This sentence was a bit cute: "Waymo has received our pilot permit allowing for commercial operations at San Francisco International Airport." Yeah, that kind of pilot.
I really had to read through it twice to make sure they were just talking about car taxis picking up travelers, rather than some kind of prototype pilotless commuter helicopter or something.
By aaronharnly 16 hours ago
That was my first interpretation, and I was very surprised and kind of afraid. Glad to know they aren't trying for autonomous flight yet.
By danielvaughn 15 hours ago
I have zero expertise for my claim, but I feel like autonomous flight is easier than autonomous driving.
By bdcravens 15 hours ago
The hard part of automated driving is dealing with all the ground clutter that planes serenely fly over. If pedestrians could charge out in front of a 777 going 650 mph at 34,000 feet... well... we'd be living in pretty different world! And in that world, flying would be much more difficult. Not just for computers but for humans too.
Flying is obviously much harder than driving, but it's a sort of harder that is generally more amenable to automation, though I still think pilots are a good idea because when it goes wrong it goes wrong much worse.
By jerf 15 hours ago
Flying is almost always easier than driving. landing is hard. Bad weather is hard. But just flying - human pilots have napped many times over the years and it only rarely is an issue. Airplanes with primitive autopilot are very good.
By bluGill 14 hours ago
Yeah, a primitive autopilot in a plane just needs an altimeter and compass, but a AoA sensor, speedometer, fuel level sensor, and pitch sensor help to detect unsafe conditions like runaway pitch, stalling, overspeed, low fuel, etc. Each of those sensors is providing a simple 1-dimensional data point. Redundancy is relatively inexpensive.
Automatic lane keeping in a car requires cameras that software needs to then analyze to find the lines in the road in real time. But if you want a "set it and read a book for an hour", then you have to respond to other traffic. No longer just some simple PID controllers, the software now needs to plan and execute based on surrounding traffic.
By Sohcahtoa82 14 hours ago
Yep. 0ft-1000ft AGL Takeoff, Climb, Approach, and Landing are the tough bits. The rest (Cruise) is very low demand and much easier than driving.
By kersplody 13 hours ago
>human pilots have napped many times over the
months?! :)
"The [German pilots'] union said it had carried out a survey of more than 900 pilots in recent weeks, which found that 93% of them admitted to napping during a flight in the past few months."
-The Guardian, "Almost all German pilots admit to napping during flights in union survey"; 2025-09-10
By Barbing 13 hours ago
Not to mention that almost all civilian planes in the US are required to broadcast a bunch of details that include their coordinates and altitude on a public channel (ADS-B). It's the kind of automated collision avoidance input that you'd probably dream of as a self-driving system engineer. Basically the only thing you'd need to avoid via more complex systems is the odd military traffic, small craft at low altitudes, and birds.
By andrewstuart2 13 hours ago
In the abstract yes but in practice the economic (ratio of cost of pilot to pax miles) and safety context of aviation mean fully autonomous flying has to be extremely robust before it has actual utility in industry.
By 0_____0 15 hours ago
In practice, you're also currently very reliant on infrastructure that is definitely not as solid as you want (eg: ILS and GPS can be interfered with quite nastily).
ILS being under maintenance and unavailable for certain runways is also far from unusual.
By rkomorn 15 hours ago
On the happy path, yes. Though I don’t think takeoff is automated yet.
Currently we rely very much on the problem solving abilities of human pilots to deal with troublesome situations. Autopilot will disengage in many scenarios.
By dcrazy 15 hours ago
I'm pretty sure drones can already take off on their own. Taking off is a lot easier than landing, and planes have auto-landing tech already.
By seanmcdirmid 15 hours ago
Drones (both autonomous and remote piloted) have much higher mishap rates than crewed aircraft. Taking off is "easy" until something goes wrong, like a mechanical failure or runway incursion. It's impossible to anticipate and explicitly code for every possible failure mode, so developing autonomous flight control systems that would be safe enough for commercial passenger flights is extremely challenging.
Category IIIC ILS (full auto-land) does exist but requires special equipment for both the aircraft and airport. Human pilots have to actively monitor the system and take back control if anything goes wrong (which does happen).
Garmin also has the Autonomí auto-land system for certain general aviation aircraft which can attempt to land at the closest suitable airport. But this is only used for single pilot operation in case the pilot becomes incapacitated. It isn't suitable for regular flights.
By nradov 14 hours ago
Takeoff at a commercial airport is a very challenging and potentially dangerous situation. There’s way more margin to abort a landing than a takeoff.
