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Been in a Waymo in SF — impressive tech. But I keep wondering: does the math actually work? Car + all the sensors + maintenance + mapping. Can a single vehicle
by YKutsev 2mo ago
Been in a Waymo in SF — impressive tech. But I keep wondering: does the math actually work? Car + all the sensors + maintenance + mapping. Can a single vehicle ever turn a profit?
- twosdai 2mo agoI thought about this as well. The dsytopian world I think will exist in the future where the Waymo is priced higher and people will want to take it more, over a cheaper Uber. Precisely because the human driver is removed from the equation. So yes, I think they will be able to turn a profit by charging more for the experience. Which is a humanless car.
- jerlam 2mo agoAt least in my area, Waymos are always more expensive than Ubers.
- fragmede 2mo agoSo, uh, you don't really tip your Uber drivers much then do you? Right now, Tuesday 3pm, Waymo will cost me 13.76 cross town. UberX 10.95, Lyft 11.95. If I don't tip Lyft/Uber they'll be cheaper but I definitely don't tip the Waymo.
- jerlam 2mo agoThe pricing was 30% more the last few times I used them.
- cortesoft 2mo agoJust checked where I am (which, admittedly, is late at night), but for a random ride to a restaurant 2 miles away, Waymo was $9.34 and Uber was $8.91. This does match my earlier observations, where the prices were pretty damn close.
- otterley 2mo agoThese companies are taking a very long view (and are funded accordingly). The future vision is one in which cars with drivers just aren't a thing in cities anymore. Nobody owns a car to use in day-to-day intra-city journeys; instead, you just take a drive in an autonomous vehicle on demand.
- Philpax 2mo agoAre you running your replies through a LLM, or is the LLM producing them entirely?
- overfeed 2mo ago> Can a single vehicle ever turn a profit? That depends on how low they can get the costs. Waymo took delivery of the last Jaguar i-Pace, and are scaling up production of the Zeekr-based EVs, which I assume are significantly cheaper. I think the math works, using car rental companies as an anchor point: they are (mostly) profitable*; they have relatively lower Cost of Revenue, but Waymo will have much fatter margins. * There was a blip when Hertz had to write-down its bold bet on EVs didn't quite work out.
- fragmede 2mo agoBack of the envelope, three car costs $200k, charge $20/ride, say that ride costs $5 to operate, $200k/$15 gets you 14,000 rides (rounded). Say 10 rides a day... shy of 4 years to break even. Substitute in whatever numbers you think are reasonable.
- dmitriy_ko 2mo agoUber rides are around $1.5 per mile on average. Assume Waymo car drives 200K miles over it's lifetime, 3mi/kWh EV efficiently and $0.20/kWh electricity cost. It will generate $300K over it's lifetime and use $13K worth of electricity. Right now it costs $150K to manufacture Waymo car because they are custom built and Lidars are still expensive. Even at $150K unit economics should be OK. But the cost of self driving cars will go down as they are manufactured at larger scale and will eventually approach cost of regular mid-range car. In a few years they will be under $50K per car. Mapping is a one-time cost and the need for mapping will eventually disappear. This will be a massively profitable business for self-driving fleet operators.
- xnx 2mo agoGood calculation approach. Waymos will drive a lot more than 200K miles in their lifetime. Taxis often do a million miles. There are already photos out there of Waymo odometers over 100K.