As a Waymo-booster on HN for a while now, here's my latest anecdote. I tried to figure out how to take Waymo to LAX even though it's not actually in their territory yet just because I value the experience so much. I was borderline going to take it within walking distance (about half a mile), but got lazy at the last minute. I took Lyft instead, and, as if the universe cursed my laziness, I booked a "comfort" car for $3 more than the base level Lyft. At first I was going to get a Tesla Model Y to take me, but that cancelled. Instead, what must have been a first generation Honda Pilot picked me up, suspension creaking and muffler that had seen better days. Did Lyft recognize what they sent instead of the "comfort" they promised and therefore charge me $3 less? Of course not. When I tried to contact customer service I ran into what I'm sure plenty of HN people have, which is a dead end where you report the issue and they (programmatically?) adjudicate the complaint on the spot. Their determination? I wasn't entitled to a $3 refund. Ironic that the rideshare app with human drivers doesn't allow me to contact their customer service whereas Waymo has no problem with it (yeah, yeah, I get it, "we'll see once they reach a huge scale." But today the experience is so much better than Uber or Lyft that while it lasts I will bask in its driverless glory).
I've had a couple bad experiences with Lyft recently, including one time the driver must have clicked that they picked me up while a block away, because I could see the lyft driving to the destination without me. I tried to get a refund since I was obviously waiting my start location the whole time, but the system claimed the drive went from start to finish (even though I wasn't in the car), so no refund.
Same thing happened to me, and the support system automatically decided nothing was wrong whatsoever despite my phone certainly sending a very different location from the driver. And the madness was I couldn't even book another ride as I was technically in one.
So I ended up getting it resolved via the security panic button which did put me through to a real person who was empathetic to the issue.
Uber lets you enable a PIN for each ride. The driver can't say they picked you up until they punch in the random 4 digit PIN the app gave you for the ride.
That's must be annoying to say the least. In India drivers require an OTP to start a ride.
The OTP is the same for a user across rides, so I have mine memorised which is nifty. No fiddling with the phone during boarding.
On security: exploiting this would require the driver to stay in my vicinity the next time I book a ride, and also get the ride assigned to them.
In a high population density area, it's rare - I've never had the same driver twice.
I’ve heard the story from the other side as well: App reports ride is arriving, people get in, they go the wrong way and see their original ride stating that you are not there and leave again.
So it may not be intentional. Just coincidence and poor verification.
I waited 40 minutes for a Lyft at an airport because the driver made up a story about an accident and traffic, in the airport. No one else seemed to be affected by this traffic- so eventually I tried booking an Uber. It arrived 3 minutes later.
20 minutes after that the Lyft driver keeps texting me “where are you?!”. Their turn to wait!
Saw later they just started the ride without me and drove to my hotel.
Lyft said “this trip was completed, no refund”. Welp, app deleted.
Companies that cheap out by not performing the basic obligations of business end up paying more for small claims court - provided their ripped-off customers actually take them to small claims court. Did you?
> Their determination? I wasn't entitled to a $3 refund.
Frustratingly, Lyft’s position on this is that if you don’t like the car that arrives you should reject it when it arrives, otherwise you’re not entitled to a (even partial) refund, even when they know on their end that the car they sent doesn’t match what you paid extra for.
This seems... interesting, legally speaking. I imagine the idea is that you're implicitly accepting alterations to the previous contract by opting to take the car? Would that argument hold water, legally?
Tip: You can take Waymo to just outside the economy lot, then hop on the shuttle to the terminals. The shuttles have their own dedicated lane for going around the loop, so this isn't even that much more time. It's my new favorite way to get to LAX.
Ah, I saw the economy lot as a potential option. I tried to get the location to resolve on the app, but I think I only tried the lot itself and not directly adjacent to it. Thank you for pointing this out!
Uber has done that to me. You pick a class but what you get seems unrelated.
I need more space for luggage and such and ... some "mid-sized" SUV picks me up that has about as much space a regular sedan anyway ... often the same type of vehicle that picked me up the previous day as a regular vehicle.
I paid extra and scheduled an Uber with a child seat. After waiting 30 minutes, when the car showed up, there was no car seat so the driver canceled right away and drove off. Lesson learned.
Same here. To alter-quote The Simpsons, "My eyes! The classes do nothing!"
Shortly after pandemic, I noticed "corridor fees" on vastly different routes which, mysteriously, bumped-up the price by the same percentage across each route--but only after the ride had completed. The price I was quoted was not remotely close to the price I was charged.
I did the customer service messaging thing. The first time, they removed it. The second and third time, they declined to remove it.
I now "decline" riding Uber unless there's no other option.
Uber seems wilfully deceptive in so many ways. The initial listing of rides including details of vehicles and prices, which looks like an actual offer, but the app then goes off to try and find something similar. Try being a shop, selling someone an item and then going out back to rummage around and see if you actually have anything like what you sold. And then the 'fixed price' you agreed on gets arbitrarily changed on half the trips if traffic gets worse or the driver takes a different route. If I book a trip from the airport, the airport's charge for rideshare lane usage isn't an "unanticipated expense". It's just skeezy.
Before Uber and Lyft destroyed the functioning taxi market, you got Mercedes by default for a traditional, regulated taxi in many EU countries.
You didn't have to argue, interact with a surveillance company, interact with customer service etc. All you needed to do is pick up the phone and get a luxury ride without tracking or surveillance.
My experience in my first-world country is that all I needed was to spend 10min on the phone to be told there’s no taxi available, or to be told it’ll take 30min and actually it take 1h30. Drivers aren’t any more amicable than uber drivers either (less, if anything).
Not to speak of many countries where taxis are outright scammers and getting into one is taking a real danger.
The surveillance is exactly why Uber and Lyft works. If drivers misbehave, evidence is all there. I’d honestly trade reliability over a temporary luxury ride in a Mercedes.
Lol. Before Uber 'destroyed' the functioning taxi market in Amsterdam, getting a taxi after going out meant waiting for sometimes up to 45 minutes. It meant standing in a line and when someone cut the line in front of you, saying something about it could get you in a fight. Taxi drivers often were (former) criminals who cashed in their savings of black money to get a taxi license and a quiet life.
Occasionally tourists were robbed or taken on detours, good luck to get your money back in those days. And I'm not even mentioning the outrageous prices yet for a taxi drive in the city in those days.
Uber might not be 100% perfect but it has been a real blessing, a salvation of all the misery that we had to endure in the 'functioning' taxi market.
Yeah, before Uber and Lyft I would get a Mercedes.
Except that it took forever. I had no idea when anyone would show up. The driver was annoyed and drove like an insane person. The few times I've actually feared for my life have been on highways with taxi drivers. It was incredibly expensive.
Oh, and half the time they ripped you off.
Yup. And there was no tracking. So if that person wanted to say, drive an insane route? Enjoy. Take a detour. Done. Or dump your body in the woods. You were totally at their mercy.
The taxi system was horrible. The pinnacle of protectionism carving out its niche of crap.
Was it? In many EU countries a lot of taxi drivers act like scammers: take you the long way around, they don't issue you receipt by default because they do tax fraud or steal from their employer, you can't pay by card because suddenly the card machine "doesn't work" so they drive you to an ATM, then you pay cash and they try to keep the change, they don't speak English or even the local language, they don't know the local streets or landmarks you're referring to because they're not from there, etc. All that is super annoying. Multiply it if you're a tourist or on a business trip or job interview.
Ride sharing fixed all that since you just punched in the destination in the app (in your own language) and got the price upfront and shielded you from the antics of scammy drivers and the friction of getting to your destination. That's why ride sharing apps were so successful initially.
It wasn't about the price, it was about the friction or lack thereof.
>you got Mercedes by default for a traditional, regulated taxi in many EU countries
Mostly IIRC Berlin, Brussels, Stockholm and some other rich countries, definitely not EU wide.
Uber and Lyft priced out those needless amenities and transferred into their profit margin. If customers has properly priced those in, the market would see that they are retained. Efficien-en-en-ent!
pfah, I remember my Mercedes trip to Paris airport where I had a physical fight with the driver (10 years ago). SO glad to see the taxi business go down the toilet. Easily over 50% of them were scamming tourists.
Charges for goods not delivered as agreed falls under the protection of the Fair Credit Billing Act. If you made a good faith attempt to resolve with the merchant (which you did) you should use your credit card to charge back the amount (some let you request a partial charge back, but if not you can request a full one and explain in the extra info that you want a partial one).
This might not seem worth it for $3, but if they get a lot of these the credit cards/banks might start giving them a hard time about it, so I think it's worth the minor hassle (everything can be done via the credit card app usually)
> you should use your credit card to charge back the amount
Don't you end up getting a new credit card number and have to deal with updating your details everywhere after doing this?
> This might not seem worth it for $3
It seems it's also painful and seemingly not worth it by design. Whenever they can make the process so painful that going through it essentially pays way less than your wage they can get away with it 99% of the time.
I've had the same many many times. I think almost universally it's fair that the product/provider upgrades your experience when you agree to pay for something, but when they are specifically telling you "pay x and we'll give you y" and then they give you <y that's, I think, shitty.
Of course, that happens, but the point is that it's a crapshoot, and you don't know what you're gonna get until the driver confirms, and you don't know what the car's actual condition is until you get in. And regardless, it's always reasonable for someone to provide you a better service/product than you paid for, but it's never ok to do the opposite.
With Waymo, you know what you're going to get every time. I've also never experienced a Waymo interior that was in bad shape when I got in the car, though I'm sure that does happen to people.
$3 is small enough that almost everyone will just eat the cost. I have a theory that they do this intentionally in some things(well Uber I've never used lift). Almost every time I order food and something is wrong or missing they'll give me a refund that is $2-3 off what it should be. Like if I order a $5 item and it's missing their service will refund me $2. At that point I can chose to spend literally an hour going through different support flows to try to reach a human who will correct it and give me the extra $2 or I can eat the loss. It's happened to me at least a dozen times now so I imagine it's common enough across the whole world to add millions of revenue each year.
I'm not sure I'm reading you correctly, but if you mean it's a small problem because $3 isn't much money then, heck yes, it's a microscopic problem (is there something smaller than microscopic because if so then it's whatever that thing is)! But I didn't bring it up to complain about the $3 per se. I can elaborate, but I'm not sure if that's what you were specifically referring to or if I'm misunderstanding your question.
The $3 often makes the difference between someone that should not be allowed to have a drivers license, and a someone that's been driving high-end limos for years.
For example, I once had a driver that heard regenerative breaking was good for fuel economy, so decided to cycle their busted prius between 60mpg and 70mph every few seconds on the freeway. I was carsick for 2 hours after that ride. Another time, I had an angry line of people tapping the windows and politely giving the driver some unsolicited advice. (The mob was right; I mostly just tried to hide my face.)
So, the $3 is a big problem, but has nothing to do with money.
Worth knowing that Uber bought Dantaxi, Denmark's largest Taxi company a couple of weeks ago. The Uber app will tap in to Dantaxi driver pool.
https://www.uber.com/en-DK/newsroom/dantaxi/
I wonder if strong worker unions and regulations forced Uber to buy an existing company rather than starting their own presence.
Its the principle, not the size of the cost. If a company with good customer service accidentally overcharged me $200 but I could call someone and have it fixed easily that would set me off far less than a company that screwed me out of $1 who has shit-tier dark pattern customer service.
all "cab"-like cars that are not shaped like London Black Cabs are failures. The seating and luggage carrying is so much better than a regular car it makes me sick.
I'm on holiday in Japan at the moment and I notice the cabs look like London cabs and are mainly black too. Made by Toyota. I haven't yet taken one, so I don't know if the similarity extends to the interior layout.
Agreeed. My last uber and Lyft rides were an unpleasant experience of late pickups, cancelled pickups, and old rickety rides. I use the train over uber and lyft
I never heard this once before HN. What is particular about Teslas? Is it the rapid acceleration from the electric motor... or lack of familiar engine sound?
People don't hate automation. They hate BAD automation.
From your description seems like: Waymo -> Good Automation, Call Center -> Bad Automation.
The day we will have a chatgpt level automated customer care experience, we will complain every time humans answer our requests, with their accents and attitudes!
Oh man, hope it's ok to poke a little fun. I think we just violently agreed with me praising automation from one company and deriding automation from another. So I'll update your "seems like": Riding with Waymo (IME) -> Good Automation, Lyft customer support when they "stole" $3 from me and didn't provide me with a way to fix it -> Bad Automation.
Do you think it's bad automation? I think it's a cost optimisation thing, we don't give refunds and we don't give people a channel to complain. We only measure revenue from trips and as long as that stays up the service quality is ok.
People paying more for Waymo doesn’t surprise me. I also once called for a comfort car, but it was a filthy Lexus. I’d much rather ride in a clean and well maintained Corolla.
I pay more for Waymo and I’m happy to do it (as long as Waymo can detect when its interior is dirty so it can return itself to home base for cleaning.) I don’t have to sit awkwardly in a car with another guy who may drive in a way that annoys me. I can talk on my phone or with my family without having a random person listen in.
I have only used car share once in my life. (My mother ordered it, and it was fine.) To me, a dirty car is pretty much unforgivable as a car share service. Do you report it on the app or just give a one/zero star rating and hope the car share service will fix it?
> I don’t have to sit awkwardly in a car with another guy who may drive
You hit the nail on the head. I cannot belive that I am 100+ posts into this discussion and no one has mentioned it. It was the first idea that popped into my head. How about if you are woman? I would gladly pay a bit more to have no other strangers in the car with me.
The Uber comfort designation frustratingly has nothing to do with the condition of the vehicle. I believe the parameters are age, seats, and model.
From the driver's point of view, it just means that you are allowed to accept comfort rides but most of the time you're probably going to be picking up UberX passengers which are more plentiful. That means you're only slightly more likely to get one of the good comfort vehicles if you actually select the comfort tier.
A friend was recently in Milwaukee (first time ever. He was there for a conference).
He, his wife, and another friend, wanted to go out to eat.
They were given a wrong address. Could have been the source, or it could have been they screwed up writing it down. It was definitely a wrong address, though, that they gave to Uber.
The driver picked them up, and took them to the address, which was deep in Da Hood. Not a good area for three middle-class white folks to be wandering around.
The driver insisted they get out, even though it was clearly a wrong address, and a downright dangerous neighborhood (my friend has some experience with rough neighborhoods. If he said it was bad, it was bad).
My friend offered to pay whatever it took, to get to the correct address (they had figured out their mistake, by then), but the driver refused to do that. It was probably algorithmically prohibited.
My friend had never used Uber before (and never will, again), so wasn’t aware that you are supposed to be able to appeal to Uber.
I have a feeling that my friend offered to rearrange the driver’s dental work (Did I mention that he was familiar with tough neighborhoods?), and got the driver to drop them off in a better area, where they caught a cab.
Sounds like a bad customer experience. I doubt Uber ever heard the story. My friend never bothered contacting them, and I will bet that the driver didn’t.
If I was that driver, you bet I'd be contacting Uber to try and get your friend banned for life. Threatening a driver is never ok, even less so when it's not his fault.
If your friend thinks it's okay to threaten to assault a driver, especially for an issue that wasn't the driver's fault, then it sounds like "da hood" is where he belongs...
The only difference with the Waymo experience would be that there would be nobody your friend could threaten to assault for putting in the wrong address.
You’ve got to invest with the VC money. As companies mature and enshitification begins, jump onto the next hot thing that’s going to disrupt the now incumbent.
There’s no free lunch, but this is the closest we’ve got.
another anecdote taking Lyft - they showed me $10.76 price for a trip to the airport when Uber showed $21. obviously i called Lyft and they placed a temporary charge on my credit card for $10.76. Once the driver dropped me off, i noticed that the base charge jumped to $16.76 + airport fees and my total with tips came to a bit over $27. I contacted Lyft and they denied and claimed that they always showed me $16.76. smh. i have proof from my credit card that they placed a hold for $10.76 and yet they refused to adjust the price.
why do you think you will get better service with waymo when it's as established as the others?
the whole market is a race to the bottom to extract rent from what should have been a municipality cost center.
oh, do you like waymo automated support and driver better than Lyft automated support? or just can't imagine a world where tomorrow waymo will have aging cars too?
This makes a lot of sense to me. When you ride in an Uber or a taxi, you're a guest in the driver's space. In a Waymo, it's your own space. You can play music, talk on the phone, etc. without worrying about disturbing the driver. You're not likely to have strong odors, or driver's phone conversations. And the experience will be roughly consistent each time. In an Uber, you have no idea what the car or the driving standards will be like until you're in it. I trust my own driving over a Waymo, but I'd trust Waymo over an average Uber driver, let alone a bad one.
I've had some nice conversations with Uber drivers, but I've had some unpleasant rides too. I'd definitely pay a bit extra for a good driverless car. ('Good' being key. After trying out the Tesla FSD beta a couple times though, you couldn't pay me to ride in one of those without the ability to grab control.)
There’s something to be said for being able to not be forced to deal with a person, but I see something different personally.
I’m “old” (40s) so I didn’t grow up with Uber. Maybe that colors my take.
I don’t want to hire random Joes. If I wanted to buy a lift from a random person, I’d expect it to be very cheap.
If I’m hiring someone to drive me from A to B I want a professional service. I want professional drivers in a fleet of maintained cars.
With Uber/Lift you don’t know. Many drives do a great job and treat their cars/passengers like they’re professionals. Others don’t.
The taxi industry sucked. They had no competition and could get lazy and do a terrible job and people still had to use them anyway. That needed fixing.
But I don’t think the lesson we should learn is “taxis bad” but “bad service is bad”. And Uber/Lyft being so variable is not a plus at their prices.
The professional driver in a professional fleet service exists. It existed in the taxi era too.
If you ever see an aggressive driver cutting their way through traffic in a perfectly maintained Escalade or Navigator heading towards the airport, that’s them.
Exactly, I will pay a premium for not having to deal with a human being in the car with me.
It's a dice roll: you could get a very extroverted driver who won't leave you alone, or someone who smells bad, or someone rude, or a distracted driver...
There's also the issue of tipping. I haven't been in a waymo but I generally tip well in Uber or Lyft. I wouldn't tip a robot. So at least to me $15+$5 tip vs $20 is pretty much a wash.
Why is anyone surprised that a smaller segment of the market will pay more for a safer ride in a luxury vehicle compared to a base model Lyft (which can be a barely drivable car with rank cloth interior where you can't even fit two people in the back seat)?
Next up, some one will post, "First class tickets cost more than coach."
Waymo will eventually have Waymo Comfort and Waymo Black.
Maybe it's my rampant misanthrope leanings, but even in more trivial things like choosing automated kiosks other staffed in CVS, I'm just more comfortable not having to make small talk with a person, worry if they're having a good day or not etc.
I'd happily pay 20 percent more to Waymo for that personless experience too.
It's interesting how American cultural expectations of forced social interaction may be having the effect of promoting automated systems as a reaction.
As someone who lives in Spain and has lived in the UK, the idea of choosing self-checkout at a supermarket to avoid small talk with a cashier sounds alien to me; we simply don't do that here. While cashiers will certainly chat with certain customers while scanning their items, it's either that they know each other or it was initiated by the customer. I always choose staffed checkout over self-checkout because it's literally less effort for me, but I could imagine American social expectations at checkout —"How are you doing today?", "Oh these apples look amazing!", "Having a party are we?"— absolutely tipping the balance of effort and pushing me to self-checkout.
If the automated systems work I'd use them. Instead, USA systems are designed around trying to prevent theft and they error in the store's favor. I've had those automated systems scream that I haven't put my purchase in the bag. The purchase being single envelope of yeast, too light to measure. So it screams and scream "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG", "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG", "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG", "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG" until some employee comes over and presses reset on the machines. Meanwhile the entire store is glaring at you.
So yea, I've stop using automated machines in the USA.
Exactly. You're not paying more for the same ride. You are paying to have some time alone. To not have to deal with others where you can listen to an audiobook, have a conversation on your phone that feels private or other things.
I mix and match but I’ll take a Waymo if it’s <= $5 more for these reasons:
1. Literally zero variance. Every car is the same. Every driver is the same style. If it says it’ll be there in 7 minutes it will be 7, not 5 and not 10.
2. A jaguar SUV is a premium vehicle. It’s comparable to an Uber black not a regular Uber.
3. It’s so child friendly. My son can make all the noise he wants and I can take time loading him in without a driver being impatient.
4. They’re very clean. I’ve never been in a dirty or bad smelling Waymo. That’s very nice.
5. No aggressive driving. I’ve had Ubers that scare me weaving between lanes above the speed limit. A Waymo is always smooth.
