[HN Gopher] Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation
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Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation
Author : JumpCrisscross
Score : 177 points
Date : 2026-02-02 15:08 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| mankyd wrote:
| https://archive.is/asQ2x
| fnord77 wrote:
| > The parent company would provide about $13 billion to the
| robotaxi firm, while the rest would come from others, including
| new investors ...
|
| No IPO for us little people
| kolbe wrote:
| What would you add to the company as an investor?
| WarmWash wrote:
| Probably money
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Alphabet is already a publicly listed company. Just buy more
| Alphabet shares if you want to invest in Waymo.
| thundergolfer wrote:
| I presume if you invest in Google you are indirectly (but
| significantly) invested in Waymo, like it is with Anthropic?
|
| Waymo is the best service I've used in many, many years. The jump
| from Uber->Waymo is similar to the quality jump from Taxi->Uber
| 12 years ago, but I don't see an obvious way for Waymo to get
| enshittified.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| This is Google you're talking about. They're an ads+AI company.
| They'll figure out a way to enshittify, even if it's not
| obvious.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Google has a $4.1T market cap.
|
| So a $110B valuation is not currently _that_ significant in
| terms of exposure. It 's only 2.7% of it overall.
| thundergolfer wrote:
| Fair, though my guess is that the growth rate of Waymo's
| market cap will far exceed Google's as Waymo scales. I wish I
| could invest in Waymo, so I'll take that 2.7% exposure.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| > I don't see an obvious way for Waymo to get enshittified.
|
| Oh ye of little faith! Here are some ideas off the top of my
| head, I am sure the suits at Google already have a bigger list.
| * Ads in vehicle * Adjust route so you see partner
| companies or billboards * Offering alternative
| destinations (I see you are going to Burger King, would you
| rather go to our partner McDonalds?) * Listening to
| conversations in car * Selling ride data.
| dotBen wrote:
| They already will be selling your ride data and there is no
| way they could monitor conversations in the car for
| commercial purposes (at least in Western countries).
|
| Ads in cars, partnerships with alternative destinations, etc.
| definitely would feel like enshitification for a demographic
| comparable to the hacker news one here. But these are all per
| session/user settings just like most of us have a paid
| Spotify account and never see advertising and those who don't
| get a very different monetized experience.
|
| What is exciting about monetization like this is the
| possibility for rides to become very cheap or even free. If
| my dentist offers free rides to the office in return for my
| loyalty, I'm quite happy to take that.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > and there is no way they could monitor conversations in
| the car for commercial purposes (at least in Western
| countries).
|
| Why not? You can consent to having your audio recorded.
| They can even offer a higher "private" price and a lower
| "ad supported" price. I write "private" because I assume
| the microphones will always be listening no matter which
| price you pay.
| dotBen wrote:
| I guess that's semantics. If you _opt in_ then yes I
| guess they could do anything. I think the point was that
| enshitification would occur if they forced you to do
| that.
|
| You could opt in to have blood or plasma taken on every
| ride if you so wanted I guess.
| tantalor wrote:
| Rough figures:
|
| As a plasma donor you can earn $30-$70 per session for
| 800 ml. Let's call it $50. A session takes about 90
| minutes, or 533 ml/hour, and you make $33/hour
|
| Waymo charges $0.50 - $1.00 per mile. Let's use the high
| end.
|
| To break even, your Waymo will need to consume <
| $33/hour, or < 33 mph. That's not bad!
|
| If you go any faster, you won't be able to extract enough
| plasma in the same amount of time.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Couldn't Uber do that today?
| dotBen wrote:
| /cries into my Uber shares and the deletion of the Uber
| ATG repos when the parts were sold to Aurora.
| lokar wrote:
| https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/google-voice-assistant-
| laws...
| notyourwork wrote:
| You really think ads in vehicle are not coming? You're
| being naive if you think that.
|
| Also, cheap rides cut into stocks margins. That won't fly
| by investors either. These companies are not charities.
| They are in the business of maximizing profits. We lost
| "don't be evil" over a decade ago.
| tantalor wrote:
| We already have ads in vehicles.
|
| If you fly United, the in-flight entertainment has pre-
| roll ads.
|
| I can't say how well that model translates to car rides.
| oefrha wrote:
| I see you haven't seen or heard of cabs' in-car ad
| screens we've had for close to two decades, if you have
| to point to airplanes as an example.
| tantalor wrote:
| I haven't been in a cab in 2 decades, so that tracks.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| > there is no way they could monitor conversations in the
| car for commercial purposes (at least in Western countries)
|
| people used to feel that way about search queries, email
| (gmail) and IP laws (LLM training).
|
| > What is exciting about monetization like this is the
| possibility for rides to become very cheap or even free. If
| my dentist offers free rides to the office in return for my
| loyalty, I'm quite happy to take that.
|
| this won't happen. alphabet will collect on both ends.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _If my dentist offers free rides to the office in return
| for my loyalty, I 'm quite happy to take that._
|
| That's actually a _really_ interesting angle. The same way
| businesses often provide free parking now... what if they
| start providing free self-driving round trips?
|
| E.g. spend $75 or more at Whole Foods, and get free round-
| trip up to 20 miles or something. Especially for bulky
| items like groceries where a car makes a big difference, I
| can totally see that becoming standard. Home Depot too.
| Plus entertainment like amusement parks, movie theaters,
| spas...
| dotBen wrote:
| It makes particular sense for vertically integrated
| conglomerates like Amazon-Whole Foods which owns Zoox.
|
| I buy Whole Foods French fries shipped to the store via
| Amazon logistics and purchase those at Amazon owned Whole
| Foods, at a discount via my Prime membership on my Amazon
| credit card which is processed on AWS infrastructure and
| I ride home on an Amazon owned Zoox that also runs on AWS
| infrastructure.
|
| Amazon owns so much of the profit margin across that
| stack that they can afford to give rides away for
| example.
| jafo1989 wrote:
| > there is no way they could monitor conversations in the
| car for commercial purposes (at least in Western countries)
|
| Oh, you'll agree to that when you accept the terms of
| service.
|
| Can't wait for the "This ride with ads: $17. Ad free: $26"
| choice.
| jezzamon wrote:
| There's all that, but you can just look at Uber for the
| classic model of how a company like this enshittifies, which
| is:
|
| - offer a service well below market rate, gain dependent
| customers
|
| - crank up the price
|
| No need to do much of the other stuff
| sib wrote:
| Don't forget:
|
| * Stop doing any meaningful in-person inspection of the
| vehicle to ensure that it is in good condition before
| joining the network
|
| * Stop requiring cars to be <= 4 years old
|
| * (Seemingly) stop requiring drivers to maintain trunk
| space free for passengers' luggage
| everforward wrote:
| The ads will be awful, because you're effectively captive.
| You only control the volume and screen if they let you.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Finally, a justification for owning an Apple Vision Pro.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Ads in vehicles are a sure thing. Also a sure thing you'll be
| able to pay a little extra to turn them off, which is
| basically just the full price of the trip unsubsidized by
| ads.
|
| It'll be up to you, just like whether you want your Netflix
| cheaper with ads, or more expensive but without.
|
| I see that choice as a good thing.
|
| The rest of your suggestions are incredibly unlikely. Google
| doesn't even scan your Gmail anymore, you think they're going
| to create a privacy scandal by listening to your
| conversations? And they certainly don't sell your Maps
| timeline which is far more valuable than just a few car
| trips, so why on earth would they do that with Waymo? Nor
| does Google Maps offer to send you to Burger King when you
| hit directions for McDonald's. And taking a longer route that
| wastes time, battery and money, on the chance you'll be
| looking out the window to see a billboard rather than looking
| at your phone, doesn't make sense at all.
| ai-x wrote:
| Google's marketcap moves by Waymo's entire marketcap in a
| single day.
| pandemic_region wrote:
| "Please watch these ads before we start the ride. Any attempt
| to not look at the ads by looking away from the screen or
| closing your eyes will automatically cancel the ride."
| floxy wrote:
| https://external-
| content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Ft...
| g947o wrote:
| > I don't see an obvious way for Waymo to get enshittified.
|
| Raise the price?
| mbb70 wrote:
| Enshittification is a technique to make more money _without_
| raising the price by simply making the product worse.
|
| Self-driving taxis have a high floor for 'making the product
| worse' because the car fundamentally has to drive itself.
| sowbug wrote:
| It appears that enshittification has joined exponential and
| literally as words that used to mean specific things but
| are now just generic intensifiers.
| ronnier wrote:
| > but I don't see an obvious way for Waymo to get enshittified
|
| My guess is that once Waymo starts to extremely take off, law
| makers in various cities will start to pass laws to ban them or
| the number of regulations will make it impossible to run at a
| profit. This will almost certainly happen. It will
| disproportionately impact an entire segment of the population
| and will put them out of work.
| estearum wrote:
| No they won't. The product is so outrageously superior on
| every dimension to the status quo that municipalities will
| figure out whatever they need to in order to accommodate
| them.
|
| You think the folks on City Council enjoy chauffeuring their
| own children around and will block a solution to it?
| ronnier wrote:
| Yes. It's already happening
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1pdzd2f/some_
| m...
| thinkmassive wrote:
| In Virginia too, proposed in HB1124:
|
| > The bill prohibits the use of autonomous vehicles as
| motor carriers of passengers or property without a human
| operator who (i) meets any state and federal
| qualifications for the operation of an autonomous
| vehicle; (ii) is physically present in such autonomous
| vehicle; and (iii) has the ability to monitor the
| performance of such vehicle and intervene in the
| operation of such vehicle, including operating such
| vehicle without the use of the automated driving system
| and stopping and turning off such vehicle if necessary.
