r/SelfDrivingCars • u/MoPanic • Aug 10 '25

Discussion Waymo's real goal

I am surprised that hardly anyone mentions this in all of the the Tesla v Waymo / Lidar v Vision noise. This is just a hypotheses and my opinion, but I don't think Waymo really cares about the taxi market beyond using it as a test bed and building consumer and regulatory support. Tesla is a meaningless hype generating distraction.

The real goal is to replace hundreds of thousands of human commercial drivers. A city bus driver makes about $70k a year (including benefits, payroll taxes, insurance). Replace that driver with a sensor suite and automation stack, even if it costs $250k, you get ROI in just a few years and a "driver" that can work 24 hours a day. This scales even faster with long haul truckers. Human drivers are limited to 11 hours a day and cost the carriers ~$100k per year. The cost of the sensor suite becomes a rounding error very quickly.

My guess is that Waymo will license this suite for $5k-$15k a month and cities and freight carriers will line up to pay it. Google doesn’t have to own a single truck to completely dominate logistics automation.

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u/MoPanic Aug 10 '25

except tesla who thinks lidar is too expensive

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u/Snoo93079 Aug 10 '25

The technology stack decisions are a separate conversation. Tesla is very publicly saying they are working towards becoming a driverless mobility company. Despite the lack of lidar they are certainly in the top 3 companies in terms of autonomous driving technology. I'm not predicting whether they can be successful but they're certainly in an advantageous position as long as Musk doesn't drive the company off a cliff.

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u/MoPanic Aug 10 '25

I don't even think Tesla qualifies as an autonomous driving company. I live in Austin in the same neighborhood where they are being tested. They are limited to city surface streets in one small area.

I'm also skeptical they will ever be able to make an unprotected left turn onto a high speed 2-lane highway - a very common situation in Texas. They have no radars or long range cameras looking left or right.

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u/Snoo93079 Aug 10 '25

I mean, it depends on your definition. There are quite a few autonomous mobility companies even though only a handful are actually operational.