By dcrazy 15 hours ago
Drones crash on takeoff all the time. Worth noting that drones are more than just quadcopters and serious drones are often winged aircraft.
By glitchc 13 hours ago
It's the failed takeoffs that lead more often to jets leaving the run way and crashing into buildings or trees.
By lawlessone 15 hours ago
What would ever make you think that?
In an automotive setting you can almost always safely decelerate to a full-stop, put on hazards and call it a fail. Good luck trying that in an aircraft over urban areas.
By KeplerBoy 16 minutes ago
0d (parked) - null program easy
1d (train) - easy. just one lever
2d (car) - hard. super hard. why is it so crowded? who thought this was a good idea? you let teenagers do this?
2.5d (plane at takeoff or landing) - almost as hard as car. fewer pedestrians.
3d (plane flying) - easy even with all those extra levers
By hoosieree 13 hours ago
I'm not actually sure how hard landing is. Most airports that support autonomous landings do it by having ILS antennae that guide the airplane to within tens of feet of the runway, at which point the airplane switches to radar for altitude.
Automatic landings started in 1964. I think that it seems hard mostly because of how tightly regulated aviation is - modern technology could probably make things a lot better if people were more receptive to the idea of heavy automated aircraft over populated areas.
By SR2Z 13 hours ago
landing is easy. the hard part is landing with 20mph cross winds and one engine out (or other mechanical failures). we've had auto-land that is 99% reliable for a while now, but you need to get to 6 9s before you have a system safe enough to replace pilots
By adgjlsfhk1 13 hours ago
1d, variant (tram) - hard, who thought it was a good idea to send rail-bound vehicles and steerable vehicles down the same road?
3d, variant (orbital) - super hard, so hard that trajectory pre-calculations has to be performed
By anticensor 3 hours ago
When everything is working correctly, no other pilots have emergencies, and no temporary restrictions are in place, and there are no clouds in the sky. Then yes, it /could/ be easier, but almost always it never actually is.
There's a reason the majority of accidents occur during take off and landing.
It depends a bit on your safety standards. There are already autonomous flying things delivering blood and blowing up oil depots where it doesn't matter so much if stuff goes wrong, but to be an airline pilot you have to know how to deal with a huge range of emergencies and systems packing up.
With a car if the engine fails you just pull over. With an airliner it's not so simple. As a result the training for a pilot is much longer than for a bus driver say.
By tim333 14 hours ago
I also feel like the demand is way, way lower. A pilot can't be that large a % of the cost of a flight. Maybe if we lived in the jetsons era.
By snickerdoodle14 15 hours ago
The problem is actually safety. As automated systems get better, the pilot is left with not much to do, and has to maintain vigilance while being really really bored. It is almost better to have fewer automated systems and give the pilot more things to do during the flight so it is easier to keep them paying attention, or all automated with no human pilot to mess things up.
By seanmcdirmid 15 hours ago
Depends on the size of the plane, really. One of the reasons a few companies were investing in fully autonomous air taxis is because the math on a small piloted aircraft wasn't realistic for a low enough price point to be competitive.
By rkomorn 15 hours ago
Navigation might be easier. The battery and safety tech isn't there yet to make it practical.
By ugh123 13 hours ago
In a pinch, a car can just put on its hazards and pull over
By anonymars 15 hours ago
That “just” is doing some heavy lifting! The car still has to deal with all the normal hazards of the road while pulling over, plus the hazards it is itself creating by acting abnormally.
By dcrazy 15 hours ago
Well if we're being picky, technically the car itself doesn't have to deal with the hazards it has created, rather everyone else does.
The point is you can't just "stop" a plane and wait for someone to figure things out (https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/9449023?hl=en). Whatever the difficulties in dealing with an abnormal situation in a car, it is strictly much more difficult to deal with them in a vehicle constantly fighting the homicidal urge to fall out of the sky.
By anonymars 12 hours ago
Don’t have a ref but heard that it’s been safe for quite a while but they keep the pilots around due to consumer fear rather than actual improved performance. Curious if anyone can confirm.
By efavdb 15 hours ago
No. Airliners can't even take off on their own yet, and are only allowed to auto-land with zero visibility at a few dozen airports when the pilots, plane, and runway are all current/recently checked.
Look up the Airbus ATTOL project's first automated takeoff a few years ago.
Also, there's virtually no automation when it comes to interacting with ATC.