|
| https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB1124
| tanseydavid wrote:
| If they prohibit autonomous vehicles, eventually their
| constituencies will be screaming for it.
|
| It seems that many people, after trying out the service
| for themselves first hand, in a locale that has it
| available today, are very eager to have the service
| available to them in their home locale.
| nradov wrote:
| Maybe, although stupid laws can become heavily entrenched
| and surprisingly hard to change. Like in New Jersey I
| think you still can't pump your own gas, and some idiots
| actually defend that crazy policy for the sake of saving
| jobs.
| estearum wrote:
| I didn't say people _won 't try_. Obviously there will be
| resistance. I am saying that the resistance will not be
| successful for any significant amount of time for any
| significant jurisdiction.
| ativzzz wrote:
| Uber and Lyft operated partially or outright illegally in
| many places while negotiating with governments. They also
| had a far superior product. Just like they fought the
| existing taxi companies, Waymo will have to fight against
| Uber and Lyft's lawyers, who are probably better funded and
| have learned to become better entrenched in governments.
| qaq wrote:
| Lyft + Uber market cap is under 200B Alphabet 4T+ I think
| they will manage
| estearum wrote:
| Uber and Lyft are goners, their customers don't care
| about them and will take Waymos the second they're
| available.
|
| Uber and Lyft will survive exactly to the extent they
| successfully adopt self-driving.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| > Uber and Lyft will survive exactly to the extent they
| successfully adopt self-driving.
|
| I think this is correct and I want to point out something
| that I have not seen mentioned elsewhere in the thread.
|
| If and when Uber/Lyft move heavily in this direction, the
| cost/operational benefits of having their "fleet" of
| vehicles be privately owned-vehicles will almost
| certainly disappear.
| ativzzz wrote:
| What's everyone's hate with uber and lyft rides? Over the
| past 10 years, I've had maybe one ride that was a 1/5.
| Most drivers either don't talk or are actually very
| pleasant conversations
|
| I will take whichever one is cheaper. Just like now I
| open up both uber and lyft to see which costs less, I'll
| open up waymo as well
| estearum wrote:
| Have you taken a Waymo?
|
| I don't hate Uber/Lyft (though many in NYC are
| legitimately horrible, just like taxis)
|
| Waymo is simply an order of magnitude better than the
| best Uber ride I've ever had
| ativzzz wrote:
| I've had some great conversations with uber drivers. Most
| don't talk, but I've had some memorable ones for sure.
| estearum wrote:
| Sure, yeah, same here. Waymo is still an order of
| magnitude better.
| nradov wrote:
| I travel a fair amount, and Uber and Lyft service quality
| has become noticeably worse in the last few years. The
| apps lie to you about pickup times. Drivers will accept a
| ride but then never actually head towards your location.
| A significant fraction of the vehicles are showing some
| sort of warning light on the dashboard: check engine,
| overdue maintenance, low tire pressure, etc.
| WarmWash wrote:
| Wait till you see the showdown that's building up in NYC.
|
| Mamdani, the new nyc mayor, has been a long time friend and
| advocate for NYC taxi workers alliance. He even
| participated in a hunger strike with them in 2021.
|
| Waymo is right now starting the wheels turning on getting
| NYC permits, but taxi workers have already made their
| (obvious) stance clear: No Waymos.
| estearum wrote:
| Yeah, but they will lose. Certainly in the long run (10
| year horizon, almost certainly in the medium term (5 year
| horizon), and very likely even in the short term under
| the auspices of "limited experiments" while constituents
| and stakeholders get hooked.
| Fricken wrote:
| The NY Governor's office has always been pro-SDC's, the
| Mayor's office has always been against them.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _law makers in various cities will start to pass laws to
| ban them or the number of regulations will make it impossible
| to run at a profit. This will almost certainly happen_
|
| No they won't. And Waymo's playbook would be Uber's if they
| did: preempt at the state and federal levels.
| nayuki wrote:
| This video is very apt:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tjZchYXMmA Australian
| Taxpayers' Alliance - "ALL Obsolete Industries Deserve The
| Taxi Bailout!" (1m38s) [2015-12-13]
| re-thc wrote:
| > I presume if you invest in Google you are indirectly (but
| significantly) invested in Waymo, like it is with Anthropic?
|
| You also get some Starlink.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The obvious way such services enshittify is to become a
| monopoly by pushing everyone else out, then cranking up the
| prices (and lowering quality, e.g. by not cleaning the
| vehicles, longer wait times for better utilization, etc.)
| pm90 wrote:
| Why does Google need outside investors? Is it a play to get a
| "serious" valuation since it would be vetted by outside parties?
|
| I guess Im questioning why Waymo doesn't just IPO, or raise 100%
| private raise by Google.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Companies raise money for big projects all the time. From
| issuing debt, to issuing equity.
| kolbe wrote:
| He's talking specifically about Waymo's situation. Alplabet,
| a company who has $75bn of FCF, owns 80% of Waymo. A $16bn
| capital injection is meaningless to Alphabet, so he's
| wondering why they're going through the trouble.
|
| He raises a good point, and the answer is likely that they
| can run into legal issues by either under or overvaluing the
| company in a capital raise where they're the controlling
| shareholder, then the IRS or existing investors have grounds
| for a lawsuit (or audit). They likely just want to bring the
| capital raise out in the open to get a fair market value, and
| then they will be 90% of the capital in the raise.
| dotBen wrote:
| It's a very capital intensive operation given the amount of
| vehicles that need to be carried on the balance sheet.
|
| There are many reasons why a conglomerate like Alphabet doesn't
| want to hold all of that directly on the balance sheet, which
| is why Waymo is run as a subsidiary with its own sources of
| capital.
|
| When I was at Uber 10 plus years ago and we were ideating
| autonomous vehicles. The general consensus was that we would
| run the technology platform and private equity would own fleets
| of cars built and operated to our specification.
|
| Waymo has concluded either we are too early in the journey to
| decouple the tight vertical integration or they want to go very
| big and own all of the capital expenditure for what will
| presumably be a global rollout ultimately.
|
| For anyone like me with a finance and technology crossover
| interest I actually think this is as interesting, maybe more
| interesting, than the private equity play around data centers
| at the moment because all of that is constrained against chip
| delivery and power constraints.
| kolbe wrote:
| Alphabet is providing $13bn of the $16bn raise. What are you
| talking about? Do you really think that $3bn matters in the
| slightest?
| dotBen wrote:
| What I'm talking about is that is still considered an
| external capital raise for the purpose of the markets and
| where those assets sit on the balance sheet.
|
| Also, keep in mind the Alphabet doesn't fully own Waymo. I
| don't know the percentage ownership of hand, but that also
| feels like it's probably a prorated investment based on
| ownership so Alphabet doesn't reduce its voting control.
|
| That's what I'm talking about.
| spyckie2 wrote:
| This is why you are not the finance guy.
|
| My finance people care about the cents, a ROI of 7% is
| average but at 8.5% and now you are a world class asset of
| that inventory type. That's sometimes the difference of a
| few hundred k out of 20m but they would not take the deal
| if it is slightly over due to their risk appetite.
|
| The 3b external either matters a ton to fit their risk
| models OR they are doing a favor to an outside party.
| Probably a bit of both.
| dotBen wrote:
| Well, given that it is an equity sale, split still feels
| like it is the prorated amount so that alphabet continues
| to own its percentage - not more not less.
|
| Obviously you're entitled to your view, but I don't think
| it's that kind of finance model right now - it's far too
| speculative and the upside too unknown to be adjusting
| for small amounts on risk models.
| infecto wrote:
| Yes and what matters the most is what Waymo has been
| signaling for years. They don't want the capex (owning and
| running the physical cars). I don't know the intent of this
| raise but you have to realize companies may have a good
| asset but they don't want to own it 100% for a multitude of
| reasons. Some of them could be as simple as wanting to get
| other investors involved and comfortable with the asset to
| maybe take on larger roles in future rounds. Or in this
| case potentially running the car part of the business.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| By investing $13B of the $16B they're signalling they do
| want the capex, at least for now.
| infecto wrote:
| If they truly wanted the capex, this would not be a mixed
| round A fully internal recap would have been simpler. The
| presence of outside capital, even minority, is consistent
| with a gradual transition toward shared ownership, asset
| light structures, or operator partners.
|
| They have made many comments over the years about this
| too.
| throwmeaway820 wrote:
| three billion here, three billion there, pretty soon it
| begins to add up to real money
| loeg wrote:
| > The general consensus was that we would run the technology
| platform and private equity would own fleets of cars built
| and operated to our specification.
|
| Private equity, or private capital (debt investors)? Although
| I guess PC was less of a thing 10 years ago.
| alooPotato wrote:
| > There are many reasons why a conglomerate like Alphabet
| doesn't want to hold all of that directly on the balance
| sheet
|
| Can you tell us those reasons? I think this is basically
| _the_ question.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| I disagree with their reasoning and would say it's more for
| strategic benefits.
|
| Giving firms that they get along well with (like Sequoia)
| allocation feels like a mix between a favor and possibly a
| way to signal that the valuation has some external buy-in
| too.
