[HN Gopher] Miami, your Waymo ride is ready
___________________________________________________________________
Miami, your Waymo ride is ready
Author : ChrisArchitect
Score : 54 points
Date : 2026-01-22 16:27 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (waymo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (waymo.com)
| techIA wrote:
| The competition is growing.
| melling wrote:
| I'm going to Miami next week. Time for my first WayMo ride.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| Weirdly (well not for me it's a charter metal festival cruise)
| I am too and interested in doing the same. Typically we use
| Uber and it's been a not great experience.
| treis wrote:
| We got these in Atlanta. I haven't had the chance to ride yet but
| watching them it's pretty clear that they're legit.
|
| I think we're on the cusp of something that will change the
| landscape of our cities. It's going to revolutionize getting
| around and take a chunk out of the land dedicated to parking.
| nerdsniper wrote:
| It will also funnel large amounts of revenue out of every city
| into s/SF/Bay Area. Currently around 35% of the money spent on
| Uber/Lyft stays in the local economy. Waymo in SF still employs
| a large number of highly paid engineers who are paid the money
| which used to move through SF via Uber/Lyft. And those SF
| engineers spend a decent chunk of it locally on food, art,
| entertainment, and various other services - so it has
| (somewhat) less of an effect on the city's overall
| economy/total employment.
|
| Waymo in Miami won't be locally re-spending nearly as much of
| Miami's money as Uber/Lyft did. Significantly more of it will
| be removed from Miami with each ride. This might be even more
| pronounced for cities like Houston, which don't attract tourism
| from Waymo staff.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > It will also funnel large amounts of revenue out of every
| city into SF.
|
| Why SF? Does Google even still have an engineering office in
| the city? Alphabet is a publicly traded company with
| employees all over the USA and the world, even if you said
| the money would be funneled into Mountain View you'd be
| incorrect. The money will be funneled into 401Ks would be
| more accurate, and a lot of snowbirds in Florida are living
| off of their 401Ks and stock investments (which probably have
| a lot of Alphabet in them), so it is definitely something for
| Florida.
|
| But I think your point is that gig workers won't be making
| the money anymore. That's definitely true. That is just like
| when loom machines took money away from weavers back in the
| 19th century, or computers took money away from
| typists/secretaries in the 20th century. We should carefully
| consider whether or not that is a net good for society.
| spongebobstoes wrote:
| are there examples of jobs going obsolete being a net harm
| to society, over a long time scale?
|
| surely it's good to reduce the amount of menial labour
| being performed in the world
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The loss of manufacturing jobs and the movement of jobs
| in to services has been hard for the US, and is basically
| where MAGA came from, which I would say is a net harm to
| society. We wouldn't be arguing about Waymo right now if
| those Uber drivers had better jobs making things instead
| of being forced into gig work.
| ezst wrote:
| > That is just like when loom machines took money away from
| weavers back in the 19th century, or computers took money
| away from typists/secretaries in the 20th century. We
| should carefully consider whether or not that is a net good
| for society.
|
| I don't want to sound like a luddite, but each of those
| contributed to a consolidation of wealth that was largely
| offset by new jobs and new markets. How exactly do you
| think this is paying off here? Tech companies get to
| benefit, we know that, which sounds like a dead end. So
| it's ok that everyone else loses?
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| > I don't want to sound like a luddite
|
| it's not a dirty word. being a luddite means caring about
| your professional and personal communities.
| nerdsniper wrote:
| The purely 'luddite' argument is rather obvious. Exploring
| the effects of that new path of money are somewhat more
| interesting to me. I believe that the cash flow will be
| much more concentrated, both by geography and cohort.
|
| Even just taking it at face value that "the vast majority
| of the 35% of the fare that would have gone to the drivers
| will now go to '401k's" is interesting! Currently most
| drivers for Lyft/Uber are in the bottom 50%ile of wealth in
| the USA, and they are currently getting that 35% cut. The
| bottom 50% of the USA hold nearly no stocks at all. 50% of
| the S&P500 shares are owned by the wealthiest 1% of the
| USA.
|
| Also, computers and looms were perhaps a bit different -
| the result of their automation was a product that actually
| cost less than their equivalent human labor could produce.