By rkomorn 15 hours ago
An airplane will take off when it is properly configured and it hits a certain speed. It's simple aerodynamics/physics. Pilots are there to react to failures and unexpected events.
By SoftTalker 14 hours ago
> Also, there's virtually no automation when it comes to interacting with ATC.
Check out the Cirrus Autoland feature in their aircraft. They are all small personal aircraft, but the tech is pretty cool. Will talk to ATC and fully auto-land for you in the event of an emergency where the pilot is incapacitated.
By johnisom2001 14 hours ago
If you can design the product and environment to fit automation, then automation can be quick and effective.
The less you can change about the product and environment, then automation run slower and less effectively.
Air liner operations could be automated, but the minimum equipment list would be more stringent, the destination airport would not be able to take any equipment out of service for maintenance, visibility minimums would increase, takeoff and landing operations would require more slack time.
Besides all of that, the owner of the airplane would still want to have some crew on board.
In short, it's not worth it yet.
===
There is also the paradox of automation: Automation generally makes the hard parts harder and the easy parts easier.
By csours 14 hours ago
The current goal of autonomy for airliners is single-pilot operation more than full autonomy.
It's very cool stuff, technology wise, with potentially significant redesigns of cockpits, etc.
But the main thing is the plane basically needs to be able to operate just about entirely autonomously (especially during critical flight phases) in case the pilot is incapacitated.
In theory, once SPO is solved, autonomy is almost solved.
By rkomorn 13 hours ago
"Autopilot" already exists when it comes to flying.
By amelius 15 hours ago
Sure but it's not autonomous in the sense of Waymo (ie, driverless)
In fact, it's pretty routine. Don't have the source at hand, but somewhere around 1% of all landings (at airports with ILS) are autolands.
I think it was Boeing that even requires at least 1 autoland per plane every 30 days or so.
You can find videos of this on YouTube. Completely hands-off.
By ckastner 14 hours ago
Most carriers have a rule that on clear days you always hand fly the landing.
This is a competence you do not want to lose.
It's also the case that you can have a whole approach setup in your flight computer and at the last minute the controller gives you a runway change. You could drop your head down and start typing a bunch info the FMC but you're generally better off just disabling auto pilot and manually making the adjustment.
By themafia 13 hours ago
I'm curious, what is harder to implement: autoland for airplanes, or autoland for rockets (spaceX)?
By amelius 13 hours ago
Yes but it should have been obvious that in the context of Waymo + SFO, the implication was autonomous flying of commercial airlines.
By danielvaughn 15 hours ago
Yes, but autopilot usually just keeps the plane flying in a straight line at some specified altitude, which have been around since 1912. It isn't full self-flying (although we definitely have drones that can fly themselves already, so that tech already exists).
By seanmcdirmid 15 hours ago
That's an oversimplification of autopilot systems. They can follow flight routes, avoid traffic (TCAS), even auto land to name a few.
By dawnerd 15 hours ago
Auto-landers are not simply classified with autopilots. An autoland system is an advanced function that is part of a modern aircraft's overall autopilot capabilities. A basic autopilot can control an aircraft's attitude and heading, but an autoland system can automatically execute the full landing procedure.
By seanmcdirmid 15 hours ago
Mine as well, and I was crossing SFO off the list of airports I'd connect through.
By Fomite 3 hours ago
Honestly I think the title should be edited. The first time I scrolled past it I had the same obvious interpretation.
As a European, I can’t help but feel a bit sad that we’re missing out on the driverless side of things. It seems like most of the meaningful deployments are happening in the US (Waymo, Cruise).
I’d really like to see either a Waymo competitor emerge in Europe, or even Waymo themselves operating here. The regulatory environment is obviously more complex, but it’d be great if we didn’t end up years behind on something this transformative.
By darkamaul 15 hours ago
Cars of any sort, self-driving or otherwise, do not solve traffic any more than Uber does because you need to have enough of them to get everyone to and from work at basically the same time. Trains are the only way to address traffic. Trains are self-driving. Europe already has the better self-driving system. It's just boring because self-driving is much easier when you build the road to support it instead of removing all constraints and adding GPUs, lidar sensors, cameras and an army of fall-back operators in overseas call centers.
By arcticbull 14 hours ago
As mostly a cyclist (I drive roughly 10% of my transport, the rest is biking and transit), my experience with self-driving cars is that I feel much safer riding in front of them. They're less likely to pass dangerously close to me to drive past me, they're less likely to tailgate me, they're also less likely to just drive me into the door zone, sidewalk, or a parked car. I'm a very confident cyclist but I suspect newer, more skittish cyclists would agree.
