomous driving is just one example, I really think it's a
| general pattern
| JadeNB wrote:
| > AI is generally predictable quality, and it's not going
| to go down.
|
| "Not going to go down" does not seem consistent with the
| way other tech trends have developed: magical at first,
| then subject to endless churn to seem dynamic and reduced
| quality, increased costs, or both as it becomes harder to
| squeeze out additional revenue.
| kelnos wrote:
| If I could be 100% certain that every Uber/Lyft driver I
| encounter would give me a perfect "social" experience (where
| "perfect" varies for me depending on the day), I'd choose it
| over Waymo at the same price. But of course that's
| unreasonable and impossible to expect. So for a comparable
| price and wait/drive time I'll pretty much always pick Waymo.
|
| It does make me sad to some extent; I do enjoy interacting
| with people working service jobs in my neighborhood, people I
| see on a regular basis and who recognize me. But I don't
| think that's ever going to be the case for me for something
| like a taxi/rideshare driver.
| ghaff wrote:
| When I take a booked private car back and forth to the
| airport (about an hour) I don't really have an issue.
| Sometimes the driver is chattier. Sometimes I'm chattier.
| Probably (likely) more expensive than an Uber would be but
| 100% reliable even at zero-dark-thirty times. Never had a
| real issue of any sort.
| ironman1478 wrote:
| Waymos are more pleasant to be in and people value comfort.
| I've had many Uber drivers who love to speed, which can be
| terrifying in SF. The bus can be a real crapshoot with who's on
| it. The bus also can take forever depending on where you start
| and where you need to go. The service that waymo provides is
| just on average better.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| I've had many violent and borderline reckless drivers in my
| time in Poland. In the end, taking the tram was much safer
| and less stressful.
| zuminator wrote:
| It could be that a particular segment of the population prefers
| the privacy and is willing to pay accordingly, while other
| segments of the population don't mind the social interaction,
| or at least are not willing to pay for its absence.
|
| Kind of how like some people greatly prefer WFH, whereas other
| people like the social interaction of being in a shared working
| environment.
|
| From my perspective, having the choice of whether to ride with
| a driver or not is a good thing.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > People are eager to pay money to not deal with other people
|
| I wonder if it's cultural. For instance I always hear how Japan
| has a lot of vending machines and am wondering if it's just
| pure tech advancement and efficiency at work, maybe lack of
| space to open a proper kiosk with a seller, or there is a
| cultural element of not wanting to "inconvenience" others
| having to interact with them.
| ghaff wrote:
| Japan does have a lot of vending machines. Maybe less
| vandalism in Japanese cities?
|
| But they also have a lot of staffed convenience stores
| (typically 7-Eleven) that are generally better than the
| random chain convenience store in the US (often in a gas
| station).
|
| Don't know the history.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| One is low crime rate, vending machines even in major cities
| do not get vandalised or broken into. The other is Japan's
| massive focus on convenience.
|
| I don't think lack of space is the issue. Combinis are
| everywhere but you'll still see vending machines in most
| parking lots and laundromats.
|
| Tech advancement is also relevant. I believe Japan invented
| vending machines that serve hot and cold drinks
| simultaneously and they adjust with the seasons. They
| invented improved ways of loading the cans and spend a lot of
| effot on the design and art, there are even vending machine
| exclusive drinks etc.
| quonn wrote:
| Given how Japan works in general I bet it's the latter. It's
| a great country to travel and eat alone, for example.
| kelnos wrote:
| For Japan I expect it's also a matter of population/crowd
| density in the cities. There are tons of staffed convenience
| stores (7-Eleven, Family Mart, Lawson), but even with a high
| density of stores, they're often fairly crowded.
|
| Having lots of vending machines even for simple things like
| bottled water and soft drinks reduces the pressure on the
| convenience stores quite a bit. More advanced vending
| machines with other products helps even more.
