5 ms·

I think the title is missing a word: “Alphabet _has to_ invest another $5B into Waymo”. I’d like to remind everyone that it’s still a taxi business with taxi

I think the title is missing a word: “Alphabet _has to_ invest another $5B into Waymo”. I’d like to remind everyone that it’s still a taxi business with taxi margins (best case).

Panzer04 2y ago
If you aren't paying drivers, that's a lot of margin, yeah? If you're the only driverless game in town all of your vehicles can potentially earn an the salary of a driver, like 20$ an hour. They'd pay for themselves within a year pretty easily.
- obnauticus 2y ago
  There are a ton of operational costs that Uber/Lyft have lobbied to give to cheap contractors with no benefits.
  - mlyle 2y ago
    Sure, Uber/Lyft have thus far been successful in claiming a really big share of the margin. But there's still not too much margin when the driver needs some comp. Waymo, on the flip side, has a lot of capital equipment added to cars to depreciate, but it's gotten way cheaper and stands to get much cheaper still.
    - spyspy 2y ago
      The cars may also last way longer when they’re driving around at 30mph and follow all the traffic laws to the letter. Humans are very hard on cars.
    - obnauticus 2y ago
      Can it? You still need a ton of very expensive infra, engineering, ops to manage all of this. Waymo has clearly been playing the “but it’ll be cheaper” game for a long, long time now. It makes sense if you squint really hard and fudge some numbers about unit economics. If the expected outcome is for it to be eventually cheaper, then why when I open the app does it costs almost twice as much as an Uber or Lyft? You’d think they would want to at least convince investors and train customers that the savings are real and they’re going to prove it by passing it on.
      - mlyle 2y ago
        Waymo obviously has nearly no economies of scale yet. We are just entering that part of the regime and it is going to be 2-3 years more before we are spreading those costs across a large fleet. For me, costs have been comparable to Lyft.
farresito 2y ago
It's common (at least nowadays, in my experience) in English to omit the verb or part of it in headlines.
- obnauticus 2y ago
  It’s not a grammar fix, it’s a sentiment fix.
bagels 2y ago
They could have let it die. They didn't have to.
- netsharc 2y ago
  Geez, shelving the best self-driving system, one they've put millions of dollars of R&D into, that would be a god damn shame.
  - obnauticus 2y ago
    Sunk cost fallacy

I think the title is missing a word: “Alphabet _has to_ invest another $5B into Waymo”. I’d like to remind everyone that it’s still a taxi business with taxi margins (best case).

Panzer04 2y ago

If you aren't paying drivers, that's a lot of margin, yeah? If you're the only driverless game in town all of your vehicles can potentially earn an the salary of a driver, like 20$ an hour. They'd pay for themselves within a year pretty easily.

obnauticus 2y ago
There are a ton of operational costs that Uber/Lyft have lobbied to give to cheap contractors with no benefits.
- mlyle 2y ago
  Sure, Uber/Lyft have thus far been successful in claiming a really big share of the margin. But there's still not too much margin when the driver needs some comp. Waymo, on the flip side, has a lot of capital equipment added to cars to depreciate, but it's gotten way cheaper and stands to get much cheaper still.
  - spyspy 2y ago
    The cars may also last way longer when they’re driving around at 30mph and follow all the traffic laws to the letter. Humans are very hard on cars.
  - obnauticus 2y ago
    Can it? You still need a ton of very expensive infra, engineering, ops to manage all of this. Waymo has clearly been playing the “but it’ll be cheaper” game for a long, long time now. It makes sense if you squint really hard and fudge some numbers about unit economics. If the expected outcome is for it to be eventually cheaper, then why when I open the app does it costs almost twice as much as an Uber or Lyft? You’d think they would want to at least convince investors and train customers that the savings are real and they’re going to prove it by passing it on.
    - mlyle 2y ago
      Waymo obviously has nearly no economies of scale yet. We are just entering that part of the regime and it is going to be 2-3 years more before we are spreading those costs across a large fleet. For me, costs have been comparable to Lyft.

farresito 2y ago

It's common (at least nowadays, in my experience) in English to omit the verb or part of it in headlines.

obnauticus 2y ago
It’s not a grammar fix, it’s a sentiment fix.

bagels 2y ago

They could have let it die. They didn't have to.

netsharc 2y ago
Geez, shelving the best self-driving system, one they've put millions of dollars of R&D into, that would be a god damn shame.
- obnauticus 2y ago
  Sunk cost fallacy