If you can restrict certain roads to autonomous cars (or heavily limit the number of non-autonomous cars) then you don't need to build as much bicycle infrastructure (a buffered lane is probably all you need, as opposed to bollards or true grade separation) and I can guarantee you more folks will feel comfortable riding bikes. This is aside from how frequently human-driven cars end up colliding with, damaging, or blocking non-grade-separated forms of transit.
> It's just boring because self-driving is much easier when you build the road to support it instead of removing all constraints and adding GPUs, lidar sensors, cameras and an army of fall-back operators in overseas call centers.
I do bike advocacy so this kind of rhetorical gotcha can make me feel good and hit the upvote button but in reality city councils and other elected officials are mostly people skeptical of the benefits of bicycling, worried that buses/trains would place too high a tax burden on their constituents, or deep down convinced in their lizard brain that Americans are too carpilled to ever do anything else. If you can change this by running for your local council, do it!
Don't get me wrong, we need more bike infrastructure and we needed it yesterday. But anything helps. I'd love to see certain corridors of SF be restricted to transit, autonomous vehicle, and cyclist usage only. Market is already only for transit and cyclists so there's precedent.
By Karrot_Kream 14 minutes ago
Trains are not panacea some people here keep thinking they are. You would need to have train stops every few hundred meters changing it into some city subway or tram, interconnected with dense and fast local public transport.
I live in Switzerland, the place for trains, efficiency and its small and dense, an ideal situation right. Tons of people use trains every day, tons of people also bike for closer distances in good warmish weather but still highways are chock full and getting fuller every year. Public transport for out-of-city commuters is simply slower, often much slower.
This morning I was considering taking a motorbike to a train station that is 5km away, then 40 mins trains and 10 minute walk to work. I took the car instead for a change, I was faster despite having to cross the very center of bottlenecked and car-hostile big city (Geneva) in top rush hour. 65 mins door-to-door via public transport vs 45 in car. That's one way, meaning 40 minutes of my private life daily saved that I can spend ie with my kids and not staring in the phone or out of window.
Normally I take the motorbike if weather permits, if not I take the public bus to the train, adding additional 15 minutes each way. That sucks pretty badly. I doubt other countries have this figured out better, and not everybody can or wants to live in city centers, especially when raising small kids. We did it for 10 years, had a work commute of 5mins via escooter, but I rather have current commute and live and raise kids in small commune next to wild forest and vineyards than that.
All above is usually much worse in many parts of US.
By jajko a minute ago
I think self-driving cars can still be beneficial even if they don’t help with traffic problems. They shouldn’t require so much parking in desirable areas (a separate problem cars cause), for example, and they could have a big impact on the lives of some disabled people.
By dan-robertson an hour ago
Bicycles are another way to address traffic, because they take up so little room and can be essentially free and often more convenient for shorter trips. Of course that means you have to have bicycle infrastructure where you don't have to run serious risks to your life every 3-5 minutes during your journey.
By tdeck an hour ago
Trains will fairly unreliably take you from one place that is not your home, to another place, which is not where you want to go, at a time that is probably not exactly when you wanted to arrive. Freedom of movement is incredibly important, and trains are very rigid in this aspect.
By durandal1 14 hours ago
Well for my commute the trains are every 30 mins or so - pretty convenient times and a short walk from the office. The ticket is cheap, much cheaper than a days parking and during the trip I get to sit, look at the view and sip a coffee. The train is way more relaxing than the equivalent drive - which due to traffic levels at rush hour would probably take twice as long (at least) and be extremely unpredictable.
So when I have the option I'd rather take the train - of course I also drive a lot of places.
By arethuza an hour ago
In effective countries trains run frequently enough that you don't need to consult a schedule and are less prone to unexpected delays than cars. Yes, they can't provide door-to-door service; like it or not, everyone travelling door-to-door in their private mobile living room during the rush hour is impossible if you want cities dense enough to be liveable.
By lmm 6 hours ago
Well That’s certainly not been my experience when visiting Europe. In fact, it many cases it’s been the opposite - having a car would have been restrictive in any major city and a source of friction.
By mint5 14 hours ago
> having a car would have been restrictive in any major city and a source of friction.
Would a Waymo that you don't have to store, park, fuel, or maintain have been restrictive?