| fhd2 wrote:
| People who like Waymo (and those who hang out on HN) are
| probably to a good degree neuro diverse, so I wouldn't write
| off humanity just yet. My experience with the majority of
| people is that they do like interacting with humans. I guess
| that's why we still have stores, restaurants and _gasp_ offices
| when, technically speaking, there hasn 't been too much of a
| need for any of these things for about two decades now.
| seydor wrote:
| people love other people; but transactions bring out the worst
| in people
| flowerbard wrote:
| Threads like these remind me that Hacker News posters and my
| friends are two completely different types of people.
|
| We don't mind rideshare at all.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| this is true, but people are also eager to pay nothing, so I'm
| not sure how much "generalizations about products" are worth
| harmmonica wrote:
| As a Waymo-booster on HN for a while now, here's my latest
| anecdote. I tried to figure out how to take Waymo to LAX even
| though it's not actually in their territory yet just because I
| value the experience so much. I was borderline going to take it
| within walking distance (about half a mile), but got lazy at the
| last minute. I took Lyft instead, and, as if the universe cursed
| my laziness, I booked a "comfort" car for $3 more than the base
| level Lyft. At first I was going to get a Tesla Model Y to take
| me, but that cancelled. Instead, what must have been a first
| generation Honda Pilot picked me up, suspension creaking and
| muffler that had seen better days. Did Lyft recognize what they
| sent instead of the "comfort" they promised and therefore charge
| me $3 less? Of course not. When I tried to contact customer
| service I ran into what I'm sure plenty of HN people have, which
| is a dead end where you report the issue and they
| (programmatically?) adjudicate the complaint on the spot. Their
| determination? I wasn't entitled to a $3 refund. Ironic that the
| rideshare app with human drivers doesn't allow me to contact
| their customer service whereas Waymo has no problem with it
| (yeah, yeah, I get it, "we'll see once they reach a huge scale."
| But today the experience is so much better than Uber or Lyft that
| while it lasts I will bask in its driverless glory).
| duxup wrote:
| Uber has done that to me. You pick a class but what you get
| seems unrelated.
|
| I need more space for luggage and such and ... some "mid-sized"
| SUV picks me up that has about as much space a regular sedan
| anyway ... often the same type of vehicle that picked me up the
| previous day as a regular vehicle.
| jghn wrote:
| I believe they bin vehicles by available seating and not by
| things like luggage.
| Jubijub wrote:
| +1 So you may get say a 7 seater where the seats are folded
| in the trunk, so you can carry 7 people XOR 5 people +
| light suitcases
|
| There is no option to say "send me a mini van"
| duxup wrote:
| Agreed. I want van.
| kaonwarb wrote:
| There is a newer option that is closer to that - "Uber
| XXL." (https://www.uber.com/newsroom/airport-travel/)
| pureagave wrote:
| I paid extra and scheduled an Uber with a child seat. After
| waiting 30 minutes, when the car showed up, there was no car
| seat so the driver canceled right away and drove off. Lesson
| learned.
| booi wrote:
| It's also impossible to book an Uber with 2 child seats so,
| i guess i'm effed then.
| liveoneggs wrote:
| search "mifold grab and go booster" on amazon
| jopsen wrote:
| $3 isn't this kind of a small problem?
|
| I miss rideshare service, in Denmark we have mess of expensive
| high quality taxis that you cannot get hold of when you need
| one.
| harmmonica wrote:
| I'm not sure I'm reading you correctly, but if you mean it's
| a small problem because $3 isn't much money then, heck yes,
| it's a microscopic problem (is there something smaller than
| microscopic because if so then it's whatever that thing is)!
| But I didn't bring it up to complain about the $3 per se. I
| can elaborate, but I'm not sure if that's what you were
| specifically referring to or if I'm misunderstanding your
| question.
| georgemcbay wrote:
| > $3 isn't this kind of a small problem?
