[HN Gopher] Waymo's market share in San Francisco exceeds Lyft's
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Waymo's market share in San Francisco exceeds Lyft's
Author : namanyayg
Score : 113 points
Date : 2025-06-14 16:44 UTC (6 hours ago)
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| gonzalohm wrote:
| The other day I decided to compare Uber and Waymo. I ordered a
| Waymo and it was slightly annoyed because it took 5 minutes to do
| a left turn and almost went into the wrong way.
|
| On the way back I ordered an Uber, one driver cancelled the
| drive, the other started driving in the other direction, possibly
| using multiple car sharing apps and finishing another ride.
|
| I ended up cancelling and requesting a Waymo. It may not be
| perfect but at least it comes when requested
| iwontberude wrote:
| Several times I have ordered Uber Black early in the morning
| and watched as the driver clearly was leaving their house and
| walking out to their vehicle taking a nice 5+ minutes --
| somewhat frustrating. You can't even spend your way out of the
| problem on Uber.
| jjice wrote:
| I'm in the North East, so I've never used a Waymo, but I swear
| the last two or so years of ride share of sucked. I mostly take
| it to and from the airport, but I have about a 50% likelihood
| of my Uber drive getting either racist, preachy about religion,
| or taking a wrong turn that ends up tacking on another ten
| minutes. Usually those come in sets. I used to really like some
| pleasant small talk or a silent ride (whatever the driver
| leaned towards), but it's awful in my city now.
|
| Just a month ago my Lyft driver said that God was telling him
| that the girl he was seeing was a whore because she said he
| should seek alcohol counseling.
|
| Like six months ago my Uber driver (out of nowhere) said that
| the driver next to us on the highway (an Audi driving
| completely normally) must sell drugs to be able to afford a car
| that nice. The Audi driver was a black man.
|
| When I'm out of town, that rate feels like it decreases though.
|
| That all said, I'd take a Waymo in a heartbeat.
| baxtr wrote:
| _> I'd take a Waymo in a heartbeat._
|
| On a personal level I fully understand that.
|
| On a societal level I'd say, maybe it's helpful not to be
| completely segregated from a certain social class that seems
| to exist in your town and to be exposed to them, albeit
| briefly during a cab ride.
| rangestransform wrote:
| On a societal level, I think more "normal people" would
| take public transit if they could guarantee the removal of
| homeless people and people behaving antisocially
| autobodie wrote:
| That would require everyone having a stable job.
| Something to think about.
| lostlogin wrote:
| And function social welfare with healthcare, mental
| health care, housing and education provision.
| hexis wrote:
| No, it would require removing homeless or antisocial
| people from public transportation.
| autobodie wrote:
| How do you suggest authorities test people for
| homelessness on public transportation?
| dcrazy wrote:
| It's not an issue of social class. It's an issue of the gig
| economy being a race to the bottom that cannot afford
| (legally or monetarily) to hold workers to professional
| standards.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _an issue of the gig economy being a race to the bottom
| that cannot afford (legally or monetarily) to hold
| workers to professional standards_
|
| They absolutely can. Uber just prizes availability above
| service while Lyft perplexingly fails to differentiate
| itself. To the extent Waymo is cracking the market, it's
| not by being an AV provider. It's by being higher
| quality.
|
| New York had Juno and then Revel that similarly targeted
| quality. The former was bought by Uber and ruined. The
| latter switched from employed drivers to a gig model.
| noAnswer wrote:
| lol. Remember when Uber was cracking the market? Taxis
| where bad bad. Uber was cool cool. One "monopoly" got
| exchanged for another. Now Waymo is cool cool. In 10
| years or so Waymo will be bad because they will play loud
| ads or some shit.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Remember when Uber was cracking the market? Taxis were
| bad bad. Uber was cool cool_
|
| Yes. My Brown-educated perpetually suit-wearing black
| roommate couldn't get a hail on 5th Avenue and the
| credit-card machines never worked.