| UebVar wrote:
| "Tech" was incredible light on CapExp compared with
| everything else (until AI hit, that is). That is what
| allowed its explosive growth. On the one hand alphabet is
| not used to that. On the other hand it is turning into a
| more normal business with more CapExp, and like other more
| "normal" business it uses more external investment. As a
| general rule of thumb: The more capex, the more leverage;
| for example commodity extraction, infrastructure or power
| generation are very capex heavy, and heavily leveraged.
| 46493168 wrote:
| Why would you bet your own money when you could bet someone
| else's?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| If you are betting on a winner why split with others?
| bluGill wrote:
| risk management. Even sure thing bets lose money once in a
| while, so it is a good idea to spread the risk of that
| around.
| 46493168 wrote:
| If you know the winner, it's not gambling. Self-driving
| cars are still a gamble.
| minwcnt5 wrote:
| Alphabet is only giving up around a 3% stake. They continue
| to own most of it, and mostly bet their own money.
| re-thc wrote:
| > Why does Google need outside investors?
|
| i.e. why should I use my money if I can use someone elses'?
| lurk2 wrote:
| If you use someone else's money you have to pay him back with
| interest or equity.
| re-thc wrote:
| > you have to pay him back with interest or equity
|
| That's the price for infinite scaling. If a business can't
| make more than that it should be shut down.
|
| i.e. do you want to make 25% of 1 billion or 5% of 1000
| billion?
| lurk2 wrote:
| The point the great-grandparent is making is that Google
| could comfortably finance the project itself and make
| 100% of the upside, not 25% or 5%.
| re-thc wrote:
| And the point here is borrowing more money increases
| available funds for bigger rewards. Google can fund 1
| Waymo but not an infinite amount of them.
| kolbe wrote:
| Dude. I'm sorry for all the "oTheR pEEPles moNeYs" responses
| you're getting. Hacker News used to have informed and
| intelligent users.
| notyourwork wrote:
| This reply also falls in the category. It's easier and faster
| to downvote poor responses and move on.
| kolbe wrote:
| Not when there's three like-minded accounts upvoting each
| other.
| irl_zebra wrote:
| I take that reply as a "bar raiser" that HN commenters
| should be better, not as a low quality/effort reply.
| perfmode wrote:
| a deliberate strategy to establish market-validated pricing,
| prepare for eventual independence, and impose governance
| discipline on what has been a protected moonshot project. The
| move signals that Alphabet is transforming Waymo from an "Other
| Bets" science experiment into a standalone asset with credible
| external valuation--likely positioning for an IPO within 2-4
| years once profitability arrives.
| philipallstar wrote:
| I'm not sure how useful this pricing is for the future, as
| waymo is currently operating on semi-infinite Google money.
| If that stops, no doubt the price would change too.
| perfmode wrote:
| The counterargument would be that the external investors
| (Sequoia, Andreessen, Fidelity, etc.) presumably priced in
| this exact risk when they agreed to pay $110B. They're not
| naive about Alphabet's role as backstop. The question is
| whether they believe the "semi-infinite money" assumption
| is durable enough over their investment horizon.
| ra7 wrote:
| Yes, it provides external validation for the valuation.
| Otherwise, Alphabet can simply "self value" Waymo at a funny
| amount like $1T.
|
| There's also a strategic partnership angle in these rounds. For
| example, Magna and Autonation were early investors in Waymo.
| Magna operates Waymo's factory in Arizona to upfit their
| vehicles with sensors, Autonation (the huge dealership/service
| network) is the maintenance partner.
|
| In general, the Alphabet playbook is that projects "graduate"
| out of Google X, and are expected to operate as a standalone
| company, including being responsible for raising funds.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why Waymo doesn't just IPO, or raise 100% private raise by
| Google_
|
| This lets them validate their valuation and build a base of
| investors who could play a bigger role in writing chequew in
| the future. When IPO comes, those factors make the sell
| simpler.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| a little kid is inevitably going to get killed by a waymo.
|
| institutional finance is america's most powerful lobbyist. in
| the sense of the fund managers, the little RIAs, the grandmas
| holding SPY. they ARE the voters.
|
| so to me, aside from making money, making money this way, for a
| lot of people, protects them from the political grandstanding
| and their fast demise in their absence.
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| >institutional finance is america's most powerful lobbyist.
| in the sense of the fund managers, the little RIAs, the
| grandmas holding SPY. they ARE the voters.
|
| This. They're letting wall street in on it so wall street
| goes to bat for it. It's the big boy version of how some
| widget manufacturer will revise a product to necessitate or
| cut out a trade lobby depending on whether they want those
| people to go to bat for it, or make all the people who don't
| wanna pay rent to those people go to bat for it.
| glitchc wrote:
| Unfortunate but true. Just as true as human drivers doing the
| same. No technical system guarantees a failure rate of zero.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| They need at least one fatality before you can start going
| down that slope, but probably true comparing how many kids
| get killed by human drivers, Waymo can't be so safe as to
| avoid these incidents if they scale up in numbers.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > a little kid is inevitably going to get killed by a waymo.
|
| And it will be 100% the kids fault, but the headlines will
| look terrible.
|
| Kids can be naive and reckless, and the result makes them
| look downright suicidal with the things they do. They will
| dart into traffic, and even if the Waymo has single-digit
| millisecond reaction times, people will still blame the
| Waymo.
| stackghost wrote:
| >I guess Im questioning why Waymo doesn't just IPO, or raise
| 100% private raise by Google.
|
| Why not 100% internal funding, not sure, but the reason why
| companies don't always IPO is because taking on debt is more
| efficient (i.e. it's cheaper in terms of cost of capital) than
| equity, because of the "tax shield" effect, debt can be raised
| in a non dilutive manner, and a few other (less important)
| game-theoretic reasons.
| josefx wrote:
| Money from Google internally might be subject to internal power
| dynamics and come with strings attached. Having reliable
| outside funding from people who don't get a say in things might
| be a better alternative for a project that doesn't want to end
| up as Stadia 2.0 .
| minwcnt5 wrote:
| I think some of the external investors have board seats, so
| the outside people do get a (small) say in things. And to
| your point, that's probably also a good thing for avoiding
| another Stadia mistake.
| echelon wrote:
| Google Genie would have disrupted Stadia anyway, fwiw.
| buellerbueller wrote:
| Why risk your own money, when you can risk others'?
| raincole wrote:
| Rich people and big companies buy insurance too.
| plantain wrote:
| I also wonder this - my best theory is getting institutional
| buy-in from all corners will help with the regulation going
| forward.
| tsycho wrote:
| >> or raise 100% private by Google?
|
| Isn't that what they are kinda doing? 13bn out of the 16bn is
| coming from Google itself.
|
| I think the reason they are taking 3bn from outside high-
| profile investors is to validate the valuation, for legal or
| accounting reasons.
| b33j0r wrote:
| Just don't take one if another one is operating nearby. If they
| see another waymo, having passed the insecure emotional Turing
| test, they get self-conscious and wander the neighborhood
| backstreets until the other one has dropped off its passengers.
|
| (Just experienced this multiple times in Phoenix. It's impressive
| at navigating and braking, but not rational planning or
| flocking.)
| Kique wrote:
| This has not been my experience at all and I take Waymos pretty
| frequently, especially at popular areas like concerts or
| airports you'll see a bunch of them dropping off/picking up
| people without issues.
| simianwords wrote:
| why is Tesla much higher? I thought Tesla's market cap was
| because of the self driving feature.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The only semi rational thing that could explain it is the
| robots.
| sorenjan wrote:
| It's always the next big thing. It used to be self driving,
| now it's AI and robots.
| everforward wrote:
| I don't even think that's rational, but it may be what's
| propping them up.
|
| Last earnings call Musk said Optimus wasn't doing "meaningful
| work" at Tesla and as far as I'm aware they haven't done
| meaningful work anywhere. I think they're behind the curve
| there. Figure AI recently finished an apparently successful
| feasibility trial of their humanoid robots with BMW and
| Boston Dynamics has a deal with Hyundai for their Atlas
| humanoid robots.
|
| I'm not even convinced humanoid robots are going to pan out
| in general. They only really make sense in a scenario where
| you're back porting robotics to factories built for humans.
| That has value but feels temporary; factories designed to be
| robotic feel like the future, and there's no need for them to
| do the job the same way a human would.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| > Boston Dynamics has a deal with Hyundai for their Atlas
| humanoid robots
|
| Slightly depressing that we're back to replacing the big
| industrial robots rather than new markets.
| everforward wrote:
| I _think_ these are meant to replace humans working
| alongside the industrial robots rather than the big
| industrial robots themselves. I don't work in
| manufacturing though, and the press releases are too
| buzzword-y for me to grasp the actual tasks they're going
| to do.
|
| I would guess the long term strategy is to do this for
| economies of scale and then push into new markets opened
| up by the lower price point. I would guess these are
| horribly expensive right now, given something like Spot
| is way simpler and still like $40k
| lvspiff wrote:
| this is something that also never made sense to me - it
| felt like star wars got it right - for repairs and remedial
| tasks a trash can (rs-d2) or all the little service droids
| are more appropriate, but c3p0 or other nurse and protocol
| droids makes sense to look more humanistic since they serve
| functions to facilitate human activitiy - but there is no
| way those functions are numerous enough to be priofitable.
| floxy wrote:
| >I'm not even convinced humanoid robots are going to pan
| out in general.
|
| I want one personally, so it can rake the leaves, mow the
| lawn, tend the garden, do the laundry and dishes, replace
| the roof, etc., when I'm old. But they should also be used
| to pick up litter along the highway, paint over graffiti,
| etc..