People are excited by driverless cars but it also means a car with no social barriers and no person who considers the cars condition important. For now they’re well surveilled and a premium vehicle. Soon they will be filthy pods in a race to the bottom with all the charm of a public bathroom. They’ll be cheap, but you’ll get what you pay for. Private driverless cars will be the premium alternative.
did you report it? Ideally the person that left the bandages in the car would get flagged. They get flagged a few more times for littering in the car they get banned.
Yes, you don't know if it was the previous person, previous previous, etc but if they are a repeat litterer it won't take long to figure out who it is and warn them they'll lose their privilege to use the service if they continue to abuse it.
You’re experiencing the early pre-enshittified product. Ubers used to be cheap and excellent too, but then they started optimizing for profit. I assume this will happen even faster for Waymo, just because tech firms have more experience now.
I'm willing to pay more for a better ride experience:
* Waymos are all the same. I underrated the value of this until I started taking Waymo more often.
* I can control the music and volume with my phone.
* I can listen to YouTube or take a call without AirPods. Sometimes I even hotspot and do some work.
But most importantly Waymos all _drive_ the same way. I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either driving in a confused and circuitous way, distracted by YouTube, or just driving dangerously. I am more confident that I will have a safe ride in a Waymo than in an Uber.
I've been picked up multiple times by Uber drivers who have, essentially, bragged? about being drunk or high.
I've also had multiple drivers in multiple countries try to sell me drugs.
I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept in stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped (which, was actually fascinating, and would've been very concerning if we ever got going more than like 10 mph).
Women also have to worry about drivers trying to hit on them.
The list goes on.
It's not a surprise a lot of people will pay a premium to avoid all that.
This is the thing that people don't realize about autonomous AI.
It's not primarily about saving money.
Autonomous taxis are superior to Uber and yellow cabs. It's a better experience, and it's far safer. Autonomous cars aren't cheaper, they're better.
When AI agents replace human jobs, any cost savings is secondary. A coding job where the AI does most of the grunt work is superior to a job where humans do everything. It's better for the worker (less tedium). It's better for the employer (consistent style, greater test coverage, security vulns evaluated for every function, follows company policy and procedures).
AI agents done well are superior at call center jobs, screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial analysis, most business consulting like process redesign, etc. The biggest benefit isn't reducing payroll, it's doing the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.
I also had one of those drivers who would sleep in traffic. I assumed he was very sleepy deprived and it was stressing me out while we went over hwy 17 in Santa Cruz
> I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept in stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped
Imagine how desperate you would have to be to drive a cab when you're that sleep-deprived (probably haven't slept in 36 hours). Now imagine someone took that income away from you to give it to Sundar Pichai.
Yeah, sometimes it's unpleasant talking to a cabby, and sometimes he won't take a hint and stop talking. But you might learn something if you try to engage, instead of vibe-coding inside a surveillance robot.
I’ve ridden in Ubers across Hwy 17 in Northern California and I’m pretty sure some of those drivers had never taken a non-90 degree corner in their life.
More than once I semi-jokingly texted people at work that if I didn’t make the next meeting it was because I met my untimely end in that car.
I rode my first Waymo last week through Inglewood and Santa Monica and I felt so much more safe than I have in other ridesharing systems.
I think ridesharing is not the end game for Waymo. If I could just straight up buy a personal vehicle that was a Waymo I’d do it tomorrow.
I'll never forget the driver who watched anime on his phone all the way from the San Diego airport to the hotel.
And all the drivers who seem to think driving with the windows down for 2 minutes will make it impossible to tell they were just smoking weed/cigs in the car.
Recent uber ignored us and listened to a fantasy audiobook on speakers whole way to airport. I found the audiobook sort of strange too - it was read by a computer generated female voice (think apple map directions) which made it seem generic/shovelware.
Same here. Waymo doesn’t make me feel car sick, while aggressiveness-incentivized uber/lyft drivers do.
Thinking of incentives, I wonder what happens when self driving is “solved” to the point they can start nickel and dime optimizing. I wonder if waymo starts driving overly aggressively at that point too.
A dime of commercially priced electricity is around a kWh depending on where you are. That'll take a car a lot further than you think, and the more aggressively you drive the more electricity gets used. The most efficient way to drive is the flattest, most leisurely route.
The only way aggressive driving becomes profitable is when you've exhausted your supply of cars. Even then, it's not clear to me that you'd increase profit in that time by driving faster, since one car over the course of a day might squeeze in one or two extra rides at most. Just having more cars that sit idle until needed would accomplish the same thing with no extra risk.
In fact, the biggest area for optimization is getting the car to the next rider from the end of a previous ride. But that's not about being fast, that's about positioning idle cars in the right places to minimize distance to potential riders. If pickup distance becomes a hard bottleneck, it's again about capacity, not speed. Most of the between-trip driving is not on highways and back roads, it's through dense areas with lots of stop signs and traffic lights, so increasing speed isn't even really feasible.
It's always a bad feeling when you get in the car and the driver is on the phone with someone and clearly starts talking about you in another language. Or even just mumbles something on the phone and you're not sure if they're talking to you or not (and they are, like 20% of the time). Super stressful.
> I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either driving in a confused and circuitous way, distracted by YouTube, or just driving dangerously.
A weird route is generally fine with me (as long as it doesn't increase travel time by much; remedy for that case is to decrease the tip), but driving distracted/dangerously is an automatic low rating from me. I am pretty much an "always 5 stars" kinda person, but safety issues are serious.
All this would do is cause noise pollution. Have you never had the displeasure of riding with someone who will leave their seatbelt unplugged despite the annoying beeping?
This is where self-driving taxis could succeed. I don't want self-driving on my personal car because I am more trusting of my own abilities. But I have had too many Uber rides where I've seriously considered asking them to pull over and let me out. Never any accidents but some really dangerous driving and a couple of drivers where it was 50/50 whether they were drunk or high. I'll trust the self-driving over a random Uber driver every time.
Waymos will get cheaper to make as they scale up. The Ioniq version [1] costs less to build. All the sheet metal and mechanical mods for Waymo are done at the Hyundai factory in Georgia.[2] Waymo just mounts the electronics.
Jobs at the Hyundai factory start at $23.66/hour, with reasonably good benefits.[3]
The other day I almost got ran over by an old lady in her old Volvo wagon at a stop sign. She seemed to have gotten confused a little and was turning left but couldn't figure out the right move to make. People behind her honked and she decided to just go for it. I happened to be in the crosswalk and just happened to look over at the honking, and saw her coming, so managed to jump out of her way.
She was easily over 90, if not over 95.
People like her could really benefit from a personal Waymo. Just sell a car with FSD built in, at the level of a Waymo, and bam! That would make so many senior citizens' lives easier!
this is 10000% the wrong approach— the approach is to build better, more walkable cities, with better zoning, and public transit so elderly or disabled people aren’t left out of society.
these people shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car; to me one of the biggest annoyances with american life
Hell, it’ll make MY life easier. Can’t wait for the day where I can do whatever the hell I want while my car drives itself. Affluent seniors that shouldn’t be driving are an obvious market and it would have been helpful for those in my life, too.
We're far from them doing it, but I have to imagine at some point Waymo, assuming they survive, will operate similar to Uber and Lyft in terms of pricing vs vehicle type. They have to realize how critical consistency-of-ride is so I'm not suggesting they'll have tons of options, but they will "have to" tier their offering lest someone else comes along (assuming the tech becomes more widespread) and offers a tier they don't offer. At the least I would think they'll end up with a base ride (like an Ioniq or even something extremely basic), an Ioniq or Ioniq+ type in the middle and then some kind of larger, more luxurious option. I mean this as it relates to rideshare because I'm sure Waymo has had plenty of internal conversations about the various verticals they can eventually operate (shipping, mass transit, etc.).
Well it depends on their competition and what the market will bear. If they have competitors with a similar-quality product that is undercutting them on price, Waymo will have to lower prices to compete.
And regardless, there's always a ceiling when it comes to what people will pay. In the case of a robotaxi there's of course significant marginal cost to expand the fleet of vehicles, but if they can make more money with more cars at a lower price point (than fewer cars at a higher price point), then they'll do so.
In my experience, most price increases are in labor-intensive industries. Construction, etc.
Compare with tech, which is what a Waymo is like: computers, TVs, etc are insanely cheap compared to their equivalents in the past.
I had to point out to a Gen Zer complaining about how video game companies keep jacking up prices ("this game for the Switch is $80!") by pointing out that when you adjusted for inflation, a Super Nintendo game cost over $100 in today's money.
jags and ioniqs are a midway stop for sure. there's no need to have a seat you can't use with a steering wheel and windows that are not totally blacked out. the final product would probably resemble something closer to Cruise One concept.
I bet they will try and expand service area over expanding inventory. It's very expensive to keep cars in reserve for peak times, Uber gets around this by offloading the cost onto their drivers, but waymo will need to be able to pull cars from nearby areas.
$23.66/hour in Savannah, GA in 2025 is a starvation wage. Savannah has a bad housing squeeze with very few apartments and they still cost nearly $2K/mo when you find them. God bless those poor souls.
- To not feel weird about the little things like talking or rolling down my windows or setting an AC Temperature
- To know exactly when and where my driver will pick me up down to the exact curb.
- To not have to make small talk with a person. Even when requesting quiet preferred you’ll get an uber driver who wants to share their life story or trauma dump on you.
- To not die. I’ve been in some terrifying Ubers with either bad drivers or just exhausted ones.
And carsickness. In stop-sign city traffic, I get nauseous with the breaking and speeding of aggressive driving. I mean stop signs are problematic for other reasons too, but I don’t want to get to a dinner with friends feeling sick.
That said, if I’m going mostly highway to the airport I want a driver who’s knowledgeable and opportunistic, picking the best lanes and not missing lights.
The last time I got an Uber, it was driven by a young fellow who looked to be in his first year of driving (I could be wrong), the car smelled like mothballs and was obviously in poor shape, and he accidentally drove on the wrong side of a divided road for a block or so (he was apologetic). The last time I tried a regular taxi stand, the car looked even worse, and it broke down. So, we called Lyft, and the driver could not find where we were because it was not a normal address (she was trying her best, but her English was not up to the task of understanding our explanation).
Waymo's selling point might be that its cars are all in good shape (right now), and customers know this.
I formally report it every time I'm in a car that has the deodorizer turned up to 11 because it makes me nauseous. My worst one was a 30 minute ride to the airport in LA - I thought about just having them pull over and ordering a replacement
I've had this happen many times. One time, I got into an Uber and it smelled like there were 100 kilos of cocaine in the trunk. Not joke, the car reeked of coke.
I have zero clue if they still do, but based on my experiences lately with Uber and Lyft there's zero chance they fire drivers even if they have terrible reviews. I'm an "always 5 star" type of reviewer (sorry if you think I'm obligated to be honest!), but, man, it's rough out there at least in big cities in the US. Sorry that's not reliably answering your question, but even if Uber said they fire those people I would not for one second believe them.
Part of the problem with this system is that I’m hesitant to give a driver less than 5 stars (unless they are truly dangerous) because I don’t want to take someone’s livelihood away.
This is amazing. Don't forget that by you doing this you're taking us one step closer to AI replacing not just the job of drivers but the jobs of all of us. Good sides and bad sides.
Hopefully we won't get there and only uber drivers are the ones screwed. Since you and I aren't uber drivers, we don't really care do we?
I'm for equal opportunity screwing: if they lose their jobs, it's only fair my job is at risk too - and given improvements in programming agents, it will be.
The only way we're getting through this is by facing it together, not throwing the more precarious of us under the bus.
I'm not actually convinced that "AI" will even replace all the jobs of drivers. Rumor is that Waymo had trouble in Austin (where I live) when they were centered downtown, because they would gridlock. I'm not convinced that they will work well once they become common on the roads, because they will all drive cautiously, and that may lend itself to gridlock situations. Right now they're in the SE corner of town (also where I live), and they don't seem to gridlock, but the first thing they do is almost always to go to another part of town. They will likely have a useful place, but I'm not convinced that it will pay enough to keep the cars in good shape, long term. The cars are all new, right now, but what happens when they get old and start to malfunction? Will they be making enough money to pay for that? Right now they might (like Uber and Lyft before them) just be burning through VC money, without any prospect of profitability.
Reading the comments here, the experiences people are sharing feels out-of-world since I live in Tokyo and it's unthinkable to have a bad experience in a Taxi/Shareride like that. They've always been very professional, the highest quality I could expect. Cars always clean, driver always polite, etc. Sure, there WILL be some edge case out there, but I've ridden taxis and Uber many times here and not a single odd experience, nothing at all like what is being described in these messages.
I also live in Tokyo and surely you’re not expecting Japanese taxi standards to be remotely comparable to US Uber or Lyft, right? It’s a race to the bottom in any major US metro. Japanese taxis are refined and designed around passenger comfort. There is a specific model of car for Taxis. In the US you’re rolling the dice on what Uber or Lyft offer.
I'm not from the US, I'm from Spain and while they are better in Japan than in Spain, it's not like the "out-of-world" difference that I'm seeing in these comments. That's why I'm confused, I expected the US to be similar to Europe in these regards. I have taken Uber a couple of times while traveling to the US (long ago though), and while they were dirtier than in other countries it wasn't that bad as the comments suggest.
So either things have gone dramatically downhill or I had a "good" experience in my brief US rides relatively speaking.
As a non-American, I am not sure why it's so crazy to think standards would be high in other countries? Grab standards and quality in e.g. Taiwan, Thailand, etc IS within the same order of magnitude as Japan and those are much poorer countries than the US.
This doesn't surprise me at all.
I work in the EU but recently the Americans we hire are very hesitant to have conversations with service providers. They will pay more to use a service that has an app, rather than call up another taxi company by phone for example (and it's not a language barrier problem, because everyone speaks english). I can see this extending to not wanting to have a driver in their taxi.
I see this with UK people recently too. I'm not sure what it is. I'm not saying it's not an EU thing at all, but from my vantage point, the behavior is most prevalent in Americans
Edit: After reading this thread, it's possible this could be sampling bias and more of a cross-country generational thing from mellennials down. (I am a mellennial too)
Americans have been raised for a couple generations to be afraid of people. "Stranger danger." Apocalyptic news media. A general millenarianism-run-amok "the final battle between good and evil is coming and evil outnumbers us" assumption that permeates much of American culture across the political spectrum. Catastrophizing.
Somehow that had an impact on our social skills! It takes a lot of work to de-program that if you're not a natural extrovert.
This is a disingenuous take. Americans value their time probably more than any other culture. I’d rather be able to keep reading a book, read some interesting HN content or talk with my friends on Discord more than have small talk with a random uber driver.
Americans are often a bit early on trends but honestly as a German, I would love to see waymo here. We are very slow at adapting new tech so it probably still be many years away but it would be a total game changer for me.
Especially if they offered an option for pet-owners. Being able to just chill with your pet and not bothering anyone would be amazing.
Why? Just the consistency is worth the extra money. You know exactly what type of car you are getting. You don't have to worry about getting a bad driver or anything. It just works. Plus the whole tipping thing just sucks. I don't want to decide whether to tip and how much. I want to pay what the service costs and that is that.
Also personally, I just don't like people serving me. Probably because I would barely survive a day in a customer facing job myself. I never quite sure if they attempt smalltalk because they want to talk or if they expect to get a better rating. It is just so awkward.
There are people that genuinely like to work in service jobs of course and long term job loss will suck for them so I am not exactly helping.
Years ago when I worked in the food industry, customers would voluntarily pay 20% more for the entire meal just to use the doordash app instead of calling us up. We informed repeat customers that they pay a premium to use 3rd party apps - they just kept using them anyway.
I much prefer ordering with a website to ordering on the phone, especially when ordering for several people. Many of the restaurants where I live now have their own websites.
Talking on the phone is the most painful form of conversation for me. The sound quality is often awful, due to the ambient noises picked up by phone, which occurs particularly often for busy restaurants. You don't know if the other side has heard you because you can't see them and there's no visual signal, so there's more back and forth, prolonging the pain. Since you are ordering via the phone, you have to pay by reading out your credit card number. People sometimes hesitate, and you don't know if it's a bad connection, or if they have just paused......
So yeah, I'd gladly pay a bit more to order via an app. When I'm ordering delivery, I'm already paying premium on that day anyway, the margin of which is way higher than 20%, so I might as well go all the way and avoid dealing with something I don't like.
If I'm not using an app, I'd rather run a mile to make the order in person, than make a phone call.
For the first time in my several decades, I live in walking distance to amenities (e.g. bank, hardware store, local & fast -foods).
Literally across the street from my neighborhood is among "the best local pizzarias," and I'll still offer to pay for the entire order if somebody else orders / picks-up ("tip them well" I'll usually suggest). I just don't want to talk on the phone (and don't use apps).
...Americuhly, the usual neighbor still drives (it's like 1000m, round-trip).
Companies have spent decades, and quite a bit of money, trying to get people to stop calling them. It's worked. People mostly only call when there is no other option.
This. It used to be that customer service agents in America were super helpful and would go an extra mile for you. Not any more, dealing with customer service is just a lot of pain, and often a waste of time.
As an example, let's say you have a problem with Windows. Would you rather ask AI for help or a human support agent on the microsoft's website?
> They will pay more to use a service that has an app, rather than call up another taxi company by phone for example
Using an app for taxi booking is so superior to ordering by phone (even excluding potential preference for not talking to service providers) that I have trouble understanding what's puzzling you.
I’ve had multiple experiences of calling a cab company and them no-showing. You can call them back and it’s “oh yeah someone’s on their way, 15 minutes.” 40 minutes later, nothing.
With an app, you have a very clear indication of how far away your driver is, but more importantly whether they’re coming at all.
(Also with the EU specifically I very much had an issue with the language barrier in Florence).
Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or back in the US? Could the language barrier be a reason for their hesitancy?
I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained, but most of my peers in their early 30s are generally fine with calling people or sending an email perhaps depending on the service.
A robot isn’t going to decide it doesn’t want to take my ride after accepting it and drive around aimlessly hoping I’ll get tired of waiting and cancel. I haven’t needed Uber/Lyft on a regular basis in several years, but back when I did that was a frequently recurring problem.
There's also a problem of drivers discriminating, like canceling rides if they see you have a guide dog. It's illegal and they can get banned for it, but it still happens. This wouldn't happen in a Waymo.
This happens so much now. It's infuriating. I wish they would put a stop to this. A few weeks ago, I had multiple Uber drivers do this. Eventually, I gave up and ordered a Waymo because they were the only ones who would pick me up.
Reliability was the main selling point for me ~10 years ago. You could also get a ride quickly. It's the total opposite now. I've missed a flight due to multiple cancellations. I've been left standing in dangerous areas of town for an hour late at night trying to get a ride. Now, for important things where possible, I'll take public transport. It's far more reliable.
If you want to compete with Uber, increase prices and increase reliability significantly. There are times when a lot of people will be more than happy to pay rather than risk their safety. Undo the enshittification.
People are eager to pay money to not deal with other people. Which makes me pessimistic about the future of humanity given recent developments in AI really
I question that as a general statement if the "other people" are competent, clean, and polite. That's not to say I won't do something online if it's lower friction than going into a DMV office or whatever. Though I don't really do online food delivery in general, I'm perfectly happy going to a number of local restaurants.
If I could be 100% certain that every Uber/Lyft driver I encounter would give me a perfect "social" experience (where "perfect" varies for me depending on the day), I'd choose it over Waymo at the same price. But of course that's unreasonable and impossible to expect. So for a comparable price and wait/drive time I'll pretty much always pick Waymo.
It does make me sad to some extent; I do enjoy interacting with people working service jobs in my neighborhood, people I see on a regular basis and who recognize me. But I don't think that's ever going to be the case for me for something like a taxi/rideshare driver.
Other people are different, that's the thing, while AI is generally predictable quality, and it's not going to go down. Autonomous driving is just one example, I really think it's a general pattern
Well it's not just the talking or otherwise awkward interactions. It's also smells and generally being in a person's personal space. Let's face it, sitting in a car, you physically get closer to the driver than you'd normally be comfortable with in an open, unrestricted space. And the car is closed too. You are essentially forced to be in their personal space. Not so with a driverless car.
Waymos are more pleasant to be in and people value comfort. I've had many Uber drivers who love to speed, which can be terrifying in SF. The bus can be a real crapshoot with who's on it. The bus also can take forever depending on where you start and where you need to go. The service that waymo provides is just on average better.
> People are eager to pay money to not deal with other people
I wonder if it's cultural. For instance I always hear how Japan has a lot of vending machines and am wondering if it's just pure tech advancement and efficiency at work, maybe lack of space to open a proper kiosk with a seller, or there is a cultural element of not wanting to "inconvenience" others having to interact with them.