By xnx 13 hours ago
Well to the extent it draws people from public transit, yes because traffic makes being a pedestrian more unpleasant and waymos still are traffic. And increased traffic adds friction to crossing streets and they park obnoxiously, among other things.
So yes, they would be obnoxious at any significant quantity and also not really help with getting across the city since transit is pretty good
By mint5 13 hours ago
Trains are great when going to tourist attractions, especially in the center of old cities.
When you live and work in a city, they're much less practical.
By BurningFrog 14 hours ago
This is quite the "I have never lived anywhere else other than North America" take.
Rail and other public transport in pretty much everywhere in the world are designed to serve commute first, tourist stuff second or third.
Public transport isn't just having some trains, or having only trains between major cities. It is designing whole commute routes from various urban and suburban areas to workplace. There needs to be regional and suburban links that arrive to metro and tram stations. Metro and tram have to operate very frequently to handle commuters. The frequency of the trains should adapt to the commuters in the morning and evening. They need to be convenient, clean and safe too.
Cities around the world are also much better balanced than NA ones. The workplaces and living areas are almost always mixed rather than having a "downtown" area where every office worker travels to. My area has many buildings with a supermarket, apartments and small offices in the same building. There are two car factories in the city next to one of the biggest urban parks.
By okanat 12 hours ago
Is that why the trains and trams are crowded around commute? Because people find them impractical?
By mint5 13 hours ago
> Trains are great when going to tourist attractions, especially in the center of old cities. When you live and work in a city, they're much less practical.
This is the most "tell me you live in America without telling me you live in America" thing I've seen in a long time...
America basically the only place in the world where in its cities, trains and other public transport aren't a major part of people's lives. In other places (Seoul, Tokyo, many European cities, etc.), even people who own a car will sometimes commute via train due to the convenience.
By mjr00 13 hours ago
Is this a serious comment lol
By krashidov 4 hours ago
Try a bicycle or a stroll instead of embracing the WALL-E.
If you feel that way about transit you may not have tried a good transit option like Hong Kong MTR with 90 second headways and travel from and to substantially everywhere you want to be.
By arcticbull 14 hours ago
>Try a bicycle or a stroll instead of embracing the WALL-E.
You see a robot driving around in a pile of trash.
I see a robot with nobody micromanaging him telling him how to live his life, etc, etc.
<we are not the same meme dot jpeg>
By potato3732842 13 hours ago
I'd gladly take a Waymo from my home to the train station, zip around the country without traffic jams and hop in another robotaxi at the other end.
By ragebol 2 hours ago
I think the answer to this is microbility bike/scooter sharing (ex: lime)
Trains to cover the longer distance and micro mobility options to get to exactly where you need to go
By grandinquistor 14 hours ago
Fairly unreliably? Unlike cars, trains do not typically suffer from traffic jams.
By dieortin 14 hours ago
This is based on my personal experience, I used to ride trains for travel a lot. I grew up in Europe and lived there for 31 years so this is not based on ignorance.
By durandal1 14 hours ago
You haven't been on the Washington DC metro, I take it. (Ok, you're technically correct, they're not typical.)
By andrewflnr 3 hours ago
I was in Zermatt last month and was unable to take the Gornegray Railway due to mechanical issues. Even Swiss trains have problems
By thehappypm 6 hours ago
Private cars seldom fail to work because the drivers are striking to reduce their hours to 32 hours a week like London last week.
By tim333 13 hours ago
Buddy the tube seldom fails for that reason either. Plus some self-driving sauce would reduce their hours to 0. Certain lines in London like the DLR are already driverless (Grade of Automation 3). Most of the other lines are GoA2.
By arcticbull 13 hours ago
Self driving cars could work with trains to do the desired location to the station bit that has always been a bit awkward.
Trains are all very well but they've been around nearly 200 years and have yet to bring on a traffic free utopia.
By tim333 13 hours ago
Can you imagine how much traffic there would be if NYC didn't have the MTA? The principle of induced demand tells us that as long as there are roads they will have roughly constant traffic because people are willing to spend some roughly constant amount of time getting to and from destinations by road each day. More roads speeds up everyone's commute which brings in more drivers, which brings traffic right back to the baseline terribleness.
The question is how shitty it would be if they also had everyone on them who's currently on public transit.
So basically, it is a traffic-free panacea for everyone who chooses to use it. It's not a goal of trains to eliminate traffic for everyone who insists on driving.
