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Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars
- panzer_wyrm 9y agoThat is just rubbing salt in the self inflicted wounds. I think that this could probably be the first real danger for Uber, especially if their self driving cars effort is killed. The major costs in taxi operation are fuel and humans. Electricity solves the first, self driving second. And they can even escape regulation if they present themselves as ultra short term rent a car service.
- prostoalex 9y ago> The major costs in taxi operation are fuel and humans. What about vehicles themselves?
- BigJono 9y agoIt'd be a factor, but not a major one. Say you expect to spend $30,000 on the car and $20,000 on repairs over a lifetime of 10 years (that's probably well on the high side, say you picked out a shitbox that always breaks down). At $15/h wage and $50/week in petrol, running the car 40 hours a week (probably on the low side, a lot of taxi drivers I know have 2-3 drivers to a car and would run it more like 120 hours), you're looking at $195,000 in wage/petrol expenses over those 10 years. Almost 4x the total cost of the car.
- BinaryIdiot 9y ago> It'd be a factor, but not a major one. I disagree. I think it's going to be everything. Not because people are cheap but they're going to be eliminated in this space regardless (so it's not even an argument). A car manufacturer is going to have lower costs to making and maintaining a car than any non car manufacturer. Every ride sharing service will eventually become driverless so car manufacturers will be able to provide an equivalent service at a lower price.
- notatoad 9y agoYou're assuming that transit is a business that car manufacturers want to be involved in, which would be a big shift. They've got a nice secure position right now, regardless of which ride-sharing app is trending. Why would they want to shift from their high-margin B2B sales market to a low-margin consumer service market?
- BinaryIdiot 9y ago> Why would they want to shift from their high-margin B2B sales market to a low-margin consumer service market? I'm not convinced that market is going to exist forever. If self driving cars do take off then you're going to see more people owning less cars. Cars will get consolidated to large companies and they won't have a need for as many. GM has talked with Lyft a number of times and most car manufacturers seem to be working on self driving systems. I think it's a move they'll have to make over the next decade or so.
- prostoalex 9y agoThe lifetime of a vehicle is better expressed in terms of miles, not years, and for most models probably ends up being close to 200,000 miles. While a generic vehicle owned by an average family will take 10 years to reach that, a for-hire vehicle gets quite a bit more mileage. One expense that people tend to leave out is the cleaning, both on the inside and outside. Someone has to take care of those car washes, and while cheap, they add up. With the driverless model I see those expenses increasing, as without a chaperon passengers are more likely to eat, drink, puke, and in general misbehave (source: I've been inside some BART and LA Metro cars).
- pg314 9y ago> With the driverless model I see those expenses increasing, as without a chaperon passengers are more likely to eat, drink, puke, and in general misbehave (source: I've been inside some BART and LA Metro cars). You're anonymous in a metro, you won't be in a driverless car. They can charge you for the clean-up.
- saulrh 9y agoCar costs $30k-$60k lifetime (repairs and such). Not many taxi services run luxury vehicles. Paying a single person full-time probably runs $30k-$40k/year, and you're probably running two to keep the duty cycle up. Gas is probably another $10k/year. Car lasts, what, five or ten years? Fifteen if you're careful and buy for reliability? Yes, people and fuel are the most expensive components.
- maxerickson 9y agoNew York City cabs seem to stay in service about 6 years, with 400,000+ miles on them at that point.
- elvirs 9y ago400k miles, damn.
- goobynight 9y agoNot to mention those are city miles, so the engine has been running for quite a long time.
- elvirs 9y agoi guess its safe to say those cars have hit a few million nyc potholes in their lifetime
- speedplane 9y agoBased on the NYC taxis I see roaming the streets, I'd guess that they last longer than six years. Plenty of cars look 10+ years or older. I'd guess that that the average age of a NYC taxi is around six years.