One is low crime rate, vending machines even in major cities do not get vandalised or broken into. The other is Japan's massive focus on convenience.
I don't think lack of space is the issue. Combinis are everywhere but you'll still see vending machines in most parking lots and laundromats.
Tech advancement is also relevant. I believe Japan invented vending machines that serve hot and cold drinks simultaneously and they adjust with the seasons. They invented improved ways of loading the cans and spend a lot of effot on the design and art, there are even vending machine exclusive drinks etc.
Japan does have a lot of vending machines. Maybe less vandalism in Japanese cities?
But they also have a lot of staffed convenience stores (typically 7-Eleven) that are generally better than the random chain convenience store in the US (often in a gas station).
For Japan I expect it's also a matter of population/crowd density in the cities. There are tons of staffed convenience stores (7-Eleven, Family Mart, Lawson), but even with a high density of stores, they're often fairly crowded.
Having lots of vending machines even for simple things like bottled water and soft drinks reduces the pressure on the convenience stores quite a bit. More advanced vending machines with other products helps even more.
It could be that a particular segment of the population prefers the privacy and is willing to pay accordingly, while other segments of the population don't mind the social interaction, or at least are not willing to pay for its absence.
Kind of how like some people greatly prefer WFH, whereas other people like the social interaction of being in a shared working environment.
From my perspective, having the choice of whether to ride with a driver or not is a good thing.
People who like Waymo (and those who hang out on HN) are probably to a good degree neuro diverse, so I wouldn't write off humanity just yet. My experience with the majority of people is that they do like interacting with humans. I guess that's why we still have stores, restaurants and gasp offices when, technically speaking, there hasn't been too much of a need for any of these things for about two decades now.
In Austin, Waymos are hailed via the Uber app, which will quote you a price which is good for either a conventional Uber or a Waymo, and you get a Waymo if one is available. Same price. The Waymo is actually cheaper because there's no tip.
The issue I have with Waymo is that getting in and out of those i-Paces as a "person of height" is rather difficult - I really have to do a strange contortion - and if I want to sit in the right rear, there's nobody in front to pull the seat up for me so there's not enough legroom. (I've moved to adjusting and sitting in the front passenger seat when I get a Waymo, something human Uber drivers hate.)
"there is an idea that autonomous vehicles are something that will erode driver jobs and put drivers at risk. And I think the irony of what we’ve seen is that it’s actually quite expensive to run an AV, and that that’s not going to be happening, at least in the near term"
Why are they assuming the higher price results from supply rather than demand? Seems like a no brainer that waymo will trounce drivers on price once adequately scaled
I love Waymo, but Waymo is not cheaper 100% of the time, unless you have that data? I've had Waymo quote me $26 where uber comfort was $11. I could "tip the bill" and still be under Waymo.
>Tip – Uber and Lyft cost 20% more than the ride price.
Idk maybe because I used rideshare apps before they added tipping, but even as someone who tips 20% at restaurants I don't tip rideshares.
The original argument Uber had for not adding it was because 'the fare included it', but seeing people now see it as required does kind of backup why they dragged their feet on adding it.
My experience is very different. About a year ago I'd agree that Waymo was mostly cheaper or comparable in cost to an Uber/Lyft ride, but in the past 3-6 months I usually see Waymo at 75%-150% more than Uber/Lyft, and yes, I do account for the Uber/Lyft tip when I compare.
I live in Romania and I only tip restaurants a standard of 10% (not fast food, not coffee, just restaurants). Also delivery people when they help bring heavy stuff into my appartment (theoretically they are only paid to bring it to the block entrance).
Back when I used taxis we would tip those. But I have never tipped an Uber. Or a Glovo (our Door Dash) deliveryman.
Started off as a way to pay people less, especially for odd jobs.
Grew to a point where it's disconnected from the actual value of the service, so people like waiters make way more than if it was priced according to market price, but people pay anyways because it's not about the service, but about not feeling guilty for being cheap. The ecosystem has now found a balance that hurts the consumer, which they're willing to put up with because it's socially ingrained. The people providing a service make more, the business owner doesn't really care, and can't get rid of tips because it's a cutthroat industry and they wouldn't get workers, and higher wages would cause sticker shock, so they too have no incentive to make any changes. The customers group is too big, and don't have enough structure to organize any meaningful change. So it is what it is.
You can see it now, people complain about how tipping is everywhere, including for walk-ins where no table service is provided, but eventually this too will be normalized.
My personal hope is that one day we start tipping our doctors, our dentists, our programmers, to see how big and stupid this dumpster fire can grow.
I’ve never seen Waymo be cheaper than Uber/Lyft, but then again the audacity of them charging more even when they are driverless made me stop bothering to check pretty quickly.
One of the selling points of Uber over taxis has always been that you don’t have to tip. I get that some people are excessively generous but it’s absolutely not required.
If you’re the kind of person who is willing to pay more for a fancier car, good for you. I take the bus if it could just get me from point A to point B in a reasonable time, Uber is a last resort that costs 10 times as much as public transit, at least in San Francisco. It’s disgustingly, offensively expensive. And somehow Waymo charges more? Absolutely ridiculous.
Speaking to a European woman, she said she was not surprised women would pay more not to be harassed. I guess in her country there is more of that. Me, I enjoy human interaction, but the European female angle on taxi "safety" was something I hadn't considered.
i've had quite a few experiences with AWFUL uber drivers as well. i think it would be beneficial for uber to require some sort of ODB monitoring like some insurance companies do. one time on a trip to the airport, i almost had the driver pull over on the side of the road to let me know. i was GENUINELY scared by her driving.
I've been taking these rides 5-6 days a week, everywhere, and also in other countries outside the US. What I've come to realize is this: what matters to me the most is the consistency of the lowest bar of the experience.
I get that sometimes with human drivers, when I'm lucky, I get someone who goes above and beyond, someone who's fantastic to talk to along the way, and so on.
But if I can trade all that with a guarantee that there's a consistent, predictable floor to my worst experience, I'll take it in a heartbeat.
At the end of it, I take a ride to get from point A to point B. I'd rather have a machine does it for me very efficiently, without all the messy human element, with the ups and the downs, because it's the downs that ruin my day.
100%. I've discovered the floor: Small cars that probably aren't safe, trashed interior, and drivers who smell of literally every vice while talking on the phone AND playing whatever music all together. "Premium" is simply not that experience.
Assuming the rides are comparable, the article has a table which includes price/km (weird) of Lyft: $7.99, Uber: $8.36, and Waymo: $11.22. On that data, Waymo is roughly 40% higher, so way more than just a tip.
in my limited experience, you're not usually tipping a percent but a flat dollar amount of like $2-5 per ride, so $3 on an $8 ride basically removes the price difference between lyft/uber and waymo
The Waymo cars are really comfortable luxury Jaguars. For Uber and Lyft there are many price tiers, but to reliably get an equally or more comfortable car you probably need to book the black car options. I’m sure Uber / Lyft are way more expensive per mile than Waymo on that tier.
In addition to all the things people have pointed out that makes it a better experience.
Almost every Uber Black and Black SUV I’ve ordered was a Chevy Suburban or GMC Yukon.
The quality is across the board, but one thing I’ve found consistent is the terrible quality seats. The seats feel like it’s just cardboard supporting you that pops in and out as you move with the car.
It’s rare to get an actual luxury car even when paying more.
Their promise of “professional” drivers is also wild. Sometimes you get a guy who’s friendly and seems eager to please and helpful with luggage, but I’ve had plenty of downright rude drivers who feel inconvenienced by my presence.
> I’ve had plenty of downright rude drivers who feel inconvenienced by my presence
This is my general observation about life (at least in the US) these days: the seeming prevalence of people who think they're doing you a favor by doing their job.
“Colloquially, there is an idea that autonomous vehicles are something that will erode driver jobs and put drivers at risk. And I think the irony of what we’ve seen is that it’s actually quite expensive to run an AV”
This seems like a temporary problem. Google is charging what the market will bear and doesn’t have ability to get more cars on the road.
The simpler explanation is that Google mismanages its pay-per-use consumer-facing products. Consider Google One and YouTube Premium are also overpriced, and everyone tells them so.
It's obviously a mistake to charge more than Uber or Lyft, it's crazy obvious, like mind meltingly obvious. Sometimes it's just the obvious thing. Google's problem is that its management is so bad, it doesn't understand: just because something happens (paying more for rides) doesn't mean it makes sense. After all taxis are more expensive sometimes, and people pay for them, and where's the article that litigates all the dumb reasons people give for doing that?
This phenomenon is interesting, and a bit surprising. I can kinda see it: while my experiences with Uber & Lyft over the past ~13 years has been overall very positive, there are quite a few minor-seeming-but-adds-up-to-annoying things that can happen with Uber/Lyft that just won't happen with Waymo:
* Driver cancels and you have to wait for a new driver to accept.
* Driver is really chatty and you aren't in the mood, or worse, they want to talk about uncomfortable topics like politics or religion (and even worse, they hold views you find bad). I sometimes (rarely) get drivers who want to complain about something or other, and it's just awkward.
* Car condition is unknown until you get in, and could be bad. There might be unpleasant smells, either from cleaning issues or driver body odor.
* It's hot enough for air conditioning, but the driver instead has windows open to save gas (which is dubious anyway as open windows creates more drag); it's uncomfortable but you feel awkward asking them to close the windows and turn a/c on.
On the other hand, sometimes you do get an awesome driver who enhances the experience beyond what a robotaxi can offer. I'm not the most chatty sort with people I don't know, but I have on occasion had a really fun, positive conversation with an Uber/Lyft driver that I genuinely enjoyed. And in SF at least, Waymo will still not drive on freeways, so if there's a significantly faster freeway route for your trip, Waymo will take more time.
I generally do prefer Waymo over Uber/Lyft, but I'm not willing to pay all that much more for it. One thing to remember is that you should also factor in the tip you'd give the Uber/Lyft driver when making the comparison, since you don't tip a Waymo. Lately I've seen prices like (tip-adjusted) $12 for Uber/Lyft and $25 for Waymo for the same ride, but I'm not willing to pay that much more for Waymo. If Waymo is a few bucks more expensive I'll use it, but not $10. (I also have a 10 points per dollar thing on Lyft rides with my credit card, so I try to remember to take into account a more-or-less 15% discount on the ride, versus the standard 1.5% 1 point per dollar I get with Waymo.)
I would expect it to happen much less often. And each instance of it will likely only be for a single customer's ride, as they'll report the issue in the app, and the car will be taken out of service until it's cleaned.
For an Uber/Lyft driver, if they're even (made) aware of the problem, they'll probably not take care of the issue until they've finished their day of driving.
Electronic vehicles have made riding in Uber's an almost uniformly nauseating experience (literally). In order of preference I will walk/bike -> public transit -> Waymo -> drive myself -> consider staying at home -> Uber/Lyft
Most drivers are not conscious about rolling the gas or keeping it stable and drive by pulsing it on and off to maintain speed because they don’t have the attention, finesse, or both to drive smoothly. Also rolling on the inputs is not something most do. I used to train drivers for racing and not stabbing the gas or brakes is a learned skill that takes some time.
Where a person will likely accelerate for too long having to then brake harder, a Waymo smoothes out the curve, preserving energy, which also means less jerk.
Not to mention that in SF you have the hills that add to the math.
Teslas do this by default. They have very strong acceleration, since they were marketed as "sports cars" to people who don't know sports cars, and strong regeneration for efficiency and one-pedal driving.
Depends on the driver, but over the years I’ve gotten a decent number who floor it out of every stop sign/light and don’t adequately modulate speed to match the flow of traffic. With how quickly EVs accelerate I could see that making for a less than pleasant ride.
The worst is Revel, which, in NYC, are ALL teslas/EVs. worst taxi experience of my life was a 1 hr drive to airport in stop and go street light traffic. I appreciated the hustle but deleted the app soon after my gag reflex subsided. they should at least disable regenerative braking or something
As a man I thankfully haven't ever really felt unsafe (in this way anyways, definitely some bad/distracted Uber drivers) but I could see women or kids finding Waymos to be a safer overall experience worth a premium
Recently my daughter and I had to take a Uber home from airport at 11pm. I did not like the driver and I did not like the situation and I seriously was considering exit plans if he started going off the normal route.
The next time I had to take a late Uber I paid up for Uber Premium, which is maybe imperfect reasoning but the driver was pleasant and polite and didn't give any bad vibes.
my eastern european mind cannot comprehend 2 things:
- if the average price per ride is $20.43 and average price per km is $11.22 does it mean that the average ride length is 1.8km? that seems kinda low..., like that's something I would walk if I didn't hurry..
- if the higher prices are really influenced by costs of operating AV and not simple greed fueled by "offering a better product", how long it's gonna take to be competitive in countries where driver salaries are lower than US? In Bratislava where I'm from the UberX price per km outside surges are lower than 1€ (there's a minimum price per ride of 4.50€ though, but a ride to the airport which is 9km away is 7.41€ now (and that's without the frequent discounts Uber offers, currently I have a 30% discount offered and it would cost me 5.19€ with the discount)...
> does it mean that the average ride length is 1.8km? that seems kinda low..., like that's something I would walk if I didn't hurry..
Idk about the average but I used to make a bad joke that walking is considered an extreme sport in most of the US. Sometimes, it’s for legit reasons such as extreme heat, literally no sidewalks, and areas that are perceived as dangerous because of the people there. Other times it’s just seen as a discomfort ”why walk when you can sit in a large car”. This is reflected in language, where ”walkable” is a frequent term used to describe the often rare parts of urban areas where you can comfortably walk from A to B. In EU there’s often no need for such a term.
> how long it's gonna take to be competitive in countries where driver salaries are lower than US?
Why not share my prediction, it’s probably as bad as the rest of them: I think this stage right now is about viability. Getting training data and real road experience, knowing what sensors are needed, range of road conditions, and grasping the enormous amount of novel traffic situations. I don’t think the purpose of the pricing is to make profits, but rather to test the markets end-to-end. Essentially, it’s an R&D project designed to inform and instill confidence for future investing and scaling.
As for replacing human drivers, I think it’ll be region-by-region with a very long tail. Since cost of labor varies so much, you’d need many years to bring costs of vehicles and maintenance down to be competitive. Plus, expanding to new regions have huge fixed costs and risk, much more so with AVs than normal ”Uber-style” services, with BYO labor & vehicle. These things need service centers, depots, offices, probably quite densely, no? Not to mention the politics, unions etc.
One of the most recent Uber rides I took was in Orlando. As the crow flies it was almost exactly 500 meters from point to point, but Google has it as a 50 minute, 4km walk. Most of the US is really not set up for walking.
In most of the US it's not really possible/safe to walk between buildings just because of how everything got built. Often it would involve crossing six lane divided highways etc. That's why you see so many threads here talking about bikes/transit/urban design etc.
I'll take an Uber if I have luggage. If it's raining heavily. If I'm in a hurry because the play is about to start and there's no late seating. If I'm on a date and she's wearing high heels. Etc.
Just because people are sometimes taking Ubers for short distances doesn't mean they're usually taking Ubers for short distances.
Uber isn't a way of life. It's a tool for when you need it.
Say you want to pick up some groceries. In most US cities there is no nearby small market; in some cities there are, but it varies widely. So either you can get takeout, or you can go from 1 (median) to 2.6 (average) miles to a grocery store. You could bike, but most US cities don't have good bike infrastructure (and let's face it, we're lazy). If there is public transit it's slow and unreliable.
Rideshare prices can also be 2x more expensive depending on the city. One city's average price is $7, another's is $17. Some cities are more compact, some are more spread out, some have fewer drivers, some have more, some have a lower cost of living, some higher, some have more suburban drivers, some fewer.
I and a friend visited California, ending in San Diego. We figured out we didn't need the rental car for the last few days, so we asked the hotel clerk how to get back from the car dropoff at the airport. "You could Uber ..." but had no suggestion for an alternative.
It was lovely SoCal weather, with the sun close to setting over the bay. But the idea of walking it seemed far from at least the clerk's mind.
I believe many of my fellow Americans feel the same. I'm one of the oddballs that would walk 1 1/2 miles home after clubbing rather than drive - something likely only possible for guys as the streets at 1am were empty of anyone walking.
Which also means I've had my share of walks where the sidewalk ended, or where I wasn't legally allowed to go further. That's the American way. /s
Yeah I noticed that too, and I paid for the first experience. But also because Lyft guy canceled on me after waiting for 12 minutes. Waymo does not cancel.
I feel like Waymo has discouraged Lyft and Uber drivers from being in the area. I would rather pick an uber driver who can get there fast than a Waymo.
The prices are pretty shocking for me too (Hungary). I don't use taxis much due to the city being pretty walkable, and there being good public transport, but a quick check says that taxis here have a base fare of 3.16 USD, after which it's 1.26 USD per km or 0.32 USD per minute, depending on the billing option (the two are roughly equal around 15 km/h speed).
Another thing that is odd for me is that for all 3 companies in the article, the average trip seems to be less than 2 km. I'm slightly more "walkey" than the average person for sure, but that is a leisurely 15 minute walk, and on the threshold of the distance I would start considering public transport for. With bags to the airport, sure, I'd take a taxi. But I find it hard to believe that the average person is ~2 km from the airport, so the median trip is likely done without extensive luggage at an _even shorter_ distance. I find this kind of absurd.
I’ve had several questionable uber rides regarding personal safety and would gladly ride with something with a consistent safety track record for a premium. Recently rode with a visibly sick driver that had had a hard time catching his breath long enough to keep his eyes on the road. Automation doesn’t get sick.
out of sheer curiosity, i took my first (few) waymo rides while in san francisco last month. mind = blown. there is nothing more enjoyable than getting into a vehicle by yourself, no driver, no awkwardness, nothing. i was happy to pay more for a waymo than an uber, too.
I've only used Uber a handfull of times, and all of them at least 7 years ago - nothing recent.
Last time I used it was late at night, I had used an Uber to get Pizza but it was kind of far from my hotel. After eating I used it again to get a ride back. Unfortunately whatever driver it chose for me, decided to just SIT for an hour at their house (or somewhere). And then finally left. It was like 11pm, middle of nowhere and I was freezing cold.
I'd rather choose a Waymo than freeze my ass off. This was an area that had so few drivers (I wasn't from here so I had no idea).
This is a huge huge huge problem for Uber. They have severely degraded their one key fearure: reliable knowledge that your taxi is on its way. This is the entire point of Uber versus a regular taxi.
Last Uber driver I took was solving Rubik's cube while driving, so I can see the value in Waymo actually paying attention to the road. On top of that I know what to expect and I can just listen to podcasts or do whatever. One thing that worries me a bit is the camera that's pointed at your phone in the back...
The novelty aside (I don’t live in a service region for Waymo, so I can only try it if I fly out to SFO for work), I will happily pay a premium to have a consistent experience where I don’t have to potentially deal with an obnoxious driver. That sounds misanthropic, I know, but for every good experience I’ve had where the car was clean and the driver was either silent, or interesting to talk to, I’ve had five others where that was not the case.
I admit I did not go further than the title, because I assume the conclusion is in the title.
Waymo is considerably cheaper in LA (at least in a region) than Uber. I have no clue about Lyft. I know this for a fact, because someone I know has taken Waymos and Ubers between the two identical points, around the same time of day, multiple times, and Waymo has always been way cheaper, considerably so.
This is as much about Uber/Lyft, as it is about the (nonexistent) level of politeness in the vest (US+Europe).
Have you ever taken a Uber in Japan?
The driver will make him/herself invisible. The space in the car is, factually, your space.
No phone conversations on their part, no music, no odours.
Waymo won't thrive in Japan, because it offers nothing extra advantages to regular Uber.
We suck in the west in terms of customer friendliness.
You're being snarky but it's obvious you're speaking from the prospective of a foreign tourist who has only been to Tokyo and major cities while not being able to speak Japanese.
You're making a strong but false generalisations as a tourist. The tourist aspect is important because of the anthropic principle. If you were a local who was in the inaka where Uber doesn't operate and you had to reserve a taxi by phone in Japanese, you'd have an entirely different experience.
Japanese people are notoriously introverted and shy. That's why people don't make small talk especially on a taxi. Plus, if they presume you're a tourist who doesn't speak Japanese, why bother? It's also not true that it's "your space". Just because the driver and other service people aren't confronting you on your behavior doesn't mean it's socially approved behavior. Japanese people silently judged and tourists can't even notice. There is an unspoken rule you keep your conversation with your fellow passenger private and quiet. Even wearing a perfume/cologne in a communal space, which a taxi is, can be considered rude.