| UebVar wrote:
| I feel like the humanoid form is getting in the way for
| that, and that a "Spot" like design with a hand on top is
| better suited for that. Also i think laundry and dishes
| are already 95% automated since about 50 years.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Tesla valuation prices in the minuscule but real chance that
| Elon is able to pull a unicorn[0] out of his ass at some point
| in the future.
|
| 0: The magical creature, not a 1bn company
| lawn wrote:
| It's a meme stock. There's nothing rational about Teslas
| valuation.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Waymo needs $16B to build what Tesla already has: manufacturing
| capacity. Without that, there are only so many cars they can
| put on the road. They've proven they can do the rides. But they
| haven't proven they can do it cost effectively. To scale up and
| start making a profit, they'll need to start building/buying
| lots of Waymo cars. That's not going to be cheap or fast.
| That's going to involve a lot of capital expenses.
|
| Tesla is the other way around. They can definitely make lots of
| cars and make a profit. But they haven't quite gotten FSD to
| the stage where it can do rides properly. Supposing they at
| some point figure that one out, they are very well positioned
| to start producing vehicles by the hundreds of thousands pretty
| soon after. That's indeed the premise for their valuation. It's
| risky but not completely without merit.
|
| Another point to make is that Waymo and Tesla are not going to
| have this market to themselves for very long. There are quite a
| few autonomous ride hailing companies serving rides at this
| point. And while the attention is often on the US, China is
| moving pretty quickly as well. Several companies competing
| there in several huge Chinese cities, for example.
|
| On the US side, I think there are a few players that might
| become competitive soon. Zoox is looking pretty solid. And
| Rivian is rumored to be pushing autonomy as well. There are a
| few more players in various stages of technical readiness.
|
| The real battle will be in a few years when we are past the
| basic "does it work", "is it safe" questions and legal
| approvals all over the world become more routine. Then it will
| be all about volume and scaling. That's going to take probably
| at least until 2030.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Based on the news, I think Waymo will import base vehicle
| builds from China and then adding the control systems and
| software to those. So it's not like they will start making
| cars.
| sowbug wrote:
| That sounds right. Unless Waymo considers car manufacturers
| to be its competition and therefore something to
| commoditize, it wouldn't make sense for them to get
| involved in ground-up manufacturing.
|
| And by this point, it seems like an electric-car platform
| already is close to a commodity, which is another reason
| for Waymo not to waste capital building another.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| They probably see the electronics and software as their
| product, hopefully they will license it to someone so my
| next car will have it :). Lidar prices are cheap enough
| these days (but coming out of China, so who knows with
| Trump if that will apply to us).
| sowbug wrote:
| Another approach is Waymo acquires Tesla's auto
| technology. Tesla sloughs off its dinosaur car business
| to focus on its new robot mission, and Waymo detoxifies
| the Tesla auto brand.
|
| Aside from destroying about $1.25 trillion of market cap,
| this would leave everyone better off.
| dmix wrote:
| Who will repair them and maintain all of the electronics?
| Even if you buy cars that's a giant operation.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| You don't really maintain electronics, you swap them out
| when they are detected to be bad. Electric vehicles don't
| need tune ups or overhauls, it is light maintenance and
| full on component swaps. Send the defective components
| back to the factory for refurbishment and/or recycling.
| nradov wrote:
| Nah. The local car dealerships and Tesla service centers
| seem to be pretty busy doing heavy maintenance on
| electric vehicles. The drive train might be marginally
| simpler but there are still a lot of moving parts that
| break or corrode just like any other vehicle.
| dmix wrote:
| I don't think $50k LIDAR sensor suites are disposable
| like that and the computer integrations is pretty
| sophisticated I'd imagine. These cars will take a
| beating.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Waymo has 0 need for manufacturing capacity. There are dozens
| of companies that do that really well at a low margin already
| that'll be happy for the business. They made a timing mistake
| by choosing Zeekr for it, which is limiting their expansion
| at the moment. That's a lot easier/cheaper/quicker to fix by
| choosing a different partner than by building their own.
| dzonga wrote:
| zeeker ? Wow that is news.
|
| thought Waymo was partnered with Jaguar-LandRover ?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Waymo is getting the I-Pace from Steyr, the contract
| manufacture who makes them for Jaguar.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Waymo also chose more conventional auto makers such as
| Hyundai. The Zeekr partnership is not an exclusive.
| https://waymo.com/blog/2024/10/waymo-and-hyundai-enter-
| partn...
| IshKebab wrote:
| Making a driverless car "driver" is clearly _much_ harder
| than manufacturing cars though. Many companies manufacture
| cars and have done for decades. On the other hand Waymo is
| the _only_ company that has _actual_ driverless cars on the
| road. It took them a very long time. Tesla have been trying
| for a very long time too and still have a long way to go.
|
| So IMO Waymo has something far more valuable than Tesla.
| (Obviously the market isn't rational though so I wouldn't
| necessarily invest based on that.)
| guywithahat wrote:
| Probably because Tesla sells about a million cars a year,
| including the worlds best selling car (Model Y) since 2023. The
| stock consistently performs well as well, I know they
| outperformed estimates for last quarter. Being positioned well
| for autonomous driving presumably helps hold the stock up, but
| I don't think that's the core of the valuation, and Waymo does
| a fraction of what Tesla does. Waymo is impressive, but their
| 2025 revenue was ~350 million.
| jFriedensreich wrote:
| No product had such a fast transition from novelty to "omg i
| never want to interact with a human again". I feel about 100%
| less stressed and happier using a waymo or riding motorbike or
| bicycle next to a waymo than with human drivers. I hope this next
| phase will bring availability and prices down. We need this in
| europe.
| locknitpicker wrote:
| > No product had such a fast transition from novelty to "omg i
| never want to interact with a human again".
|
| I still recall when taxi services were the only offering, and
| Uber et al were marketed as ride sharing services instead of
| ride hailing services. It's hard to put into words the
| transformative effect that ride hailing services had throughout
| the world. Overall rides are now far safer and more reliable,
| to the point where the old days feel like the dark ages.
| lazarus01 wrote:
| Im fortunate to live in an area dense with traditional taxis
| and Ubers, no Waymo yet.
|
| I rarely take taxis, the exception is when I have to haul my
| gear to the studio for a jam session. I always take a taxi,
| because it's cheaper and faster than using an app to call an
| uber.
|
| On 80% of the trips, I end up having a nice chat with the
| driver and learn something new about humanity or myself.
|
| I really enjoy these interactions, but I feel for the drivers,
| it's a very tough job where most taxi drivers have to scramble
| to find places to urinate or do so in an empty bottle between
| their legs. There is not much dignity in the job. I feel a
| negligible segment enjoy it as a reliable career.
|
| I wonder what will happen to the drivers if a large
| representation of the 1 million+ daily trips are displaced by
| automation?
| dmd wrote:
| God, yes, and someone think of the gong farmers and pole men.
| nananana9 wrote:
| That's a pretty dismissive attitude for ~100 million
| professional drivers worldwide, making a living doing
| actual useful work on a forum where the vast majority of
| users do not do any useful work.
| strulovich wrote:
| I personally find that fighting dismissive attitudes is
| better done by not being dismissive towards other things
| (or people in this case)
|
| It's healthier for the discussion culture here as well.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| There is also a demographic cliff most of the world is
| currently going off, declining birth rates and labor
| shortages. Would you rather have a human nurse in your
| very old age retirement, or a human driver. Because we
| don't have enough young people now for both.
| malfist wrote:
| Maybe the better option is to not be so anti immigration
| xnx wrote:
| Birth rate is declining almost everywhere
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| So let's poach these people from the third world
| and...what about the third world? People can't just be
| made in factories like robots and self driving cars can.
| It seems inevitable that either we will have really sucky
| retirements (please die early grandpa, we can't take care
| of you!) OR (hopefully) automation will come to the
| rescue despite luddite protests.
| Alive-in-2025 wrote:
| Plenty of people from the third world are interested in
| moving, trying something new. We should all be free to
| try new things, but of course you he world isn't set up
| that way. Seems like we could match up dual needs. The
| western developed world is in the midst of a racist and
| fascist period, so not the best time to try this. We have
| competing changes, shortage of workers in many job areas
| in the West like the trades in the US, also shortage of
| jobs for young people in the west.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I'm all for immigration, but the world isn't producing
| enough people to make that a very viable long term
| solution. Eventually we have to reduce our demand for
| labor, especially when our civilization is lopsided for
| awhile with older people and not enough young people (a
| problem that will fix itself eventually as the old people
| die off, I guess).
|
| I'm OK with robots driving cars like I'm ok with not
| needing an elevator operator anymore to use an elevator.
| stackghost wrote:
| I think the word "professional" is doing a lot of heavy
| lifting in your comment.
|
| My experience with taxis has been almost universally
| negative.
| greyw wrote:
| I wont really miss taxi drivers. I guess that says a lot
| about them.
| znkynz wrote:
| I've taken taxis in the US, and i can understand why
| people wouldn't want to. Taxis in other countries are a
| different experience.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Artificially protecting jobs by holding back technology
| is terrible form. At best it's short term before the
| economics become an order of magnitude cheap and at worst
| it's hamstringing your economy so you're left behind.
| anonymars wrote:
| Be that as it may, I would argue there's a straight line
| from "it's okay to destroy this fairly-low-skill-career
| for the good of the economy" to the overall situation the
| US finds itself in today
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Well, the point is that if we reach a point in which a
| robot can do it better and cheaper, it's no longer useful
| work.