- maxerickson 9y agoThe NYC 2014 Taxicab Factbook (a real thing) gives the average age as 3.3 years: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/2014_taxicab_fact_book.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/2014_taxicab_fact_... It could be somewhat higher now but I doubt it has doubled. (I had just glanced at https://www.quora.com/How-many-miles-does-a-NYC-taxi-do-in-its-life-as-a-taxi https://www.quora.com/How-many-miles-does-a-NYC-taxi-do-in-i... for my previous post)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- scep12 9y agoUndoubtedly the market for ride sharing built with autonomous vehicles will afford for multiple winners -- but this certainly looks like a strong contender for the first.
- Moshe_Silnorin 9y agoI think it will be a commodity market. Not excited as an investor, very excited as a customer though.
- avaer 9y agoIf it's a commodity like telecoms -- and not like rice -- then I'm not too excited as a consumer either.
- CaliforniaKarl 9y agoThen maybe "commodity" isn't the right word. Maybe "utility"? Or, in the future, "monopoly"?
- ju-st 9y agoTelecoms do have a natural monopoly, ride sharing does not.
- BinaryIdiot 9y agoI agree. Ultimately no one is going to be able to produce and maintain a car cheaper than a car manufacturing company so I feel like the eventual "winner" is going to be someone either partnered with, or is, a car manufacturer. Tesla is positioning itself super well for this. GM seems to be on its way as well especially with their past interest in Lyft?
- goobynight 9y agoHow has Tesla positioned itself super well. Didn't they...just recently figure out that factories are more difficult than cars? Or will they be a partner? Please clarify.
- passivepinetree 9y agoI know Uber still has higher market share overall, but this is another strike against them. I wonder what the end of the ongoing trial will bring...
- beatpanda 9y agoDidn't Lyft also do basically the same thing in China? I feel like Lyft is a living testament to collaboration being a better business strategy than domination
- MaxLeiter 9y agoI think the outcome of this Uber vs Lyft battle in a few years will be a better testament - who knows, maybe Lyft will fall and Uber will stay at the top.
- speedplane 9y agoThey are both losing money at such a tremendous rate, it's hard to tell how far Uber is ahead of the competition. wWe'll only know once the VC and PE money starts to dry up, and they'll be forced to go public and release much more information. Then investors will start demanding at least a path towards profitability.
- gremlinsinc 9y agoI feel like Lyft is the underdog coming back to strike the killer blow to Uber... The year Uber has had I wouldn't be surprised to see them disappear altogether by 2018/2019. Lyft seems to be doing things a lot better, but helps that their CEO isn't out starting fires instead of putting them out.
- melling 9y agoI'd just like to point out that we really don't want to Uber to die. The market will be healthier if Uber and lift are both successful.
- BinaryIdiot 9y agoWhy? Are you thinking of competition in general? Because there is a lot of that in ride sharing just nothing as big as the two juggernauts in America.
- swsieber 9y agoI think competition in general for self driving cars, not for ride sharing.
- BinaryIdiot 9y agoThen the loss of Uber won't matter. Basically every car manufacturer is looking at this along with countless others. The market for self driving vehicles is so, so tiny and new that literally any (and many) could jump in and "win".
- williamsmj 9y agoNah, we really do want them to die. Couldn't happen to a nicer company. If it's competition you're concerned about: they have a well documented record of sabotaging their competition, rather than winning on merits. They're not good for the market they are in, which is bad for all of us. There are also some other reasons we want them to die, relating to their being an abusive employer, which I'd like to think would have consequences for their reputation in our community.
- taneq 9y agoAnd the moral of this story is that no matter how big you are, if you piss off enough people, you're gonna have a bad time.
- mattnewton 9y agoPigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered.
- alistproducer2 9y agoWhen I use lyft now, I'm coming across drivers that only drive for lyft. The tide has definitely shifted against Uber. I'm not really sure there's a way back at this point. The one advantage Uber had was network effect, but in my experience that has diminished. Lyfts come just as fast as Ubers now because they have enough drivers on the road to support the response time. I'll never go back to Uber.
- tptacek 9y agoIf Lyft had a black car option, I'd use them constantly; I wonder what keeps them from rolling that out.
