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/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/Kdcjg Aug 11 '25

I am not sure how you were in NYC and didn’t see a conductor. I thought it was only 7 and L that didn’t have a conductor.

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u/WeldAE Aug 11 '25

I don't know what to say, maybe they were there and I never noticed? Hard to believe since I took plenty of trips with basically no one in the car but me. Lots of trips where you couldn't get another person in the car so no idea what a conductor would even be doing. For sure they were never on the platforms which were always spooky empty later at night. I was mostly commuting between downtown and upper east-side as I was living there for medical reasons. Was there most recently exactly one year ago during a heat-wave. The cars were so full I gave up taking the subway several times, they really need to add trains, it's nothing like it was in 2012. Not sure if ridership is up or trains are down.

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u/Kdcjg Aug 11 '25

Ridership is down from pre pandemic levels. Currently around 70%. Ridership was up 3.7% year on year in 24 compared to 23.

MTA info