| Waymo currently charges more than Uber and Lyft, but still
| takes significant market share.
|
| I do expect them to be cheaper eventually, but they'll also
| have an opportunity to establish market monopolies and then
| raise prices again. Sure, uber and lyft driver supply is
| obviously elastic, but possibly not quite as elastic in the
| very long run - it took a lot of capital to raise the
| current driver base for Uber+Lyft, and I'm not sure that
| can be repeated, say, five years after people stopped
| driving for them.
|
| Of course people have to get new jobs as the world churns.
| But all of these other effects are interesting too! And,
| many, many people never really attain those new jobs. I
| don't think that's Waymo's "fault" as a moral judgment if
| the reality is that removing money from these jobs will
| lead to increase in squalor. It's just a pretty stark
| example of the rich getting richer.
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| Not sure about the 35% here.
|
| If I spend 100$ on an uber ride, 65$ goes to Uber while only
| 35$ is local ?
|
| I thought it's was the other way around with a margin of 30%
| for Uber.
| nerdsniper wrote:
| I usually ask most of my drivers how much they're getting
| paid for each ride. Across MCOL and HCOL areas like SF,
| NYC, HTX, ATX, DMV - I've generally been seeing around 40%
| going to the driver.
|
| For example, this route shows for me at $57 (-$10 discount
| = $47) but the driver sees $20: https://www.reddit.com/r/ub
| erdrivers/comments/1q5z1dg/f_you_...
| treis wrote:
| I think the pie will grow more than Waymo takes out. Stuff
| like a plumber realizing they're missing a part. What might
| be a trip to the supply house can be a self driving delivery
| instead.
|
| Either way, it's not all that much different. Most of the
| money spent on getting around a city goes elsewhere through
| vehicle and gas purchases. Adding the cost of self driving to
| that probably won't move the needle all that much.
| xnx wrote:
| > What might be a trip to the supply house can be a self
| driving delivery instead.
|
| I think part replacement is an excellent use case for
| robotic delivery and even the Wing service if suitable
| weight and size.
| eweise wrote:
| Isn't that how it always is when new technology disrupts an
| existing market? We no longer have telephone operators, toll
| booth agents, gas pump attendants, etc
| nerdsniper wrote:
| Those all eliminated the work so that no one had to pay for
| it anymore, which freed up that money to be spent elsewhere
| in the local economy. Waymo is not cheaper than Lyft/Uber.
| So it's more of a direct wealth-transfer than the most
| cursory analogies were.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| Eventually, it will be General Motors, Ford etc. who are
| getting their revenue streams obliterated by self-driving
| vehicle.
| RationPhantoms wrote:
| You don't think this will also have an effect on improving
| life in the cities where Waymo is utilized? I understand
| there is the threat to induced demand with too many waymo's
| being on the road but this is going to help improve city
| living and in turn, help increase people wanting to live
| there.
| asdff wrote:
| Did uber?
| hackmiester wrote:
| Drunk driving goes down significantly, for one thing.
| asdff wrote:
| Hard to control for that against the decline in social
| drinking in general
| nerdsniper wrote:
| Honestly, in a lot of ways, yes. I'm a massive critic of
| Uber, but outside of the hotel areas and nicest
| neighborhoods, it was often incredibly difficult to
| successfully call a taxi to pick you up before Uber.
|
| I remember once playing ball all day in the front yard,
| calling all the taxi companies just on a lark. They'd
| claim they were sending a driver, that the driver pulled
| up and honked, but we were outside the entire time. No
| one ever actually drove up over about 20 calls to 6 cab
| companies.
|
| Uber/Lyft finally served all neighborhoods mostly
| equally, and that was a huge benefit.
| aylmao wrote:
| At least in SF, last I checked, it's as expensive, or
| sometimes more expensive, as Uber/Lyft. It'll serve the
| same sector of the population as those apps already do, so
| it's unlikely to actually reduce parking needs.
|
| There's an argument that more competition could reduce
| prices and/or wait times for consumers, but there's also
| the argument it'll take away gig jobs, which are already
| somewhat of a "backup net" for people who need money but
| can't find a formal job for some other reason.