- Cyph0n 9y agoWhy do you need black cars specifically? More professional?
- koolba 9y agoNot GP but I use them for clients. For personal use I'd be fine with a rickshaw.
- lern_too_spel 9y agoAt this point, some clients would be offended just for ordering an Uber for them, black car or not.
- paulddraper 9y agoHuh? Why?
- Theodores 9y agoIf you are in London and you have got to get that famous child prodigy to the film studio with chaperone and teacher then you will be ordering them an Addison Lee private hire vehicle or better. A regular cab or some unlicenced 'Uber' gig-economy 'cab' isn't going to cut it. I expect that other parts of the world are the same.
- pgodzin 9y agoWith how much Google had previously invested in Uber, without the Waymo lawsuit it's safe to say this deal would have been struck with Uber instead. Has nottt been a good few months for Uber, and Lyft has really taken advantage.
- mattnewton 9y agoMaybe it would have, since Uber was exploring their own program and would love to own the whole stack. I see the Uber investment as a hedge, where Alphabet can afford significant stakes in all the horses in the race.
- Fricken 9y agoIn June 2015 Uber acquired a bunch of mapping assets from Bing, and hired away ~100 engineers from Bing's mapping program to develop their own maps (I don't know what the current status is on that initiative), which was the first signal that, for whatever reason, Google and Uber weren't planning any sort of long term strategic partnership. But Google holds itself to high ethical standards, and I doubt Google expected to Uber to behave so badly. I mean, Uber has always behaved badly, but up until the point they stopped being the underdog we were all cheering Uber on.
- touchofevil 9y agoIf Alphabet really wants to mess with Uber, why don't they just buy Lyft and offer lower ride pricing/higher driver pay for as long as it takes to put Uber out of business?
- msoad 9y agoThat's going to take a lot of dollars..
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoIt also would send a strong message to everyone they ever partner with in the future.
- r00fus 9y agoPartner with and then have steal intellectual property from, you mean? That's a precedent Google would like to have set. It's like a public hanging of bandits.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoBingo, I could have phrased that better, this is exactly what I meant. I was thinking of the message as "partner with us and try to screw us and you're in for a world of hurt, partner with us and treat us well and we'll make sure you're taken care of"
- touchofevil 9y agoTrue, but if anyone has a lot of dollars it's Alphabet.
- sien 9y agoThat would be a straight up anti-trust violation.
- MichaelGG 9y ago
- omarforgotpwd 9y agoUber and Lyft are pretty much the exact same thing in markets where both are available. hell, they even have the same set of drivers as many drivers sign on to both. I think time will prove that Lyft was quite undervalued compared to Uber, especially as autonomous vehicles hit the market.
- mattnewton 9y agoPersonally, there are nicer touches in the Lyft app- the colored signs, color-accurate picture of the make and model of the car, and generally friendlier driver instructions make getting into the car and riding more pleasant for me.
- omarforgotpwd 9y agoNot to mention the fact that you can easily tip, knowing how tough things are for drivers with base pricing.
- yellow_postit 9y agoMy personal view is that the rates should be set such that tipping is not expected. That remains the main draw of Uber for me.
- azernik 9y agoLyft actually has higher rates (for the driver) than Uber.
- linkregister 9y agoCan you add information? Their websites both claim that drivers earn 25% of the fare.
- omarforgotpwd 9y agoI don't always tip, but sometimes you meet a driver who deserves a tip or seems like they might need it and it's good to have the option to do that without using cash. The tip is entirely optional and $0 by default so there is really no downside to offering this option, even for people who will never use it.