If the reason people prefer Waymo is because they're introverted and not just avoid socializing but avoid being the presence of other people alltogether, then it's entirely possible for Waymo to do okay in Japan.
> The space in the car is, factually, your space.
This such an arrogant Westerner thing to think and say. Until you can step out of that, you will never understand Japan like you think you do.
So you are saying that as a Japanese ordering a Japanese by phone, that your driver would:
- happily speak on the phone while driving
- listen to music
- open the window to cool himself without asking if you're OK with that?
(i.e. all the things drivers in the best do; also, when I said that the space in a taxi is factually the clients space I didn't imply that the client can do whatever he wants - rather that the client can enjoy that space undisturbed; you only zoned in on the part of the client creating disturbance, which I can see though is an issue with tourists in Japan.)
I find that hard to believe. But open to be proven otherwise if you can cite such occurrences.
My other point that we in the west suck still seems to hold true: even if your point is true and I may get better treatment in Japan only as a tourist in a big city, you can rest assured that no Japanese in a western big city will get any kind of better treatment. Drivers in the west are usually impolite equally to everyone.
No need to tip, or even think about whether one should tip. The ride won’t cancel on me, which makes it more reliable. (Waymos are also more consistently clean.) I can take phone calls without worrying about my rider rating. And yeah, they’re more fun because they're novel.
Yeah, I’d happily pay a bit extra just to take tipping out of the equation entirely. Not having to worry about it is enough of a draw on its own. (I’m not a fan of tipping culture to begin with — especially with apps like Uber, where you’re also being rated, which adds even more pressure.)
The “consistently clean” part won’t last, that’s just because they’re new. In 2010 “they’re consistently clean” was an advantage of Ubers over yellow cabs, which of course is gone now. But I agree with the rest of this.
But it makes sense it being this way, doesn't it? I assume there are way fewer of Waymo taxis and the premium they provide is being able to ride privately at your own company. Also likely is that the riders might be more well off, part of them being tech-savvy, thus also leaning towards willing to ride an autonomous car.
"Lack of another person in the vehicle" is a feature. Don't have to interact with a person. No weed/cigarette smell. And so on. Also a computer may not drive as well as the best human but it will always drive much better than the worst human.
> "Lack of another person in the vehicle" is a feature.
I remember this came up for self-checkout at grocery stores. Personally I mildly prefer not interacting, for one friend this is a huge psychological difference, they are much more able to shop when it doesn't involve trying to talk to a human. It's not impossible anyway but you can see it's a real burden.
If I want to interact with a human there's no reason that should be a financial transaction. I can believe you would get a Waymo to a bar, hang out with friends (or even strangers) and then get a Waymo home, because you wanted the social interactions to be entirely separate from the financial transaction.
I don't use Uber because I think they're a bad actor and don't want to support them. Waymo is Google, so there's some of that there too, but in a pinch I'd probably use Waymo. I'd never use Uber.
Greyball[0] is an interesting solution to a usually intractable problem while freebooting, how to prevent avoidable contact with interested parties, to the degree of identifying and tracking said parties. I’m surprised In-Q-Tel never made an investment, as these kinds of dual-use products and services are in their wheelhouse.
It might be more expensive now because it is novel, but over time, as it commoditizes and more competition enters, prices will likely go down.
Also, this is how the free market works. The actual users decide what something is worth based on using their wallets. Is it more valuable to have solitude and your own space in the car? Or better to have human interaction? The market will decide.
This bodes well for Tesla. After their product is fully ready and released, regardless if it takes 5 years, with any sense it's going to be the cheapest, will reach anywhere (no requirement for mapping, can reliably calculate to the limit of its range), AND have the privacy benefits of a self driving cab.
The new age version of cabs are over fit, people take them for many things they don't need. Me included; I no longer ask my siblings/friends/spouse to take me to the airport, I just order a lyft/uber where as I wasn't doing that with cabs 10 years ago.
People are catching on to that reality but at least WayMo offers something novel.
I think my autonomavertigo would prevent me from ever taking a Waymo.
Autonomavertigo (noun):
The disorienting fear or anxiety experienced when surrendering control to autonomous systems, especially self-driving vehicles. Often accompanied by phantom brake-pumping and suspicious glances at the dashboard.
It's like 5-10% more for a Waymo (which is nothing in the $10-30 range) and you don't have to talk to anyone and/or sit in awkward silence for the ride. Yeah, I'll pay that every time.
Simply not playing Uber’s bait-and-switch game (happened again just yesterday: A purported $40 ride ended up being $80 due to being “unexpectedly 3x the planned distance”) would get them my business immediately once they become available in NYC for the very few times I do take a car.
Not marking up rides when there’s a gift balance on the account would also be a great distinguishing feature.
I managed to get a Waymo after a big event at Intuit Dome. It found a reasonable place to pick me up a couple blocks away. I didn’t have to try calling the driver to get them to figure out where I should go to try and get around roadblocks and traffic (I had no idea about the area). It didn’t cancel on me. It didn’t hit me with a surge price. So I don’t even buy the central premise by the article that Waymo is guaranteed to be more expensive.
And I didnt have to worry about a Waymo being unavailable late in the evening, or canceling my ride because it didn’t want to go that far at night. It just worked. Why would I ever take anything else?
The novelty of Waymo, as well as not having to interact with a stranger (especially for women, my wife used Waymo and liked it) makes Waymo a compelling option.
I agree. At least in San Francisco it's still a tourist attraction. I took two rides when I visited that were twice the price of an Uber and I only did that for the novelty. Definitely wouldn't if I lived there.
The driving is much more comfortable than Uber or Lyft. Taking them through San Francisco I find they gentler on hills, accelerate and break more mildly, and don’t try to drop you in unsafe places.
They’re just better drivers than people and that comfort is worth the up charge.
Uber is increasingly annoying where it will delay putting in an order for a ride and then try to upsell you. As in upgrade to Uber plus or black to get a faster time. If there is a concert or game and big demand spike I get it. But it’s doing it on almost every ride in SF. Upsell nags are annoying but seemingly extending my trip time to upsell is unforgivable.
This doesn’t surprise me and I’m not sure it’s about people not wanting to interact with people or whatever - many of the Ubers I’ve got while in SF have been pretty grim (unclean, weird odors, ancient badly serviced car etc) and badly driven. I’ve not noticed this being such an issue in the UK/Europe but that might just be because I take Ubers much more rarely there (with more prevalent public transit etc).
I’d definitely pay more for a Waymo, which is a much more reliably pleasant (and very cool!) experience.
There's still a "wow factor" associated with this.
I live in a city that doesn't have Waymo. I recently had a work trip to a city that does. Waymo was 25% more expensive than Uber (~15 vs ~20).
I still took Waymo because I don't get to experience it often, so it's fun to be in a driverless car. If I had constant access to Waymo, I would have probably chosen the cheapest option.
This would change if there wasn’t a culture of giving 5 stars to every driver. It started because Uber unfairly punished good drivers for very good but honest 4/5 reviews, and now every Uber driver who uses their phone while driving or has an interior smelling of cigarette smoke gets 5 stars out of obligation.
Going from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica is $30s for a Waymo and runs up to $50s for Uber/Lyft (sometimes). Otherwise, they tend to be within a few dollars.
I figured it was a combination of Google subsidizing rides and a lack of a "traffic tax".
They're a significantly better experience for 45+ minute rides.
Not "people". Early adopters willing to pay the early adopter tax.
By the way, why hasn't all this automation triggered lower prices for anything? Why doesn't the self checkout at a supermarket give you a discount for doing their job?
Uber and Lyft’s cheapest fare options are far from what they used to be. Want a timely pickup? Gotta pay for priority. Want a car that isn’t 10 years old and smelly? Pay extra. Don’t want a sketchy driver smelling of weed? Pay extra. The list goes on. Waymo however at least you know you get a clean and safe car.
if products cost more than other products in a similar domain and people are paying anyway I would naturally assume the more expensive products are a luxury brand, and given some of the other comments here I'd think my assumption borne out.
I get motion sick more easily than most, and a Waymo is much much smoother than a typical uber driver. I am happy to pay a fairly large time&momey premium for this.
In my experience Uber/Lyft/Bolt in their race to the bottom started tolerating cars in bad shape and drivers that don’t care about driving safely. Really hoping to see Waymo or any other robo-taxi in Europe soon.
Uber barely operates in huge swaths of the US. I've been in parts of Idaho and Kansas where wait times during the day can be a half an hour and after a certain hour no drivers are available at all. And the drivers who operate in these areas tend to be far less experienced/professional than in denser areas (to put it politely). Waymo solves all of this with just a handful of cars in each county.
Bainbridge Island (connected to Seattle by ferry) is like this. There is approximately one Uber driver, at least the last time I was there, and good luck if you get back to the island later in the day. A single Waymo would be amazing.
I'm not sure I see why. If hailing a publicly-operated waymo equivalent is as convenient as going to the DMV or making a withdrawal from a treasury direct account, I don't think anyone is ever going to use it. From my perspective, waymo is the private sector solving a problem that was largely created by the government (zoning → lack of density → needing to drive everywhere).
Obviously the opposite. Competition keeps prices low and quality high.
"Publicly-owned" would be expensive and low quality, and would make the people running the operation filthy rich. Non-profit would mean that whoever is running it would increase their salaries until there's no profit. There would be no reason to lower prices or increase quality, if competition is non-existent.
> "Publicly-owned" would be expensive and low quality, and would make the people running the operation filthy rich.
By publicly owned, I mean “owned by the public”, not “owned by a publicly traded company” (which is, ironically, private property). You’re thinking the latter, which counts as corporate-owned.
I used a bad choice of words. In most of the world “public owned” means the former, whereas in the US it means the latter. The exact opposite, ironically.
publicly-owned as in pre-Uber taxicab system? Government-enforced monopoly, completely stagnant, and no incentives to make users' experience better? That's not utopia.
Call me crazy but I greatly prefer old fashioned taxis, because their drivers know how to step on it and drive like maniacs instead of doddering grandmothers. Sure they stink and have weird accents but why would I care about that when I just want to get home from the airport and get to bed as soon as possible? Accepting cash and not needing some bullshit app is also a huge bonus.
If you pay more now you just proved to Waymo they can charge even more later. Way to go. Once they corner the market it will cost even more than uber/lyft/taxi today.
How many of you have used ZipCars or an equivalent? I guarantee you Waymo cars will look worse than the average Uber/Lyft once they stop fluffing up the experience.
I will take Waymos whenever possible just to avoid the black ice tree air fresheners you find in >50% of Ubers that makes my eyes burn for hours. That and the aggressive driving that makes me car sick.
After the initial 60 seconds of shock that nobody is at the wheel, the rest of the ride makes you quickly realize how much better AI is at driving than regular humans.
I just realized why I'd pay premium for Waymo. Sometimes rideshare drivers refuse to pick up my fare, or get lost, or cancel a trip halfway to me. A robot car (one would hope) wouldn't do those things. Get rid of the human bullshit? Take my money.
There was a while, early on, where (at least in the areas I used it) the modal Uber driver was a college student or a (semi-)retired person looking for something to do. Generally polite, fluent in English, upwardly mobile or already successful. Cars were higher quality and cleaner than taxis.
Now, the modal Uber driver seems to be relatively rude, cannot speak English well, seems financially desperate, and drives a dirty/crappy car. Even if I pay extra for "comfort" I often get a pretty junky car. It's basically as bad as a taxi.
When the human element is a substantial net negative on the whole experience, I'll pay extra to avoid the human element.
Unfortunately in Austin, Waymo have screwed the pooch by making their service only available through Uber, with no way of saying you only want Waymo instead of a human driver. I used an Uber the other day out of necessity, and the driver smelled so bad I had to stop the ride and get out.
I'm sure they are, but I meant that if you were to take a Lyft or Uber, you would just get someone's random car that is often a Hyundai Elantra or Accent in my experience and not necessarily perfectly clean etc vs riding in a corporate maintained fleet of Jaguars.
Is it just a matter of Waymo being tourist attraction? Last time when I was in LA my friends and me, we had a rental car to go around, but we still took couple of Waymo rides just for fun. With enough demand from people who have "autonomous car ride" on their bucket list the price can be much higher, as Uber/Lyft are not really competing in the same category.
idk, google has a nice list of things that seem like they'll never be profitable, but it keeps running em. Like, google patents, google books, google translate... none of those make money, right? Chromium only makes money indirectly I think, and they invest a ton of engineering resources in that.
Google kills stuff, but they don't kill everything, just stuff that no one is working on (like google reader, I think all the people who cared about the code just quit), or stuff that is specifically counter to some exec's strategy (like killing a bunch of chat software to centralize on Google+ or whatever it is now)
Ride share grifts (Uber, Lyft) extract wealth from drivers. Morally equiv to MLMs, value added resellers, platforms (Amazon, Spotify, Meta, etc).
It feels icky being an accomplice.
Less importantly, I now despise the degradation of driving etiquette and overall safety. At least as much as I despised taxis. eg don't block traffic loading / unloading; there's a loading zone RIGHT THERE, ffs.
Why wouldn't you pay more. I would pay 3x an Uber rate to not be driven by an illegal with a questionable license status. To avoid such things, I just pay a car service for every airport I land in.
The real pain with Waymo is that they just aren't as reliably available in a short period, especially at high demand times. Uber can incentivize bringing on extra drivers at certain times - Waymo can't. Unless they size the fleet for high demand peaks - which would be incredibly cost prohibitive, I don't see how they solve this except maybe a hybrid model or they distill their "waymo driver" into something that runs on a standard economy car.
As a Waymo-booster on HN for a while now, here's my latest anecdote. I tried to figure out how to take Waymo to LAX even though it's not actually in their territory yet just because I value the experience so much. I was borderline going to take it within walking distance (about half a mile), but got lazy at the last minute. I took Lyft instead, and, as if the universe cursed my laziness, I booked a "comfort" car for $3 more than the base level Lyft. At first I was going to get a Tesla Model Y to take me, but that cancelled. Instead, what must have been a first generation Honda Pilot picked me up, suspension creaking and muffler that had seen better days. Did Lyft recognize what they sent instead of the "comfort" they promised and therefore charge me $3 less? Of course not. When I tried to contact customer service I ran into what I'm sure plenty of HN people have, which is a dead end where you report the issue and they (programmatically?) adjudicate the complaint on the spot. Their determination? I wasn't entitled to a $3 refund. Ironic that the rideshare app with human drivers doesn't allow me to contact their customer service whereas Waymo has no problem with it (yeah, yeah, I get it, "we'll see once they reach a huge scale." But today the experience is so much better than Uber or Lyft that while it lasts I will bask in its driverless glory).
I've had a couple bad experiences with Lyft recently, including one time the driver must have clicked that they picked me up while a block away, because I could see the lyft driving to the destination without me. I tried to get a refund since I was obviously waiting my start location the whole time, but the system claimed the drive went from start to finish (even though I wasn't in the car), so no refund.
Same thing happened to me, and the support system automatically decided nothing was wrong whatsoever despite my phone certainly sending a very different location from the driver. And the madness was I couldn't even book another ride as I was technically in one.
So I ended up getting it resolved via the security panic button which did put me through to a real person who was empathetic to the issue.
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Uber lets you enable a PIN for each ride. The driver can't say they picked you up until they punch in the random 4 digit PIN the app gave you for the ride.
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That's must be annoying to say the least. In India drivers require an OTP to start a ride.
The OTP is the same for a user across rides, so I have mine memorised which is nifty. No fiddling with the phone during boarding.
On security: exploiting this would require the driver to stay in my vicinity the next time I book a ride, and also get the ride assigned to them. In a high population density area, it's rare - I've never had the same driver twice.
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I’ve heard the story from the other side as well: App reports ride is arriving, people get in, they go the wrong way and see their original ride stating that you are not there and leave again.
So it may not be intentional. Just coincidence and poor verification.
I waited 40 minutes for a Lyft at an airport because the driver made up a story about an accident and traffic, in the airport. No one else seemed to be affected by this traffic- so eventually I tried booking an Uber. It arrived 3 minutes later.
20 minutes after that the Lyft driver keeps texting me “where are you?!”. Their turn to wait!
Saw later they just started the ride without me and drove to my hotel.
Lyft said “this trip was completed, no refund”. Welp, app deleted.
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Charge back with your credit card if Lyft isn't willing to help you. Keep businesses in check.
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Companies that cheap out by not performing the basic obligations of business end up paying more for small claims court - provided their ripped-off customers actually take them to small claims court. Did you?
> Their determination? I wasn't entitled to a $3 refund.
Frustratingly, Lyft’s position on this is that if you don’t like the car that arrives you should reject it when it arrives, otherwise you’re not entitled to a (even partial) refund, even when they know on their end that the car they sent doesn’t match what you paid extra for.
This seems... interesting, legally speaking. I imagine the idea is that you're implicitly accepting alterations to the previous contract by opting to take the car? Would that argument hold water, legally?
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Tip: You can take Waymo to just outside the economy lot, then hop on the shuttle to the terminals. The shuttles have their own dedicated lane for going around the loop, so this isn't even that much more time. It's my new favorite way to get to LAX.
Ah, I saw the economy lot as a potential option. I tried to get the location to resolve on the app, but I think I only tried the lot itself and not directly adjacent to it. Thank you for pointing this out!
Uber has done that to me. You pick a class but what you get seems unrelated.
I need more space for luggage and such and ... some "mid-sized" SUV picks me up that has about as much space a regular sedan anyway ... often the same type of vehicle that picked me up the previous day as a regular vehicle.
I paid extra and scheduled an Uber with a child seat. After waiting 30 minutes, when the car showed up, there was no car seat so the driver canceled right away and drove off. Lesson learned.
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Same here. To alter-quote The Simpsons, "My eyes! The classes do nothing!"
Shortly after pandemic, I noticed "corridor fees" on vastly different routes which, mysteriously, bumped-up the price by the same percentage across each route--but only after the ride had completed. The price I was quoted was not remotely close to the price I was charged.
I did the customer service messaging thing. The first time, they removed it. The second and third time, they declined to remove it.
I now "decline" riding Uber unless there's no other option.
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Uber seems wilfully deceptive in so many ways. The initial listing of rides including details of vehicles and prices, which looks like an actual offer, but the app then goes off to try and find something similar. Try being a shop, selling someone an item and then going out back to rummage around and see if you actually have anything like what you sold. And then the 'fixed price' you agreed on gets arbitrarily changed on half the trips if traffic gets worse or the driver takes a different route. If I book a trip from the airport, the airport's charge for rideshare lane usage isn't an "unanticipated expense". It's just skeezy.
I believe they bin vehicles by available seating and not by things like luggage.
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Before Uber and Lyft destroyed the functioning taxi market, you got Mercedes by default for a traditional, regulated taxi in many EU countries.
You didn't have to argue, interact with a surveillance company, interact with customer service etc. All you needed to do is pick up the phone and get a luxury ride without tracking or surveillance.
My experience in my first-world country is that all I needed was to spend 10min on the phone to be told there’s no taxi available, or to be told it’ll take 30min and actually it take 1h30. Drivers aren’t any more amicable than uber drivers either (less, if anything).
Not to speak of many countries where taxis are outright scammers and getting into one is taking a real danger.
The surveillance is exactly why Uber and Lyft works. If drivers misbehave, evidence is all there. I’d honestly trade reliability over a temporary luxury ride in a Mercedes.
Lol. Before Uber 'destroyed' the functioning taxi market in Amsterdam, getting a taxi after going out meant waiting for sometimes up to 45 minutes. It meant standing in a line and when someone cut the line in front of you, saying something about it could get you in a fight. Taxi drivers often were (former) criminals who cashed in their savings of black money to get a taxi license and a quiet life. Occasionally tourists were robbed or taken on detours, good luck to get your money back in those days. And I'm not even mentioning the outrageous prices yet for a taxi drive in the city in those days.
Uber might not be 100% perfect but it has been a real blessing, a salvation of all the misery that we had to endure in the 'functioning' taxi market.
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Before Uber, in France half of the time you got an irascible driver who never had change and whose credit card terminal was non functional.
Yeah, before Uber and Lyft I would get a Mercedes.
Except that it took forever. I had no idea when anyone would show up. The driver was annoyed and drove like an insane person. The few times I've actually feared for my life have been on highways with taxi drivers. It was incredibly expensive.
Oh, and half the time they ripped you off.
Yup. And there was no tracking. So if that person wanted to say, drive an insane route? Enjoy. Take a detour. Done. Or dump your body in the woods. You were totally at their mercy.
The taxi system was horrible. The pinnacle of protectionism carving out its niche of crap.