|
| I don't live in SF anymore. When I did and now that I
| occasionally visit, I personally don't see any meaningful
| difference from when only Lyft and Uber operated there.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| So many things wrong with the assumptions and chain of
| reasoning in this comment.
|
| The easiest example is to look at Detroit.
|
| Although, perhaps the username is a signal, and I fell for
| it.
| ricksunny wrote:
| Good illustration of input/output economics; a discipline
| that mainstream economics tends to elide over for reasons
| that escape me.
| dtran wrote:
| To the best of my knowledge, Waymo still has humans in the
| loop as Fleet Response agents that the vehicles can call for
| remote assistance when they aren't sure what to do. Caveat
| that the number needed likely isn't on the same order of
| magnitude as human drivers, but the job is likely higher
| paying. I could see a scenario where these should be locals
| for both latency (ChatGPT says SF to Miami RTT latency might
| be 80-100 ms and I don't believe the humans really
| teleoperate the vehicles, so that may not be meaningful, but
| that might be a bigger deal for international expansion) and
| knowledge of tricky intersections or road quirks in the city.
| They could also potentially help with labeling quirky city-
| specific scenarios and other various evals.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| IMHO you are thinking too much in the near term.
|
| I strongly believe that if you extrapolate 5-10 years then at
| that point the really big revenue stream(s) that self-driving
| cars will be funneling to themselves will revenue poached
| from the legacy auto manufacturers and adjacent industries.
|
| And I also think this is a good thing.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Have you watched them operate in a downpour? They've so far
| only been tested in semiarid locales.
| xnx wrote:
| > Have you watched them operate in a downpour?
|
| Waymo in heavy rain:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG6u6QfTv6s
|
| > only been tested in semiarid locales
|
| Is San Francisco semi-arid?
| btmiller wrote:
| I'm skeptical. Is the presence of a human driver keeping you
| from using Uber/Lyft/taxis more than you currently are? Why
| would you think removing a driver will lead to more ride share
| trips? Capitalism is going to do its thing, so between the
| touted benefits of driverless ride shares and capitalist
| economics, could you please explain how exactly our city
| landscapes, namely parking lots, will be revolutionized in any
| way, shape, or form other than zombie lots occupied Waymos
| endlessly arranging and charging themselves? Forgive my
| cynicism, it feels like I've seen this how this dream turns out
| many times before.
| treis wrote:
| The zombie lots can be consolidated and moved to less
| desirable areas.
|
| And I think there's some demand shifting that can happen.
| People get driven to the office in the morning. Deliveries
| happen during the day and then people are driven home.
|
| It also eliminates the need for parking for a lot of places.
| A restaurant doesn't need a parking lot if people are
| primarily arriving in self driving cars.
| dc396 wrote:
| > Is the presence of a human driver keeping you from using
| Uber/Lyft/taxis more than you currently are?
|
| Yep. A couple of bad experiences with Uber/Lyft drivers put
| me off using them. Waymo is honestly more comfortable/less
| stressful for me. Similarly, I just read an article
| discussing parents making use of Waymo to schlep their kids
| to sportball practice/friend's house/wherever kids hang out
| these days, even though it is against Waymo's terms of
| service. The article indicated those parents didn't trust
| their kids to be in a car along with a strange human, but
| were ok with an automated system (and violating the ToS of
| that system).
|
| > please explain how exactly our city landscapes, namely
| parking lots, will be revolutionized in any way, shape, or
| form other than zombie lots occupied Waymos
|
| Today parking tends to be located near the
| shop/restaurant/office people want to go to. If people no
| longer need to park to go to where they want to go, parking
| (for charging) can relocate and be concentrated, thereby
| freeing up the parking spaces for other uses.
| btmiller wrote:
| Thanks for the reply. The perception of safety in attended
| ride shares is masking the larger economic constraint. So
| let's assume for sake of conversation that your safety
| concerns are warranted. I'd ask you to consider how much
| money additional money you're willing to spend on ride
| shares. The urban utopia of autonomous vehicles is often
| championed, yet fully unconsidered in a capitalist regime.