| dcrazy wrote:
| I'm not convinced enshittification of the Waymo
| experience is inevitable. It's possible there's a price
| point at which they can produce a profit while remaining
| a premium experience. Uber chose to expand into the mass
| market, which every lay person already knew was not full
| of producer surplus. Taxis weren't famous for shitty
| service and bad employment practices _because_ they were
| a monopoly, they were famous for it because it's a
| cutthroat, low-margin business.
| hbsbsbsndk wrote:
| Oh no, where will I possibly find weird racist xenophobic
| takes if not during my taxi ride? It's too bad there's not
| a million social media sites where I could be exposed to
| them
| ryandrake wrote:
| I don't think this is a social class issue, it's an issue
| where society is failing to address widespread anti social
| behavior and mental illness. We've kind of given up and
| just accepted racism, anger, belligerence, and all kinds of
| mental illnesses as inevitable societal land mines that
| normal people have to tiptoe around. And now that they're
| unchecked, they're taking over. I can't remember any time
| in my life where we've had so many people just out there
| living their lives, in desperate need of help.
| morkalork wrote:
| Ah so sounds like the average cab driver experience. Uber has
| been one long and consistent regression towards the mean in
| that sense. I did get a good chuckle out of the taxi I saw
| recently with the "Do you follow Jesus this closely?" bumper
| sticker at least.
| standardUser wrote:
| > But on an economic level, a subset of blue-collar workers
| (which numbers in the tens of thousands in San Francisco) would
| find themselves either regionally displaced or outright
| vocationally exterminated by a branch of artificial intelligence.
|
| A lot to unpack there, but it does act as a reminder that most
| people have been _highly_ critical of the rideshare business
| model, considering these jobs to be profoundly unfair an
| unsustainable for drivers. So it comes off as disingenuous to
| hear claims that we 're going to lose an important working class
| profession. No, we're going to lose a profession that, outside of
| the densest cities, never made economic sense in the 21st
| century. It's a profession we _want_ to see disappear. Not that
| it entirely matters considering that consumers are inevitably
| going to choose the cheaper, safer option regardless of which
| jobs may be at stake.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| It is also a profession that doesn't make sense in the densest
| of cities. There's too much car traffic, and too many square
| meters allocated to undersupply it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a profession that doesn 't make sense in the densest of
| cities. There's too much car traffic, and too many square
| meters allocated to undersupply it_
|
| Street-side parking in downtown areas is far more wasteful
| than ridesharing cars.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| The crazy thing about ridesharing and similar, is that the
| workers are providing the capital (the cars), but the company
| is making the profits!
| levocardia wrote:
| >It's a profession we want to see disappear
|
| Really? Next time you take an Uber, ask your driver how much
| they'd like it if they abruptly lost their job. Nobody is
| forcing people to drive Uber, unemployment is incredibly low,
| it's not like there aren't other opportunities. Some people
| actively value being able to set their own hours and not
| constantly have a boss breathing down their neck.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Doesn't the "Uber Driver App" become the boss breathing down
| their necks, anyway? Maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought
| that if the driver doesn't meet performance goals or doesn't
| take enough passengers, or satisfy a litany of other metrics,
| they drop them...
| emilsedgh wrote:
| Why is Uber's price not affected by Waymo is a puzzle to me.
|
| I use Waymo's all the time. There are still some quirks they need
| to figure out and polish the experience, but it really is
| happening and it appears that Uber's head is in the sands or I'm
| missing something here.
| standardUser wrote:
| Waymo and Uber have partnerships in some cities, like Phoenix,
| where you can only order a Waymo through the Uber app. So they
| don't view each other only as competitors, though I have no
| clue what Uber's thinking long-term.
| emilsedgh wrote:
| I've heard this argument again but just because you can hail
| a Waymo through Uber doesn't mean Uber can continue as-is. In
| a world where Uber is just the app, Uber's margins would be
| extremely thin and it wouldn't justify the market price it
| has now.
|
| Also, why would Waymo, in the long term, use Uber for this?