>the functioning taxi market
Was it? In many EU countries a lot of taxi drivers act like scammers: take you the long way around, they don't issue you receipt by default because they do tax fraud or steal from their employer, you can't pay by card because suddenly the card machine "doesn't work" so they drive you to an ATM, then you pay cash and they try to keep the change, they don't speak English or even the local language, they don't know the local streets or landmarks you're referring to because they're not from there, etc. All that is super annoying. Multiply it if you're a tourist or on a business trip or job interview.
Ride sharing fixed all that since you just punched in the destination in the app (in your own language) and got the price upfront and shielded you from the antics of scammy drivers and the friction of getting to your destination. That's why ride sharing apps were so successful initially.
It wasn't about the price, it was about the friction or lack thereof.
>you got Mercedes by default for a traditional, regulated taxi in many EU countries
Mostly IIRC Berlin, Brussels, Stockholm and some other rich countries, definitely not EU wide.
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Uber and Lyft priced out those needless amenities and transferred into their profit margin. If customers has properly priced those in, the market would see that they are retained. Efficien-en-en-ent!
pfah, I remember my Mercedes trip to Paris airport where I had a physical fight with the driver (10 years ago). SO glad to see the taxi business go down the toilet. Easily over 50% of them were scamming tourists.
Charges for goods not delivered as agreed falls under the protection of the Fair Credit Billing Act. If you made a good faith attempt to resolve with the merchant (which you did) you should use your credit card to charge back the amount (some let you request a partial charge back, but if not you can request a full one and explain in the extra info that you want a partial one).
This might not seem worth it for $3, but if they get a lot of these the credit cards/banks might start giving them a hard time about it, so I think it's worth the minor hassle (everything can be done via the credit card app usually)
And then you're forever barred from using the service.
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> you should use your credit card to charge back the amount
Don't you end up getting a new credit card number and have to deal with updating your details everywhere after doing this?
> This might not seem worth it for $3
It seems it's also painful and seemingly not worth it by design. Whenever they can make the process so painful that going through it essentially pays way less than your wage they can get away with it 99% of the time.
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The problem with charge backs for small amounts is that the bank might eat it instead, as there's a cost for them to process a charge back
I had the opposite once with Uber. I paid regular price (UberX or whatever it's called), then a guy showed up in a black BMW 530 with leather seats.
I've had the same many many times. I think almost universally it's fair that the product/provider upgrades your experience when you agree to pay for something, but when they are specifically telling you "pay x and we'll give you y" and then they give you <y that's, I think, shitty.
Of course, that happens, but the point is that it's a crapshoot, and you don't know what you're gonna get until the driver confirms, and you don't know what the car's actual condition is until you get in. And regardless, it's always reasonable for someone to provide you a better service/product than you paid for, but it's never ok to do the opposite.
With Waymo, you know what you're going to get every time. I've also never experienced a Waymo interior that was in bad shape when I got in the car, though I'm sure that does happen to people.
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$3 isn't this kind of a small problem?
I miss rideshare service, in Denmark we have mess of expensive high quality taxis that you cannot get hold of when you need one.
$3 is small enough that almost everyone will just eat the cost. I have a theory that they do this intentionally in some things(well Uber I've never used lift). Almost every time I order food and something is wrong or missing they'll give me a refund that is $2-3 off what it should be. Like if I order a $5 item and it's missing their service will refund me $2. At that point I can chose to spend literally an hour going through different support flows to try to reach a human who will correct it and give me the extra $2 or I can eat the loss. It's happened to me at least a dozen times now so I imagine it's common enough across the whole world to add millions of revenue each year.
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I'm not sure I'm reading you correctly, but if you mean it's a small problem because $3 isn't much money then, heck yes, it's a microscopic problem (is there something smaller than microscopic because if so then it's whatever that thing is)! But I didn't bring it up to complain about the $3 per se. I can elaborate, but I'm not sure if that's what you were specifically referring to or if I'm misunderstanding your question.
A tiny problem, that would cost them nothing to fix, and they chose not to. This is a story about shitty customer service, not $3 being lost.
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The $3 often makes the difference between someone that should not be allowed to have a drivers license, and a someone that's been driving high-end limos for years.
For example, I once had a driver that heard regenerative breaking was good for fuel economy, so decided to cycle their busted prius between 60mpg and 70mph every few seconds on the freeway. I was carsick for 2 hours after that ride. Another time, I had an angry line of people tapping the windows and politely giving the driver some unsolicited advice. (The mob was right; I mostly just tried to hide my face.)
So, the $3 is a big problem, but has nothing to do with money.
Worth knowing that Uber bought Dantaxi, Denmark's largest Taxi company a couple of weeks ago. The Uber app will tap in to Dantaxi driver pool. https://www.uber.com/en-DK/newsroom/dantaxi/
I wonder if strong worker unions and regulations forced Uber to buy an existing company rather than starting their own presence.
It's the point. I've noticed the same, in Australia on Uber, and have stopped bothering asking for the 'comfort' vehicle.
It's the same car. They just charge you $3 more for thinking you're going to get something nicer. You're not.
> $3 isn't this kind of a small problem?
You're right -- it's surprising Lyft wouldn't just give back $3 (such a small amount!) to keep a customer.
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$3 sure but you're already paying $XX for the service in the first place.
> $3 isn't this kind of a small problem?
Its the principle, not the size of the cost. If a company with good customer service accidentally overcharged me $200 but I could call someone and have it fixed easily that would set me off far less than a company that screwed me out of $1 who has shit-tier dark pattern customer service.
all "cab"-like cars that are not shaped like London Black Cabs are failures. The seating and luggage carrying is so much better than a regular car it makes me sick.
And then you'll find plenty of people on here that hate on Black Cabs as ridiculously over priced.
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I'm on holiday in Japan at the moment and I notice the cabs look like London cabs and are mainly black too. Made by Toyota. I haven't yet taken one, so I don't know if the similarity extends to the interior layout.
Agreeed. My last uber and Lyft rides were an unpleasant experience of late pickups, cancelled pickups, and old rickety rides. I use the train over uber and lyft
I would pay extra just to never ride in a Tesla. They always make me carsick.
I never heard this once before HN. What is particular about Teslas? Is it the rapid acceleration from the electric motor... or lack of familiar engine sound?
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People don't hate automation. They hate BAD automation.
From your description seems like: Waymo -> Good Automation, Call Center -> Bad Automation.
The day we will have a chatgpt level automated customer care experience, we will complain every time humans answer our requests, with their accents and attitudes!
"Hi, how can I help y—"
"TALK TO A ROBOT"
Oh man, hope it's ok to poke a little fun. I think we just violently agreed with me praising automation from one company and deriding automation from another. So I'll update your "seems like": Riding with Waymo (IME) -> Good Automation, Lyft customer support when they "stole" $3 from me and didn't provide me with a way to fix it -> Bad Automation.
Do you think it's bad automation? I think it's a cost optimisation thing, we don't give refunds and we don't give people a channel to complain. We only measure revenue from trips and as long as that stays up the service quality is ok.
>> People don't hate automation
This is not true.
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People paying more for Waymo doesn’t surprise me. I also once called for a comfort car, but it was a filthy Lexus. I’d much rather ride in a clean and well maintained Corolla.
I pay more for Waymo and I’m happy to do it (as long as Waymo can detect when its interior is dirty so it can return itself to home base for cleaning.) I don’t have to sit awkwardly in a car with another guy who may drive in a way that annoys me. I can talk on my phone or with my family without having a random person listen in.
I have only used car share once in my life. (My mother ordered it, and it was fine.) To me, a dirty car is pretty much unforgivable as a car share service. Do you report it on the app or just give a one/zero star rating and hope the car share service will fix it?
You hit the nail on the head. I cannot belive that I am 100+ posts into this discussion and no one has mentioned it. It was the first idea that popped into my head. How about if you are woman? I would gladly pay a bit more to have no other strangers in the car with me.
Instead you will have all of Google listen in.
Though, the cameras on the Waymo are always on and pointed down at you looking at your screen.
The Uber comfort designation frustratingly has nothing to do with the condition of the vehicle. I believe the parameters are age, seats, and model.
From the driver's point of view, it just means that you are allowed to accept comfort rides but most of the time you're probably going to be picking up UberX passengers which are more plentiful. That means you're only slightly more likely to get one of the good comfort vehicles if you actually select the comfort tier.
Another recent anecdote.
A friend was recently in Milwaukee (first time ever. He was there for a conference).
He, his wife, and another friend, wanted to go out to eat.
They were given a wrong address. Could have been the source, or it could have been they screwed up writing it down. It was definitely a wrong address, though, that they gave to Uber.
The driver picked them up, and took them to the address, which was deep in Da Hood. Not a good area for three middle-class white folks to be wandering around.
The driver insisted they get out, even though it was clearly a wrong address, and a downright dangerous neighborhood (my friend has some experience with rough neighborhoods. If he said it was bad, it was bad).
My friend offered to pay whatever it took, to get to the correct address (they had figured out their mistake, by then), but the driver refused to do that. It was probably algorithmically prohibited.
My friend had never used Uber before (and never will, again), so wasn’t aware that you are supposed to be able to appeal to Uber.
I have a feeling that my friend offered to rearrange the driver’s dental work (Did I mention that he was familiar with tough neighborhoods?), and got the driver to drop them off in a better area, where they caught a cab.
Sounds like a bad customer experience. I doubt Uber ever heard the story. My friend never bothered contacting them, and I will bet that the driver didn’t.
If I was that driver, you bet I'd be contacting Uber to try and get your friend banned for life. Threatening a driver is never ok, even less so when it's not his fault.
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If your friend thinks it's okay to threaten to assault a driver, especially for an issue that wasn't the driver's fault, then it sounds like "da hood" is where he belongs...
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The only difference with the Waymo experience would be that there would be nobody your friend could threaten to assault for putting in the wrong address.
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Huh? Your friend paid uber to take them to an address, and they did.
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You’ve got to invest with the VC money. As companies mature and enshitification begins, jump onto the next hot thing that’s going to disrupt the now incumbent.
There’s no free lunch, but this is the closest we’ve got.
another anecdote taking Lyft - they showed me $10.76 price for a trip to the airport when Uber showed $21. obviously i called Lyft and they placed a temporary charge on my credit card for $10.76. Once the driver dropped me off, i noticed that the base charge jumped to $16.76 + airport fees and my total with tips came to a bit over $27. I contacted Lyft and they denied and claimed that they always showed me $16.76. smh. i have proof from my credit card that they placed a hold for $10.76 and yet they refused to adjust the price.
This is the kind of comment I'd expect to see on trustpilot, not hn
why do you think you will get better service with waymo when it's as established as the others?
the whole market is a race to the bottom to extract rent from what should have been a municipality cost center.
oh, do you like waymo automated support and driver better than Lyft automated support? or just can't imagine a world where tomorrow waymo will have aging cars too?
Why did you cancel on the Tesla Model Y?
He said "that cancelled" so I think it wasn't on his end.
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This makes a lot of sense to me. When you ride in an Uber or a taxi, you're a guest in the driver's space. In a Waymo, it's your own space. You can play music, talk on the phone, etc. without worrying about disturbing the driver. You're not likely to have strong odors, or driver's phone conversations. And the experience will be roughly consistent each time. In an Uber, you have no idea what the car or the driving standards will be like until you're in it. I trust my own driving over a Waymo, but I'd trust Waymo over an average Uber driver, let alone a bad one.
I've had some nice conversations with Uber drivers, but I've had some unpleasant rides too. I'd definitely pay a bit extra for a good driverless car. ('Good' being key. After trying out the Tesla FSD beta a couple times though, you couldn't pay me to ride in one of those without the ability to grab control.)
There’s something to be said for being able to not be forced to deal with a person, but I see something different personally.
I’m “old” (40s) so I didn’t grow up with Uber. Maybe that colors my take.
I don’t want to hire random Joes. If I wanted to buy a lift from a random person, I’d expect it to be very cheap.
If I’m hiring someone to drive me from A to B I want a professional service. I want professional drivers in a fleet of maintained cars.
With Uber/Lift you don’t know. Many drives do a great job and treat their cars/passengers like they’re professionals. Others don’t.
The taxi industry sucked. They had no competition and could get lazy and do a terrible job and people still had to use them anyway. That needed fixing.
But I don’t think the lesson we should learn is “taxis bad” but “bad service is bad”. And Uber/Lyft being so variable is not a plus at their prices.
I think that the best thing about Uber/Lyft is that they've been a wake up call for the taxi industry.
I don't think I'd be able to book taxis (and pay in advance) using an app in my country, if Uber/Lyft didn't exist.
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The professional driver in a professional fleet service exists. It existed in the taxi era too.
If you ever see an aggressive driver cutting their way through traffic in a perfectly maintained Escalade or Navigator heading towards the airport, that’s them.
Black cars existed before Uber and Lyft -- in fact, that was how Uber started.
Uber, in fact, still offers black cars (professional drivers) as an option.
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Exactly, I will pay a premium for not having to deal with a human being in the car with me.
It's a dice roll: you could get a very extroverted driver who won't leave you alone, or someone who smells bad, or someone rude, or a distracted driver...
Just let me sit in peace, alone with a robot.
Isolationism progresses.
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How do you feel about public transportation?
There's also the issue of tipping. I haven't been in a waymo but I generally tip well in Uber or Lyft. I wouldn't tip a robot. So at least to me $15+$5 tip vs $20 is pretty much a wash.
I was kinda pissed when my local mall got a "barista robot", and it asks for a 20% tip when you swipe your card
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You don't have to tip an Uber or Lyft, either.
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Holy crap that’s 33% tip!
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Why is anyone surprised that a smaller segment of the market will pay more for a safer ride in a luxury vehicle compared to a base model Lyft (which can be a barely drivable car with rank cloth interior where you can't even fit two people in the back seat)?
Next up, some one will post, "First class tickets cost more than coach."
Waymo will eventually have Waymo Comfort and Waymo Black.
> Why is anyone surprised that a smaller segment of the market will pay more for a safer ride in a luxury vehicle compared to a base model Lyft
It's a criticism, because this same segment also realizes that a Waymo ride is WAY cheaper to operate than a human driven one.
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Is this exaggeration? I hope so. I have never seen a taxi nor ride share car that would ever qualify this statement.
I wonder... are the passengers recorded while in a Waymo?
Does Google ever delete those records? Being Google, I bet they don't.
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I'm in LA, so I'm still skeptical about "safer". Granted, that's not a high bar, but I know who's accountable if an Uber/Lyft crashes.
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Maybe it's my rampant misanthrope leanings, but even in more trivial things like choosing automated kiosks other staffed in CVS, I'm just more comfortable not having to make small talk with a person, worry if they're having a good day or not etc.
I'd happily pay 20 percent more to Waymo for that personless experience too.
It's interesting how American cultural expectations of forced social interaction may be having the effect of promoting automated systems as a reaction.
As someone who lives in Spain and has lived in the UK, the idea of choosing self-checkout at a supermarket to avoid small talk with a cashier sounds alien to me; we simply don't do that here. While cashiers will certainly chat with certain customers while scanning their items, it's either that they know each other or it was initiated by the customer. I always choose staffed checkout over self-checkout because it's literally less effort for me, but I could imagine American social expectations at checkout —"How are you doing today?", "Oh these apples look amazing!", "Having a party are we?"— absolutely tipping the balance of effort and pushing me to self-checkout.
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If the automated systems work I'd use them. Instead, USA systems are designed around trying to prevent theft and they error in the store's favor. I've had those automated systems scream that I haven't put my purchase in the bag. The purchase being single envelope of yeast, too light to measure. So it screams and scream "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG", "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG", "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG", "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG" until some employee comes over and presses reset on the machines. Meanwhile the entire store is glaring at you.
So yea, I've stop using automated machines in the USA.
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Exactly. You're not paying more for the same ride. You are paying to have some time alone. To not have to deal with others where you can listen to an audiobook, have a conversation on your phone that feels private or other things.
This is why I’m long AI as well - people will pay a premium for inferior service if it means they don’t have to talk to a human
Tesla fsd and Waymo are far different in the technical sense.
Are they cleaned after each rider? How can they not build up an odor, lol
No driver is going to be smoking in Waymo car. (And if a passenger smokes, they'll be charged $100)
I assume there are also industrial-strength cleaners during the downtime/refueling.
I mix and match but I’ll take a Waymo if it’s <= $5 more for these reasons:
1. Literally zero variance. Every car is the same. Every driver is the same style. If it says it’ll be there in 7 minutes it will be 7, not 5 and not 10.
2. A jaguar SUV is a premium vehicle. It’s comparable to an Uber black not a regular Uber.
3. It’s so child friendly. My son can make all the noise he wants and I can take time loading him in without a driver being impatient.
4. They’re very clean. I’ve never been in a dirty or bad smelling Waymo. That’s very nice.
5. No aggressive driving. I’ve had Ubers that scare me weaving between lanes above the speed limit. A Waymo is always smooth.
6. No tip
For me this goes higher up in this list
I’m seeing more of them with trash. Last one I took had a rolled up bundle of used bandages.
People are excited by driverless cars but it also means a car with no social barriers and no person who considers the cars condition important. For now they’re well surveilled and a premium vehicle. Soon they will be filthy pods in a race to the bottom with all the charm of a public bathroom. They’ll be cheap, but you’ll get what you pay for. Private driverless cars will be the premium alternative.
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Were you able to flag it to Waymo?
did you report it? Ideally the person that left the bandages in the car would get flagged. They get flagged a few more times for littering in the car they get banned.
Yes, you don't know if it was the previous person, previous previous, etc but if they are a repeat litterer it won't take long to figure out who it is and warn them they'll lose their privilege to use the service if they continue to abuse it.
You’re experiencing the early pre-enshittified product. Ubers used to be cheap and excellent too, but then they started optimizing for profit. I assume this will happen even faster for Waymo, just because tech firms have more experience now.
Uber was never child friendly.
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Waymo should charge dirty customers more to pay maids to clean it.
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Not yet enshittified > currently enshitiffied
If they get worse, I’ll. Choose something else if I want.
They’re not in my area today, but just because they may get worse does t mean you should avoid them today.
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Which point would you expect to deteriorate?
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I'm willing to pay more for a better ride experience:
* Waymos are all the same. I underrated the value of this until I started taking Waymo more often.
* I can control the music and volume with my phone.
* I can listen to YouTube or take a call without AirPods. Sometimes I even hotspot and do some work.
But most importantly Waymos all _drive_ the same way. I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either driving in a confused and circuitous way, distracted by YouTube, or just driving dangerously. I am more confident that I will have a safe ride in a Waymo than in an Uber.
I've been picked up multiple times by Uber drivers who have, essentially, bragged? about being drunk or high.
I've also had multiple drivers in multiple countries try to sell me drugs.
I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept in stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped (which, was actually fascinating, and would've been very concerning if we ever got going more than like 10 mph).
Women also have to worry about drivers trying to hit on them.
The list goes on.
It's not a surprise a lot of people will pay a premium to avoid all that.
This is the thing that people don't realize about autonomous AI.
It's not primarily about saving money.
Autonomous taxis are superior to Uber and yellow cabs. It's a better experience, and it's far safer. Autonomous cars aren't cheaper, they're better.
When AI agents replace human jobs, any cost savings is secondary. A coding job where the AI does most of the grunt work is superior to a job where humans do everything. It's better for the worker (less tedium). It's better for the employer (consistent style, greater test coverage, security vulns evaluated for every function, follows company policy and procedures).
AI agents done well are superior at call center jobs, screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial analysis, most business consulting like process redesign, etc. The biggest benefit isn't reducing payroll, it's doing the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.
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On the upside, I've had Uber drivers in multiple countries help me buy drugs. Waymo hasn't hooked me up even once.
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I also had one of those drivers who would sleep in traffic. I assumed he was very sleepy deprived and it was stressing me out while we went over hwy 17 in Santa Cruz
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> I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept in stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped
Imagine how desperate you would have to be to drive a cab when you're that sleep-deprived (probably haven't slept in 36 hours). Now imagine someone took that income away from you to give it to Sundar Pichai.
Yeah, sometimes it's unpleasant talking to a cabby, and sometimes he won't take a hint and stop talking. But you might learn something if you try to engage, instead of vibe-coding inside a surveillance robot.
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I’ve ridden in Ubers across Hwy 17 in Northern California and I’m pretty sure some of those drivers had never taken a non-90 degree corner in their life.
More than once I semi-jokingly texted people at work that if I didn’t make the next meeting it was because I met my untimely end in that car.
I rode my first Waymo last week through Inglewood and Santa Monica and I felt so much more safe than I have in other ridesharing systems.