| josu wrote:
| >I wonder what will happen to the drivers if a large
| representation of the 1 million+ daily trips are displaced by
| automation?
|
| If it happens gradually enough, they will just find other
| jobs. After the transition, society will be producing more
| with the same labor force, and thus the aggregate utility
| will increase.
| buellerbueller wrote:
| And the median wage will continue to decline, as the
| productivity gains are scooped up by fewer and fewer.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| US median household income is at an all time high.[1] The
| pandemic caused a decline for a few years but it's
| recovered now.
|
| [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/200838/median-
| household-...
| bluecheese452 wrote:
| And homo economist lived happy ever after with his field of
| spherical cows.
| spookie wrote:
| Honestly same thing, taxis seem to be polite and up to have a
| chat about anything here. So, not that hyped about these
| things really.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I really enjoy these interactions, but I feel for the
| drivers, it's a very tough job where most taxi drivers have
| to scramble to find places to urinate or do so in an empty
| bottle between their legs.
|
| Public toilets, their condition and their non-existence are
| an often-overlooked issue! It's not just highly problematic
| for taxi drivers, but also for parcel and postal delivery
| people... and it's not just relevant for workers either, it's
| also (IMHO) a violation of anti-discrimination laws.
|
| Imagine you're old and don't have much bladder control or
| volume, or you're a woman who recently has given birth, or
| you got one of the variety of bowel related diseases, or
| you've got a child who is still dependent on diapers. Your
| range of free unimpeded movement is basically limited to
| where you have easy and fast access to a toilet or at the
| very least a place to take care of yourself/a child.
| amccollum wrote:
| I used to feel this way. In the early days of "ride sharing,"
| I preferred Lyft and would sit up front so I could have a
| conversation with the driver, which they encouraged. It was
| really fun for a while, and I enjoyed meeting people from
| different walks of life. Over time, though, transportation
| became much more functional for me, and now when I take non-
| autonomous rides, it's more irksome than enjoyable when
| drivers strike up conversations.
|
| Why the change? I think a big part of your experience is the
| fact that you "rarely take taxis." Once you're doing it daily
| or near-daily, the amount of smalltalk becomes more tiresome.
| Also, with kids and a busy life, I'm usually either looking
| to get things done or enjoy a rare moment to myself as I'm
| moving from place-to-place. I agree with OP that Waymo is a
| huge step up on those dimensions. There's no other human in
| the same space to feel awkward around.
|
| The fact that they drive more safely and smoothly is a huge
| improvement, as well. Ironically, I thought this was going to
| be something I would hate about Waymo. "You mean it drives
| the speed limit and follows all the traffic laws? It will
| take forever to get anywhere." It took approximately one ride
| for my perspective to completely flip. It's so much nicer to
| not feel the stress of a driver who is driving aggressively
| or jerking to a stop/start at every intersection. It's not
| like you can tell them to just ease up a bit, either. When we
| ride with our kids, we feel massively safer in Waymos.
|
| Yes, it will be disruptive, and I don't particularly love the
| dominance that big tech has in all of our lives, but I do
| think Waymo is a marvel, and I hugely appreciate it as an
| option. As soon as they can take kids alone to all their
| various activities, it will be yet another massive unlock for
| parents.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Taxis daily! In a country without trains, is that normal?
| tfehring wrote:
| Driving to work is the most common way of commuting
| everywhere in the US except NYC. So in that sense, no,
| taking a taxi to work daily is not normal, just as
| walking, biking, and taking public transit aren't normal.
|
| When I worked in San Francisco I took Caltrain to the
| city, but I took Waymo from the train station to the
| office. San Francisco, like almost all US cities, has
| poor local transit coverage. In my case there was a bus
| that took a similar route, but it only ran every 20
| minutes even during commute hours and wasn't coordinated
| with the train, so if everything was running on time it
| would have been a 17 minute wait (plus an extra 5 minutes
| walking). I was busy and well paid enough that spending
| the extra $10 to save ~20 minutes of travel (and the
| uncertainty of when the bus would arrive, and how
| strongly it would smell like piss) was well worth it.
| vasilipupkin wrote:
| not everywhere in the US except NYC. People take trains
| in Chicago, for example.
| tfehring wrote:
| They do, at a much higher rate than the US as a whole,
| but cars are still dominant. Transit mode share in the
| city of Chicago is around 21%, down from 28% pre-
| pandemic, while driving is at 44%. For Chicagoland as a
| whole, driving is 63%, transit only 9%. The usual source
| for this data is the American Community Survey; I pulled
| these numbers from https://api.census.gov, but the same
| source is also cited in e.g. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipe
| dia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_...) and
| Bloomberg
| (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/how-
| ameri...)
| fragmede wrote:
| San Francisco's connection to Caltrain is deplorable, but
| as far as US cities go, the heart of it has pretty good
| public transportation.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| > but as far as US cities go
|
| That the load bearing part right there. SF's
| transportation is pretty piss poor
| michaelt wrote:
| According to [1] the median Bay Area big tech worker
| earns $272k/year - or $130/hour.
|
| According to [2] Uber drivers make $15 to $25 an hour,
| before expenses like fuel.
|
| So while it's not _normal_ it 's certainly plausible that
| _some_ people take taxis on a daily basis.
|
| More broadly, as levels of wealth inequality rise in a
| given society, more people end up working in the personal
| service sector doing things like cleaning, food delivery,
| taxi driving etc.
|
| [1] https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-
| engineer/locations/san-fra... [2]
| https://www.triplog.net/blog/how-much-do-uber-drivers-
| make
| biztos wrote:
| I'm surprised they don't have opt-in LLM-based "chatty mode"
| where you can talk to the AI personality of your choice while
| riding. Obviously shouldn't be the same AI that's deciding
| whether to run over the child or crash into the oncoming
| train.
|
| [edit: riding not driving]
| LargeWu wrote:
| > LLM-based "chatty mode" where you can talk to the AI
| personality of your choice
|
| I'm genuinely baffled that people would want to do this.
| biztos wrote:
| I've been mercilessly downvoted for the suggestion, so at
| least on HN we can assume it's not what people want. :-)
| christkv wrote:
| Jhonny Cab from Total Recall
| socalgal2 wrote:
| why would anyone need this when then can pull out their
| phone and use their LLM of choice, if they wanted. I expect
| some large percentage of social users will just facetime
| chat with their friends during the ride
| dyauspitr wrote:
| I think there will still be delivery services where you need
| someone to go into the restaurant and then up to the
| customers door. That's going to stick around unless we get to
| a point where the restaurant is responsible to load up the
| Waymo and the customer is responsible for getting it out
| which probably won't happen anytime soon. The whole delivery
| market was also mostly created overnight from something that
| didn't exist before.
| 6keZbCECT2uB wrote:
| In Miami, there are several competing companies like Coco
| Robotics which employ human "pilots" to monitor a small
| fleet of robot delivery boxes where the restaurant deposits
| the food in the box and the box unlocks with integration
| into the app.
|
| Just figured you'd want to know anytime soon was at least a
| year ago.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| these things are all over the city i live in, too.
| absolute menace and an abuse of the commons. i've had
| them literally run into me more than once and i've
| started physically moving them out of my way when they
| stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| As a former Lyft driver in SF I felt kinda weird when saw the
| bit about urination. Like, that's just not a problem. As a
| driver you just plan ahead as in any other job out there
| where you're not allowed to disengage at a whim. Pilots and
| surgeons don't pee in bottles, why would drivers? It's kinda
| funny when people try to empathize but come up with these
| creative scenarios of what's challenging. The parts that are
| bad are same as any other thing done for a living: money and
| dealing with other people. The job was shit when people were
| shit and/or when the money was shit.
|
| I enjoyed it as a job, not a career. But that was in 2015.
| elijaht wrote:
| Pilots and surgeons surely have easily accessible bathrooms
| as a part of their workplace, no? They're also compensated
| significantly more and (IMHO) given a lot more dignity
|
| In my city public bathrooms are extremely rare and it's not
| trivial to find one. I'm sure taxi drivers are a bit more
| in tune with where they are out of necessity but even then
| it's no guarantee they can find convenient parking/be in
| the right place/etc.
| nradov wrote:
| No. Not for some surgeons at least. Once you start
| cutting you may have to stay until the job is done so get
| good at holding it. In the The Way I Heard It with Mike
| Rowe podcast episode Dr. Rahul Seth talks about doing 12
| hour surgeries. No breaks, no bathroom, constantly on his
| feet working.
|
| https://www.iheart.com/podcast/867-the-way-i-heard-it-
| with-m...
|
| Commercial pilots flying airliners generally have it a
| bit easier. As for military pilots flying tactical
| aircraft, well this song might give you an idea of what
| they face.
|
| https://genius.com/Dos-gringos-12-inch-penis-lyrics
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Yep. This is a really weird thread. The no bathroom piss
| in bottle thing is not a thing I encountered in my IRL
| XP. Never felt this imaginary problem, never affected my
| dignity.
|
| Funny enough, I did later work on surgical training tech
| and went into O.R.'s. And yeah, everyone in the room
| stays until the work is done, no easy pee pee breaks.
| Back to back procedures. But then also nobody ever
| complained about that there either. It's a fun job.
|
| Idk. I'd reiterate a point I was getting at: what makes
| any job less dignified is dealing with shit people and/or
| shit pay. Fwiw Bathrooms you can plan for same as you
| plan for getting hungry by packing a lunch.