|
| They have the car, the driver, the app/software. They are not
| gonna share a big chunk of the profit with Uber in long term.
| The current partnership is probably just a tactical thing for
| both, not a strategic one.
| iwontberude wrote:
| Maybe winning a finders fee is more profitable, Uber isn't
| high margin to begin with.
| brookst wrote:
| Perhaps. Or it may be that Uber sees its long term future
| as lead gen and management for people/goods transportation,
| and Waymo sees itself as fulfillment of those.
|
| Uber has tremendous brand recognition and marketing in ways
| that Google has never been good at. I don't think it's the
| most likely outcome, but I would not be shocked to see Uber
| take an minority ownership stake in Waymo, use it as the
| preferred self-driving option, and phase out human drivers
| in many areas over the next 10 years.
| kilimounjaro wrote:
| I always assumed waymo would immediately kill uber, but
| really the likelihood is that there will be multiple self
| driving companies as well as human drivers in markets. A
| big city may need 2000 waymos most of the time, but 5000
| waymos on a saturday night or when a big game is on. Google
| can either build 2.5x as many as they need, or they can
| keep other operators in the market to make the service more
| functional during peak times. It is likely that other
| operators will bring cars to market, and a unified app with
| different self driving providers will bring better service
| than any individual provider.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Waymo could develop some type of modular docker-type
| container that would significantly fill the interior of
| their vehicles, or maybe even replace the interior of
| their vehicles. So equipped, a Waymo vehicle could be
| used to deliver supplies and stock to small businesses
| throughout the city throughout the week. Think small
| chains such as convenience stores, they could lower the
| per-store inventory and refill from remote, cheaper-rent
| areas, if they had three Waymo deliveries during the work
| day.
|
| Those vehicles would then be fitted with the human
| interiors for the high demand periods you state.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| If the businesses are reliant on the special deliveries,
| then you can't re-purpose them as you need more cars for
| people.
| dotancohen wrote:
| The idea would be that the deliveries happen during the
| day working hours, yet the people moving happens during
| the night hours. As implied by GP.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| There could be a stable long term arrangement between Waymo
| and Uber. Think of the relationship between Nvidia and
| OEMs, where Nvidia gets all of the margin and only has to
| deal with B2B bulk orders that they can redirect at any
| time, while the OEM has to deal with all the expensive
| customer support, returns, recalls, and other annoying
| aspects of retail.
|
| It's not a future where Uber is a viable company though.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| The app isn't the important part of that partnership, it's
| that they're managing and operating the fleets.
| tonyhb wrote:
| In the partnership model Waymo charges uber for the ride and
| Uber charges the customer.
|
| The interesting thing is that uber loses money on every ride.
| Waymo charges Uber more than Uber charges the customer.
|
| On Uber's side, though, this is preferable to losing the
| entire ride. Uber loses much more slowly by controlling the
| distribution and losing a few dollars per ride than by losing
| the entire customer base with no revenue from these
| customers.
| dosinga wrote:
| This is true. Then again Google used to power Yahoo!'s search
| and then ended up replacing Yahoo! as the default web
| destination
| boulos wrote:
| Small correction: in Phoenix you can also use the Waymo One
| app directly. In both Austin and Atlanta though, we are only
| available via Uber.
| mft_ wrote:
| Scalability? Waymo is operating in a handful of carefully
| chosen US cities. Uber can probably open in any city in the
| world (within reason) with probably a few weeks' effort.
|
| I agree with your underlying premise that in the (very) long
| term, all taxis will be automated; I guess the gamble for
| investors is how long that transition takes, across the globe.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| I wouldn't touch Uber stock, but the PE ratio is only 15. My
| guess is the market is expecting them to be able to still
| grow in the next few years even if they eventually face tough
| competition.
|
| I think there's also the fact that if self-driving cars take
| off and price goes down, people will ultimately rely on
| taxis/delivery more than ever. Maybe there is a place for
| Uber to be the platform for that still, maybe not.
