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Waymo CEO Says Alphabet Unit Plans to Launch Driverless Car Service
- jpm_sd 8y agoHere's a non-WSJ story: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-13/waymo-to-start-first-driverless-car-service-next-month https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-13/waymo-to-...
- nyc_pizzadev 8y agoOn this topic, I have nothing against paying for content, I pay for NYT and lots of other (video) content services. $40 a month seems like a bit much, no? Worth it? Comparitively, other similar services seem to be in the $10 range?
- midhunsezhi 8y agoFWIW, wsj is $10 per month if you enroll through google pay. Plus, they have 6 months free to start with currently.
- ChuckMcM 8y agoThis is the Blendle link: https://blendle.com/i/wsj-com/waymo-ceo-says-alphabet-unit-plans-to-launch-driverless-car-service-in-coming-months/bnl-wsj-20181113-SB12405722030152263707504584592362094372076?sharer=eyJ2ZXJzaW9uIjoiMSIsInVpZCI6ImNodWNrbWNtYW5pcyIsIml0ZW1faWQiOiJibmwtd3NqLTIwMTgxMTEzLVNCMTI0MDU3MjIwMzAxNTIyNjM3MDc1MDQ1ODQ1OTIzNjIwOTQzNzIwNzYifQ%3D%3D https://blendle.com/i/wsj-com/waymo-ceo-says-alphabet-unit-p... In that link they charged me $0.49 to read the article. I measured the monthly cost of my subscriptions to various publications, and then cancelled those accounts and setup a Blendle account with a self imposed limit of that monthly amount. What I found was that I typically spend half to at most three quarters of what I had been spending and I only read the articles I care about. And when I'm doing something that interferes with my available reading time, I spend practically nothing at all.
- dang 8y agoWe changed the URL from https://www.wsj.com/articles/waymo-ceo-says-alphabet-unit-plans-to-launch-driverless-car-service-in-coming-months-1542135341 https://www.wsj.com/articles/waymo-ceo-says-alphabet-unit-pl... to one that has the same text, or at least a prefix of it.
- wpietri 8y agoI will be really interested to see what limitations the service launches with. From what I've seen, they have been extraordinarily hazy about what the cars can actually do (e.g., time of day, weather, locations, dealing with non-road complexity). That makes sense, of course, as it's valuable information for competitors, but I'm still eager to find out. I'll also be interested to see how much this is them wanting to run a full production service versus an advertisement for their technology. Will it be more like Google Search? Or more like Android, where they maintain a small market share as a demonstration of where they want people to go?
- jimmy1 8y ago> From what I've seen, they have been extraordinarily hazy about what the cars can actually do (e.g., time of day, weather, locations, dealing with non-road complexity). Not sure this is 100% related, but the driver-assistance technologies in my new 2019 vehicle such as the lane keep assist, blind spot sensors, adaptive cruise control all suffer varying levels in inclement weather. My lane keep assist is completely unreliable in the rain, the collision detection sometimes misfires (but thankfully doesn't brake me) or mistakenly thinks an oncoming car around a bend is in front of me, etc. There are thousands of edge cases I can think of, just with my rudimentary understanding of the technology (namely lidar) are thinking to my self there is just no possible way they have come to a point where they are safe for general use.
- Judgmentality 8y agoAlthough inclement weather is certainly a challenge, comparing the sensors in your car to the sensors on a commercial self-driving taxi is of limited use. The sensors on your car are designed to be affordable first and foremost, and likely cost hundreds (or maybe in the low thousands on very high end systems) of dollars each so they can sell the vehicle. The self-driving taxis are designed to work no matter what, cost be damned, so they can build out the technology and let the cost come down later with scale. There are single sensors that cost tens of thousands of dollars on some of the A-list players in this space, and sometimes several of them. The sensors cost more than the car, not to mention the cost of the computers themselves potentially costing more than the car (this varies by company). As a rough rule of thumb, the companies testing level 4 autonomous vehicles on the road today are paying around $100k-200k per vehicle in hardware costs alone.
- cenal 8y agoHopefully New York permits them to operate in the city despite recently limiting the number of ride sharing drivers.
- perennate 8y agoI don't see any reason for New York to permit them, especially in the city center, before they have been proven safe over at least five to ten years in less urban and crowded environments.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>I don't see any reason for New York to permit them If the right people donate the right amount to the right things they will be permitted. This is how government in NYC works.