| How much additional money do you expect most Americans to
| spend toward ride shares, to the degree that they abandon
| vehicle ownership? What degree of _broad behavior and
| spending change_ do you expect to occur as result of
| unattended ride shares?
| Nemi wrote:
| I've never been as scared in a car as I was in an Uber in
| Chicago going to the airport. That man drove around cars like
| we were bleeding out in his car and had to get to the
| hospital or someone was going to die.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Any idea how much they cost? Because for me the main use is
| mostly one off rides to the city to have drinks with friends
| and go there and come home safely. I live in Central Florida, I
| mostly use Uber or Lyft for these scenarios.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| In SF, Waymo costs about the same as an Uber or Lyft after
| factoring in a couple buck tip. For awhile, I checked both
| Uber and Waymo when I wanted to get somewhere, but after not
| seeing significant price differences I stopped bothering.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I guess the other thing is you dont have to tip your AI
| driver.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Can you elaborate? Are you saying you think people are going to
| give up their cars because Waymo is available?
| treis wrote:
| I think it fundamentally shifts the cost of transport from
| marginal to capitalized. Meaning a 20 minute trip is $0.50 of
| gas and some fraction of the manufacturing cost of the car.
| Today it's that plus $5-10 to the driver.
|
| It's somewhat equivalent to the advent of trains but on a
| personal level. In the way that trains made shipping goods
| across the country more or less free once the rail was built
| that's what's going to happen to people and packages getting
| around cities.
| btmiller wrote:
| Remind me who's owning and operating these driverless cars?
| A private company?
| dougb5 wrote:
| We've had it for a few years in SF and, while it's very
| convenient, I haven't witnessed the revolution you speak of.
| Judging from the traffic, people still mostly get around in
| their personal vehicles. There's about as much parking as
| before and it's still a nightmare. But I'd like to believe.
| krashidov wrote:
| My prediction is it will make our cities worse. In 30 years
| every family will want one self driving car per person in the
| household
| tanseydavid wrote:
| If they can figure out how to really take advantage of
| economies of scale, and drive the costs down quite a lot --
| the desirability of car ownership will drop dramatically.
|
| Everyone I know under 40yo already professes to hate driving
| and hate car ownership.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| When I was working for the automotive industry their models
| and projections suggested that ubiquitous self-driving cars
| would reduce the total market for cars to ~15% of its current
| size. As in, sales would drop by 85%. The addressable market
| for automotive OEMs is set to undergo a dramatic reduction in
| size.
|
| Few automotive companies have a coherent plan for how they
| were going to survive that existential risk.
| deeg wrote:
| I live in the city and as much as I'd like to be car free waymo
| doesn't do it (yet). I take frequent weekend trips that travel
| (I assume) outside of waymos range. Once waymo supports car
| rentals I could consider getting rid of mine.
| keeda wrote:
| I would hope so, but it's not yet clear if the economics pan
| out for large scale deployment. The ride is amazing, but the
| sensor-laden cars are also very expensive.
|
| The only sensible aspect of Elon's boneheaded move to remove
| non-camera sensors from Tesla models is the drive to reduce
| costs, because low costs are essential for mass adoption. Yes,
| sensors are rapidly dropping in cost, making the move even more
| boneheaded, but the theory is sound.
|
| Some Waymo exec claimed that they are seeing very encouraging
| unit economics, which gives me hope for mass diffusion, but
| we'll only know when the rubber actually hits the road
| (heheheh).
| milkytron wrote:
| I wonder how they will impact traffic. Rideshare has already
| added traffic according to some studies I've read.
|
| Basically, instead of someone going from point A (current
| location with own car nearby) to point B (destination), Point A
| becomes the destination of the previous passenger, and point B
| and C were the previous points A and B. So a single trip adds
| one more leg.
|
| It might reduce the need for parking... potentially. But there
| will still need to be a certain amount of time dedicated to
| charging for these cars that requires parking.
|
| If private car ownership continues increasing in cost, and
| households become increasingly cost burdened (transportation is
| already the second highest cost for households), then I wonder
| how this will impact demand for housing in areas dependent on
| cars.