- flylib 9y agothis will most likely amount to nothing or very little, waymo is also launching their own competing service at some point and lyft has other suppliers for cars (GM/Cruise), this will most likely be a stop gap and used as a a good headliner grab for both companies, just look at what happened to the short lived Lyft/Didi/Grab partnership that went up in smoke
- zitterbewegung 9y agoI guessed this would happen in a previous comment. Lyft being second fiddle in the ride sharing business has allowed them to take advantage of all of Uber's accumulating missteps. Partnering with GM and now Google it seems that this will be like android. Waymo provides self driving car software . Lyft is like a cell phone carrier providing logistics and the network, and GM provides cars (hardware) which would be like Samsung. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14321265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14321265
- ars 9y agoI wish Lyft didn't have tips, it's the one thing keeping me from rooting for them to win.
- msoad 9y agoYou can just not pay tips. What's your problem?
- jensvdh 9y agoWouldn't the drivers give you a low rating then?
- stingrae 9y agoThe driver can't see if you gave them a tip or not when they are rating you. Also it is not clear that the rider rating really matters too much.
- TulliusCicero 9y agoTipping culture has historically trended towards an expectation of ever higher and more commonplace tips to not look like an asshole. Tipping culture also introduces uncertainty into pricing, and means that nicer people pay more and jerks get to pay less, for the same service.
- yjgyhj 9y ago>Tipping culture also introduces uncertainty into pricing, and means that nicer people pay more and jerks get to pay less, for the same service. Why is someone a jerk for not tipping? I pay for service provided - give me a receipt with the amount and I'll pay it, no problem. Let's end tipping, folks...
- RX14 9y agoI think the commenter means that jerks are less likely to tip drivers who do deserve it.
- joering2 9y agoHonest question: why there is no reverse type bidding system for picking a ride? Let me tell you when im going and where to, where i am and what time i need to be there. Then you have x amount of hours/minutes to bid. The lowest bid gives me ride, unless i want to click few more checkboxes like [x] verified rider [x] minimum 4.5 star rider, etc.
- tmh79 9y agoPeople prefer the "click button, get transit" UX for its simplicity.
- r00fus 9y agoWell all except the Surge pricing. That at times can feel like highway robbery.
- cjrp 9y agoThat sort of exists with minicabs here in the UK. Using Kabbee I say I want to go from my house to Heathrow on a certain date, and it comes back with prices for ~15 cab firms. The firms aren't bidding in real-time, I'm guessing it's based on some £/mile or £/minute that they provide to Kabbee, but still.
- keeptrying 9y agoWaymo will have the first self driving cars on the road. They are so ahead of everyone. I think everyone including regular car companies buy the tech from Waymo in the short term.
- puranjay 9y agoI'm curious where Tesla fits into this scheme. In terms of road miles, I reckon Tesla would have Waymo beat easily. They have far too many cars on the road and thus, way more data. Does this factor into the quality of self-driving tech at all?
- Fricken 9y agoLast week Tesla began collecting short sections of video data from those with their new in-house Autopilot hardware. So really, Tesla's just getting started, and they're doing it with underpowered sensors and compute. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/8/15581094/tesla-autopilot-update-video-data-speed-restriction-lifted https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/8/15581094/tesla-autopilot-u... Waymo was ahead of where Tesla is now back in 2012. In a demonstration capacity, Waymo's cars were working 5 years ago, but in the intermittent time Waymo has been validating their software against every possible edge case they might encounter on a real world situation, and Tesla will have to do the same one way or another before their autonomous OS can operate safely without a babysitter.
- bigbugbag 9y agoIt is a matter of point of view, how many waymo car have been sold to customers ? how many waymo cars are out of the waymo car factories every months ? There are several things to tackle and different approaches to things, the DARPA grand challenge is the practical one and waymo did not took part in any edition AFAIK.
- Zarel 9y agoFrom Waymo's wiki page: "Google's self driving car project was formerly led by Sebastian Thrun (...). Thrun's team at Stanford created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and its US$2 million prize from the United States Department of Defense. The team developing the system consisted of 15 engineers working for Google, including Chris Urmson, Mike Montemerlo, and Anthony Levandowski who had worked on the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges."