- VikingCoder 8y agoYou don't see any reason? * I've seen research that indicates there are fewer drunk driving fatalities, when things like Uber are available in a town. I would imagine self-driving cars would follow that same trend. * I would guess that more people able to stay out late, drinking and spending money. * I've heard that with 10% of traffic being self-driving that it reduces overall traffic congestion. That sounds great. * Potentially reducing the demand for parking, which increases the supply for development (which yields more tax income for the city) * Potentially makes longer commutes more palatable, allowing people to work farther away from home, which eases housing costs. * Easier tourism. * Easier access for the disabled. Those seem like good reasons, in favor.
- umanwizard 8y agoHow much time have you spent in the "city center" of New York ?
- VikingCoder 8y agoI suspect that if you started from the outside, and worked your way in, that even small impacts on traffic outside of the "city center" could have large impacts on the "city center" of New York. And even if it doesn't, having a small positive impact on areas outside the "city center" would still be a good thing.
- ProAm 8y agoLfyt and Uber must be having a heart attack right now.
- repsilat 8y ago>> then they lfyt you, then you win Seriously though, I think mobility network effects can be overcome because they're inherently local, and they're "attackable" because there's decreasing returns to scale. Average distance to nearest ride tails off pretty sharply. Obviously not as weak a moat as scooters though, because it's still very capital intensive. The first-mover also incurs some regulatory cost and rider suspicion the followers might not, too. Still, it's an enviable position to be in.
- ssharp 8y agoThis was always a clear threat. While Uber is also working in this space, it always seemed very clear to me that once you “solve” driverless cars, creating a network similar to Uber is relatively trivial, assuming human capital is not required 1:1 as it is with Uber. In theory, to the customer, it doesn’t matter if a human or machine is driving, so you’re no longer dealing with a two-sided network, making adoption substantially easier, especially for a company like Google who can deploy massive capital. The thing I never understood is how Uber’s investors rationalized this and thought it wouldn’t happen. Did they think self driving cars would not be a reality? Did they think Uber could get there first? Did they think there is still a profitable enough gap between current situation and the dreiverless future to hedge in case Uber doesn’t get there? Is the Uber brand and tech worth so much that they’ll get something back as an acquisition for whoever does get there first?
- StreamBright 8y agoAnd where are the ads going to be inserted? :)
- xapata 8y agoOn your phone, in search or on the map. But a taxi service may be a profitable business on its own.
- Animats 8y agoWaymo announced this last month.[1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/10/waymo-wont-have-to-prove-its-driverless-taxis-are-safe-before-2018-launch/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/10/waymo-wont-have-to-prov...
- miguelmota 8y agoThis is huge. It must feel surreal being driven around by a driverless car. Hope it comes with a Jarvis voice for navigation
- stcredzero 8y agoJarvis is too current an IP, so will be very expensive. Try "Johnnycab."
- wingerlang 8y agoI might be wrong, but I don't think it will be any different from riding a bus, a train or an elevator for that matter. You get in them all, don't think about who or what is driving, and then you arrive.
- davewritescode 8y agoSo the truth is Google is expanding its pool of test users, removing their NDAs, and starting in the easiest place in the world to operate a driverless car. It’s certainly progress, but I would have appreciated a less click-bait headline.
- ghaff 8y agoThe idea that driving in a well-tested Phoenix suburb is even the same activity as Manhattan, as some seem to think, is comical.
- harryh 8y agoPretty large chunks of the country are a lot like phoenix suburbs.
- ghaff 8y agoIndeed although many have much more inclement weather than Phoenix. To be clear, this is good progress. But expansion may be slower than many think.
- spiritcat 8y agoAnd also lots that are an incremental step away. Gotta start somewhere.
- bobthepanda 8y agoA non significant chunk of trips are in places that don't look like them. If I still need a driven car for 10 or 20 percent of trips, I'm not going to ditch in favor of driverless cars.
- falcor84 8y agoIt's a service, like Uber, you're not expected to ditch the car at this stage
- dumbfoundded 8y agoWith driverless electric vehicles, an ad model can economically work. You get in the car and there's a screen with ads and if you pay extra, you get the premium features like no ads and music control. The only hard part is bootstrapping the capital to get network effects (you want enough cars so that users don't have to wait a long time). Google should have enough money.
- tehlike 8y agoAd would be a smaller part. If google can charge, it will prefer to charge. Then google has video ecosystem that is yt. And a bunch of new services that will proloferate because of the platform.
- ForrestN 8y agoFor their sake, I hope Google are wise enough not to hasten the coming backlash to advertising with such an aggressively annoying disposition toward their customers.