|
| Curious on the outcomes here. I think the best thing we can do
| for city transportation is increasing the number of viable
| transportation options. Waymo is one option amongst the options
| dependent on roads, but walking, biking, and transit should
| still be a priority so that we maintain competition amongst
| transportation modes.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I forsee the cost of travel increasing quite a lot.
|
| Private cars will end up 2nd class citizens with 'waymo lanes'
| and sky high insurance costs, pushing everyone to self driving
| taxi services who have a really high cost per mile compared to
| your own car, since they have a huge debt to pay back to
| investors so will never get down to the $0.15 per mile that
| driving your own old car costs.
| tim-fan wrote:
| On the other hand, insurance costs for robotaxis should be
| lower if they are able to drive significantly safer.
|
| Then the one I'm more interested / excited for: optimizing
| the fleet for the cargo. If most trips involve single
| passengers, then most cars can be small electric single
| seaters. This can further reduce insurance costs as well as
| fuel, maintenance and depreciation.
|
| I'd hope that's enough to offset the price of the sensors,
| compute hardware, and engineers to maintain the system.
|
| But yes paying back investors; not sure how long that would
| lead to elevated costs for riders.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Waymos are prevalent in LA.
| ProfessorZoom wrote:
| Still can't believe the prices are comparable to Uber, sometimes
| costing even more. It should be significantly less to the point
| it drives Uber out of business. Is Waymo close to bankruptcy,
| unable to be profitable, or are they just greedy?
| apelapan wrote:
| The cars are extremely expensive and they have a 100 billion
| investment to recoup. I assume they are still losing money on
| each ride.
| xnx wrote:
| > The cars are extremely expensive
|
| Compared to what? Most estimates put costs around
| $150K/vehicle and dropping.
| RationPhantoms wrote:
| Waymo can easily charge a premium for not having a driver in
| the seat. Privacy and physical security guaranteed? Also not
| dealing with the moral implications of what the driver is
| receiving in terms of compensation (or in the case of uber,
| not).
|
| They're, in my customer impression, quite a world different.
| lithocarpus wrote:
| I assume that's simply a calculation they do of how much their
| revenue will change if they adjust the prices up or down. Until
| it makes financial sense to lower prices, they can wait on
| trying to capture the market. I would guess they're working on
| making the cars and equipment cheaper before massively scaling
| up.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Having feared death in a Uber one too many times, I would
| definitely pay a premium over Uber for a waymo.
| xnx wrote:
| > It should be significantly less to the point it drives Uber
| out of business.
|
| Prices are rarely based on cost, and more often based on what a
| customer is willing to pay. Waymo is a better experience than
| Uber (predictable, safe, clean, quiet, etc.), so it makes sense
| people would be willing to pay more.
|
| > Is Waymo close to bankruptcy, unable to be profitable, or are
| they just greedy?
|
| No x 3
| Jblx2 wrote:
| Are there indications that Waymo vehicles are sitting around
| idle? If so, then yes, they should reduce the price to attract
| customers. If they are essentially running at capacity with
| their current prices, why wouldn't they charge more? For the
| novelty, etc..
| jen20 wrote:
| Waymo is annoying only _available_ through Uber in some cities
| - notably Austin. Even more annoyingly, you can't choose
| whether you want to accept human drivers or just Waymo
| vehicles.
| haunter wrote:
| This is like the argument that ebooks should cost less than
| paper books.
|
| Not that I disagree but it's never gonna happen. more money >
| money
| icyfox wrote:
| Waymo is such an interesting case study. For most other ~AI
| deployments you have strong public reaction to the proliferation
| of slop, non-human failure modes, cost cutting at the expense of
| quality, etc. But I haven't met a single person who doesn't like
| the experience of Waymo. They ended up cracking the code on what
| I suspect people really want:
|
| - consistent car quality
|
| - safety of the drive (conservative driving and potential fear of
| drivers)
|
| - no randomly chatty driver
|
| All of those feel like a breath of fresh air especially when
| stacked up against the current state of Uber & Lyft rides. People
| really just want consistency. I don't actually think you needed
| AI to get there (I've had occasional rides in black cars that
| provided the same experience). Waymo was just right time, right
| place, right price.
| pjc50 wrote:
| There's a lot of complaints about externalities, especially
| when a power cut stopped all the vehicles in a city recently.
| icyfox wrote:
| I'm not commenting on the externalities. For that I'd also
| cite economic impact, job loss, occasional emergency services
| issues, etc. I'm saying the experience when you yourself are
| taking a ride. I haven't met a single person who's said "this
| sucked - I'm going back to Uber".