| 93po wrote:
| try talking to young attractive women on their experiences
| and you'll maybe appreciate this somewhat forced interaction
| less. my partner has been literally kidnapped multiple times
| (refused to take her to her destination and refused to let
| her out for over an hour), had drivers refuse to unlock doors
| until she gave them her number at least once every two
| months, and constantly has drivers take detours and longer
| routes to force conversation for longer.
|
| the sooner we can stop subjecting people to having to
| interact with strangers in a semi-private setting just for
| basic needs like getting around, the better off vulnerable
| people will be
| nvch wrote:
| For me, this is the major selling point to own a car. I may
| drive a few times a week, and taxis might be much cheaper, but
| no way I'm going to deal with human taxi drivers if I have a
| choice.
| catlover76 wrote:
| Taxis are not a replacement for having a car for commuting
| for like 99% of people
| bandofthehawk wrote:
| This seems weird to me, maybe it's a generational thing. Is
| it really that bad to share a car with someone? You don't
| have to talk to them the whole time.
| robcohen wrote:
| Personally, I find it odd to have interactions with anyone
| just based of transactionality. I want to interact with
| people because I have relationships with them. I've always
| found it hard to figure out exactly how nice to be with
| someone you don't know. I don't think this is a
| maladjustment on my part, I think you probably shouldn't be
| overly nice to people before you establish trust with
| them... and that takes time.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The human driver could be nodding off because they didn't
| bother sleeping last night, or maybe they just had some
| food with lots of garlic, or...ya, this has all happened to
| me before. I'll take the Waymo over uber.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| I've had one driving while reading their phone and
| checking stocks and looking up for about 1/2 a second of
| every 4 seconds.
| yfdrea wrote:
| As a woman, while 95% of the ridesharing trips I take are
| perfectly pleasant and sometimes great with conversation
| the 5% of rides where you are trapped in a car with a creep
| asking you extremely off putting questions sours the entire
| concept of ride sharing for me.
| Arete314159 wrote:
| Same. Ever been a vulnerable woman stuck in a car with a
| man who starts ranting that "nobody wants to date men who
| aren't rich anymore" and it turns out the driver is angry
| because the women that are trapped as riders won't go out
| with him?
|
| Or how about, "Nice place...you live alone here?"
|
| Absolutely would choose the robot.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| the situations you've described _and_ the fact that our
| answer as a society is seemingly to throw up our hands at
| our inability to solve these situations other than by
| increasing the number of cars on the road in a way that
| funnels even more wealth to a tiny group of unfathomably
| wealthy sociopaths who also use ourour personal
| information to impact our spending habits... very
| depressing. i really hate it here.
| okdood64 wrote:
| Yea, I can't imagine being a woman and having to deal
| with some of these drivers.
|
| This doesn't compare, but as a man I get really put off
| by the amount of invasive questions (where I work, where
| my family is from, etc) when I'm just trying to get from
| point A to point B.
|
| I'm a mid-millenial FWIW, so I very much remember a world
| of only having old school taxis.
| overfeed wrote:
| > Is it really that bad to share a car with someone?
|
| Sometimes it is, and you never really know when.
|
| Some of my most unpleasant experiences involved a couple of
| reckless drivers, even more nutters who _insisted_ on
| talking about their politics or pet peeves, I fear one of
| them may have gone beyond mere eccentricity and probably
| required some medical intervention, but couldn 't figure
| out how to report that without possibly resulting in the
| driver being punished by the app.
| wincy wrote:
| Hah, I had a 2am conversation with a woman from Argentina
| about Javier Milei which is one of my Uber riding
| highlights.
|
| But then another time a guy warned me not to open his
| glove box because his Glock was in there and he sounded
| deranged and it's the one time I've literally gotten out
| of the car and cancelled my Uber.
|
| One female Uber driver told me about how she had to go to
| court because a drunk man threatened to stab her with a
| knife (that he was brandishing), then he passed out and
| the police had to haul him out of her car. The .1% ruin
| it for everyone else.
| wincy wrote:
| The Uber Driver who told me all about his Glock in the
| glove box was pretty off putting.
|
| Also the Jeep that picked me up in August with broken air
| conditioning, although that was an annoyance vs "what is
| happening right now am I going to die".
| minwcnt5 wrote:
| "Yes it is that bad" - every woman I've ever talked to.
| spwa4 wrote:
| I always (as soon as I could) owned a car, first on
| independence, but soon that became on price. A car costs
| between $350 and $500 per month, plus about 2 gas tanks,
| let's say $600. That's only 10-15 short taxi rides and two
| long taxi rides at best.
|
| And now I have a family, there's 5 of us. A car is easily
| less than half the price of public transport for what I need
| to do (because you pay per person).
|
| I hate traffic, and I don't really like driving, but since a
| car is easily 30 minutes faster than public transport to
| drive in to work, sadly 30 minutes of traffic in the morning
| is still faster than public transport, no matter how annoying
| it is. Oh and no waiting in the rain/cold is a nice bonus.
| kccqzy wrote:
| A car does not cost $350 and $500 per month. If it does,
| it's a status symbol, not merely a tool to get from A to B,
| and therefore it is unfair to compare it against taxi
| rides.
|
| There's nothing wrong with wanting a nicer more luxurious
| car for yourself. But it's just ingenious to compare that
| against taxis with beaten-up and spartan but reliable cars.
| graeme wrote:
| That's not outrageous as a car price once you add
| insurance, maintenance, taxes, parking, license fee,
| cleaning, etc
|
| Along with any interest on the purchase or foregone
| investment gains. You can use a true cost of ownership
| calculator here.
|
| https://www.edmunds.com/honda/accord/2022/cost-to-
| own/?style...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > A car does not cost $350 and $500 per month.
|
| Insurance alone can be 100EUR a month (and more so for
| younger drivers). At a very modest 5 liters / 100km and a
| one way route of 20 km you're at 800km a month / 40
| liters of gas => 1.80EUR a liter => 72EUR in fuel. Your
| average car then has 20 ct/km for maintenance costs
| (inspections, spare parts, oil changes, tires, workshop
| time), so another 160EUR a month - and more if it is a
| run-down junker car.
|
| That are just the fixed running costs you have with
| pretty much _every_ car, around 330EUR a month. We haven
| 't talked about depreciation yet _at all_. Even if you
| say you buy a barely road worthy wreck for 3000 EUR and
| run it until it 's only ripe for the junkyard to fetch
| maybe 500 EUR every two years, that's still about 100EUR
| a month you're paying.
|
| And what we also haven't had a single talk about is
| operating and purchase taxes, highway tolls, city-core
| tolls, rental spots for parking (including the price you
| have paid for the garage in your house, it's a lot of
| real estate), that also can easily add to many hundreds
| of euros each year.
|
| Cars are _expensive_ once you actually include
| replacement /depreciation and maintenance costs.
| amccollum wrote:
| The standard tax deduction for car travel is $0.70 / mile
| in the US, which accounts for things like insurance, gas,
| maintenance, and depreciation. So $500 / month is around
| 700 miles, which probably around 90% of US drivers
| surpass.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| There is no tax deduction (in the US) for vehicle use
| that is non-business related.
| zimzam wrote:
| Correct, the person you are responding to is using it as
| a benchmark for the all-in cost of driving a vehicle on a
| per-mile basis.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Car insurance has essentially doubled in price over the
| past few years, from a combination of
|
| - cars becoming more complicated to repair. Marco Arment
| of Overcast related an incident where his Rivian had a
| simple fender bender, and his insurance was billed
| $15,000 in labor and parts to fix it because of the
| monobody construction where you have to tear apart half
| the car to fix anything
|
| - inflation in both goods and services means car repair
| costs are going up
|
| - more reckless and uninsured drivers thanks to general
| post-covid norm breakdowns
|
| Insurance alone can now be $150-200/month even if you
| don't have a particularly nice car. Combine that with
| gas, maintenance, and registration taxes, and I think
| most people in the US are paying at least $350/month for
| their car even if amortized costs mean they don't realize
| it.
| mikestew wrote:
| _Marco Arment of Overcast related an incident where his
| Rivian had a simple fender bender, and his insurance was
| billed $15,000 in labor and parts to fix it because of
| the monobody construction where you have to tear apart
| half the car to fix anything_
|
| Hyundai Ioniq 5, backing into the garage next to the RV,
| and at "backing into the garage" speed ran into the RV.
| The fiberglass body of the RV suffered a 3 inch diameter
| break in the fiberglass that I could have fixed myself.
| The Hyundai? _17,000_ American dollars. The rear quarter
| panel took a dent, and (IIRC) the bumper might have had
| some damage. Part of the problem was that there really
| isn 't a "rear quarter panel" anymore. No, as I looked at
| it, that piece of sheet metal goes all the way from the
| rear bumper to the front of the passenger compartment.
| The shop didn't replace that piece, but rather cut the
| dented piece out and welded in new sheet metal.
|
| Between that, and all the sensors, etc., $17K for backing
| into a piece of fiberglass at not even a walking pace.
| Now that the car has some years on it, if I do that again
| they'll probably total it.
| Lammy wrote:
| > I think most people in the US are paying at least
| $350/month
|
| What an absurd statement. Mine has gone down in the past
| several years, and I pay around that per 6 months.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > A car does not cost $350 and $500 per month.
|
| This can vary a lot.