The induced demand argument works for trains too. If NYC didn't have MTA (no subway, no LIRR, no MNR) then the population of NYC would probably be 1% of what it currently is. Building more train tracks and having better train services also encourages more people to move to NYC so that these new train services become more utilized.
Neither roads or train tracks solve the traffic problem.
By kccqzy 13 hours ago
Train density is high enough that you might actually be able to build enough tracks to keep up with demand. Tokyo has just about kept up with growth by building trains, and (unlike cars in NYC) the trains don't have to dominate the city to do that.
By lmm 6 hours ago
Yep, this is a good point. There are appropriate technologies for each situation. It's not a winner-takes-all contest.
For another example, can you imagine trains replacing school buses in a large, rural school district? Sometimes (not always), buses are better than trains.
By skybrian 13 hours ago
Any one part would have the about same amount of traffic it does now. It would just sprawl out bigger across adjacent counties and the highest density parts would be lower density.
See also: LA
By potato3732842 13 hours ago
This is what bikes and busses are for, or just walking because the metro system is comprehensive enough you are at most four blocks away from a station.
By zanny 9 hours ago
> have yet to bring on a traffic free utopia
This is a silly expectation to have. As long as there are roads for cars people will put cars on them.
Trains solve traffic for the people who get on them, not for drivers. The more people taking the train, the fewer people impacted by the traffic.
By hamdingers 13 hours ago
You could maybe have something like Zermatt Switzerland which is car free but you can get around in human driven golf cart like taxis. It's pretty pleasant but expensive. If the carts were self driving it could be cheaper.
Zermatt is fundamentally a pedestrian town. There are a limited number of permits for electric vehicles available for companies that have an objective need for a vehicle. That limited availability makes the electric taxis expensive.
The total number of permits seems to be around 500 in a town of 5k permanent residents. And the population grows to 30k or 40k during the peak tourist season.
By jltsiren 11 hours ago
They help to remove some congestion in the Netherlands. That’s my everyday experience. Traffic would be way worse otherwise
By mettamage 13 hours ago
Human beings naturally take advantage of new conveniences.
If public transportation just encourages people to move to the suburbs and commute in every day you've actually just displaced the problem.
By themafia 13 hours ago
This gets brought up a lot but I think it's missing some key points.
1) Being driven around is the best transportation mode for most of the US. It's very comfortable, private, fast, and point-to-point. It stops working well at very high density, but that level of density is only seen in a few places in the US. I'd like more people to live in dense areas but for the foreseeable future self-driving vehicles are going to be the best solution for most trips in the US.
2) At very high densities it's true that cars can move fewer people per hour per 10-foot lane than other modes and so you run into congestion. But that's measured with the current vehicle fleet and human drivers. With high autonomous vehicle penetration you could implement congestion pricing that encourages high throughput vehicle design. That means private vehicles that are much much smaller (think Isetta-like design) that can follow at very short distances. Along with the elimination of on-street parking we could see a many-fold increase in road throughput.
3) At even higher density levels the same congestion pricing mechanism would encourage people to use microbuses that would operate similarly to Uber Pool. Compared to today's busses they would have equal or greater throughput, be point-to-point or nearly point-to-point, dynamically routed, cheaper to operate and faster.
4) At the very highest density levels it's true that nothing can match the throughput of the subway. As others have mentioned, AVs are a great way to connect people to the subway. Many trips intersect with the highest density urban core for only a fraction of the journey. More people would take the subway if they knew they could get to and from the stations easily and quickly. AVs let you mix-and-match transport modes more easily.
Cities should start engaging with vehicle manufacturers to start getting these high density vehicle designs worked on and figure out the congestion pricing mechanism to properly incentive their rollout.
By mer_mer 4 hours ago
This rings less like some missing key points, and more like an entire, comprehensive traffic strategy. I'm not really sure what the point is meant to elaborate on. Maybe something like "Self driving cars in themselves wouldn't solve traffic, but well designed, purpose-built AV's combined with surge pricing and (when necessary, depending on the location and journey) trains/subways could do it." Did I understand you correctly?
By WastedCucumber 3 hours ago
Do I really care about traffic if I’m not the one driving in it? I guess if you’re looking at highly disproportionate delays but I really wouldn’t care about traffic otherwise.
By denkmoon an hour ago
> Do I really care about traffic if I’m not the one driving in it?
As someone who took the N across San Francisco every day for 5+ years: Yes, you would. Imagine a 5 mile journey taking 50 minutes. Even if you can nap or listen to a podcast, it's still a waste of time.