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I think parent was talking about how users of the service
| were very satisfied with it, not about externalities.
| holler wrote:
| My first and only Waymo ride was super sketch. Car slowed down
| to ~5mph in a 35mph zone and stayed that way for 5+ minutes as
| other cars were swerving around us. Felt like it was going to
| come to a complete stop in the middle of the road, I prefer
| real humans.
| x86x87 wrote:
| not having to talk to the driver and picking my own music are
| my fav parts. the novelty wears off quick and it becomes normal
| autoexec wrote:
| > but I haven't met a single person who doesn't like the
| experience of Waymo.
|
| Just last week a Waymo was driving on train tracks and the
| rider had to jump out of the car and run because the car
| stopped while trains came at it.
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26KJvL2clTs) I bet that guy'd
| have something to say about the experience.
| 1stranger wrote:
| Yeah that's obviously not great but that video is nothing
| like what you described. You made it sound like it drove onto
| a mainline train track with a train barreling down the tracks
| that couldn't stop with the guy diving out of the car to
| avoid getting clobbered. It did not, it got stuck on a tram
| track. Not quite the same thing.
| asdff wrote:
| Tried calling it and it left without picking us up.
| mbesto wrote:
| What you're getting at is basically the difference between
| probabilistic models vs deterministic ones.
| spongebobstoes wrote:
| waymo is also a probabilistic deep learning system
| nerdsniper wrote:
| I've had Waymos in SF take very strange routes. It seemed to
| really strongly avoid ever using Market St, generally
| preferring a long right-angle route over the perfect
| hypotenuse. Sometimes this delayed me very considerably,
| doubling my ride time compared to the Google Maps estimated
| time.
|
| That said, I've never felt unsafe or uncomfortable. But I have
| jumped out halfway through the ride and grabbed an eScooter
| instead.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Back when I had to drive/walk in SF, I would also go quite
| out of my way to avoid market or mission. Especially near
| 6th. Self-preservation and whatnot...
| thomas_witt wrote:
| Funny that they apparently didn't include South Beach, at least
| according to the map.
| s-kymon wrote:
| miami beach is a different city = different laws and
| regulations
| amelius wrote:
| The US would benefit much more from a good railroad system.
|
| Everybody can drive a car. They have solved the wrong problem.
| xnx wrote:
| > They have solved the wrong problem.
|
| Human drivers kill >30K/year.
| hobofan wrote:
| So displace human drivers with public transportation?
| xnx wrote:
| Precisely, Waymo is a form of public transportation.
| afavour wrote:
| > Everybody can drive a car.
|
| Not everyone can/wants to _own_ a car, though.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Trains do not solve the same issue as Waymo/Rideshares/Taxis.
| For example, if I want to go from SF to somewhere in the East
| Bay, I would walk to my nearest bus stop, ride the bus to the
| train station, then hop on a train to Berkeley. But now I'm a
| couple miles from my friends' house. Relatively few people want
| to go to my friends' house each day, so it doesn't make sense
| to put a train station there. Maybe there should be a bus stop,
| but if everyone there owns cars anyway, the city might have
| other priorities. But I, the dude visiting, don't have a car.
| So I hire a cab/Uber/Waymo to bring me the last couple miles.
| throwforfeds wrote:
| Yeah I agree. I'm very pro public transit -- I live in NYC
| and didn't get my license until my 40s -- but there is
| absolutely a need for last mile connections once you leave
| transit dense parts of a city. Or the occasional errand that
| requires hauling some stuff around. Or a number of other
| reasons you'd need a car a couple times a month.
|
| The reality is we decided to invest mainly in car
| infrastructure for the past 100 years and it's going to take
| a long time to fix that. In the meantime, I'll be happy with
| an automated car and diminishing car ownership.