- 11thEarlOfMar 9y agoHere's the thing. The end game is that Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers are out of a job as chauffeur. However, the self-driving cars remain a capital expense that someone has to finance. I couldn't Google up numbers easily, but it looks like the number of ride-hailed vehicles is in the multiple millions in the US. 1,000,000 autonomous cars at $50,000 each is a $50 Billion-per-million capital expense. I'd guess that the capital is out there, but would it be that raising and deploying that much capital takes as long as developing the autonomous technology? Globally, why wouldn't this be a $1 Trillion spend? Can Uber and Lyft pull that off?
- wtvanhest 9y agoIf the math works, the capital will flow. Even if the math doesn't work, the capital might still flow.
- huevosabio 9y agoI have often thought of this as well. One option is that they still outsource the financing to local owners, not necessarily your traditional car owners, per say, but more like local companies that buy AVs and place them in service. However, I think an interesting approach would be to use a traditional Project Finance scheme [0] to obtain cheap, non-recourse loans in order to acquire and deploy large fleets. These schemes are common for infrastructure projects, which occasionally amount to billions of dollars. Under such a scenario, then the actual owners might end up being entities familiar with setting up these deals, and Waymo et al selling the technology/cars/platform (arguably of higher margins). [0]http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/projectfinance.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/projectfinance.asp
- jankey 9y agoIf they'd really want to do that, Alphabet has > $90B in cash.
- icehawk219 9y agoThe spend/build-out is even bigger than that because if these cars have no driver how to they refuel? Unless they've got a robot arm capable of doing that themselves they still need a human involved. As well as somewhere to do repairs and maintenance on the cars. Right now Lyft and Uber effectively out-source that to the owner of the vehicle. So whoever is doing this roll out doesn't just need the vehicles they also need the facilities to house, maintain, and fuel them. That infrastructure is, arguably, even bigger and more complicated than buying up the cars.
- sgustard 9y agoWhat do you see as the build vs buy preference here? Are you better off being Uber and investing billions in self-driving technology (assuming an ideal world with no lawsuits or misconduct), vs Lyft partnering for the same features? Frankly, I don't see the advantage of a software and logistics company going off on a robotics and AI track. Self-driving will take decades but eventually will become commodity technology.
- problems 9y agoIf we're not extremely careful about it, it may not become commodity technology, it may rest solely in the hands of a few companies who maintain full control of it. All it would really take is a few big successful players who are behaving like Tesla (you're not allowed to use self-driving for ride sharing) and a few nasty failures from smaller players before regulators crack down and say "okay, you now need to meet these extremely stringent guidelines and provide an enormous sum in insurance" which would basically inhibit competition. It's a nasty mix of capitalism and regulation that can kill a market before it really starts.
- subdane 9y agoNew York: drivers have lyft and uber apps/logos running/displayed.
- neosat 9y agoThis could be a longer term death blow for Lyft, ironically. If Google has the self driving tech, the car & car partnerships, the money, maps, access to end consumers, what exactly does it need Lyft for? Lyft will be a vehicle for Google to kickstart and test this out with a current ride sharing network before Lyft is cut off ...
- azernik 9y agoIf Google/Waymo wants to be running the whole business end-to-end, they'll buy up Lyft for its established network. If not, then Lyft will just be the pilot customer, and will probably end up competing with later customers.
- bigbugbag 9y agoTo further suffocate Uber by supporting their direct comptetitor ? To signal other would be poachers and tech snatchers that you don't mess with the Google ? To experiment outside of the google brand ? To test waters before buying Lyft ? To evaluate if it is better to enter the market providing rides to people or providing technology to companies providing rides to people ? There are quite a few reasons for google to be a partner for lyft.
- iplaw 9y ago> To further suffocate Uber by supporting their direct competitor? I see this as one of the primary motivating factors. > To test waters before buying Lyft? I don't foresee this happening, at least not the current iteration of Lyft. With the rise of autonomy, I can see Lyft pivoting in one of two directions: autonomous fleet ownership and management, or management of the use of individuals' personal autonomous vehicles while they would otherwise sit unused. Google has the capital to purchase a fleet on its own, so I don't see Google buying Lyft if that becomes their primary business strategy. If it's the latter option, Google may see value in the Lyft brand. People are already working with Lyft to grind out supplemental income with their personal vehicles, so it may be an easier sell to potential vehicle-owners to go with Lyft. > To evaluate if it is better to enter the market providing rides to people or providing technology to companies providing rides to people? Definitely part of the story.
