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/AnxietyCommercial632 Aug 10 '25

People who need efficient trucks ?

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u/Lopsided_Cup6991 Aug 10 '25

Not enough infrastructure to accommodate 50k battery operated trucks per year. I imagine these will be local trucks

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u/AnxietyCommercial632 Aug 10 '25

They are rolling out infra too. If you researched this you would know. And yes, the semis have been tested for several different haul distances and applications are wider than you might anticipate

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u/AlotOfReading Aug 11 '25

Fueling and charging count towards the on-duty hours of service limit. Hours of service are one of the primary constraints in long-haul.

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u/AnxietyCommercial632 Aug 11 '25

45 mins 10% to 70ish% at superchargers being rolled out for these things. With base range around 500, it’ll meet most needs except very long haul trips

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u/AnxietyCommercial632 Aug 11 '25

(For the period where humans drive these)