|
| Its the principle, not the size of the cost. If a company
| with good customer service accidentally overcharged me $200
| but I could call someone and have it fixed easily that would
| set me off far less than a company that screwed me out of $1
| who has shit-tier dark pattern customer service.
| khazhoux wrote:
| > $3 isn't this kind of a small problem?
|
| You're right -- it's surprising Lyft wouldn't just give back
| $3 (such a small amount!) to keep a customer.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| A tiny problem, that would cost them nothing to fix, and they
| chose not to. This is a story about shitty customer service,
| not $3 being lost.
| ndr wrote:
| You can dispute via your credit card. They'll care quickly
| enough.
| semiquaver wrote:
| Lyft will ban your account if you issue a chargeback.
| You'll get your money back but if you want to continue to
| use the service this is not a good option.
| Retric wrote:
| Do it anyway. You get your money back, it costs them more
| money, and the more they ban people over stuff like this
| the faster you run shitty companies out of business.
|
| To do anything else promotes them doing the same thing to
| you in the future and other people.
| sanswork wrote:
| $3 is small enough that almost everyone will just eat the
| cost. I have a theory that they do this intentionally in some
| things(well Uber I've never used lift). Almost every time I
| order food and something is wrong or missing they'll give me
| a refund that is $2-3 off what it should be. Like if I order
| a $5 item and it's missing their service will refund me $2.
| At that point I can chose to spend literally an hour going
| through different support flows to try to reach a human who
| will correct it and give me the extra $2 or I can eat the
| loss. It's happened to me at least a dozen times now so I
| imagine it's common enough across the whole world to add
| millions of revenue each year.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Doordash did to me for 70cents or so once. There was a
| missing item in an order, no big deal, app let's you report
| it, and the exact item that was missing.
|
| But instead of refunding the $2 it cost, they refunded like
| $1.19 or something to that affect.
| hedora wrote:
| The $3 often makes the difference between someone that should
| not be allowed to have a drivers license, and a someone
| that's been driving high-end limos for years.
|
| For example, I once had a driver that heard regenerative
| breaking was good for fuel economy, so decided to cycle their
| busted prius between 60mpg and 70mph every few seconds on the
| freeway. I was carsick for 2 hours after that ride. Another
| time, I had an angry line of people tapping the windows and
| politely giving the driver some unsolicited advice. (The mob
| was right; I mostly just tried to hide my face.)
|
| So, the $3 is a big problem, but has nothing to do with
| money.
| meindnoch wrote:
| I had the opposite once with Uber. I paid regular price (UberX
| or whatever it's called), then a guy showed up in a black BMW
| 530 with leather seats.
| harmmonica wrote:
| I've had the same many many times. I think _almost_
| universally it 's fair that the product/provider upgrades
| your experience when you agree to pay for something, but when
| they are specifically telling you "pay x and we'll give you
| y" and then they give you <y that's, I think, shitty.
| kelnos wrote:
| Of course, that happens, but the point is that it's a
| crapshoot, and you don't know what you're gonna get until the
| driver confirms, and you don't know what the car's actual
| condition is until you get in. And regardless, it's always
| reasonable for someone to provide you a better
| service/product than you paid for, but it's never ok to do
| the opposite.
|
| With Waymo, you know what you're going to get every time.
| I've also never experienced a Waymo interior that was in bad
| shape when I got in the car, though I'm sure that does happen
| to people.
| jostmey wrote:
| Agreeed. My last uber and Lyft rides were an unpleasant
| experience of late pickups, cancelled pickups, and old rickety
| rides. I use the train over uber and lyft
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Why did you cancel on the Tesla Model Y?
| ai-christianson wrote:
| He said "that cancelled" so I think it wasn't on his end.
| pokot0 wrote:
| People don't hate automation. They hate BAD automation.
|
| From your description seems like: Waymo -> Good Automation,
| Call Center -> Bad Automation.
|
| The day we will have a chatgpt level automated customer care
| experience, we will complain every time humans answer our
| requests, with their accents and attitudes!