By tdeck an hour ago
Trains still don't solve last mile transport for most people (even in places with robust transit systems)
Self driving cars might not solve traffic problems but they could greatly reduce them. Problems like traffic waves and gridlock go away when all cars are driving themselves.
By RandallBrown 12 hours ago
The last mile is a solved problem. Most people can walk (and many of those who can't would need human assistance anyway). And then there are bikes, electric scooters, and other light vehicles that use space much more efficiently than a car.
Self-driving cars may help with the actual weakness of transit, which is the long tail of trips. Trips on routes with too few passengers to justify good transit service, and with the trips too long for the last-mile solutions.
By jltsiren 10 hours ago
Walking a mile with groceries, a baby, furniture, etc. is not really a solution.
I'm not saying self driving cars are the solution, but they are a piece of the solution.
By RandallBrown 10 hours ago
Walking a mile with groceries or a baby is common. People in less car-oriented neighborhoods typically do quick visits to a grocery store when it's convenient for them several times a week, rather getting a week's haul of groceries in a single visit.
With furniture, you usually pay for delivery. Especially because the furniture store probably doesn't have the items you bought on site anyway.
By jltsiren 10 hours ago
Is it just me or don't people go on walks with their babies/children all the time? Also riding a mile with groceries & babies is trivial.
Cars are a piece of the transportation puzzle, but groceries and babies aren't why they're needed.
By ben-schaaf an hour ago
> Trains still don't solve last mile transport for most people
This has not been my experience since moving to Manhattan last January. Subways, alone, close the gap between regional rail and most destinations astoundingly well. I haven't yet needed to use a bus (but they seem abundant, too), and I haven't even thought of taking a taxi yet.
Here, robust transit has solved the last mile problem for most people.
By jswrenn 12 hours ago
Here, robust transit has solved the last mile problem for most people.
There are huge gaps in subway coverage in New York. Manhattan, especially Lower Manhattan, is the exception here. Go to the outer reaches of Queens and see where the subway gets you. Try to go between (or sometimes within) boroughs.
By inferiorhuman 11 hours ago
Sure, in areas without robust transit, transit is a problem. But I'm responding to RandallBrown's assertion that there's a persistent last mile issue in areas with robust transit. There's not. Manhattan is evidence that robust transit solves the last mile problem for most people.
By jswrenn 7 hours ago
The last mile problem is only a problem because of poor layout. Build homes and work near transit nodes (instead of in the middle of nowhere) and there isn't a problem in the first place.
> Problems like traffic waves and gridlock go away when all cars are driving themselves.
How would that make those problems go away? It could probably slightly alleviate them in marginal cases, but any given road has a finite throughput limitation, and once it is reached, it wouldn't matter even if every robo-driver were perfectly synchronized.
By infotainment 12 hours ago
They replace taxis and potentially postal and trucking applications in future.
It’s certainly not a replacement for mass transit. US is sparsely populated compared to Europe and mass transit don’t work as well in the suburbia. That said, I do see many transit oriented development in SF Bay Area where high density buildings are being built near transit stations.
By gerash 9 hours ago
> Trains are the only way to address traffic.
And how do you get to the train when it's too far to walk and you're not a cyclist?
By crazygringo 11 hours ago
> And how do you get to the train when it's too far to walk and you're not a cyclist?
You get the bus, or you cycle, which is a life skill any able-bodied adult should have, not limited to cyclists. Of course not everyone is capable of cycling, but not everyone is capable of driving either.
By lmm 4 hours ago
Ideally: there's a train close enough to walk, or a bus or tram that's nearby that runs frequently, is clean, and doesn't get stuck in traffic because there's not much car traffic.
Slightly more realistic: enough people can and do cycle or walk to the train that pressure is relieved on the roads for those who cannot cycle or walk.
By dibujaron 11 hours ago
A person living in DC can take the subway to Union station, take the Acela line to NYC, and then take the subway to their final destination.
By biophysboy 6 hours ago
> Trains are self-driving. Europe already has the better self-driving system.
Well, I'm in Europe and it ain't here. Waymo can't get here fast enough.
There's some self driving tech being developed in Europe, but AFAIK nothing is at the current deployment level of Zoox or Aurora, let alone Waymo.
By TulliusCicero 14 hours ago
Does it matter where it's developed though? Once it's good enough to expand into all major US cities they could look into deploying in Europe too.
Im happy to let Americans be the beta testers
By carlhjerpe 14 hours ago
For the consumer, maybe not, other than a delay of some years.