|
| 6 years ago, I was driving a Subaru BRZ which averaged 32
| mpg. My commute was ~30 miles each way, add in a couple
| miles for weekly errands, and let's just say I was using
| 10 gallons/week. If gas was $3, that's $30/week,
| $120/month. Plus $150/month for insurance, it's
| $270/month.
|
| Still way under your 350-500/month figure, but that's
| also assuming the car is paid off.
|
| > If it does, it's a status symbol, not merely a tool to
| get from A to B, and therefore it is unfair to compare it
| against taxi rides.
|
| $350-500/month is cheaper than taxi rides. Even with a
| more reasonable 5-10 mile commute, I'd be spending
| probably $50/DAY if I took taxis.
| vel0city wrote:
| You're not including an amortized cost of maintenance,
| registration fees, etc. Adding in tires alone ($720 for a
| set, 50k/1200 ~=41 months, ~$17.50/mo) brings it to
| almost $290/mo. Oil change every 6 months or so, add
| another $10/mo or so. Now we're at $300/mo and hoping
| nothing in the car breaks and needs repairs on a car
| that's already paid off, and we still haven't paid our
| taxes and registration fees.
|
| Now figure in the fact you've got several thousand
| dollars in a car instead of even something like a high-
| yield savings account. At even 4% APY, if you had just
| $8k tied up in that car that's another ~$27/mo of
| _income_ you 're missing out on.
|
| I'm not making the argument riding a taxi for every trip
| is cheaper than this. Just pointing out there's a lot of
| things people don't think about when they think of the
| cost of car ownership.
| timerol wrote:
| The average monthly payment for a used car in the US in
| 2025 was $532, according to
| https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/average-car-
| paym.... This does not count insurance, taxes, parking,
| or gas.
|
| A status symbol will easily run you $1000/mo. I currently
| pay $350/mo (including cost of capital), and I don't know
| how I would pay less for a car that's not actively
| falling apart. Chevy Spark, manual transmission, $7k KBB
| value, averaging 500 miles per month.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| There's no shot that number isn't being driven up by
| people purchasing more car than they need. You can get a
| used car for $10,000 or less, there's no reason one
| _needs_ to pay $500 /mo.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| huh? i bought a used, very low-end/utilitarian 10 year
| old car and paid more than half upfront and my monthly
| payment was like $300. factor in insurance and gas and i
| was easily close to 400-450. the days of $1000 beaters
| that actually run well are gone :(
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I'm guessing you live in America where car ownership is
| heavily subsidized? Many places you would spend $500/month
| just to park your car, maybe more.
| nradov wrote:
| In most of America there is abundant free parking on
| private property including homes, stores, and workplaces.
| That is hardly a subsidy. I understand the argument that
| dense cities shouldn't have so much free public street
| parking but there are only a handful of neighborhoods
| where that even matters.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The "free parking" isn't really free, you just have land
| that is really cheap devoted to it. And where it
| isn't...well, American housing prices and rents are
| increased to pay for them. Street parking matters in
| almost every neighborhood in Seattle now...since parking
| on its own is expensive, and you will also have to pay
| for a few busted windows on your car for the pleasure of
| free street parking.
|
| The highways are heavily subsidized by general funds
| these days since raising the gas tax outside of a few
| states isn't very popular.
|
| I'm American but in the other countries I lived in
| (Switzerland and China) and the many countries I've
| visited, private car ownership is always a luxury, not a
| cheap necessety attainable by everyone.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > The "free parking" isn't really free, you just have
| land that is really cheap devoted to it.
|
| When I can park my car in my driveway at no marginal cost
| to myself, most people (including me) would call that
| free.
| smugma wrote:
| Yes, all those things. Except on cost, at least in SF, MUNI
| is free for children.
|
| We mostly drive wherever we need to go, especially when
| it's all of us. But if we're going to a Warriors game, we
| always take Muni, at it's more convenient (and free for
| adults too if you show your ticket).
|
| Also, it's generally faster and more convenient (and fun)
| to get to Chase Center via Muni than driving. Getting back
| is tough both because this is peak Lyft/Waymo demand as
| well as peak Muni demand.
| boplicity wrote:
| The cost is a factor -- and something that I think policy
| makers should very much push to change.
|
| For our family of four, two of us pay for public transport
| as of now. That adds up to $12 round trip; which is often
| more expensive than parking in the even in a high density
| area. Once we have to start paying for the kids too, that
| would add up to $24 for a round trip, which ends up being
| more expensive than driving. I get that public
| transportation is expensive to operate; maybe that alone is
| the root of the problem here.
| askl wrote:
| > We need this in europe.
|
| No we don't. Your github says you're from Berlin, why the hell
| would you ever need a taxi in your life?
|
| Someone should just find a cure for for the fear techbros have
| of being near poor people.
| jFriedensreich wrote:
| I don't live in Berlin, but even if: have you ever taken
| public transport in less mainstream lines? Apart from nothing
| working and connections taking forever and operations
| stopping at night, horrible signage that lets you stress even
| more, you sit next to human excrements, hooligans coming from
| football games, nazis wanting to beat you up, stink, rude
| music and beggers. I sometimes miss it for sentimental value,
| but compared to a world of robots driving us with relaxing
| music in a clean and safe space i know what future I want.
| dmoy wrote:
| Is there really that much poop on Berlin public transit?
|
| Seattle has some of the highest per capital homeless in the
| US, and a dearth of public toilets, and yet there's not
| that much poop on our public transit.
|
| I am also skeptical that y'all's violent crime rate is
| higher than ours.
|
| Granted I haven't taken Berlin public transit in 20 yrs, so
| I don't know.
| dmoy wrote:
| > I am also skeptical that y'all's violent crime rate is
| higher than ours.
|
| Ok well I am wrong. Berlin's violent crime rate is 2-4x
| higher than Seattle? Huh. The homicide rate is within
| touching distance.
|
| That was not what I expected, ok.
| mikestew wrote:
| It wouldn't take much to have more violent crime in
| Seattle, according to my gut (yeah, I know, "show me the
| numbers"). Granted, it's probably gotten worse since we
| moved here 25 some years ago, but coming from places like
| my old hometown of Indianapolis, Seattle didn't have any
| place I wouldn't feel comfortable walking at night.
| Again, it's changed a lot since (there _are_ some areas I
| would avoid at 2 a. m. now), but I still feel much safer
| in Seattle than other large cities.
| jFriedensreich wrote:
| its mostly pee and vomit, poo is indeed rare.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Didn't see any poop in berlin, but did see it in Shibuya
| station, spread out by hundreds of people.
| askl wrote:
| > have you ever taken public transport in less mainstream
| lines?
|
| Yes, I have. I never drove a car myself and maybe used a
| taxi 10 times in the last 30 years.
|
| Will waymo even be available in less mainstream areas? It
| seems more reasonable for them to go for dense places
| instead and leave the unprofitable regions for someone
| else.
| tialaramex wrote:
| > Will waymo even be available in less mainstream areas?
|
| Ever is a long time. It's not reasonable to predict
| beyond a decade or so. It's easily possible that this
| becomes huge and in the 2040s people are astonished that
| "driving yourself" was a thing, the same way it's hard to
| comprehend now that most people weren't _literate_. Not
| "Couldn't write an essay / read a newspaper" but
| "Couldn't sign their name / read a postal address"
|
| But it's also possible that this goes nowhere, and
| outside of a few large cities there is never a robot taxi
| market, it just doesn't exist. Waymo is, among other
| things, a bet that there is a large market.
|
| Dense places are where it starts, but that was also true
| for the telephone. Bell didn't provide service to tiny
| rural settlements, they wired places like Boston and New
| York, AIUI the general service provision was a government
| initiative even in the US, it was never strictly
| _profitable_ enough for huge corporations to spend their
| own money making it universal.
| askl wrote:
| I mean, I can understand wanting to start in dense
| places. But those are also the places where public
| transit is a viable existing solution.
|
| Personal transit just looks incredible inefficient and
| unscalable if everyone would use it. I could totally see
| it as a last resort solution for situations where nothing
| else is available, but that's an unattractive market that
| isn't going to make anyone rich.
| tialaramex wrote:
| In an urban area the "last resort" cases add up. The last
| time I was in a taxi it was the middle of the night, and
| I'd just smashed my head open, so I had concluded that I
| must not trust my own judgement and should seek immediate
| medical attention, buses don't run in the middle of the
| night (on that route)
| tialaramex wrote:
| Taxis are also public transport and so their provision in
| cities is in fact part of the transport fabric. Since there
| must be taxis, why not improve them?
|
| This isn't about poor people, at least for me, I'd much
| rather be alone than with Elon fucking Musk. If I want to
| hang out with people I will choose when and who. The least
| good bit of being in a taxi is small talk with the driver.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Everyone has the "fear" of being near other people,
| regardless of their affluence. That's why apartments are not
| built for 20 but got 2-5 people and doors exist. I don't see
| why it must be a rich people thing when it comes to self
| driving cars. Could also become super interesting by making
| remoter areas more serviceable.
| belter wrote:
| Waymo is not _solving driving_ , it is closer to a
| sophisticated Disney Parkland ride. It is running inside a
| tightly constrained Operational Design Domain:
|
| - Geofenced areas
|
| - HD pre-mapped roads
|
| - Curated infrastructure
|
| - Remote ops fallback
|
| This is not general autonomy, it is highend automation inside a
| controlled distribution. The system degrades exactly where
| humans do not: construction, unmapped lane shifts, police
| manually directing traffic, chaotic mixed behavior.
|
| A cop overriding a light is not an "edge case", it is a
| semantic and social reasoning problem that current perception
| stacks still do not robustly solve. It works because the world
| is pre modeled, not because the car understands driving.
|
| Scaling that beyond a few mapped US suburbs into Europe is a
| totally different problem. Dont get fooled by Wall Street stock
| pumping.
| guiomie wrote:
| Am I in the Tesla stock subreddit?
|
| "Scaling that beyond a few mapped US suburbs into Europe is a
| totally different problem." If you consider SF and LA
| suburbs, than Europe is a suburb.
| belter wrote:
| Would you address my other technical comments on what Waymo
| really is?
| nradov wrote:
| From a consumer perspective, no one cares what Waymo
| really is. If customers can pay and get from point A to
| point B reliably and safely then it doesn't matter how
| the sausage is made. Regardless of technical challenges
| and limitations they're obviously going to expand
| coverage to more areas.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| They're currently testing them in weird ass tiny streets here
| in Tokyo. I have a feeling you haven't been in a Waymo?