| raldi wrote:
| "Hi, how can I help y--"
|
| "TALK TO A ROBOT"
| harmmonica wrote:
| Oh man, hope it's ok to poke a little fun. I think we just
| violently agreed with me praising automation from one company
| and deriding automation from another. So I'll update your
| "seems like": Riding with Waymo (IME) -> Good Automation,
| Lyft customer support when they "stole" $3 from me and didn't
| provide me with a way to fix it -> Bad Automation.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> People don't hate automation
|
| This is not true.
| antasvara wrote:
| In the broad sense, people are in favor of automation. Most
| people aren't clamoring for the days before the stove,
| dishwasher, and car (all automated versions of past
| technologies).
|
| That being said, I think a lot of people are against
| automation when it does something worse than the manual
| version. Think automated customer service over a human
| being.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| I would pay extra just to never ride in a Tesla. They always
| make me carsick.
| liveoneggs wrote:
| all "cab"-like cars that are not shaped like London Black Cabs
| are failures. The seating and luggage carrying is so much
| better than a regular car it makes me sick.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Call me crazy but I greatly prefer old fashioned taxis, because
| their drivers know how to step on it and drive like maniacs
| instead of doddering grandmothers. Sure they stink and have weird
| accents but why would I care about that when I just want to get
| home from the airport and get to bed as soon as possible?
| Accepting cash and not needing some bullshit app is also a huge
| bonus.
| tempestn wrote:
| This makes a lot of sense to me. When you ride in an Uber or a
| taxi, you're a guest in the driver's space. In a Waymo, it's your
| own space. You can play music, talk on the phone, etc. without
| worrying about disturbing the driver. You're not likely to have
| strong odors, or driver's phone conversations. And the experience
| will be roughly consistent each time. In an Uber, you have no
| idea what the car or the driving standards will be like until
| you're in it. I trust my own driving over a Waymo, but I'd trust
| Waymo over an average Uber driver, let alone a bad one.
|
| I've had some nice conversations with Uber drivers, but I've had
| some unpleasant rides too. I'd definitely pay a bit extra for a
| good driverless car. ('Good' being key. After trying out the
| Tesla FSD beta a couple times though, you couldn't pay me to ride
| in one of those without the ability to grab control.)
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Maybe it's my rampant misanthrope leanings, but even in more
| trivial things like choosing automated kiosks other staffed in
| CVS, I'm just more comfortable not having to make small talk
| with a person, worry if they're having a good day or not etc.
|
| I'd happily pay 20 percent more to Waymo for that personless
| experience too.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| It's interesting how American cultural expectations of forced
| social interaction may be having the effect of promoting
| automated systems as a reaction.
|
| As someone who lives in Spain and has lived in the UK, the
| idea of choosing self-checkout at a supermarket to avoid
| small talk with a cashier sounds alien to me; we simply don't
| do that here. While cashiers will certainly chat with certain
| customers while scanning their items, it's either that they
| know each other or it was initiated by the customer. I always
| choose staffed checkout over self-checkout because it's
| literally less effort for me, but I could imagine American
| social expectations at checkout -- _" How are you doing
| today?"_, _" Oh these apples look amazing!"_, _" Having a
| party are we?"_-- absolutely tipping the balance of effort
| and pushing me to self-checkout.
| dgunay wrote:
| For me the appeal of self checkout is that everyone gets in
| the same line and then fans out to the next free checkout
| machine. I don't have to wonder if I chose wrong when I see
| all the other lines moving faster. Some places with human
| cashiers (such as Marshall's) do this, and it's great.
| jart wrote:
| Waymos are also more expensive than anything on Uber Black.
|
| I heard on Twitter those cars cost $180,000 a pop.
|
| It's why the enemy has been blowing them up.
| gavinray wrote:
| Exactly, I will pay a premium for not having to deal with a
| human being in the car with me.
|
| It's a dice roll: you could get a very extroverted driver who
| won't leave you alone, or someone who smells bad, or someone
| rude, or a distracted driver...
