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> When robots drive cars, we will have more cars driving around This doesn't seem true. In SF, waymo with 300 cars does more rides than lyft with 45k drivers.
by vmg12 1y ago
> When robots drive cars, we will have more cars driving around
This doesn't seem true. In SF, waymo with 300 cars does more rides than lyft with 45k drivers. If self driving cars interleave different tasks based on their routes I imagine they would be much more efficient per mile.
- mg 1y agoExisting rides will be done more efficiently but since rides are so much cheaper without a driver, much more rides will be done. A car driving from A to B will cost less than 50% of the current price. Which will unlock a huge amount of new rides.
- 0_____0 1y agoIs it really only 300 cars? They feel like they're everywhere!
- simonw 1y agoI thought it was more than that too, but according to https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/alphabet-says-waymo-may-offer-robotaxis-personal-ownership-future-2025-04-25/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/alphab... > With more than 700 vehicles in its fleet - 300 of which operate in San Francisco - Waymo is the only U.S. firm that runs uncrewed robotaxis that collect fares. Those numbers are from April 2025.
- floxy 1y ago>We’ve also incrementally grown our commercial fleet as we’ve welcomed more riders, with over 1,500 vehicles across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin. https://waymo.com/blog/2025/05/scaling-our-fleet-through-us-manufacturing https://waymo.com/blog/2025/05/scaling-our-fleet-through-us-...
- asdff 1y agoIf waymo is doing more rides with 300 cars than 45k drivers on lyft, we can assume then that waymo cars are on the road serving customers at least 150x as long of time as a lyft driver. So yes it could really mean more cars are "around" even if the fleet is much smaller.
- floxy 1y ago>This doesn't seem true. Seems like we are way too early in the adoption curve to tell. Currently the average number of passengers per trip is >1.0 across the whole fleet. Some day, I'd expect that to dip below 1.0, as people send an empty car to pick up the dog from the vet, or circle the block to avoid having to pay for parking, etc.
- thelastgallon 1y agoThank you for this data point. It massively lowers the embodied carbon footprint (carbon from manufacturing, supply chain, transportation, etc.). Operational carbon is a solved problem; it is easy to measure and can be supplied from renewable sources.
- fallingknife 1y agoThat would mean that 5.5% of the SF population are lyft drivers