| israrkhan wrote:
| Uber also has a delivery business. Uber Eats and Uber
| direct.
| username223 wrote:
| > Waymo is operating in a handful of carefully chosen US
| cities. Uber can probably open in any city in the world
| (within reason) with probably a few weeks' effort.
|
| This. Uber can operate anywhere that has human drivers and
| cell service. Waymo needs (I think) high-precision maps that
| are frequently updated, and simple traffic behavior.
|
| Traffic in Lima looks like absolute chaos to an American,
| with endless honking and lane markers treated as vague
| suggestions, but there are not constant crashes, because the
| (mostly professional) drivers know the local conventions and
| communicate with each other by horn, eye contact, hand
| signal, etc. Huaraz is full of blind 4-way intersections with
| no stop signs, so drivers honk as they get close to one, and
| there is a remarkable lack of fiery death.
|
| Waymo can't work in most places until it either changes human
| driving, or achieves AGI. Uber works as soon as it can pay
| local drivers.
| actinium226 wrote:
| So you're saying Waymo can't scale because traffic in Lima
| is chaotic? That feels like saying cars won't scale because
| many rural villages don't have roads smooth enough for
| cars, and that horses can deal with that problem just fine.
| username223 wrote:
| Yes and no. If you think Lima is a "rural village," you
| need to get out more, or at least check Wikipedia. It's a
| city of 10+ million people that doesn't follow American
| traffic laws, and there are plenty more like Huaraz
| (100,000+) where I can catch a human-driven taxi right
| now.
|
| I'm saying a Jaguar I-Pace with lidar that knows how to
| follow lines and a high-res map isn't suitable for a lot
| of the world's roads. And how it will "scale" to what a
| taxi can handle right now isn't at all obvious.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Uber eats and other diversifications. Unlike Lyft, which
| refused to diversify, which I always thought was a strange
| choice especially once the pandemic hit, Uber not only the
| dominant player but also diversified enough where it will most
| likely still be the #1 player, with the second seat now being
| Waymo. Based on how Waymo scales from city 1 to city n, it is
| extremely hard for them to do 100 cities at once. And
| international expansion will be almost impossible. Uber will
| still continue to dominate those markets.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The thing people miss about Uber is that Waymo doesn't need
| to scale to 100 cities at once to eviscerate Uber's ride hail
| business. They need to win the couple dozen largest cities
| that make up the vast majority of Uber's profits. The rest of
| the world drives less volume and costs vastly more to service
| when you account for things like regulatory compliance,
| internationalization, payments, and support.
| nradov wrote:
| Lyft is slightly diversified with bike rental in a few
| cities, although that's only a small fraction of their
| revenue.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| My hesitation to use Uber is rarely about price. It's about the
| miserable experience of having a driver who cancels or never
| shows up. Prices bumping up or down 20% doesn't move the
| needle.
| jaredhallen wrote:
| I was in SF yesterday and wanted to try out a Waymo, but
| apparently they're not operating right now.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Wow, must be because of the protests. It's so bad that people
| take out their aggression for the president on Waymo of all
| things.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I wanted to try out Waymo, but their app won't run on my phone
| which is limited to iOS 15.
| muglug wrote:
| Lyft seems to have suffered more (proportionately) from Waymo
| than Uber in SF.
|
| I bet that's a reflection of a large "anyone-but-Uber" contingent
| stemming from the Travis Kalanick days.
| culopatin wrote:
| Because Lyft is an afterthought. Uber is a verb
| iwontberude wrote:
| Uber is a prefixal adjective or adverb
| vntok wrote:
| Languages evolve. People have been using it as a verb a
| lot, so it's become a verb.
| Uehreka wrote:
| I don't know about that. Me and everyone I know use Uber as a
| verb but then always order from Lyft. I used to do it for the
| political reasons, but at this point it's mostly just muscle
| memory. When I do open the Uber app the prices are usually
| equivalent.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I deliberately default to Lyft because of the "Travis
| Kalanick days." I don't even know if Uber are a terrible,
| shitty company anymore, but they once were, and that
| permanently changed my behavior. I'll probably never buy a
| Tesla for the same reason.