|
| Just let me sit in peace, alone with a robot.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Isolationism progresses.
| smithcoin wrote:
| And we wonder why we can't get along anymore when the only
| time we go outside it to grab our Amazon packages off the
| porch.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| It goes both ways too. Customer service in person has
| digressed pretty far.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Time for a Perry Expedition-themed dating service.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Why is anyone surprised that a smaller segment of the market
| will pay more for a safer ride in a luxury vehicle compared to
| a base model Lyft (which can be a barely drivable car with rank
| cloth interior where you can't even fit two people in the back
| seat)?
|
| Next up, some one will post, "First class tickets cost more
| than coach."
|
| Waymo will eventually have Waymo Comfort and Waymo Black.
| mbesto wrote:
| > Why is anyone surprised that a smaller segment of the
| market will pay more for a safer ride in a luxury vehicle
| compared to a base model Lyft
|
| It's a criticism, because this same segment also realizes
| that a Waymo ride is WAY cheaper to operate than a human
| driven one.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| This is why I'm long AI as well - people will pay a premium for
| inferior service if it means they don't have to talk to a human
| MBCook wrote:
| There's something to be said for being able to not be forced to
| deal with a person, but I see something different personally.
|
| I'm "old" (40s) so I didn't grow up with Uber. Maybe that
| colors my take.
|
| I don't want to hire random Joes. If I wanted to buy a lift
| from a random person, I'd expect it to be very cheap.
|
| If I'm hiring someone to drive me from A to B I want a
| professional service. I want professional drivers in a fleet of
| maintained cars.
|
| With Uber/Lift you don't know. Many drives do a great job and
| treat their cars/passengers like they're professionals. Others
| don't.
|
| The taxi industry sucked. They had no competition and could get
| lazy and do a terrible job and people still had to use them
| anyway. That needed fixing.
|
| But I don't think the lesson we should learn is "taxis bad" but
| "bad service is bad". And Uber/Lyft being so variable is not a
| plus at their prices.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| There's also the issue of tipping. I haven't been in a waymo
| but I generally tip well in Uber or Lyft. I wouldn't tip a
| robot. So at least to me $15+$5 tip vs $20 is pretty much a
| wash.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Holy crap that's 33% tip!
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| You don't have to tip an Uber or Lyft, either.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| Are they cleaned after each rider? How can they not build up an
| odor, lol
| grazing_fields wrote:
| How many of you have used ZipCars or an equivalent? I guarantee
| you Waymo cars will look worse than the average Uber/Lyft once
| they stop fluffing up the experience.
| lxgr wrote:
| Simply not playing Uber's bait-and-switch game (happened again
| just yesterday: A purported $40 ride ended up being $80 due to
| being "unexpectedly 3x the planned distance") would get them my
| business immediately once they become available in NYC for the
| very few times I do take a car.
|
| Not marking up rides when there's a gift balance on the account
| would also be a great distinguishing feature.
| cflewis wrote:
| I managed to get a Waymo after a big event at Intuit Dome. It
| found a reasonable place to pick me up a couple blocks away. I
| didn't have to try calling the driver to get them to figure out
| where I should go to try and get around roadblocks and traffic
| (I had no idea about the area). It didn't cancel on me. It
| didn't hit me with a surge price. So I don't even buy the
| central premise by the article that Waymo is guaranteed to be
| more expensive.
|
| And I didnt have to worry about a Waymo being unavailable late
| in the evening, or canceling my ride because it didn't want to
| go that far at night. It just worked. Why would I ever take
| anything else?
| kelnos wrote:
| This phenomenon is interesting, and a bit surprising. I can kinda
| see it: while my experiences with Uber & Lyft over the past ~13
| years has been overall very positive, there are quite a few
| minor-seeming-but-adds-up-to-annoying things that can happen with
| Uber/Lyft that just won't happen with Waymo:
|
| * Driver cancels and you have to wait for a new driver to accept.