- jedberg 8y agoI'm pretty sure Google's thought process is more along the lines of, "If you aren't driving you have more time to use the Internet, which means more time to look at our ads all across the Internet". That's why they launched Google Fiber. They charged basically cost for it, in the hopes that it's customers would use more internet. I suspect it will be the same here -- charging actual cost (maybe including some free wifi?) in the hopes that you spend more time on the Internet.
- gretch 8y agoThis theory doesn't make sense because whether there is a human driving an Uber or a machine driving a waymo taxi, the person in the backseat has the same amount of internet time. The situation is categorically different than the fiber situation because fiber was about being vertically integrated. Theoretically a middle man (ISPs) can gang up on google and cut google out. It wasn't just about getting 'more time'.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sytelus 8y agoTLDR; Waymo will be spinning up new company next month exclusively for app based rides (name is being kept secret). Fares will be competitive with Uber/Lyft. They did year long test drive for 400 customers in Phoenix. These same customers would be offered initial access. Other competitors still remains far behind in terms of disengagement metric. This will mark the first ever commercial self-driving cab service.
- vkou 8y agoWhy spin up a new company? Is it to limit liability?
- sytelus 8y agoIt looks like Waymo might become provider of tech to sub-companies that operates specialized segments like self-driving cab, self-driving food deliveries, self-driving trucks, etc.
- panarky 8y agoWaymo does the R&D for the autonomous driver. Then separate companies build a business around each use case to monetize the driver. 1) Consumer rideshare 2) Courier / delivery 3) Corporate / fleet / trucking 4) License driver tech to OEMs 5) Lease self-driving vehicles outright 6) ???
- glenrivard 8y agoBrand. There is going to be massive job losses ultimately by SDC. You want to keep the Google brand out of it as much as possible. But also equity. Waymo employees are only given shares in Waymo and NOT Alphabet.
- sytelus 8y agoThere have been rumors of Waymo preparing 60,000 self-driving cars. So next year (or two) could be game changer.
- romed 8y ago
- slackoverflower 8y agoUber has done the hard work of normalizing ride sharing everywhere and giving consumer pricing expectations of rides, just for Google to sweep in with it fixed-cost self driving car ride sharing service to start collecting massive profits. It is going to take a while to spread nationwide but Google will do it eventually, really just a matter of time (not even money for a company as rich as Google). I'm really wondering where Uber goes from here.
- mcbutterbunz 8y agoDoesn't Uber have their own driverless car division? Toyota recently invested $500 million in it as well. I think where Uber goes from here is to compete in the space they're very familiar with.
- tigershark 8y agoYes, and it is so good that they are the only self driving company to actually kill someone.
- dilyevsky 8y agoHow is undercutting the driver (that already don’t get paid shit) going to reap massive profits? Also think about what it takes for uber to start in new city (literally a guy with a phone in a motel) vs self driving company =)
- function_seven 8y agoThe driver gets about half to 3/4 of the fare. So on a hypothetical $10 trip, Uber is getting between $2.50 and $5.00 of that. Google can price a similar trip at $7, saving the rider $3 and boosting the revenue by $2 to $4.50.
- dilyevsky 8y agoYeah but they are now on the hook for car maintenance, charging (or gas), parking etc etc
- ChuckMcM 8y agoThis will be a huge milestone for the Waymo team. I had not thought they would get here until 2025 at least, so I guess I'm overly cynical these days :-). I hope that a successful launch in Phoenix will expand out to other locales because this capability is a huge win for those groups that would otherwise not be able to make these trips. It is also remarkable that it is possible to replace a regular vehicle operated by a human as a livery service, with an incredibly complex machine and still make a business case out of it. That says a lot about how far computers have come in the last couple of decades.
- ma2rten 8y agoI feel like a lot of people had overly optimistic ideas about self-driving cars and then these pessimistic views developed as a backslash.
- erikpukinskis 8y agoYes. But the optimistic ones are right. If you believe in yourself, you will succeed And no amount of not believing in someone will cause them to fail So the pessimists are just wrong. And sometimes it’s fun to be wrong in a fun way... no shade on pessimists. But they are objectively wrong.
- MarkMc 8y agoThat happens a lot - a technology is hyped for so long that people become disenchanted, then boom suddenly it arrives and it is amazing. Think flat screen TVs, touch screen input, powered flight. I think a similar thing will happen with VR/AR when it eliminates the efficiency gap of remote work.