| moomoo11 wrote:
| Waymo is the first tech product/service I've used in the last
| decade that actually blew my mind.
|
| The last time was when I could take photos on my phone that were
| as good enough as lugging around a Dslr.
|
| There have been good products and services in between don't get
| me wrong. But none of them instantly blew me away like those.
| steelframe wrote:
| The last time I was in SF I used Waymo to get around town and
| Uber to get to the airport.
|
| The Waymo rides were near-perfect. At one point when a delivery
| truck was blocking 3 lanes, the vehicle assertively merged over
| into the free lane to get around. A couple of people on e-bikes
| were all over the place, but at no point did I feel that the
| vehicle put them in any kind of danger. Starts, stops, and turns
| were all smooth. End-to-end time was good, the ride itself was
| comfortable, and the price was reasonable.
|
| On the other hand the Uber driver picked me up in a Tesla that
| had regen cranked up. They continually accelerated and
| decelerated the entire way to the airport, rocking the car back
| and forth the whole time, as if it were a nervous habit to
| continually press and release the accelerator or something. I
| felt sick by the time we got to my terminal.
|
| For me at this point, technology like Waymo can't carpet every
| metropolitan area quickly enough.
|
| One caveat: I should be able to use it (and, hence, pay for it)
| anonymously.
| Animats wrote:
| > One caveat: I should be able to use it (and, hence, pay for
| it) anonymously.
|
| That it requires a Google account is worth taking up with the
| TCP. That's a tie-in sale.
| autobodie wrote:
| The TCP?
| Animats wrote:
| The part of the California Public Utilities Commission that
| regulates private buses and ride-sharing.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/tcpinfo/
| ggsp wrote:
| Is it possible to use Uber anonymously?
| ketzo wrote:
| They're probably comparing to taxis, where you can pay in
| cash.
| autobodie wrote:
| > _One caveat: I should be able to use it (and, hence, pay for
| it) anonymously._
|
| I assume you mean this as a moral claim and I can agree in that
| case. However, it's meaningless of course and kind of
| infuriating in any other light, because this is the world
| everyone has been mindlessly begging for and there is no chance
| that it comes without extremely severe consequences. An
| automated world like this means even less power for working
| people than ever before, so how on Earth do you expect to
| realize any of these desires? Do you still think capitalists
| care about your privacy? Even if they did "care" it wouldn't
| matter because they have to compete.
| zdragnar wrote:
| > Do you still think capitalists care about your privacy?
|
| Why do you think most people did in the first place? We
| (speaking for the majority of consumers) care more about free
| services than we do having our privacy protected.
|
| The fact that there are a seemingly endless stream of cases
| of identity fraud and leaks of private data _and we still
| continue to use all the services_ indicates that we don 't
| value it very much.
|
| Do I care that Google knows I went to Amazon after searching
| for a particular book title? Nope. Do I care that Google
| knows I went to the grocery store today? Still no. I would
| much rather get a great search engine, free maps, GPS, email,
| documents, storage, photo backups and more.
|
| If I did care about the privacy of these things, I'd pay for
| it. Or, I'd use a dedicated account on a different service on
| a different device that can't be connected if I want to do
| something I don't want others knowing about, like buying
| naughty lingerie for my partner or something.
| autobodie wrote:
| Nonsense. You describe a world in which everyone has
| disposable income to navigate the market, picking and
| choosing as they please. Capitalism is _not_ that world.
| Most people are just trying to keep their debt manageable
| enough to keep a roof over their heads and get to work on
| time the next day. Get real, guy.
| scosman wrote:
| I'd like to use it anonymously too but it doesn't feel
| reasonable to ask for access to a $80k piece of hardware
| anonymously. I needed to give ID to rent a movie at
| blockbuster.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I've been trying to think of other expensive things you can
| do anonymously. Busses aren't cheap, but have a driver. You
| can ride a plane (national only) here in NZ with no ID check.