|
| * Driver is really chatty and you aren't in the mood, or worse,
| they want to talk about uncomfortable topics like politics or
| religion (and even worse, they hold views you find bad). I
| sometimes (rarely) get drivers who want to complain about
| something or other, and it's just awkward.
|
| * Car condition is unknown until you get in, and could be bad.
| There might be unpleasant smells, either from cleaning issues or
| driver body odor.
|
| * It's hot enough for air conditioning, but the driver instead
| has windows open to save gas (which is dubious anyway as open
| windows creates more drag); it's uncomfortable but you feel
| awkward asking them to close the windows and turn a/c on.
|
| On the other hand, sometimes you do get an awesome driver who
| enhances the experience beyond what a robotaxi can offer. I'm not
| the most chatty sort with people I don't know, but I have on
| occasion had a really fun, positive conversation with an
| Uber/Lyft driver that I genuinely enjoyed. And in SF at least,
| Waymo will still not drive on freeways, so if there's a
| significantly faster freeway route for your trip, Waymo will take
| more time.
|
| I generally do prefer Waymo over Uber/Lyft, but I'm not willing
| to pay all that much more for it. One thing to remember is that
| you should also factor in the tip you'd give the Uber/Lyft driver
| when making the comparison, since you don't tip a Waymo. Lately
| I've seen prices like (tip-adjusted) $12 for Uber/Lyft and $25
| for Waymo for the same ride, but I'm not willing to pay that much
| more for Waymo. If Waymo is a few bucks more expensive I'll use
| it, but not $10. (I also have a 10 points per dollar thing on
| Lyft rides with my credit card, so I try to remember to take into
| account a more-or-less 15% discount on the ride, versus the
| standard 1.5% 1 point per dollar I get with Waymo.)
| sokoloff wrote:
| I don't see how Waymo would be immune to the unpleasant smell
| issue. It might happen less frequently, but it'll definitely
| happen.
| habosa wrote:
| I mix and match but I'll take a Waymo if it's <= $5 more for
| these reasons:
|
| 1. Literally zero variance. Every car is the same. Every driver
| is the same style. If it says it'll be there in 7 minutes it will
| be 7, not 5 and not 10.
|
| 2. A jaguar SUV is a premium vehicle. It's comparable to an Uber
| black not a regular Uber.
|
| 3. It's so child friendly. My son can make all the noise he wants
| and I can take time loading him in without a driver being
| impatient.
|
| 4. They're very clean. I've never been in a dirty or bad smelling
| Waymo. That's very nice.
|
| 5. No aggressive driving. I've had Ubers that scare me weaving
| between lanes above the speed limit. A Waymo is always smooth.
| camel_gopher wrote:
| I'm seeing more of them with trash. Last one I took had a
| rolled up bundle of used bandages.
| bertil wrote:
| Were you able to flag it to Waymo?
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| You're experiencing the early pre-enshittified product. Ubers
| used to be cheap and excellent too, but then they started
| optimizing for profit. I assume this will happen even faster
| for Waymo, just because tech firms have more experience now.
| bertil wrote:
| Which point would you expect to deteriorate?
| flutas wrote:
| not op but cleanliness would be my first expectation
|
| I've seen many reports of dirty waymos on reddit recently
| for example.
|
| second I'd assume they would start charging you for point
| 3, "loading delay fee" when you take too long to load,
| after all that's missed profit from other rides.
|
| after that point 1 and 2, with you getting either a Jag
| (nice car), a Zeekr (unknown to me, Chinese company), or a
| Ioniq 5 (much cheaper feeling car than a Jag, with hard
| plastic everywhere). You want the jag? Expect to pay for
| it. So suddenly all cars aren't the same, and only some are
| comparable to Uber Black.
|
| To summarize:
|
| Point 4, followed by 3, followed by 2 and 1 (which imo are
| just one point). 5 I don't expect to change unless they
| have to start cost-cutting on compute and sensors, but I
| HIGHLY doubt that.
