Comment by joenot443
3 days ago
I was thinking this too - my guess is the cars simply wouldn't offer rides on days with really poor conditions.
Toronto's winter driving is normally very reasonable compared to Montreal. My guess is the Waymos operate some ~355 days a year, taking days off after big storms.
Same thing when people tout how FSD is basically "done"... and talk about their anecdotes driving around SoCal and such.
Don't hear many anecdotes about FSD in Pittsburgh on a night in January...
This could still be a problem. Human drivers are still available on these days today, and if services like Waymo take over and theres less Uber (et al) drivers, then we'll have no support on the worst days.
Maybe, but I'd expect a good chunk of rideshare traffic still ends up leaving the city, which AFAIK Waymos still won't do.
My understanding is Uber etc. charge and pay based on demand, so if that means the (fewer) human drivers are that much more expensive on snowy days then so be it. If it's a blizzard and Uber fares work out to $100/h I'd be very surprised if drivers couldn't be found.
Compounded by the fact in winter basically everyone will be going to the airports at least twice to escape, which drives demand.
Basically if the planes are flying the robotaxis will need to work.