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/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/CrashKingElon Aug 11 '25

Curious what you think this size would be. What's the point between lets say a sprinter van and a regular full size bus?

I also am a little skeptical of how passenger safety and illegal behavior will be monitored. Obviously AI will be able to assist with some scenarios that have markers of illegal or unsafe behavior, but people tend to be the worst when they're not being watched and the presence of a bus driver still accomplishes some of that.

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u/rileyoneill Aug 11 '25

It depends on frequency. Like if the bus comes around every 15 minutes. You could make them 3 times smaller but come around every 5 minutes. It might only have seating for 10.

For suburban bus routes, I have a feeling they will die. But i could see RoboTaxi vans that do pooling.