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Most of this comment was written by an LLM. There are certain
| tells, such as the tone, as well as usage of " for quotations
| instead of the much more common ". I think you added the last
| couple of sentences.
| UebVar wrote:
| Roads are not _solving transportation_ , they are closer to a
| sophisticated trace track. Roads are a constrained
| Operational Design Domain:
|
| - Geofenced areas
|
| - pre-build structures
|
| - Curated infrastructure
|
| - fallback to gravel in times of the inevitable event of
| maintenance.
|
| This is not general transportation, it is a highend
| infrastructure inside a controlled environment. The system
| degrades exactly where humans/horses do not: River crossings,
| Creeks, steep hillsides, marshes, beaches.
|
| A river flooding a road is not and "edge case", it a usual
| occurrence, and a problem that roads do robustly solve. It
| works due to extensive maintenance, not because the asphalt
| can actually deal with water.
|
| Scaling that beyond a few mapped US suburbs into Europe is a
| totally different problem. Dont get fooled by Wall Street
| stock pumping.
| kentm wrote:
| I'm pretty sure people vastly overstate how important "HD
| pre-mapped roads" are to Waymo.
| noncoml wrote:
| My anecdote: My wife had to literally have two drinks before
| here first Waymo ride. Now she doesn't want to use anything
| else other that Waymo when we can't drive ourselves, and
| totally agree with her
|
| Having said that, Uber was amazing experience when it started
| too, now it's on par with cabs.
| pixelready wrote:
| Yeah, this is one of my guilty automation pleasures alongside
| self-checkout. I hate that I am displacing a human, and I mourn
| for the handful of really pleasant taxi / Uber experiences I've
| had over the years, but damn is Waymo such a better default
| experience right now.
|
| I really hope there's enough viable competition over time to
| keep costs down or I worry this will evolve into robo-limos
| rather than a nice cheap default option for areas without good
| public transit infrastructure. The DUI prevention alone is such
| a huge win.
|
| There is the matter of surveillance though. I don't love that I
| have to take their word on not abusing the cabin recordings,
| but I guess that's pretty much all modern vehicles (via onStar
| and the like) not just robo-taxis. Pretty much every Sci-fi
| dystopian with urban infrastructure has that scene where the
| corrupt authorities have someone's self-driving car pulled over
| remotely, that seems important as well given the state of
| things lately.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| I do too, except for the fact that Waymos constantly break
| traffic laws.
| irl_zebra wrote:
| I love, love, love Waymo and am so excited about their success.
| Uber and Lyft were the heroes for a while, but became the
| villains. If Waymo is available anywhere I need a cab, that is
| absolutely my first choice, even for the premium cost.
| OsrsNeedsf2P wrote:
| Same. I can't wait for Waymo to reach Fremont; the thought of
| going to and from SFO in a Waymo that doesn't tip guilt me
| would be wild.
| echelon wrote:
| I can't wait to subscribe to Waymo (or any reasonable provider)
| for personal cars.
|
| It's one thing to call an Uber. It's another to pack your car
| for a road trip to the beach or mountains.
|
| Waymo is going to make vacationing even bigger than it already
| is. It'll be easy, especially for remote workers.
|
| Van life with a Waymo is a whole new thing.
| pu_pe wrote:
| It seems like a fair valuation to me. I can see a path for them
| to approach or surpass Uber's revenue (~$50B) in the future, and
| I think their technology and brand are actual moats in comparison
| to all other driverless systems out there.
| wasmainiac wrote:
| Sure, but not for a while since there is a lot of hardware to
| pay for and maintain.
| paxys wrote:
| I'm in the opposite camp. Waymo has neat tech, yes, but already
| valuing it on par with Uber is absurd considering the sheer
| scale at which Uber operates. 70 countries, 15K cities, 36
| million daily trips. And this isn't counting Uber Eats and
| other side businesses. Waymo will have to accelerate its
| operations to the max for the next _decade_ just to catch up.
| And that 's assuming operating at such a scale is even possible
| considering they have to provide and maintain their own (very
| expensive) fleet. And this isn't a brand new market - Uber +
| local taxi companies have already set a hard cap on prices that
| Waymo cannot cross.
| pu_pe wrote:
| There is no doubt they have a lot of catching up to do, but
| you have to consider their advantages.
|
| If Uber goes away, Lyft or others can take over the entire
| market overnight, precisely because they don't have their own
| fleet or unique technology. Waymo is placing itself as first
| mover into a completely new category of transportation which
| will require capital investment and new tech, so it will be
| much harder to displace once it gets going. It could target
| automated cargo transport in the future too.
| remus wrote:
| No doubt there are significant challenges along the way, but
| waymo has a real product powered by tech that actually works
| which could massively change a huge industry. They're also
| notably more mature than competitors, and have track record
| of successfully rolling out in a safe way.
| dmix wrote:
| Unlike Uber which has drivers buying, fixing, and fueling their
| own cars, Waymo will have to build large fleets and a huge
| car/computer/LIDAR production/repair pipeline. It will be
| interesting to hear how they plan to do this at Ubers scale.
| It's much higher risk, asset and logistics wise.
|
| I don't think there's ever been a giant centralized global taxi
| fleet.
| naveen99 wrote:
| Left pocket valuing the right pocket.
| wasmainiac wrote:
| Wow that is headline carnage. What does it mean?
|
| Edit: there is a paywall in my country. Why downvotes? I'm just
| curious.
| zamadatix wrote:
| HN in a bit odd when it comes to paywells. You're not allowed
| to complain about them and everyone reading is individually
| expected to figure out how to access the content (which usually
| involves finding a top comment linking to a workaround for
| everyone or the usual users all going with their preferred
| tools silently).
|
| https://archive.is/Lh2QY
| lapetitejort wrote:
| I do not think driverless will solve the main transportation
| problem we are dealing with as a society: we are giving up more
| space for cars, space that humans cannot use. We build more
| highways, widen roads, increase speed limits, and expect humans
| to stay out of this space. I live in a 100+ year old
| neighborhood. The roads were built for horse and buggy and
| streetcars. Now I have to beg to cross the road. My neighborhood
| has been effectively chopped up. I question whether I should walk
| to another block because I'll have to deal with crossing the
| street. Quiet houses now have the constant buzz of cars either
| from the ever-present highways or from the 40+ mph traffic right
| outside their doors. Driverless cars will not solve these
| problems. Fewer kids will die, partially from safe software, but
| mostly because they won't be able to leave their bubble without
| being strapped down into a car.
| guywithahat wrote:
| In my experience if I want to living in a
| bikable/walkable/transit oriented area, I have to move there. I
| think expecting this sort of stuff to come to you is too much,
| especially since most city centers have good transit options.
|
| That said this is a tech forum, and while I don't think Waymo
| will be the only solution the tech is quite impressive and it's
| likely going to change how society works. Most people don't
| want to take public transit, they want to take a car and this
| is a much better solution for them. Forcing people to bike when
| they don't want to seems like bad form imo.
| kccqzy wrote:
| No one here should realistically think that Waymo can solve the
| main transportation problem. It will just (partially) replace
| Uber, Lyft, and taxis. And it will have a better passenger
| experience and it will also be safer. It's obvious that cars,
| autonomous or not, can't replace rail, bicycles, and walking.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I think it could solve a _lot_ of transportation problems
| though. In theory if driverless vehicles were ubiquitous you
| 'd have no on-street parking, no commercial transport in the
| day (do it all at night), much less traffic (just wait until
| your slot; maybe with peak time pricing), fewer delays due to
| crashes, etc.
|
| When nobody drives manually you could even do things like
| getting rid of traffic lights.
| jeffbee wrote:
| FWIW Waymo may have been "seeking" this deal when Bloomberg wrote
| that article but FT reports that it's already closed.
| devmor wrote:
| As someone who lives in a city with a lot of Waymos (Atlanta), I
| do not understand why anyone considers these things more than an
| early test or a novelty.
|
| From an outside perspective, they're constantly obstructing
| traffic and driving in erratic and confusing ways. It's gotten to
| a point that if I see one ahead of me, I'll turn down the next
| block and change my route to avoid being behind it and dealing
| with whatever slowdown its about to cause.
|
| I took one once via Uber with some coworkers and it was also
| jarring to ride in. I'd rather take my chances with a random
| human.
| neom wrote:
| I'm pretty sure this is the first big post about Waymo on HN, the
| comments are fun to read:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13168888 :)
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