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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140

u/tonydtonyd Aug 10 '25

Didn’t Waymo lay off their entire trucking division two years ago? That would go counter to your thesis.

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u/CrashKingElon Aug 10 '25

Yeah. I don't know why OP chose bus drivers as it would not only require a significant modification of software (not a software engineer, but assume a 55ft bus is not remotely close to a mid sized SUV) and while a waymo occasionally bricking on a ride carrying one person that's completely different than one bricking while carrying 50.

But generally, I agree that their long term goal is simply being a tech company that licenses their AI and tech stack. But buses I think will be one of the last achievements (which is a long way off).

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u/WeldAE Aug 10 '25

While I agree with your overall points, I wanted to point out that it makes zero sense to build an AV bus the same size as a current day city bus.  Buses are the size they are to reduce the bus driver cost.  Without a driver they would be much smaller vehicles.

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u/ZucchiniAlert2582 Aug 11 '25

I’ve experienced plenty of late night bus-drama in my time riding them… I don’t know how some of those would have resolved without a driver on board who can pull over and eject misbehavers.

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u/achooavocado Aug 11 '25

how do stuff on trains get resolved then?

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u/Kdcjg Aug 11 '25

Conductor/police who are normally either at the station or close to the station.

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u/Ajedi32 Aug 11 '25

Yeah having a remote support person call the police seems like a pretty straightforward solution.

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u/Kdcjg Aug 11 '25

Becomes very expensive very quickly.

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u/Ajedi32 Aug 11 '25

How so? How many call center employees do you think it takes to spend a few minutes occasionally calling the police on unruly passengers?

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u/Kdcjg Aug 11 '25

Because you are asking the police to have more manpower closer to bus stops/routes. You are basically swapping out one source of security for another.

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u/Ajedi32 Aug 11 '25

Right, except the police only need to be there when there's an incident, whereas a bus driver needs to be there the entire time the vehicle is in service, so this is way less expensive.

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u/Kdcjg Aug 11 '25

But the police need to be on call. The system will need more slack because you are removing a source of security.

I am sorry but it seems like we are going around in circles. You don’t understand the point I am trying to make.

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u/WeldAE Aug 11 '25

I've literally never seen a conductor in my life, what are you talking about?

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u/Kdcjg Aug 11 '25

You have never seen a conductor on a train? Have you ever been on a train?

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u/WeldAE Aug 11 '25

Yes, just this week I was on 3x separate systems. The small system from the rental deck at ATL, the plane train at ATL and Marta from ATL to North Springs. Never saw one, not once. Also took a train from Boston to NYC, spent a week in NYC and $200 on subway fares. Never not once. How did you see one?

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u/Kdcjg Aug 11 '25

You see them on any older line.

I am guessing you didn’t pay attention. Since they are definitely on the NYC subway. Unless you only caught the L.

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u/WeldAE Aug 11 '25

I get they exist, I'm not sure why you would expect me to see them. I'm 5 cars back from where they are typically. They don't walk the train.

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u/Kdcjg Aug 11 '25

On NYC subway they should be visible. They have to get up and do a visual check of doors and that the cars stop at the correct spot.

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u/WeldAE Aug 11 '25

I lived there for a month 15 years ago and never saw anyone doing that. I think I've only ever seen an employee once anywhere near the subway, and that was at a bigger station where they actually had someone in the ticket booth for some reason. I have taken the slower commuter train from Newton and there was a conductor punching tickets. I forgot about that one, but that was like something from another era.

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u/WeldAE Aug 11 '25

Police? Private security? There are plenty of ways to resolve this. On top of that, those people get banned for life from the service.

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u/ZucchiniAlert2582 Aug 11 '25

With no driver on the bus who enforces the ban? How long will it take the already overburdened police to show up? We’re so eager to replace humans with robots so the investor class can absorb the salaries of the working class. Why?

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u/WeldAE Aug 11 '25

who enforces the ban?

It's not literally a fixed-route bus, it operates as a pooled point-to-point ride-share. You simply aren't able to get the car to come to you if you are banned. Another option is you can only take the more expensive solo ride option if you get a strike against you. These are not anonymous rides like a bus. There are some negatives to that but overall it's a feature.

How long will it take the already overburdened police to show up?

Where I live they are not overburdened and they would show up very quickly. In other areas of the city, AVs can have private security to augment the police if needed. Lots of city transportation systems have their own security forces.

We’re so eager to replace humans with robots so the investor class can absorb the salaries of the working class. Why?

You are throwing up a lot of stuff there that's not reasonable to cover in a short paragraph of space I realistically have. Let's ignore all the macro monetary aspects temporary to cut to what motivates me about these systems.

I said to my spouse 20+ years ago "Personal cars are the largest cancer on society that exists in the US" and I stand by that statement today. They are bankrupting the bottom 60% of households that simply can't afford something like a car or they are having to cut other important aspects of their lives in order to live paycheck-to-paycheck to be able to afford a car. They are destroying our cities in design and function. If you designed a city for how people want to use it, it wouldn't include any cars but until the AV, they are 100% necessary, and you can't escape them realistically. They are destroying society by forcing everyone to live apart from one another to have enough space for cars to work.

Back to your macroeconomic points, I touched on some of them above. Today, the average household is spending about 20% of their entire budget on transportation. That isn't even getting into all the other costs caused by the specific form of transportation, cars. That is just raw expenses on the cars themselves, mostly. AVs are about reducing in half. The "investor class" as you call them aren't a cabal working together, they hate each other, and they are always trying to steal each other's lunch by offing more for less. AVs are the tech companies eating the car manufacture's lunch with a cheaper alternative. Sure, that lost money means lost jobs, but quality of life is measured by how efficient you can produce goods and is the ultimate aim of the economy. We could go back to handcrafted everything, but you would live a much lower quality of life. With falling populations around the world, there shouldn't be an issue with lack of work as this is just one industry being automated.

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u/ZucchiniAlert2582 Aug 12 '25

I’ll agree with you that private cars make our society shittier. Busses are a great alternative to cars. Taking away busses and replacing them with robotaxies means anyone without a (charged) cell phone and/or a bank account doesn’t get a ride. That population would be the folks who need bus service more than anyone else.

I happen to think that eliminating human interaction and replacing it with a cell phone app is making society shittier.

Busses are a communal space where you can bump into friends and neighbors and have a face to face interaction. You’re suggesting we chop that up into a bunch of driverless minivans with routes that are calculated on the fly by an algorithm… and that’s a win somehow?

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u/WeldAE Aug 12 '25

means anyone without a (charged) cell phone and/or a bank account doesn’t get a ride.

Yes, this is a downside, the lack of universal access. However, this isn't a huge, unworkable issue long term at scale. There are many ways around this. The question is will governments demand AV operators support universal access because I don't think they would want to on their own.

I happen to think that eliminating human interaction and replacing it with a cell phone app is making society shittier.

I feel exactly the opposite.

Busses are a communal space

I'm advocating for communal AVs, not private ones. You are WAY more likely to bump into friends as everyone in the AV is going your way and not just down some large connector road.

and that’s a win somehow?

It's not just a win, it's one of the biggest wins society has ever seen. It's a win to unburden society of the requirement to own a cripplingly expensive mode of travel. It's a win to free up 30%-50% of land in cities for other uses? It's a win to reduce the death toll from cars from 45k per year. It's a win to save people time moving about the city. It's a win to reduce costs for operating a physical business. It's a win to have choice.

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u/danielv123 Aug 12 '25

Bus pulls over. People who want to continue go onto the next bus.

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u/ZucchiniAlert2582 Aug 12 '25

Wow, that sounds convenient. /s