| owenversteeg wrote:
| Funny enough, Miami is one of the few US cities that does have
| a pretty large rail system. There are several types of rail and
| it is fairly fast and effective. You can even take the Silver
| Meteor to NYC with an average speed of 51 mph. That's a better
| average speed than many European lines over a similar 1400 mile
| distance. Compare: Brussels-Athens 41mph avg, Stockholm-Paris
| 54mph avg, Amsterdam-Lisbon 47mph. The fastest EU route over
| that distance is probably Berlin-Madrid at 65mph, and the
| Amtrak is cheaper, has no changes, and is usually more
| comfortable than any of those.
|
| If you want (relatively) high speed, you can take the
| Brightline to Orlando, 236 mi in 3.5h aka 67 mph average.
| That's on par with Brussels-Amsterdam (68mph), Amsterdam-Paris
| (80mph), but indeed far below the marquee EU/Chinese/Japanese
| HSR routes of 150+ mph average speed.
|
| More generally: large parts of the eastern US had a developed
| railroad system (and often still do, for freight.) You can look
| up old maps and see how widespread they were. The economics
| mostly just didn't work out because as car ownership rose, the
| population density wasn't high enough to justify them over
| cars.
| mekdoonggi wrote:
| I'm thinking that as prevalence of self-driving cars increases,
| demand for trains is going to increase. People will quickly
| start to enjoy not needing to drive, and flying sucks. It's a
| lot of investment up front, but trains become an obvious cash
| cow. Not to mention if you can pair it with real-estate deals
| at stations.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Why would I use Waymo if an Uber/Lyft costs the same?
|
| If it gets in an accident, who pays my medical bills?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| For the latter question, ask your insurance company. I'd be
| surprised if they care specifically that waymo was involved. If
| you don't have insurance, ask a lawyer what your options would
| be in that situation.
| xnx wrote:
| > Why would I use Waymo if an Uber/Lyft costs the same?
|
| Safe, clean, quiet, private, predictable, no tipping, etc.
| spike021 wrote:
| Clean? I took a waymo in SF a few weeks ago that smelled
| extremely strongly of cologne or perfume and I almost
| couldn't breathe.
|
| I've also been in one with like hair and stuff on the seats
| and door.
|
| It's not like humans don't still ride in those cars.
| spongebobstoes wrote:
| in a waymo there are fewer parties involved. this should make
| you feel more confident in getting the bill paid, and knowing
| who will pay it
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| That first question is wild to me. Having to share a space with
| a questionably vetted stranger is one of the primary downsides
| to rideshare apps. Privacy and comfort are huge bonuses.
| Jblx2 wrote:
| >Privacy
|
| Waymo cameras permanently record everything that happens in
| their vehicles, right?
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Different models of privacy. I don't really care if
| faceless corpo knows I spent hours the other day spewing
| fire from both ends because I finally met my match in spicy
| foods, but it's a somewhat uncomfortable topic to discuss
| in front of some strange dude sitting in the car.
| csa wrote:
| > Having to share a space with a questionably vetted stranger
| is one of the primary downsides to rideshare apps.
|
| Some people see this as an upside. Not me, not you, but these
| people exist.
| nthdesign wrote:
| I was at a conference in Phoenix in November and took seven Waymo
| trips during my stay. Four of those were fairly long (20-minute)
| trips. I preferred Waymo to the Uber/Lyft experience because it
| felt private. It was just me and my colleagues in the car, no
| strangers. It also felt futuristic and novel, which I'm sure will
| wear off. We experienced no weird or erratic driving, with one
| minor exception... Waymo always followed the speed limit. On a
| major road where the speed limit was 40mph, other cars were
| zipping around us at 55mph+. And, one parking lot had 5mph speed
| limit signs posted. As you can imagine, Waymo was the slowest
| vehicle in that parking lot by a wide margin.
| Thorentis wrote:
| Do they have microphones inside the car? How do you know? That
| "feeling" of privacy probably encourages people to talk more
| openly, which if there are microphones inside...
| asadm wrote:
| they are disabled by default unless you call support etc.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| Dont let your cats outside.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-22 23:01 UTC)