| There is a name on the ticket, but no one checks it matches
| the passenger. Plenty of staff and other passengers around
| too.
| cpard wrote:
| You hit an important point here.
|
| Waymo is offering a very consistent experience, from the car
| that is used to the driving behavior.
|
| Taxi services in the past, at least where I grew up, were kind
| of enforcing a more consistent experience by having
| requirements about the car and even the color.
|
| But the driving experience was always highly variable and is
| getting solved by self driving cars.
|
| With uber and Lyft you as the customer gave away some of the
| experience elements with the promise of cheaper and more
| abundant transportation.
|
| But the experience has gone so bad, that getting into a Waymo
| feels so refreshing.
| majormajor wrote:
| When Uber came out you often got nicer cars in nicer condition
| than cabs for less money. Funny that the condition thing has
| turned on them.
|
| I don't have a strong opinion yet on the long-term viability of
| Waymo (or any other competitor) because I think we need to see
| two things:
|
| * what will the cars look like in 3 years? 5?
|
| * will autonomous tech and supporting infra (like cheap automated
| parking in sparse parts of cities for cars to stay when not in
| use) make its way into consumer products at a low enough price
| point, leading to heavy Waymo users turning into vehicle owners
| instead? This was one of the issues with the scooter/e-bike
| rental market.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying
| anyway_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44258139
| lvl155 wrote:
| Wait till people start getting into accidents in these robotaxis.
| It's already a complete disaster for Uber. Do you know what it
| takes to get coverage as a passenger if your Uber driver is an
| idiot? With current administration going the wild wild west route
| to complete deregulation, robotaxis will be very rough.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Do you know what it takes to get coverage as a passenger if
| your Uber driver is an idiot?_
|
| Coverage as a passenger? For what?
| lvl155 wrote:
| > accidents
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Why do you think Waymo works differently from all other
| cases of physical injury liability?
| Spivak wrote:
| If you are riding in a Lyft and get hurt (and the Lyft is at
| fault), it's Lyft's medical insurance company that pays out
| for your medical care. Same as it is for all other auto
| insurance.
|
| It's a pretty delayed process because unless the Lyft hit a
| tree there's usually at least two vehicles involved in the
| crash and the insurance companies have to fight over fault.
| But they do eventually pay out.
|
| Source: Got into an accident in a Lyft. They even paid my
| salary for the few days I was off work.
| lvl155 wrote:
| That's what people assume. It's not.
| aeronaut80 wrote:
| Could you explain and provide more details?
| lvl155 wrote:
| For example, if you get into an accident in NYC, you're
| pretty much screwed. Uber will not cover you and you have
| to rely on "bankrupt" commercial insurance. Which is
| funny because Uber fees INCLUDE these phantom coverages.
| Class-action waiting to happen.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if you get into an accident in NYC, you're pretty much
| screwed. Uber will not cover you and you have to rely on
| "bankrupt" commercial insurance_
|
| What is your source on TLC commercial insurance not
| paying out for medical expenses sustained in an accident?
|
| And going back to Waymo, wouldn't having one of the
| world's wealthiest companies as the beneficial
| counterparty solve the problem you're raising?
| lvl155 wrote:
| Aren't you PE? Just look up the lawsuits bro. On a
| serious note, I don't think Google or Tesla will take on
| that liability once we get to scale. That basically
| defeats the purpose of autonomous. Their legal and ops
| team will do everything to push an alternate business
| model similar to lease. This is why I really think
| autonomous has to be at least two orders of magnitude
| "safer" to be viable at scale (more than 10% on the
| road).
| ENGNR wrote:
| As a non US resident - not having to think about tipping the
| driver makes me excited and significantly more likely to visit.
| Tipping culture is just exhausting!
|
| If someone could automate wheeling the food a few dozen metres
| from a restaurant kitchen to a table next it would be perfect :)
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