- Fricken 8y ago"Launch" invokes a mental image of a rocket taking off, but that isn't really an apt metaphor. Waymo has already had vehicles on some routes move passengers without safety drivers onboard. They've been charging some EZ Riders for their rides. When they do 'launch', the service still will not be available to the general public. The major thing they'll be doing is unveiling their new brand, whatever it is. They've been gradually expanding the scale, range, and capabilities of their fleet in the Phoenix metro area and they will continue to do so.
- darkerside 8y agoI know driverless cars are supposed to be the next big thing, but I have to say I've become a bit skeptical that it will improve quality of life at all. We can use technology for guided driving that is as safe as, or even safer than, full automation. And what are the other benefits? More time in the car to do what, scroll Facebook, work remotely, and look at ads? No thanks, rather focus on driving.
- SquareWheel 8y agoSome alternative suggestions: - Stop skipping breakfast. Bring a muffin. - Spend time talking/video chatting with your family. - Have a nap. Many people do not get enough sleep. - Read a book. - Just take some time to do nothing.
- darkerside 8y agoI don't skip breakfast, and I'd rather not eat in a car. I used to eat in the car, and I'm much happier and healthier not doing that. I chat with friends and family over Bluetooth headset already when I want to. I get enough sleep, believe it or not. I do agree this could be helpful for people who don't. Podcasts work great for me today, although I this is a decent suggestion. Doing nothing, in a good way, is exactly what I like about driving. It's a chance to be mindful in the present moment with a controlled activity. I don't need a computer to drive for me to do "nothing".
- danans 8y ago> Doing nothing, in a good way, is exactly what I like about driving. It's a chance to be mindful in the present moment with a controlled activity. I don't need a computer to drive for me to do "nothing". That's fine for you, but surely you don't expect everyone else to share your enjoyment of driving, do you? Lots of people would like to do something else with their time.
- darkerside 8y agoNo, people are free to enjoy their journey or not as they please. I just don't share the idea that being trapped in a metal box equals freedom just because I don't need to participate in thinking about where I'm going.
- edoo 8y agoI'm excited. If you have been alive a substantial amount of time you are easily running a lifetime average of about 1-2% chance of dying in a car accident in your lifetime. Things have gotten much safer the past couple decades so that number is somewhere around 0.75% or lower now. I want to say being injured in a car accident is somewhere around 20-30% lifetime chance. Cars are incredibly dangerous and this will save a ton of lives.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>ings have gotten much safer the past couple decades so that number is somewhere around 0.75% or lower now. On a statistical level, sure. On an individual level you can improve your person chance for survival greatly by not driving drunk and putting down your phone, the shitposting can wait. Also if you've made it past your teens your odds improve greatly. >I want to say being injured in a car accident is somewhere around 20-30% lifetime chance. That sounds absurdly high. 25% is 1 in 4. Assuming odds were equal or higher in the past then the average person has one grandparent that's been injured in a car crash. Whatever the rates for injury/death are they're probably not evenly distributed among the population.
- edoo 8y agoWow so 4.6 million people seriously injured in car accidents in the US in 2016. Given an 80 year average lifespan you are statistically at 110% risk of serious lifetime injury using the most basic statistics. 4.6M / 330M = yearly risk 1.39% x80 years = 111.5% chance of serious injury I'm sure that includes things like whiplash though.
- papa_bear 8y agoProbably more correct to do one minus the chance of no injuries. So the chance of no injury is (1 - 0.0139) ^ 80 = 32.6%, making the chance of serious injury 67.4% over 80 years.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- paul7986 8y agoWe are now guinea pigs to the robot car revolution and it's progress. Wait I didnt sign up for this!
- ajmurmann 8y agoIsn't that common with big impact, new technologies? Who signed up to have the first nuclear power plant next to them? Who signed up to live on a street that started to have Model-Ts drive on it? Who signed up to have the first gas pipes run under their street?
- paul7986 8y agoUmmm all those technological advances mentioned are zeroed in on one location that if you were worried you could move away from. Robot cars are wherever and in time everywhere! You soon won't be able to escape them.
- ajmurmann 8y agoModel Ts didn't get contained did they? For now you are probably pretty safe from self driving cars if you move to a rural area with bad weather or a place with chaotic traffic like Manhattan.
- paul7986 8y agoUmmm model T vs. horse/carriage is pretty easy to decipher. They didn't sign up for that, but at least they knew a model T from their horse & buggy. With robot cars there isn't a way by looking at to decipher robot car or not. I wonder if these robot car companies are willing to smack something on each robot car that lets all know what type of car it is?