I think ridesharing is not the end game for Waymo. If I could just straight up buy a personal vehicle that was a Waymo I’d do it tomorrow.
I'll never forget the driver who watched anime on his phone all the way from the San Diego airport to the hotel.
And all the drivers who seem to think driving with the windows down for 2 minutes will make it impossible to tell they were just smoking weed/cigs in the car.
Recent uber ignored us and listened to a fantasy audiobook on speakers whole way to airport. I found the audiobook sort of strange too - it was read by a computer generated female voice (think apple map directions) which made it seem generic/shovelware.
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Cigs are the worst, they make me want to puke, and paying for the "privilege" of getting chauffeured in one? Ewwww
Same here. Waymo doesn’t make me feel car sick, while aggressiveness-incentivized uber/lyft drivers do.
Thinking of incentives, I wonder what happens when self driving is “solved” to the point they can start nickel and dime optimizing. I wonder if waymo starts driving overly aggressively at that point too.
A dime of commercially priced electricity is around a kWh depending on where you are. That'll take a car a lot further than you think, and the more aggressively you drive the more electricity gets used. The most efficient way to drive is the flattest, most leisurely route.
The only way aggressive driving becomes profitable is when you've exhausted your supply of cars. Even then, it's not clear to me that you'd increase profit in that time by driving faster, since one car over the course of a day might squeeze in one or two extra rides at most. Just having more cars that sit idle until needed would accomplish the same thing with no extra risk.
In fact, the biggest area for optimization is getting the car to the next rider from the end of a previous ride. But that's not about being fast, that's about positioning idle cars in the right places to minimize distance to potential riders. If pickup distance becomes a hard bottleneck, it's again about capacity, not speed. Most of the between-trip driving is not on highways and back roads, it's through dense areas with lots of stop signs and traffic lights, so increasing speed isn't even really feasible.
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If history can teach us something it is that they will.
It's always a bad feeling when you get in the car and the driver is on the phone with someone and clearly starts talking about you in another language. Or even just mumbles something on the phone and you're not sure if they're talking to you or not (and they are, like 20% of the time). Super stressful.
> I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either driving in a confused and circuitous way, distracted by YouTube, or just driving dangerously.
A weird route is generally fine with me (as long as it doesn't increase travel time by much; remedy for that case is to decrease the tip), but driving distracted/dangerously is an automatic low rating from me. I am pretty much an "always 5 stars" kinda person, but safety issues are serious.
> just driving dangerously
Why don't we have a feature to brake or at least beep when tailgating? 2 car lengths at 80 mph is not ok.
> 2 car lengths at 80 mph is not ok.
Definitely. 2 seconds is OK, but 3 is better
All this would do is cause noise pollution. Have you never had the displeasure of riding with someone who will leave their seatbelt unplugged despite the annoying beeping?
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>> driving dangerously
This is where self-driving taxis could succeed. I don't want self-driving on my personal car because I am more trusting of my own abilities. But I have had too many Uber rides where I've seriously considered asking them to pull over and let me out. Never any accidents but some really dangerous driving and a couple of drivers where it was 50/50 whether they were drunk or high. I'll trust the self-driving over a random Uber driver every time.
Waymos will get cheaper to make as they scale up. The Ioniq version [1] costs less to build. All the sheet metal and mechanical mods for Waymo are done at the Hyundai factory in Georgia.[2] Waymo just mounts the electronics.
Jobs at the Hyundai factory start at $23.66/hour, with reasonably good benefits.[3]
[1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/10/waymo-and-hyundai-enter-partn...
[2] https://www.hmgma.com/
[3] https://careers-americas.hyundai.com/hmgma/job/Ellabell-Prod...
The other day I almost got ran over by an old lady in her old Volvo wagon at a stop sign. She seemed to have gotten confused a little and was turning left but couldn't figure out the right move to make. People behind her honked and she decided to just go for it. I happened to be in the crosswalk and just happened to look over at the honking, and saw her coming, so managed to jump out of her way.
She was easily over 90, if not over 95.
People like her could really benefit from a personal Waymo. Just sell a car with FSD built in, at the level of a Waymo, and bam! That would make so many senior citizens' lives easier!
this is 10000% the wrong approach— the approach is to build better, more walkable cities, with better zoning, and public transit so elderly or disabled people aren’t left out of society.
these people shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car; to me one of the biggest annoyances with american life
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Waymo and Toyota have a deal to do just that.[1]
[1] https://waymo.com/blog/2025/04/waymo-and-toyota-outline-stra...
Hell, it’ll make MY life easier. Can’t wait for the day where I can do whatever the hell I want while my car drives itself. Affluent seniors that shouldn’t be driving are an obvious market and it would have been helpful for those in my life, too.
Why sell a car when you can charge per ride?
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We're far from them doing it, but I have to imagine at some point Waymo, assuming they survive, will operate similar to Uber and Lyft in terms of pricing vs vehicle type. They have to realize how critical consistency-of-ride is so I'm not suggesting they'll have tons of options, but they will "have to" tier their offering lest someone else comes along (assuming the tech becomes more widespread) and offers a tier they don't offer. At the least I would think they'll end up with a base ride (like an Ioniq or even something extremely basic), an Ioniq or Ioniq+ type in the middle and then some kind of larger, more luxurious option. I mean this as it relates to rideshare because I'm sure Waymo has had plenty of internal conversations about the various verticals they can eventually operate (shipping, mass transit, etc.).
There's a larger Ioniq 9. But the real future is probably a 2-seater with no steering wheel. That handles most usage.
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It's not critical if you will still pay for shit service especially if competitors are like that too.
>Waymos will get cheaper to make as they scale up.
Meaning their profits will rise as they inevitably increase prices
Minority view here I'm sure but maybe profits are a just reward for inventing the future - this is literally science fiction come to life
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Well it depends on their competition and what the market will bear. If they have competitors with a similar-quality product that is undercutting them on price, Waymo will have to lower prices to compete.
And regardless, there's always a ceiling when it comes to what people will pay. In the case of a robotaxi there's of course significant marginal cost to expand the fleet of vehicles, but if they can make more money with more cars at a lower price point (than fewer cars at a higher price point), then they'll do so.
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There is plenty of competition coming to hold prices down.
In my experience, most price increases are in labor-intensive industries. Construction, etc.
Compare with tech, which is what a Waymo is like: computers, TVs, etc are insanely cheap compared to their equivalents in the past.
I had to point out to a Gen Zer complaining about how video game companies keep jacking up prices ("this game for the Switch is $80!") by pointing out that when you adjusted for inflation, a Super Nintendo game cost over $100 in today's money.
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Exactly, capitalism isn't about putting capital to work doing things. It's only concern is share holder profit!
jags and ioniqs are a midway stop for sure. there's no need to have a seat you can't use with a steering wheel and windows that are not totally blacked out. the final product would probably resemble something closer to Cruise One concept.
the next step has already been announced. the holdup is regulatory approval for less-conventional vehicles.
https://insideevs.com/photos/802937/waymo-zeekr-robotaxi/#69...
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What's expensive about operating a Waymo? Do the capital costs exceed that of the driver's salary?
I bet they will try and expand service area over expanding inventory. It's very expensive to keep cars in reserve for peak times, Uber gets around this by offloading the cost onto their drivers, but waymo will need to be able to pull cars from nearby areas.
$23.66/hour in Savannah, GA in 2025 is a starvation wage. Savannah has a bad housing squeeze with very few apartments and they still cost nearly $2K/mo when you find them. God bless those poor souls.
Savannah's COL is 22% below the national average. $23.66/hr starting pay plus benefits definitely isn't a "starvation wage".
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Most factory workers are non-exempt employees and are eligible for overtime pay.
And the Hyundai Metaplant is not in Savannah itself.
The living wage says its right on the edge for the savannah area.
> In Chatham County, the living wage per hour necessary for one adult with no children is $22.46
https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/2024/12/09/what-is-a-...
I pay more:
- To support cool technology
- To ride in a high end car of known quality
- To listen to my music and at any volume
- To not feel weird about the little things like talking or rolling down my windows or setting an AC Temperature
- To know exactly when and where my driver will pick me up down to the exact curb.
- To not have to make small talk with a person. Even when requesting quiet preferred you’ll get an uber driver who wants to share their life story or trauma dump on you.
- To not die. I’ve been in some terrifying Ubers with either bad drivers or just exhausted ones.
And carsickness. In stop-sign city traffic, I get nauseous with the breaking and speeding of aggressive driving. I mean stop signs are problematic for other reasons too, but I don’t want to get to a dinner with friends feeling sick.
That said, if I’m going mostly highway to the airport I want a driver who’s knowledgeable and opportunistic, picking the best lanes and not missing lights.
The last time I got an Uber, it was driven by a young fellow who looked to be in his first year of driving (I could be wrong), the car smelled like mothballs and was obviously in poor shape, and he accidentally drove on the wrong side of a divided road for a block or so (he was apologetic). The last time I tried a regular taxi stand, the car looked even worse, and it broke down. So, we called Lyft, and the driver could not find where we were because it was not a normal address (she was trying her best, but her English was not up to the task of understanding our explanation).
Waymo's selling point might be that its cars are all in good shape (right now), and customers know this.
I've been in more than one Uber that smelled like the driver just smoked weed.
I formally report it every time I'm in a car that has the deodorizer turned up to 11 because it makes me nauseous. My worst one was a 30 minute ride to the airport in LA - I thought about just having them pull over and ordering a replacement
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I've had this happen many times. One time, I got into an Uber and it smelled like there were 100 kilos of cocaine in the trunk. Not joke, the car reeked of coke.
Does Uber no longer fire drivers who don't consistently get 5 star trip reviews?
I have zero clue if they still do, but based on my experiences lately with Uber and Lyft there's zero chance they fire drivers even if they have terrible reviews. I'm an "always 5 star" type of reviewer (sorry if you think I'm obligated to be honest!), but, man, it's rough out there at least in big cities in the US. Sorry that's not reliably answering your question, but even if Uber said they fire those people I would not for one second believe them.
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Part of the problem with this system is that I’m hesitant to give a driver less than 5 stars (unless they are truly dangerous) because I don’t want to take someone’s livelihood away.
> her English was not up to the task of understanding our explanation
Another Waymo selling point is its universal (since they're all the same) ability to communicate with anyone.
This is amazing. Don't forget that by you doing this you're taking us one step closer to AI replacing not just the job of drivers but the jobs of all of us. Good sides and bad sides.
Hopefully we won't get there and only uber drivers are the ones screwed. Since you and I aren't uber drivers, we don't really care do we?
I'm for equal opportunity screwing: if they lose their jobs, it's only fair my job is at risk too - and given improvements in programming agents, it will be.
The only way we're getting through this is by facing it together, not throwing the more precarious of us under the bus.
I'm not actually convinced that "AI" will even replace all the jobs of drivers. Rumor is that Waymo had trouble in Austin (where I live) when they were centered downtown, because they would gridlock. I'm not convinced that they will work well once they become common on the roads, because they will all drive cautiously, and that may lend itself to gridlock situations. Right now they're in the SE corner of town (also where I live), and they don't seem to gridlock, but the first thing they do is almost always to go to another part of town. They will likely have a useful place, but I'm not convinced that it will pay enough to keep the cars in good shape, long term. The cars are all new, right now, but what happens when they get old and start to malfunction? Will they be making enough money to pay for that? Right now they might (like Uber and Lyft before them) just be burning through VC money, without any prospect of profitability.
Imagine how backwards our socioeconomic order is that "people are no longer needed for grueling work" is a bad thing.
I mean, you're not wrong, but I feel like it's a condemnation of out economic system.
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Reading the comments here, the experiences people are sharing feels out-of-world since I live in Tokyo and it's unthinkable to have a bad experience in a Taxi/Shareride like that. They've always been very professional, the highest quality I could expect. Cars always clean, driver always polite, etc. Sure, there WILL be some edge case out there, but I've ridden taxis and Uber many times here and not a single odd experience, nothing at all like what is being described in these messages.
> I live in Tokyo
I also live in Tokyo and surely you’re not expecting Japanese taxi standards to be remotely comparable to US Uber or Lyft, right? It’s a race to the bottom in any major US metro. Japanese taxis are refined and designed around passenger comfort. There is a specific model of car for Taxis. In the US you’re rolling the dice on what Uber or Lyft offer.
I'm not from the US, I'm from Spain and while they are better in Japan than in Spain, it's not like the "out-of-world" difference that I'm seeing in these comments. That's why I'm confused, I expected the US to be similar to Europe in these regards. I have taken Uber a couple of times while traveling to the US (long ago though), and while they were dirtier than in other countries it wasn't that bad as the comments suggest.
So either things have gone dramatically downhill or I had a "good" experience in my brief US rides relatively speaking.
As a non-American, I am not sure why it's so crazy to think standards would be high in other countries? Grab standards and quality in e.g. Taiwan, Thailand, etc IS within the same order of magnitude as Japan and those are much poorer countries than the US.
This doesn't surprise me at all. I work in the EU but recently the Americans we hire are very hesitant to have conversations with service providers. They will pay more to use a service that has an app, rather than call up another taxi company by phone for example (and it's not a language barrier problem, because everyone speaks english). I can see this extending to not wanting to have a driver in their taxi.
I see this with UK people recently too. I'm not sure what it is. I'm not saying it's not an EU thing at all, but from my vantage point, the behavior is most prevalent in Americans
Edit: After reading this thread, it's possible this could be sampling bias and more of a cross-country generational thing from mellennials down. (I am a mellennial too)
Americans have been raised for a couple generations to be afraid of people. "Stranger danger." Apocalyptic news media. A general millenarianism-run-amok "the final battle between good and evil is coming and evil outnumbers us" assumption that permeates much of American culture across the political spectrum. Catastrophizing.
Somehow that had an impact on our social skills! It takes a lot of work to de-program that if you're not a natural extrovert.
This is a disingenuous take. Americans value their time probably more than any other culture. I’d rather be able to keep reading a book, read some interesting HN content or talk with my friends on Discord more than have small talk with a random uber driver.
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Americans are often a bit early on trends but honestly as a German, I would love to see waymo here. We are very slow at adapting new tech so it probably still be many years away but it would be a total game changer for me.
Especially if they offered an option for pet-owners. Being able to just chill with your pet and not bothering anyone would be amazing.
Why? Just the consistency is worth the extra money. You know exactly what type of car you are getting. You don't have to worry about getting a bad driver or anything. It just works. Plus the whole tipping thing just sucks. I don't want to decide whether to tip and how much. I want to pay what the service costs and that is that.
Also personally, I just don't like people serving me. Probably because I would barely survive a day in a customer facing job myself. I never quite sure if they attempt smalltalk because they want to talk or if they expect to get a better rating. It is just so awkward.
There are people that genuinely like to work in service jobs of course and long term job loss will suck for them so I am not exactly helping.
Years ago when I worked in the food industry, customers would voluntarily pay 20% more for the entire meal just to use the doordash app instead of calling us up. We informed repeat customers that they pay a premium to use 3rd party apps - they just kept using them anyway.
I much prefer ordering with a website to ordering on the phone, especially when ordering for several people. Many of the restaurants where I live now have their own websites.
Talking on the phone is the most painful form of conversation for me. The sound quality is often awful, due to the ambient noises picked up by phone, which occurs particularly often for busy restaurants. You don't know if the other side has heard you because you can't see them and there's no visual signal, so there's more back and forth, prolonging the pain. Since you are ordering via the phone, you have to pay by reading out your credit card number. People sometimes hesitate, and you don't know if it's a bad connection, or if they have just paused......
So yeah, I'd gladly pay a bit more to order via an app. When I'm ordering delivery, I'm already paying premium on that day anyway, the margin of which is way higher than 20%, so I might as well go all the way and avoid dealing with something I don't like.
If I'm not using an app, I'd rather run a mile to make the order in person, than make a phone call.
Agreed it’s madness. Ordering a pizza delivery in my city is almost $40. Somehow pizzerias were able to do it cheaper and faster.
The apps are awful as well. I delivered when I was gifted some gift cards after a loss in the family they raise the prices with gift card balances.
For the first time in my several decades, I live in walking distance to amenities (e.g. bank, hardware store, local & fast -foods).
Literally across the street from my neighborhood is among "the best local pizzarias," and I'll still offer to pay for the entire order if somebody else orders / picks-up ("tip them well" I'll usually suggest). I just don't want to talk on the phone (and don't use apps).
...Americuhly, the usual neighbor still drives (it's like 1000m, round-trip).
Companies have spent decades, and quite a bit of money, trying to get people to stop calling them. It's worked. People mostly only call when there is no other option.
This. It used to be that customer service agents in America were super helpful and would go an extra mile for you. Not any more, dealing with customer service is just a lot of pain, and often a waste of time.
As an example, let's say you have a problem with Windows. Would you rather ask AI for help or a human support agent on the microsoft's website?
> They will pay more to use a service that has an app, rather than call up another taxi company by phone for example
Using an app for taxi booking is so superior to ordering by phone (even excluding potential preference for not talking to service providers) that I have trouble understanding what's puzzling you.
I’ve had multiple experiences of calling a cab company and them no-showing. You can call them back and it’s “oh yeah someone’s on their way, 15 minutes.” 40 minutes later, nothing.
With an app, you have a very clear indication of how far away your driver is, but more importantly whether they’re coming at all.
(Also with the EU specifically I very much had an issue with the language barrier in Florence).
Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or back in the US? Could the language barrier be a reason for their hesitancy?
I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained, but most of my peers in their early 30s are generally fine with calling people or sending an email perhaps depending on the service.
> Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or back in the US?
The EU
> Could the language barrier be a reason for their hesitancy?
No:
> (and it's not a language barrier problem, because everyone speaks english)
>I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained
I think you might be on to something there, maybe it's more of a generational thing than a cultural difference between American and EU citizens.
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I would pay twice the price of pretty much any service if that means I don’t have to do a phone call
A robot isn’t going to decide it doesn’t want to take my ride after accepting it and drive around aimlessly hoping I’ll get tired of waiting and cancel. I haven’t needed Uber/Lyft on a regular basis in several years, but back when I did that was a frequently recurring problem.
There's also a problem of drivers discriminating, like canceling rides if they see you have a guide dog. It's illegal and they can get banned for it, but it still happens. This wouldn't happen in a Waymo.
This happens so much now. It's infuriating. I wish they would put a stop to this. A few weeks ago, I had multiple Uber drivers do this. Eventually, I gave up and ordered a Waymo because they were the only ones who would pick me up.
Reliability was the main selling point for me ~10 years ago. You could also get a ride quickly. It's the total opposite now. I've missed a flight due to multiple cancellations. I've been left standing in dangerous areas of town for an hour late at night trying to get a ride. Now, for important things where possible, I'll take public transport. It's far more reliable.
If you want to compete with Uber, increase prices and increase reliability significantly. There are times when a lot of people will be more than happy to pay rather than risk their safety. Undo the enshittification.
A robot can be programmed to do that. As soon as they're economically incentivized to do so someone will write that code.
When the driver and the platform are different entities (like Uber) you end up with these weird incentives. How would that happen in the Waymo case?
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People are eager to pay money to not deal with other people. Which makes me pessimistic about the future of humanity given recent developments in AI really
I question that as a general statement if the "other people" are competent, clean, and polite. That's not to say I won't do something online if it's lower friction than going into a DMV office or whatever. Though I don't really do online food delivery in general, I'm perfectly happy going to a number of local restaurants.
If I could be 100% certain that every Uber/Lyft driver I encounter would give me a perfect "social" experience (where "perfect" varies for me depending on the day), I'd choose it over Waymo at the same price. But of course that's unreasonable and impossible to expect. So for a comparable price and wait/drive time I'll pretty much always pick Waymo.
It does make me sad to some extent; I do enjoy interacting with people working service jobs in my neighborhood, people I see on a regular basis and who recognize me. But I don't think that's ever going to be the case for me for something like a taxi/rideshare driver.
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Other people are different, that's the thing, while AI is generally predictable quality, and it's not going to go down. Autonomous driving is just one example, I really think it's a general pattern
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Well it's not just the talking or otherwise awkward interactions. It's also smells and generally being in a person's personal space. Let's face it, sitting in a car, you physically get closer to the driver than you'd normally be comfortable with in an open, unrestricted space. And the car is closed too. You are essentially forced to be in their personal space. Not so with a driverless car.
Waymos are more pleasant to be in and people value comfort. I've had many Uber drivers who love to speed, which can be terrifying in SF. The bus can be a real crapshoot with who's on it. The bus also can take forever depending on where you start and where you need to go. The service that waymo provides is just on average better.
I've had many violent and borderline reckless drivers in my time in Poland. In the end, taking the tram was much safer and less stressful.
