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Are they even profitable in SF or LA? I don't disagree with you, but if being profitable means charging more than Uber/Lyft and having slower trips on average t
by kart23 2y ago
Are they even profitable in SF or LA? I don't disagree with you, but if being profitable means charging more than Uber/Lyft and having slower trips on average than a human, thats not gonna work out too well. And these are the highest CoL cities in the us, meaning that if its not profitable there, might not be profitable anywhere.
- asdasdsddd 2y ago>but if being profitable means charging more than Uber/Lyft and having slower trips on average than a human thats just a function of the numbers of cars on the road
- dageshi 2y agoI'm pretty certain they won't undercut Uber or other taxi services any time soon because they don't want to provoke the political headache that comes with it. That type of politics could shutdown their licenses, I'm sure they want to avoid that at all costs so they're pricing above existing services. What they may do is refuse to raise prices and eventually inflation will make them the cheapest.
- Rodeoclash 2y agoThey can charge more in Melbourne and I'll happily pay it to avoid drivers that cancel the trip after accepting or accept the trip and drive away from me until I cancel.
- RivieraKid 2y agoCharging about as much as their competitors is probably the profit-maximizing strategy.
- standardUser 2y agoThey're already the cheapest if they match prices because there is no tip required. In the long run they'll inevitably be cheaper because of higher utilization of their vehicles and (vastly) lower labor costs.
- rwmj 2y agoThis is a misunderstanding of the economics of taxi firms. Taxi companies don't pay for purchase or depreciation of their cars (the drivers do), but Waymo does.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- standardUser 2y agoThere are no drivers with Waymo. Believe it or not, a living annual wage for a person (or close to it) is vastly more expensive than the annual maintenance and depreciation on even a very expensive vehicle.
- aiauthoritydev 2y agoOperational profits is not really a goal for Waymo in near term. The current goal is to be many years ahead of competition, getting permits to operate in major profitable cities with profitable routes. The cost of a Waymo car right now is around $150K. Soon, Waymo will build its own cars (with partnership with some car manufacturer) from scratch which will bring this cost to around $40K. currently WayMo has around 2 people per car employed in service roles which will be like 2 people per 50 cars. At that point they will be swimming in profits.
- ugh123 2y ago> currently WayMo has around 2 people per car employed in service roles Do you have a source for this? I'm curious about their operations
- RivieraKid 2y agoIt's almost certainly not true.
- rob74 2y ago> The current goal is to be many years ahead of competition The problem with this is that one of their competitors (Tesla) now has very powerful friends in the government which are certainly not above using that power in their favor...
- dageshi 2y agoThis is another reason why I think they will remain low key. They'll perpetually be in "beta" until they're so ubiquitous that the idea of getting rid of them is unthinkable.
- spjt 2y agoI would pay more for a slower ride just to avoid having to pay a tip.
- lopkeny12ko 2y agoYou will certainly be happy to learn that Waymo is in fact introducing tipping. https://x.com/wongmjane/status/1884136644238008334 https://x.com/wongmjane/status/1884136644238008334
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoIt goes to a charity of the rider's choice [1]. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/28/waymo-is-reportedly-building-a-charity-tipping-feature-into-its-robotaxi-app/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/28/waymo-is-reportedly-buildi...
- rwmj 2y agoI will pay more to avoid having to talk to the driver. Last taxi I took, the driver started talking to me about all the different world religions.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoThey're probably within reasonable distance of gross profit, and much farther from net profit because of the imbalance between their current fleet size and the massive ongoing manufacturing and R&D costs. The organizational goal is not immediate net profits though. Take this with the grain of salt it deserves. No one relying solely on publicly available information can give you anything more than highly speculative guesses.
- jedberg 2y agoWhy do you think the trips are slower than a human? I've only taken one Waymo trip (and my wife two) but in each case it didn't feel any slower than a Lyft. But it felt a lot safer! They definitely drive better than any human Lyft driver I've ever had. And the prices seems to roughly match Uber/Lyft. Sometimes they're higher sometimes lower. The one ride I took I chose the more expensive Waymo just for the better experience. You don't have to worry about what the driver might say or do that makes you uncomfortable or unsafe.
- someperson 2y agoWaymos are terrible at taking unprotected left turns into bumper to bumper traffic during peak hour. They aren't aggressive like a normal driver when traffic is stopped and there's a clear but small gap that would result in the car being at an angle crossing traffic. The lidar can't see any gap between cars when trying to turn into a more distant lane, so any obstruction to a close lane due to traffic kills them. Source: been stuck in and observed Waymo in this situation for 10+ minutes several times. A human driver is willing to make the turn much sooner. Don't take a Waymo if you're in a hurry and the route will have such a left turns.
- strifey 2y agoAnecdotally, they've gotten much more proactive at taking unprotected lefts in my experience.
- pesus 2y agoThey seem to be getting more proactive in general. I was surprised last night when the one I was in went full barrel through a light that was already yellow and turned red while we were still in the intersection.
- usefulcat 2y agoI’ll definitely take that over the Lyft driver I once had who went through a red light 1-2 seconds after it turned red. Not that that’s typical for ride share drivers in my area, but still.
- Animats 2y agoMaybe not profitable yet. But each generation Waymo car seems to cost about half of the previous generation.