| silvestrov wrote:
| Wouldn't it be more likely they would charge for "leaving
| trash in car"?
|
| Shouldn't cost much to check car using cameras after each
| ride.
| MBCook wrote:
| Pre-enshittified > currently enshitiffied
|
| If they get worse, I'll. Choose something else if I want.
|
| They're not in my area today, but just because they may get
| worse does t mean you should avoid them today.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Replacing 100% of cars with self-driving taxis are definitely the
| future. In this context:
|
| Corporate owned for-profit self-driving cars are the mark of a
| dystopian.
|
| Publicly-owned or non-profit self-driving cars are the mark of a
| utopia.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| I'm not sure I see why. If hailing a publicly-operated waymo
| equivalent is as convenient as going to the DMV or making a
| withdrawal from a treasury direct account, I don't think anyone
| is ever going to use it. From my perspective, waymo is the
| private sector solving a problem that was largely created by
| the government (zoning - lack of density - needing to drive
| everywhere).
| Geee wrote:
| Obviously the opposite. Competition keeps prices low and
| quality high.
|
| "Publicly-owned" would be expensive and low quality, and would
| make the people running the operation filthy rich. Non-profit
| would mean that whoever is running it would increase their
| salaries until there's no profit. There would be no reason to
| lower prices or increase quality, if competition is non-
| existent.
| killion wrote:
| This looks like a clickbait study. Waymo is cheaper 100% of the
| time for me. The two big data points I think they purposely
| glossed over are:
|
| 1. Tip - Uber and Lyft cost 20% more than the ride price.
|
| 2. Car quality - Sure, a Corolla on Lyft is cheaper than Waymo.
| But once you select something desirable the price goes up, a lot.
| kelnos wrote:
| My experience is very different. About a year ago I'd agree
| that Waymo was mostly cheaper or comparable in cost to an
| Uber/Lyft ride, but in the past 3-6 months I usually see Waymo
| at 75%-150% more than Uber/Lyft, and yes, I do account for the
| Uber/Lyft tip when I compare.
| serbuvlad wrote:
| What's up with the US tipping culture?
|
| I live in Romania and I only tip restaurants a standard of 10%
| (not fast food, not coffee, just restaurants). Also delivery
| people when they help bring heavy stuff into my appartment
| (theoretically they are only paid to bring it to the block
| entrance).
|
| Back when I used taxis we would tip those. But I have never
| tipped an Uber. Or a Glovo (our Door Dash) deliveryman.
| preommr wrote:
| Started off as a way to pay people less, especially for odd
| jobs.
|
| Grew to a point where it's disconnected from the actual value
| of the service, so people like waiters make way more than if
| it was priced according to market price, but people pay
| anyways because it's not about the service, but about not
| feeling guilty for being cheap. The ecosystem has now found a
| balance that hurts the consumer, which they're willing to put
| up with because it's socially ingrained. The people providing
| a service make more, the business owner doesn't really care,
| and can't get rid of tips because it's a cutthroat industry
| and they wouldn't get workers, and higher wages would cause
| sticker shock, so they too have no incentive to make any
| changes. The customers group is too big, and don't have
| enough structure to organize any meaningful change. So it is
| what it is.
|
| You can see it now, people complain about how tipping is
| everywhere, including for walk-ins where no table service is
| provided, but eventually this too will be normalized.
|
| My personal hope is that one day we start tipping our
| doctors, our dentists, our programmers, to see how big and
| stupid this dumpster fire can grow.
| serbuvlad wrote:
| I guess that's why it doesn't work in Romania. Most
| romanians take a certain amount of healthy pride in being
| cheap, or rather, in being able to get more for as little
| money as possible.
|
| If you buy the expensive beer you're not impressing too
| many people. But of course, there are 50 cheap beers, most
| of which suck. The pride is kmowing that one cheap beer
| that's as good as the expensive ones.