Threads like these remind me that Hacker News posters and my friends are two completely different types of people.
We don’t mind rideshare at all.
> People are eager to pay money to not deal with other people
I wonder if it's cultural. For instance I always hear how Japan has a lot of vending machines and am wondering if it's just pure tech advancement and efficiency at work, maybe lack of space to open a proper kiosk with a seller, or there is a cultural element of not wanting to "inconvenience" others having to interact with them.
One is low crime rate, vending machines even in major cities do not get vandalised or broken into. The other is Japan's massive focus on convenience.
I don't think lack of space is the issue. Combinis are everywhere but you'll still see vending machines in most parking lots and laundromats.
Tech advancement is also relevant. I believe Japan invented vending machines that serve hot and cold drinks simultaneously and they adjust with the seasons. They invented improved ways of loading the cans and spend a lot of effot on the design and art, there are even vending machine exclusive drinks etc.
Japan does have a lot of vending machines. Maybe less vandalism in Japanese cities?
But they also have a lot of staffed convenience stores (typically 7-Eleven) that are generally better than the random chain convenience store in the US (often in a gas station).
Don't know the history.
For Japan I expect it's also a matter of population/crowd density in the cities. There are tons of staffed convenience stores (7-Eleven, Family Mart, Lawson), but even with a high density of stores, they're often fairly crowded.
Having lots of vending machines even for simple things like bottled water and soft drinks reduces the pressure on the convenience stores quite a bit. More advanced vending machines with other products helps even more.
Given how Japan works in general I bet it's the latter. It's a great country to travel and eat alone, for example.
It could be that a particular segment of the population prefers the privacy and is willing to pay accordingly, while other segments of the population don't mind the social interaction, or at least are not willing to pay for its absence.
Kind of how like some people greatly prefer WFH, whereas other people like the social interaction of being in a shared working environment.
From my perspective, having the choice of whether to ride with a driver or not is a good thing.
people love other people; but transactions bring out the worst in people
People who like Waymo (and those who hang out on HN) are probably to a good degree neuro diverse, so I wouldn't write off humanity just yet. My experience with the majority of people is that they do like interacting with humans. I guess that's why we still have stores, restaurants and gasp offices when, technically speaking, there hasn't been too much of a need for any of these things for about two decades now.
this is true, but people are also eager to pay nothing, so I'm not sure how much "generalizations about products" are worth
In Austin, Waymos are hailed via the Uber app, which will quote you a price which is good for either a conventional Uber or a Waymo, and you get a Waymo if one is available. Same price. The Waymo is actually cheaper because there's no tip.
The issue I have with Waymo is that getting in and out of those i-Paces as a "person of height" is rather difficult - I really have to do a strange contortion - and if I want to sit in the right rear, there's nobody in front to pull the seat up for me so there's not enough legroom. (I've moved to adjusting and sitting in the front passenger seat when I get a Waymo, something human Uber drivers hate.)
for a while Austin had banned Uber/Lyft. do you know what happened to change that?
"there is an idea that autonomous vehicles are something that will erode driver jobs and put drivers at risk. And I think the irony of what we’ve seen is that it’s actually quite expensive to run an AV, and that that’s not going to be happening, at least in the near term"
Why are they assuming the higher price results from supply rather than demand? Seems like a no brainer that waymo will trounce drivers on price once adequately scaled
This looks like a clickbait study. Waymo is cheaper 100% of the time for me. The two big data points I think they purposely glossed over are:
1. Tip – Uber and Lyft cost 20% more than the ride price.
2. Car quality – Sure, a Corolla on Lyft is cheaper than Waymo. But once you select something desirable the price goes up, a lot.
I love Waymo, but Waymo is not cheaper 100% of the time, unless you have that data? I've had Waymo quote me $26 where uber comfort was $11. I could "tip the bill" and still be under Waymo.
>Tip – Uber and Lyft cost 20% more than the ride price.
Idk maybe because I used rideshare apps before they added tipping, but even as someone who tips 20% at restaurants I don't tip rideshares.
The original argument Uber had for not adding it was because 'the fare included it', but seeing people now see it as required does kind of backup why they dragged their feet on adding it.
> but even as someone who tips 20% at restaurants I don't tip rideshares.
Does this not affect your rating?
My experience is very different. About a year ago I'd agree that Waymo was mostly cheaper or comparable in cost to an Uber/Lyft ride, but in the past 3-6 months I usually see Waymo at 75%-150% more than Uber/Lyft, and yes, I do account for the Uber/Lyft tip when I compare.
What's up with the US tipping culture?
I live in Romania and I only tip restaurants a standard of 10% (not fast food, not coffee, just restaurants). Also delivery people when they help bring heavy stuff into my appartment (theoretically they are only paid to bring it to the block entrance).
Back when I used taxis we would tip those. But I have never tipped an Uber. Or a Glovo (our Door Dash) deliveryman.
Started off as a way to pay people less, especially for odd jobs.
Grew to a point where it's disconnected from the actual value of the service, so people like waiters make way more than if it was priced according to market price, but people pay anyways because it's not about the service, but about not feeling guilty for being cheap. The ecosystem has now found a balance that hurts the consumer, which they're willing to put up with because it's socially ingrained. The people providing a service make more, the business owner doesn't really care, and can't get rid of tips because it's a cutthroat industry and they wouldn't get workers, and higher wages would cause sticker shock, so they too have no incentive to make any changes. The customers group is too big, and don't have enough structure to organize any meaningful change. So it is what it is.
You can see it now, people complain about how tipping is everywhere, including for walk-ins where no table service is provided, but eventually this too will be normalized.
My personal hope is that one day we start tipping our doctors, our dentists, our programmers, to see how big and stupid this dumpster fire can grow.
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I’ve never seen Waymo be cheaper than Uber/Lyft, but then again the audacity of them charging more even when they are driverless made me stop bothering to check pretty quickly.
One of the selling points of Uber over taxis has always been that you don’t have to tip. I get that some people are excessively generous but it’s absolutely not required.
If you’re the kind of person who is willing to pay more for a fancier car, good for you. I take the bus if it could just get me from point A to point B in a reasonable time, Uber is a last resort that costs 10 times as much as public transit, at least in San Francisco. It’s disgustingly, offensively expensive. And somehow Waymo charges more? Absolutely ridiculous.
Speaking to a European woman, she said she was not surprised women would pay more not to be harassed. I guess in her country there is more of that. Me, I enjoy human interaction, but the European female angle on taxi "safety" was something I hadn't considered.
Most American women, and women all over the world, would say the same thing.
At least half my recent rides in Ubers/Lyft have been drivers that shouldn’t be on the road, I’d happily pay more for a Waymo.
i've had quite a few experiences with AWFUL uber drivers as well. i think it would be beneficial for uber to require some sort of ODB monitoring like some insurance companies do. one time on a trip to the airport, i almost had the driver pull over on the side of the road to let me know. i was GENUINELY scared by her driving.
ODB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ol'_Dirty_Bastard OBD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-board_diagnostics
I've been taking these rides 5-6 days a week, everywhere, and also in other countries outside the US. What I've come to realize is this: what matters to me the most is the consistency of the lowest bar of the experience.
I get that sometimes with human drivers, when I'm lucky, I get someone who goes above and beyond, someone who's fantastic to talk to along the way, and so on.
But if I can trade all that with a guarantee that there's a consistent, predictable floor to my worst experience, I'll take it in a heartbeat.
At the end of it, I take a ride to get from point A to point B. I'd rather have a machine does it for me very efficiently, without all the messy human element, with the ups and the downs, because it's the downs that ruin my day.
100%. I've discovered the floor: Small cars that probably aren't safe, trashed interior, and drivers who smell of literally every vice while talking on the phone AND playing whatever music all together. "Premium" is simply not that experience.
The article doesn't mention if tips are included in their calculation (I suspect not).
Are Uber/Lyft still cheaper after a 10-15% tip?
Assuming the rides are comparable, the article has a table which includes price/km (weird) of Lyft: $7.99, Uber: $8.36, and Waymo: $11.22. On that data, Waymo is roughly 40% higher, so way more than just a tip.
Assuming you didn’t upgrade to a different tier or pay for priority to get your uber faster or a nicer ride.
Uber also can increase the cost of the ride on you with unexpected routes or time. Yes you can complain, but I am sure plenty don’t even notice.
The math isn’t wrong, but it’s not so black and white.
I’m in the camp though of “I would pay double not to deal with a human”
in my limited experience, you're not usually tipping a percent but a flat dollar amount of like $2-5 per ride, so $3 on an $8 ride basically removes the price difference between lyft/uber and waymo
Only about 15% people tip https://www.businessinsider.com/1-percent-uber-riders-always...
Important caveat to that study from right at the end of the article:
the data set used for the study, while massive, was limited to 2017 data. [...] Uber only added a tipping function to its app in 2017
So the study was either before you could even tip in the app or soon after and when it was still new.
A more recent study would interesting.
My thoughts exactly. I usually tip well - too well if I’m drinking and that’s usually when I’m taking an Uber.
it's funny, but tipping is one of the things many people will pay more to avoid.
About the same.
The Waymo cars are really comfortable luxury Jaguars. For Uber and Lyft there are many price tiers, but to reliably get an equally or more comfortable car you probably need to book the black car options. I’m sure Uber / Lyft are way more expensive per mile than Waymo on that tier.
In addition to all the things people have pointed out that makes it a better experience.
Almost every Uber Black and Black SUV I’ve ordered was a Chevy Suburban or GMC Yukon.
The quality is across the board, but one thing I’ve found consistent is the terrible quality seats. The seats feel like it’s just cardboard supporting you that pops in and out as you move with the car.
It’s rare to get an actual luxury car even when paying more.
Their promise of “professional” drivers is also wild. Sometimes you get a guy who’s friendly and seems eager to please and helpful with luggage, but I’ve had plenty of downright rude drivers who feel inconvenienced by my presence.
> I’ve had plenty of downright rude drivers who feel inconvenienced by my presence
This is my general observation about life (at least in the US) these days: the seeming prevalence of people who think they're doing you a favor by doing their job.
“Colloquially, there is an idea that autonomous vehicles are something that will erode driver jobs and put drivers at risk. And I think the irony of what we’ve seen is that it’s actually quite expensive to run an AV”
This seems like a temporary problem. Google is charging what the market will bear and doesn’t have ability to get more cars on the road.
The simpler explanation is that Google mismanages its pay-per-use consumer-facing products. Consider Google One and YouTube Premium are also overpriced, and everyone tells them so.
It's obviously a mistake to charge more than Uber or Lyft, it's crazy obvious, like mind meltingly obvious. Sometimes it's just the obvious thing. Google's problem is that its management is so bad, it doesn't understand: just because something happens (paying more for rides) doesn't mean it makes sense. After all taxis are more expensive sometimes, and people pay for them, and where's the article that litigates all the dumb reasons people give for doing that?
"One of the most valuable companies on the planet is mismanaging its products"
see the issue with that assertion?
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This phenomenon is interesting, and a bit surprising. I can kinda see it: while my experiences with Uber & Lyft over the past ~13 years has been overall very positive, there are quite a few minor-seeming-but-adds-up-to-annoying things that can happen with Uber/Lyft that just won't happen with Waymo:
* Driver cancels and you have to wait for a new driver to accept.
* Driver is really chatty and you aren't in the mood, or worse, they want to talk about uncomfortable topics like politics or religion (and even worse, they hold views you find bad). I sometimes (rarely) get drivers who want to complain about something or other, and it's just awkward.
* Car condition is unknown until you get in, and could be bad. There might be unpleasant smells, either from cleaning issues or driver body odor.
* It's hot enough for air conditioning, but the driver instead has windows open to save gas (which is dubious anyway as open windows creates more drag); it's uncomfortable but you feel awkward asking them to close the windows and turn a/c on.
On the other hand, sometimes you do get an awesome driver who enhances the experience beyond what a robotaxi can offer. I'm not the most chatty sort with people I don't know, but I have on occasion had a really fun, positive conversation with an Uber/Lyft driver that I genuinely enjoyed. And in SF at least, Waymo will still not drive on freeways, so if there's a significantly faster freeway route for your trip, Waymo will take more time.
I generally do prefer Waymo over Uber/Lyft, but I'm not willing to pay all that much more for it. One thing to remember is that you should also factor in the tip you'd give the Uber/Lyft driver when making the comparison, since you don't tip a Waymo. Lately I've seen prices like (tip-adjusted) $12 for Uber/Lyft and $25 for Waymo for the same ride, but I'm not willing to pay that much more for Waymo. If Waymo is a few bucks more expensive I'll use it, but not $10. (I also have a 10 points per dollar thing on Lyft rides with my credit card, so I try to remember to take into account a more-or-less 15% discount on the ride, versus the standard 1.5% 1 point per dollar I get with Waymo.)
I don't see how Waymo would be immune to the unpleasant smell issue. It might happen less frequently, but it'll definitely happen.
I would expect it to happen much less often. And each instance of it will likely only be for a single customer's ride, as they'll report the issue in the app, and the car will be taken out of service until it's cleaned.
For an Uber/Lyft driver, if they're even (made) aware of the problem, they'll probably not take care of the issue until they've finished their day of driving.
Electronic vehicles have made riding in Uber's an almost uniformly nauseating experience (literally). In order of preference I will walk/bike -> public transit -> Waymo -> drive myself -> consider staying at home -> Uber/Lyft
> Electronic vehicles have made riding in Uber's an almost uniformly nauseating experience
I've heard this a lot. Are drivers heavily accelerating and decelerating?
Most drivers are not conscious about rolling the gas or keeping it stable and drive by pulsing it on and off to maintain speed because they don’t have the attention, finesse, or both to drive smoothly. Also rolling on the inputs is not something most do. I used to train drivers for racing and not stabbing the gas or brakes is a learned skill that takes some time. Where a person will likely accelerate for too long having to then brake harder, a Waymo smoothes out the curve, preserving energy, which also means less jerk.
Not to mention that in SF you have the hills that add to the math.
Teslas do this by default. They have very strong acceleration, since they were marketed as "sports cars" to people who don't know sports cars, and strong regeneration for efficiency and one-pedal driving.
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Depends on the driver, but over the years I’ve gotten a decent number who floor it out of every stop sign/light and don’t adequately modulate speed to match the flow of traffic. With how quickly EVs accelerate I could see that making for a less than pleasant ride.
The worst is Revel, which, in NYC, are ALL teslas/EVs. worst taxi experience of my life was a 1 hr drive to airport in stop and go street light traffic. I appreciated the hustle but deleted the app soon after my gag reflex subsided. they should at least disable regenerative braking or something
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In my limited experience, all taxi drivers just do it all the time for time efficiency. They are paid by km most of the time, makes sense.
Yes, although the deceleration seems to be partly due to regenerative braking. They're driving them like normal ICE cars.
As a man I thankfully haven't ever really felt unsafe (in this way anyways, definitely some bad/distracted Uber drivers) but I could see women or kids finding Waymos to be a safer overall experience worth a premium
Recently my daughter and I had to take a Uber home from airport at 11pm. I did not like the driver and I did not like the situation and I seriously was considering exit plans if he started going off the normal route.
The next time I had to take a late Uber I paid up for Uber Premium, which is maybe imperfect reasoning but the driver was pleasant and polite and didn't give any bad vibes.
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my eastern european mind cannot comprehend 2 things:
- if the average price per ride is $20.43 and average price per km is $11.22 does it mean that the average ride length is 1.8km? that seems kinda low..., like that's something I would walk if I didn't hurry..
- if the higher prices are really influenced by costs of operating AV and not simple greed fueled by "offering a better product", how long it's gonna take to be competitive in countries where driver salaries are lower than US? In Bratislava where I'm from the UberX price per km outside surges are lower than 1€ (there's a minimum price per ride of 4.50€ though, but a ride to the airport which is 9km away is 7.41€ now (and that's without the frequent discounts Uber offers, currently I have a 30% discount offered and it would cost me 5.19€ with the discount)...
> does it mean that the average ride length is 1.8km? that seems kinda low..., like that's something I would walk if I didn't hurry..
Idk about the average but I used to make a bad joke that walking is considered an extreme sport in most of the US. Sometimes, it’s for legit reasons such as extreme heat, literally no sidewalks, and areas that are perceived as dangerous because of the people there. Other times it’s just seen as a discomfort ”why walk when you can sit in a large car”. This is reflected in language, where ”walkable” is a frequent term used to describe the often rare parts of urban areas where you can comfortably walk from A to B. In EU there’s often no need for such a term.
> how long it's gonna take to be competitive in countries where driver salaries are lower than US?
Why not share my prediction, it’s probably as bad as the rest of them: I think this stage right now is about viability. Getting training data and real road experience, knowing what sensors are needed, range of road conditions, and grasping the enormous amount of novel traffic situations. I don’t think the purpose of the pricing is to make profits, but rather to test the markets end-to-end. Essentially, it’s an R&D project designed to inform and instill confidence for future investing and scaling.
As for replacing human drivers, I think it’ll be region-by-region with a very long tail. Since cost of labor varies so much, you’d need many years to bring costs of vehicles and maintenance down to be competitive. Plus, expanding to new regions have huge fixed costs and risk, much more so with AVs than normal ”Uber-style” services, with BYO labor & vehicle. These things need service centers, depots, offices, probably quite densely, no? Not to mention the politics, unions etc.
One of the most recent Uber rides I took was in Orlando. As the crow flies it was almost exactly 500 meters from point to point, but Google has it as a 50 minute, 4km walk. Most of the US is really not set up for walking.
In most of the US it's not really possible/safe to walk between buildings just because of how everything got built. Often it would involve crossing six lane divided highways etc. That's why you see so many threads here talking about bikes/transit/urban design etc.
I do plenty of walking.
I'll take an Uber if I have luggage. If it's raining heavily. If I'm in a hurry because the play is about to start and there's no late seating. If I'm on a date and she's wearing high heels. Etc.
Just because people are sometimes taking Ubers for short distances doesn't mean they're usually taking Ubers for short distances.
Uber isn't a way of life. It's a tool for when you need it.
Say you want to pick up some groceries. In most US cities there is no nearby small market; in some cities there are, but it varies widely. So either you can get takeout, or you can go from 1 (median) to 2.6 (average) miles to a grocery store. You could bike, but most US cities don't have good bike infrastructure (and let's face it, we're lazy). If there is public transit it's slow and unreliable.
Rideshare prices can also be 2x more expensive depending on the city. One city's average price is $7, another's is $17. Some cities are more compact, some are more spread out, some have fewer drivers, some have more, some have a lower cost of living, some higher, some have more suburban drivers, some fewer.
I and a friend visited California, ending in San Diego. We figured out we didn't need the rental car for the last few days, so we asked the hotel clerk how to get back from the car dropoff at the airport. "You could Uber ..." but had no suggestion for an alternative.
We then looked at the map - https://www.brouter.de/brouter-web/#map=15/32.7236/-117.1779... . It was 2km, all on sidewalks. My friend dropped off the car and walked back.
It was lovely SoCal weather, with the sun close to setting over the bay. But the idea of walking it seemed far from at least the clerk's mind.
I believe many of my fellow Americans feel the same. I'm one of the oddballs that would walk 1 1/2 miles home after clubbing rather than drive - something likely only possible for guys as the streets at 1am were empty of anyone walking.
Which also means I've had my share of walks where the sidewalk ended, or where I wasn't legally allowed to go further. That's the American way. /s
Yeah I noticed that too, and I paid for the first experience. But also because Lyft guy canceled on me after waiting for 12 minutes. Waymo does not cancel.
I feel like Waymo has discouraged Lyft and Uber drivers from being in the area. I would rather pick an uber driver who can get there fast than a Waymo.
Wow, USD 8 to 11 per km.
Hong Kong taxis cost USD 3.5 for the first 2 km, then USD 1.4/km, and less than a dollar per km above USD 13.
https://www.td.gov.hk/en/transport_in_hong_kong/public_trans...
The prices are pretty shocking for me too (Hungary). I don't use taxis much due to the city being pretty walkable, and there being good public transport, but a quick check says that taxis here have a base fare of 3.16 USD, after which it's 1.26 USD per km or 0.32 USD per minute, depending on the billing option (the two are roughly equal around 15 km/h speed).
Another thing that is odd for me is that for all 3 companies in the article, the average trip seems to be less than 2 km. I'm slightly more "walkey" than the average person for sure, but that is a leisurely 15 minute walk, and on the threshold of the distance I would start considering public transport for. With bags to the airport, sure, I'd take a taxi. But I find it hard to believe that the average person is ~2 km from the airport, so the median trip is likely done without extensive luggage at an _even shorter_ distance. I find this kind of absurd.