- nuguy 8y agoAbsolutely nobody wants to hear this — but I’m an Uber driver. I work in the sf area. After an average day I go through 250 miles and have brought in a total of 330 dollars. The cost to fuel, maintain and replace my car is 20 cents per mile. Driving every day as I do, I make a lot more than most people would guess. Drivers are actually paid well which is why every other car in sf is an Uber driver. Cutting the driver out would give a competitor a very distinct advantage. AI and automation are evil. Nobody appreciates the fact that the only reason human beings generally enjoy a good life is because they possess a resource that cannot be found anywhere else or reproduced by any means. As soon as that is no longer true, life as we know it will cease to exist. Already, in today’s world where sentience is uniquely human, it is only a privileged few in the higher strata of the first world who actually have what you might call a good quality of life. How could anyone think that the waterline of poverty will move down instead of up once humans no longer monopolize intelligence? Killer robots don’t even have to be considered — the economics of true ai are more than enough. The key is that the only requirement for how the state of the world will change is that entropy is satisfied. It is actually entropy that contorted matter into our human figures that are unimaginably complicated. Society, nature and the world are a convoluted way of expending energy. Just as humans were very surprising compared to the barren earth, the next step that satisfies entropy will also be surprising. The importance of thinking in terms of entropy is that it allows you to appreciate that very unexpected and surprising things might happen because there are many weird ways that might be most efficient in satisfying entropy — many weird monstrosities of matter such as ourselves. I think sometimes the human mind has a tendency to think it’s human progress that’s supposed to be satisfied universally instead of entropy. I think that when you look at it this way you can sort of see that the global economy actually serves some mysterious, higher purpose. We tend to think of global economics as driving forward progress for humanity and our quality of life. And although this makes intuitive sense and seems to agree with the way things have gone, it’s not true. Time is a series of integrations folding in on themselves and blossoming into one moment after the next. Humans will continue to be integrated into larger and more complex super organisms — just as our mitochondria folded into us and viruses folded into our dna and rna folded into every living thing, we will succumb to the next integration and society as we know it will be lost. This is all to serve entropy. Our cars and televisions have been very convenient integrations. The most important takeaway of my insane ideas is that ai should resisted at all cost. If we allow it to exist, we will enter into a very unstable configuration Where it’s basically only a matter of time before we become lost to it. I find it very hard to carry the belief that ai is coming and that it will end the world. It causes me material emotional distress every single day. I feel very depressed even writing this.
- LarryMade2 8y agoI'm imagining the traffic/resource simulations that would certainly be run to plan such a thing, will be fun productive times. Then the next thing is all the side industries that will come of it. What will people do when they don't have to concentrate on the road while going from point a to b... Might open up more "Point B"s for people who don't like driving too...
- beerlord 8y agoCynical analysis: This announcement of 'business paying for rides' is priming the customer to have their data sold to corporations. How else would it make sense for someone like Walmart to offer the free ride? Walmart (for example) will want to know the personal profile of that customer, the routes they normally travel, where they shop, and how much they spend. That way they can target new customers who will potentially spend a lot of money on high-margin products. Alternatively, a customer who books a ride to Kmart might get a popup before the booking is confirmed - come to Walmart instead and the ride is free! Maybe the car auto-routes to drive past Walmart? Maybe it parks in a parking slot closer to their store? Lots of possibilities. Don't forget Google's original business - data collection and advertising.
- tim333 8y agoI assume Walmart would offer the free rides intending to monetize by selling stuff. I could see free ride when you spend $100 or some such working.
- vertline3 8y agoI think it will help the blind, and people with seizures, so I hope it gets figured out. I do some driving for people with visual impairment, and I enjoy helping, but this would be best.
- FabHK 8y ago> "you could anticipate a material contribution to the world from Waymo over the next couple years," he said. I doubt the drivers made redundant agree with that characterisation. (Of course, that's been the Luddites' argument all along. Will the drivers be absorbed in some other productive pursuit? Or is it different this time?)
- riya_876 8y agoThis is good initiative taken by Waymo CEO in terms of Pollution. Good Luck for this!
- gaussdiditfirst 8y agoLaunching in Phoenix only; for anyone whose never been there, the roads are straight & wide with extremely sparse car/foot-traffic and zero bad weather days. For those living in actual big US cities, don't hold your breath that this service will launch anytime soon for you...
- tonyquart 8y agoI have also read an article that discusses about self-driving cars at https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accident-injury-lawyers-attorneys/ https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accid.... I think it's always interesting to talk about this future technology. However, for now, I personally think there are still so many aspects and features that should be fixed and perfected by automakers before bringing them to public.