- had2makeanacct 9y agoIf only Lyft could expand to more countries I'd love to try it.
- tmh79 9y agoBiggest open question: what is the long term value of Lyft to Waymo? To me, this seems like a way for waymo to pilot autonomous technology for customers with low initial investment, but I don't see the long term value that Lyft provides once testing is complete.
- fencepost 9y agoIt may end up being a question of whether Alphabet wants to be in the business of providing rides or simply in the business of providing tech. There will be a company that owns vehicles, books trips, handles payments, etc. It might make sense to bring it in house, but there are also good reasons to have it separate.
- Animats 9y agoWaymo has other tests going. 100 self-driving minivans are being built with Chrysler. These may be the ones for the self-driving test in Phoenix AZ.
- jonthepirate 9y agoGoogle please buy Lyft for 25b in cash and stock.
- skdotdan 9y agoWhy?
- gshulegaard 9y agoIt would appear that Lyft is making some strong ties with Google as of late. Between this and the announcement of the Lyft partnership with IBM and Google to work on some sort of Kubernetes router mesh [1] I am starting to see a trend. "We are excited to announce that we are working in partnership with both Google and IBM to bring Envoy to Kubernetes. Fun fact: there are now more people working on Envoy at Google than there are at Lyft! We have a lot of other things planned with Google that we will be able to share more about in the coming months." [1] https://eng.lyft.com/envoy-7-months-later-41986c2fd443 https://eng.lyft.com/envoy-7-months-later-41986c2fd443
- fragmede 9y agoOnly Lyft and Google know how much non-engineer time is going into that though. Google gives engineering quite a bit of leeway to use whatever they want, rather than necessarily foist something on them that a manager bought over a round of golf. (Envoy is open source.)
- gshulegaard 9y agoI think it will be interesting to follow Google's presentations at GlueCon: http://gluecon.com/ http://gluecon.com/
- eloisant 9y agoWhat would be the benefit for consumer if lyft/uber switch to driverless cars? Are we going to see a huge price drop or just a bump for these companies profits?
- drKarl 9y agoProbably enough price drop to beat competitors and attract most of the market share, and still have a higher profit, which would be a win-win except for competitors
- rrm1977 9y agoI believe the technology is still need development on different perspective especially the people acceptance. It is early to sign such deals.
- asafira 9y agoSince GM owns a bit of Lyft equity, is it not weird that Lyft is doing this? Maybe this is a sign that Cruise is quite far behind, and the best Lyft can do to prepare for the future (whether with Waymo or GM) is to use Waymo tech? People are also speculating that Alphabet might buy Lyft, but it's not clear that Alphabet wants to be the first party involved in hiring contractors for cars. (I understand these are autonomous cars, but will they really be transitioning that soon?)
- bmcusick 9y agoIt's not weird at all. Lyft (like Uber) wants to be the universal middle-man, not an in-house captured app of General Motors. They want to be the marketplace where consumers of transport call up the nearest self-driving resource, whether that's Cruise/GM, Waymo, or someone else.
- skdotdan 9y agoThis will be huge for Waymo and the Lyft killer or the other way around depending on whether self-driving technology becomes a monopoly or a commodity.
- beastmaster64 9y agowhat about tesla
- beastmaster64 9y agowhat about tesla
- steveb0x 9y agoAww. Their LIDAR unit looks like a tiny sombrero https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/12/13/technology/how-self-driving-cars-work-1481671863640/how-self-driving-cars-work-1481671863640-master495.png https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/12/13/technology/how-se...
- teslaberry 9y agoit's waaay -moe. not 'waymo' .