I’ve had several questionable uber rides regarding personal safety and would gladly ride with something with a consistent safety track record for a premium. Recently rode with a visibly sick driver that had had a hard time catching his breath long enough to keep his eyes on the road. Automation doesn’t get sick.
out of sheer curiosity, i took my first (few) waymo rides while in san francisco last month. mind = blown. there is nothing more enjoyable than getting into a vehicle by yourself, no driver, no awkwardness, nothing. i was happy to pay more for a waymo than an uber, too.
I've only used Uber a handfull of times, and all of them at least 7 years ago - nothing recent.
Last time I used it was late at night, I had used an Uber to get Pizza but it was kind of far from my hotel. After eating I used it again to get a ride back. Unfortunately whatever driver it chose for me, decided to just SIT for an hour at their house (or somewhere). And then finally left. It was like 11pm, middle of nowhere and I was freezing cold.
I'd rather choose a Waymo than freeze my ass off. This was an area that had so few drivers (I wasn't from here so I had no idea).
This is a huge huge huge problem for Uber. They have severely degraded their one key fearure: reliable knowledge that your taxi is on its way. This is the entire point of Uber versus a regular taxi.
Last Uber driver I took was solving Rubik's cube while driving, so I can see the value in Waymo actually paying attention to the road. On top of that I know what to expect and I can just listen to podcasts or do whatever. One thing that worries me a bit is the camera that's pointed at your phone in the back...
The novelty aside (I don’t live in a service region for Waymo, so I can only try it if I fly out to SFO for work), I will happily pay a premium to have a consistent experience where I don’t have to potentially deal with an obnoxious driver. That sounds misanthropic, I know, but for every good experience I’ve had where the car was clean and the driver was either silent, or interesting to talk to, I’ve had five others where that was not the case.
I admit I did not go further than the title, because I assume the conclusion is in the title.
Waymo is considerably cheaper in LA (at least in a region) than Uber. I have no clue about Lyft. I know this for a fact, because someone I know has taken Waymos and Ubers between the two identical points, around the same time of day, multiple times, and Waymo has always been way cheaper, considerably so.
This is as much about Uber/Lyft, as it is about the (nonexistent) level of politeness in the vest (US+Europe).
Have you ever taken a Uber in Japan? The driver will make him/herself invisible. The space in the car is, factually, your space. No phone conversations on their part, no music, no odours.
Waymo won't thrive in Japan, because it offers nothing extra advantages to regular Uber.
We suck in the west in terms of customer friendliness.
> Have you ever taken a Uber in Japan?
You're being snarky but it's obvious you're speaking from the prospective of a foreign tourist who has only been to Tokyo and major cities while not being able to speak Japanese.
You're making a strong but false generalisations as a tourist. The tourist aspect is important because of the anthropic principle. If you were a local who was in the inaka where Uber doesn't operate and you had to reserve a taxi by phone in Japanese, you'd have an entirely different experience.
Japanese people are notoriously introverted and shy. That's why people don't make small talk especially on a taxi. Plus, if they presume you're a tourist who doesn't speak Japanese, why bother? It's also not true that it's "your space". Just because the driver and other service people aren't confronting you on your behavior doesn't mean it's socially approved behavior. Japanese people silently judged and tourists can't even notice. There is an unspoken rule you keep your conversation with your fellow passenger private and quiet. Even wearing a perfume/cologne in a communal space, which a taxi is, can be considered rude.
If the reason people prefer Waymo is because they're introverted and not just avoid socializing but avoid being the presence of other people alltogether, then it's entirely possible for Waymo to do okay in Japan.
> The space in the car is, factually, your space.
This such an arrogant Westerner thing to think and say. Until you can step out of that, you will never understand Japan like you think you do.
So you are saying that as a Japanese ordering a Japanese by phone, that your driver would: - happily speak on the phone while driving - listen to music - open the window to cool himself without asking if you're OK with that?
(i.e. all the things drivers in the best do; also, when I said that the space in a taxi is factually the clients space I didn't imply that the client can do whatever he wants - rather that the client can enjoy that space undisturbed; you only zoned in on the part of the client creating disturbance, which I can see though is an issue with tourists in Japan.)
I find that hard to believe. But open to be proven otherwise if you can cite such occurrences.
My other point that we in the west suck still seems to hold true: even if your point is true and I may get better treatment in Japan only as a tourist in a big city, you can rest assured that no Japanese in a western big city will get any kind of better treatment. Drivers in the west are usually impolite equally to everyone.
so, in your opinion, the best way to be polite is to not exist? that's a nice outlook on humanity
Hah!
The converse to your claim is: the only way to exist is to intrude on other people space (by loud talking, hearing music etc).;)
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Interesting. Very little about the underlying reasons for this.
Maybe it's driven by curiosity/awe for the new experience? Maybe being alone in the car makes a better ride?
I pay a premium for Waymos.
No need to tip, or even think about whether one should tip. The ride won’t cancel on me, which makes it more reliable. (Waymos are also more consistently clean.) I can take phone calls without worrying about my rider rating. And yeah, they’re more fun because they're novel.
Yeah, I’d happily pay a bit extra just to take tipping out of the equation entirely. Not having to worry about it is enough of a draw on its own. (I’m not a fan of tipping culture to begin with — especially with apps like Uber, where you’re also being rated, which adds even more pressure.)
Now if only Waymo were available in my area…
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The tip piece is interesting - that'd close a big chunk of the price gap, if people are tipping 10-20%
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The “consistently clean” part won’t last, that’s just because they’re new. In 2010 “they’re consistently clean” was an advantage of Ubers over yellow cabs, which of course is gone now. But I agree with the rest of this.
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What about driving safety ?
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But it makes sense it being this way, doesn't it? I assume there are way fewer of Waymo taxis and the premium they provide is being able to ride privately at your own company. Also likely is that the riders might be more well off, part of them being tech-savvy, thus also leaning towards willing to ride an autonomous car.
"Lack of another person in the vehicle" is a feature. Don't have to interact with a person. No weed/cigarette smell. And so on. Also a computer may not drive as well as the best human but it will always drive much better than the worst human.
> "Lack of another person in the vehicle" is a feature.
I remember this came up for self-checkout at grocery stores. Personally I mildly prefer not interacting, for one friend this is a huge psychological difference, they are much more able to shop when it doesn't involve trying to talk to a human. It's not impossible anyway but you can see it's a real burden.
If I want to interact with a human there's no reason that should be a financial transaction. I can believe you would get a Waymo to a bar, hang out with friends (or even strangers) and then get a Waymo home, because you wanted the social interactions to be entirely separate from the financial transaction.
This is why Uber was aggressively fighting for getting self driving tech.
I don't use Uber because I think they're a bad actor and don't want to support them. Waymo is Google, so there's some of that there too, but in a pinch I'd probably use Waymo. I'd never use Uber.
Greyball[0] is an interesting solution to a usually intractable problem while freebooting, how to prevent avoidable contact with interested parties, to the degree of identifying and tracking said parties. I’m surprised In-Q-Tel never made an investment, as these kinds of dual-use products and services are in their wheelhouse.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber...
It might be more expensive now because it is novel, but over time, as it commoditizes and more competition enters, prices will likely go down.
Also, this is how the free market works. The actual users decide what something is worth based on using their wallets. Is it more valuable to have solitude and your own space in the car? Or better to have human interaction? The market will decide.
This bodes well for Tesla. After their product is fully ready and released, regardless if it takes 5 years, with any sense it's going to be the cheapest, will reach anywhere (no requirement for mapping, can reliably calculate to the limit of its range), AND have the privacy benefits of a self driving cab.
The new age version of cabs are over fit, people take them for many things they don't need. Me included; I no longer ask my siblings/friends/spouse to take me to the airport, I just order a lyft/uber where as I wasn't doing that with cabs 10 years ago.
People are catching on to that reality but at least WayMo offers something novel.
I think my autonomavertigo would prevent me from ever taking a Waymo.
Autonomavertigo (noun):
The disorienting fear or anxiety experienced when surrendering control to autonomous systems, especially self-driving vehicles. Often accompanied by phantom brake-pumping and suspicious glances at the dashboard.
There's none of this in a Waymo, and the phantom braking is reduced but still present in FSD Teslas... and yes, it's anger-inducing.
A Waymo did take me full speed through a pothole in LA recently. That was unpleasant.
Take a friend and watch them in awe and wonder. That will be your icebreaker.
Otherwise, just remember this not completely autonomous. Some technician is troubleshooting behind the computer screen.
Not dismissing your concerns, but curious how you deal with elevators or escalators
Fixed track, few degrees of freedom
You're gonna have a bad time in the next few years haha.
It's like 5-10% more for a Waymo (which is nothing in the $10-30 range) and you don't have to talk to anyone and/or sit in awkward silence for the ride. Yeah, I'll pay that every time.
Simply not playing Uber’s bait-and-switch game (happened again just yesterday: A purported $40 ride ended up being $80 due to being “unexpectedly 3x the planned distance”) would get them my business immediately once they become available in NYC for the very few times I do take a car.
Not marking up rides when there’s a gift balance on the account would also be a great distinguishing feature.
I managed to get a Waymo after a big event at Intuit Dome. It found a reasonable place to pick me up a couple blocks away. I didn’t have to try calling the driver to get them to figure out where I should go to try and get around roadblocks and traffic (I had no idea about the area). It didn’t cancel on me. It didn’t hit me with a surge price. So I don’t even buy the central premise by the article that Waymo is guaranteed to be more expensive.
And I didnt have to worry about a Waymo being unavailable late in the evening, or canceling my ride because it didn’t want to go that far at night. It just worked. Why would I ever take anything else?
The novelty of Waymo, as well as not having to interact with a stranger (especially for women, my wife used Waymo and liked it) makes Waymo a compelling option.
I agree. At least in San Francisco it's still a tourist attraction. I took two rides when I visited that were twice the price of an Uber and I only did that for the novelty. Definitely wouldn't if I lived there.
The driving is much more comfortable than Uber or Lyft. Taking them through San Francisco I find they gentler on hills, accelerate and break more mildly, and don’t try to drop you in unsafe places.
They’re just better drivers than people and that comfort is worth the up charge.
Uber is increasingly annoying where it will delay putting in an order for a ride and then try to upsell you. As in upgrade to Uber plus or black to get a faster time. If there is a concert or game and big demand spike I get it. But it’s doing it on almost every ride in SF. Upsell nags are annoying but seemingly extending my trip time to upsell is unforgivable.
This doesn’t surprise me and I’m not sure it’s about people not wanting to interact with people or whatever - many of the Ubers I’ve got while in SF have been pretty grim (unclean, weird odors, ancient badly serviced car etc) and badly driven. I’ve not noticed this being such an issue in the UK/Europe but that might just be because I take Ubers much more rarely there (with more prevalent public transit etc).
I’d definitely pay more for a Waymo, which is a much more reliably pleasant (and very cool!) experience.
There's still a "wow factor" associated with this. I live in a city that doesn't have Waymo. I recently had a work trip to a city that does. Waymo was 25% more expensive than Uber (~15 vs ~20). I still took Waymo because I don't get to experience it often, so it's fun to be in a driverless car. If I had constant access to Waymo, I would have probably chosen the cheapest option.
why is it surprising that Waymo costs more, and people pay anyway? Waymo is prioritizing safety over all things and is in gradual roll out mode.
The easiest way to contain demand is to raise prices.
and...what's not to love about riding in the future for a few bucks more?
This would change if there wasn’t a culture of giving 5 stars to every driver. It started because Uber unfairly punished good drivers for very good but honest 4/5 reviews, and now every Uber driver who uses their phone while driving or has an interior smelling of cigarette smoke gets 5 stars out of obligation.
I've had the opposite experience recently.
Going from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica is $30s for a Waymo and runs up to $50s for Uber/Lyft (sometimes). Otherwise, they tend to be within a few dollars.
I figured it was a combination of Google subsidizing rides and a lack of a "traffic tax".
They're a significantly better experience for 45+ minute rides.
Not "people". Early adopters willing to pay the early adopter tax.
By the way, why hasn't all this automation triggered lower prices for anything? Why doesn't the self checkout at a supermarket give you a discount for doing their job?
Uber and Lyft’s cheapest fare options are far from what they used to be. Want a timely pickup? Gotta pay for priority. Want a car that isn’t 10 years old and smelly? Pay extra. Don’t want a sketchy driver smelling of weed? Pay extra. The list goes on. Waymo however at least you know you get a clean and safe car.
if products cost more than other products in a similar domain and people are paying anyway I would naturally assume the more expensive products are a luxury brand, and given some of the other comments here I'd think my assumption borne out.
I get motion sick more easily than most, and a Waymo is much much smoother than a typical uber driver. I am happy to pay a fairly large time&momey premium for this.
just read this before so I can see why
https://old.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/1lbn0fs/is_it_no...
In my experience Uber/Lyft/Bolt in their race to the bottom started tolerating cars in bad shape and drivers that don’t care about driving safely. Really hoping to see Waymo or any other robo-taxi in Europe soon.
Who wouldn't pay more to not have to interact with an unknown human?
I once went to a remote town in Maryland that had only one uber driver. Imagine how beautiful a Waymo machine would work there.
Uber barely operates in huge swaths of the US. I've been in parts of Idaho and Kansas where wait times during the day can be a half an hour and after a certain hour no drivers are available at all. And the drivers who operate in these areas tend to be far less experienced/professional than in denser areas (to put it politely). Waymo solves all of this with just a handful of cars in each county.
Bainbridge Island (connected to Seattle by ferry) is like this. There is approximately one Uber driver, at least the last time I was there, and good luck if you get back to the island later in the day. A single Waymo would be amazing.
Replacing 100% of cars with self-driving taxis are definitely the future. In this context:
Corporate owned for-profit self-driving cars are the mark of a dystopian.
Publicly-owned or non-profit self-driving cars are the mark of a utopia.
I'm not sure I see why. If hailing a publicly-operated waymo equivalent is as convenient as going to the DMV or making a withdrawal from a treasury direct account, I don't think anyone is ever going to use it. From my perspective, waymo is the private sector solving a problem that was largely created by the government (zoning → lack of density → needing to drive everywhere).
Obviously the opposite. Competition keeps prices low and quality high.
"Publicly-owned" would be expensive and low quality, and would make the people running the operation filthy rich. Non-profit would mean that whoever is running it would increase their salaries until there's no profit. There would be no reason to lower prices or increase quality, if competition is non-existent.
> "Publicly-owned" would be expensive and low quality, and would make the people running the operation filthy rich.
By publicly owned, I mean “owned by the public”, not “owned by a publicly traded company” (which is, ironically, private property). You’re thinking the latter, which counts as corporate-owned.
I used a bad choice of words. In most of the world “public owned” means the former, whereas in the US it means the latter. The exact opposite, ironically.
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publicly-owned as in pre-Uber taxicab system? Government-enforced monopoly, completely stagnant, and no incentives to make users' experience better? That's not utopia.
Surprise. I’m happy to pay Apple tax in return for ease of use and cancellation
I would pay the extra since there's no driver to talk to me.
A lot of people don’t price shop, they have a default service they prefer and they just pay for it whatever the cost.
Oh Wow, I wonder if this experiment would yield similar results outside San Francisco, hmmm?
I suspect they are more reliable and the end user experience is better.
We need Waymo busses, either directly operated, or licensing the technology.
Call me crazy but I greatly prefer old fashioned taxis, because their drivers know how to step on it and drive like maniacs instead of doddering grandmothers. Sure they stink and have weird accents but why would I care about that when I just want to get home from the airport and get to bed as soon as possible? Accepting cash and not needing some bullshit app is also a huge bonus.
If you pay more now you just proved to Waymo they can charge even more later. Way to go. Once they corner the market it will cost even more than uber/lyft/taxi today.
tried to take a waymo today in LA: https://i.imgur.com/ufoDjue.png
How many of you have used ZipCars or an equivalent? I guarantee you Waymo cars will look worse than the average Uber/Lyft once they stop fluffing up the experience.
I'll happily pay extra to never interact with another human. I'd live in a cave and yell at passersbys if I could.
Serious question - what are all the unskilled immigrants that drive taxis/rideshare/etc going to do? Many millions. What’s the plan for these guys?
I will take Waymos whenever possible just to avoid the black ice tree air fresheners you find in >50% of Ubers that makes my eyes burn for hours. That and the aggressive driving that makes me car sick.
After the initial 60 seconds of shock that nobody is at the wheel, the rest of the ride makes you quickly realize how much better AI is at driving than regular humans.
Turns out people value the experience (and their lives) ... huh.
Hehe, missed a chance to write a cheap pun on that headline.
"Waymo rides cost waymo than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway"
How much of this is just new entrant, unprofitable disruption & pre-enshitification?
Like the first 5-10 years of zipcar…
I just realized why I'd pay premium for Waymo. Sometimes rideshare drivers refuse to pick up my fare, or get lost, or cancel a trip halfway to me. A robot car (one would hope) wouldn't do those things. Get rid of the human bullshit? Take my money.
There was a while, early on, where (at least in the areas I used it) the modal Uber driver was a college student or a (semi-)retired person looking for something to do. Generally polite, fluent in English, upwardly mobile or already successful. Cars were higher quality and cleaner than taxis.
Now, the modal Uber driver seems to be relatively rude, cannot speak English well, seems financially desperate, and drives a dirty/crappy car. Even if I pay extra for "comfort" I often get a pretty junky car. It's basically as bad as a taxi.
When the human element is a substantial net negative on the whole experience, I'll pay extra to avoid the human element.
obvious paid advertisement is obvious
Unfortunately in Austin, Waymo have screwed the pooch by making their service only available through Uber, with no way of saying you only want Waymo instead of a human driver. I used an Uber the other day out of necessity, and the driver smelled so bad I had to stop the ride and get out.
Well ya, it’s better
The photo in the pictures is a brand new Jaguar. Just sayin’
I was under the impression they use Chrysler minvans, but I’d pay more to ride in a late model Jaguar than some random Hyundai.
> I was under the impression they use Chrysler minvans
They used to, but retired them May 1, 2023: https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/13559409
Every Waymo I’ve ridden in is a Jaguar I-PACE. I’m at 31 rides LA/SF.
That's what all the Waymo's look like.
They did some testing in Chrysler minivans, now they're testing in BYD vehicles.
But the rides are in those Jaguars (ya know, the ones burning in LA).
> now they're testing in BYD vehicles
I hadn't heard that. Did you mean Geely Zeekr?
https://waymo.com/blog/2021/12/expanding-our-waymo-one-fleet...
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I mean, if you’ve ever set foot in a Hyundai Ioniq 5/6, they’re better than any of the alternatives from American brands.
I'm sure they are, but I meant that if you were to take a Lyft or Uber, you would just get someone's random car that is often a Hyundai Elantra or Accent in my experience and not necessarily perfectly clean etc vs riding in a corporate maintained fleet of Jaguars.
Is it just a matter of Waymo being tourist attraction? Last time when I was in LA my friends and me, we had a rental car to go around, but we still took couple of Waymo rides just for fun. With enough demand from people who have "autonomous car ride" on their bucket list the price can be much higher, as Uber/Lyft are not really competing in the same category.
I am happy that Waymo is making money. Google would kill it, if it could not make money.
idk, google has a nice list of things that seem like they'll never be profitable, but it keeps running em. Like, google patents, google books, google translate... none of those make money, right? Chromium only makes money indirectly I think, and they invest a ton of engineering resources in that.
Google kills stuff, but they don't kill everything, just stuff that no one is working on (like google reader, I think all the people who cared about the code just quit), or stuff that is specifically counter to some exec's strategy (like killing a bunch of chat software to centralize on Google+ or whatever it is now)
I don't think it's profitable yet. The capex for Waymo is massive.
Ride share grifts (Uber, Lyft) extract wealth from drivers. Morally equiv to MLMs, value added resellers, platforms (Amazon, Spotify, Meta, etc).
It feels icky being an accomplice.
Less importantly, I now despise the degradation of driving etiquette and overall safety. At least as much as I despised taxis. eg don't block traffic loading / unloading; there's a loading zone RIGHT THERE, ffs.
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Why wouldn't you pay more. I would pay 3x an Uber rate to not be driven by an illegal with a questionable license status. To avoid such things, I just pay a car service for every airport I land in.
The real pain with Waymo is that they just aren't as reliably available in a short period, especially at high demand times. Uber can incentivize bringing on extra drivers at certain times - Waymo can't. Unless they size the fleet for high demand peaks - which would be incredibly cost prohibitive, I don't see how they solve this except maybe a hybrid model or they distill their "waymo driver" into something that runs on a standard economy car.