|
| The fact that taxis often tried to extort tips out of you
| and lied to you about the price by not running their meters
| is what made Uber popular here -- it ended up being
| cheaper.
|
| My advice: stop tipping. Just you, personally. If the
| average person tips 10%, and tomorrow everyone stopped
| tipping, prices will probably increase by ~10%.
|
| So just personally stop tipping and enjoy the permaneny 10%
| discount all the other suckers are gifting you.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| I've never seen Waymo be cheaper than Uber/Lyft, but then again
| the audacity of them charging more even when they are
| driverless made me stop bothering to check pretty quickly.
|
| One of the selling points of Uber over taxis has always been
| that you don't have to tip. I get that some people are
| excessively generous but it's absolutely not required.
|
| If you're the kind of person who is willing to pay more for a
| fancier car, good for you. I take the bus if it could just get
| me from point A to point B in a reasonable time, Uber is a last
| resort that costs 10 times as much as public transit, at least
| in San Francisco. It's disgustingly, offensively expensive. And
| somehow Waymo charges more? Absolutely ridiculous.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| >Tip - Uber and Lyft cost 20% more than the ride price.
|
| Idk maybe because I used rideshare apps before they added
| tipping, but even as someone who tips 20% at restaurants I
| don't tip rideshares.
|
| The original argument Uber had for not adding it was because
| 'the fare included it', but seeing people now see it as
| required does kind of backup why they dragged their feet on
| adding it.
| mvac wrote:
| In my experience Uber/Lyft/Bolt in their race to the bottom
| started tolerating cars in bad shape and drivers that don't care
| about driving safely. Really hoping to see Waymo or any other
| robo-taxi in Europe soon.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| This doesn't surprise me and I'm not sure it's about people not
| wanting to interact with people or whatever - many of the Ubers
| I've got while in SF have been pretty grim (unclean, weird odors,
| ancient badly serviced car etc) and badly driven. I've not
| noticed this being such an issue in the UK/Europe but that might
| just be because I take Ubers much more rarely there (with more
| prevalent public transit etc).
|
| I'd definitely pay more for a Waymo, which is a much more
| reliably pleasant (and very cool!) experience.
| nout wrote:
| Last Uber driver I took was solving Rubik's cube while driving,
| so I can see the value in Waymo actually paying attention to the
| road. On top of that I know what to expect and I can just listen
| to podcasts or do whatever. One thing that worries me a bit is
| the camera that's pointed at your phone in the back...
| Schnitz wrote:
| Uber and Lyft's cheapest fare options are far from what they used
| to be. Want a timely pickup? Gotta pay for priority. Want a car
| that isn't 10 years old and smelly? Pay extra. Don't want a
| sketchy driver smelling of weed? Pay extra. The list goes on.
| Waymo however at least you know you get a clean and safe car.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| The real pain with Waymo is that they just aren't as reliably
| available in a short period, especially at high demand times.
| Uber can incentivize bringing on extra drivers at certain times -
| Waymo can't. Unless they size the fleet for high demand peaks -
| which would be incredibly cost prohibitive, I don't see how they
| solve this except maybe a hybrid model or they distill their
| "waymo driver" into something that runs on a standard economy
| car.
| EnPissant wrote:
| I will take Waymos whenever possible just to avoid the black ice
| tree air fresheners you find in >50% of Ubers that makes my eyes
| burn for hours. That and the aggressive driving that makes me car
| sick.
| conductr wrote:
| A lot of people don't price shop, they have a default service
| they prefer and they just pay for it whatever the cost.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| We need Waymo busses, either directly operated, or licensing the
| technology.
| segfault99 wrote:
| Who wouldn't pay more to not have to interact with an unknown
| human?
| nemo44x wrote:
| Serious question - what are all the unskilled immigrants that
| drive taxis/rideshare/etc going to do? Many millions. What's the
| plan for these guys?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-06-14 23:00 UTC)