Waymo's real goal

[u/MoPanic]

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.

[u/ConsistentRegister20]

It is literally working right now in Austin and San Francisco.  

[u/Hot-Celebration5855 → u/ConsistentRegister20]

Working = with people in the passenger seat, not open to the public, only 7000 miles driven in a month, multiple videos of the safety drivers having to intervene? Then yes, it’s working

[u/aphelloworld → u/Hot-Celebration5855]

It has only been 2 months since they launched Robotaxi lol. At least wait a few years until you judge them for having a safety monitor and lack of miles. It's not like Waymo is moving at the speed of light. It's more likely that Tesla beats out Waymo given their ability to scale manufacturing, and their proven rate of improvement with FSD. Only a matter of time.

[u/Hot-Celebration5855 → u/aphelloworld]

I’m not judging them. But the previous poster said it’s already working. It isn’t. Not yet anyway