In terms of having the industry? Absolutely. How many other areas of "tech" has Europe basically punted on and ceded to Americans? Currently there's some gnashing of teeth across the pond for how there's no real European equivalent to the big US cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP).
By TulliusCicero 13 hours ago
There doesn't have to be an equivalent of everything, I wouldn't want to use US cloud because of price and governance. At most I use the "cloudy" services and rent "capacity" from a European provider, companies are fleeing the cloud. They're done subsidizing Amazon deliveries.
MobilEye and Mercedes works on self-driving, so does BMW. It's probably not Waymo quality, but just because there aren't cars on the (wide and car friendly) roads doesn't mean nothing is happening.
Meanwhile Europe has solid infrastructure for electricity (esp France), ASML has no competition, Carl Zeizz is world leading in optics, there's probably a Leica LIDAR in the Waymo cars... I mean while we're throwing pies and bringing up other markets..
My old boss was working on a project with Leica where he was working with some partner on self-driving industrial machines, they we're using Leica gear for collosion avoidance and such.
Europe doesn't need self-driving cars, we have alternative modes of transportation. Where it's needed (mines and industry) it's already there. And whatever modern car you're driving here has ADAS which helps make driving comforable.
By carlhjerpe 12 hours ago
USA is huge.
This is happening in a small part of the USA in a very limited fashion.
It's not like the USA has driverless cars everywhere, 99.9% of the population never saw one.
By aprdm 13 hours ago
I'd guess Waymo covers 5% now. San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, Austin, and Phoenix are ~10% of US population. Waymo service areas don't cover all of those cities.
Considering tourism and people living just outside service areas who see them but don't get to use them (which includes me sadly) I would not be surprised if 10% of population had seen at least one.
By tln 13 hours ago
> San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, Austin, and Phoenix are ~10% of US population.
Surely you're describing metro areas? There's no way those five cities add up to 34 million people within city limits, given that none of them have 6 million people.
- SF doesn't cover East Bay (two thirds of the MSA by population).
- Silicon Valley doesn't cover San Jose, and barely reaches into Sunnyvale (basically just covering the Google Moffett Park office buildings).
- The Phoenix area is missing most of the densest parts of Phoenix itself, as well as anything north / west of the city.
- Los Angeles doesn't even come close to covering the city, much less the rest of LA County or any of Orange County. (Maybe 2-3 million out of 13, from just eyeballing the region.)
On Uber (https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/16011725?hl=en) there's also Atlanta (which looks like it actually has very nice coverage, other than the western half of the city) and Austin (again focused on downtown / commercial districts) which help drive up the numbers.
The population that's had opportunity to see Waymo in the wild is probably higher because they're testing in quite a few cities now (a sibling commenter mentions NYC, for instance).
By vitus 5 hours ago
I saw one in New York the other day!
By baby 12 hours ago
About 43% of the US population lives in 25 metro areas so Waymo doesn't have to be in a lot of places to have a big impact.
By xnx 13 hours ago
“More than 50 cities across China have introduced testing-friendly policies for autonomous vehicles.”[0]
Europe could do the same but they have other priorities.
>pilots of self-driving taxi- and bus-like services will be brought forward by a year to spring 2026, attracting investment and making the UK one of the world leaders in this technology
By tim333 13 hours ago
I'm wondering how self-driving cars will solve the priority problem of narrow streets of UK towns where drivers need to let each other pass all the time.
By macleginn 12 hours ago
I've wondered that myself. It seems quite challenging for human drivers at times. Around Ladbroke Grove you quite often get some complicated jam with two busses and about ten cars stuck.
By tim333 10 hours ago
> making the UK one of the world leaders in this technology
Are they also planning on completely overhauling their economy and tax system to attract the engineers required to make this happen?
By wyager 4 hours ago
Yeah I'll believe this when I see it. Most UK roads are significantly harder to drive on than anything in the US. That's why they always test these things in Milton Keynes.
Also a lot of UK driving requires communication with other drivers (letting people out, etc.) in a way that US roads don't. I'm not sure how driverless cars can handle that.
I really wish we could get them, because they're great. But I'd say we're talking 10 years behind the US simply because of the extra engineering challenge.
By IshKebab 11 hours ago
> I’d really like to see either a Waymo competitor emerge in Europe, or even Waymo themselves operating here
I think you’ll see American and Chinese self-driving kit in Europe once it matures. It’s just easier to iterate at home, so while the technology advances that’s where it will be.
By JumpCrisscross 14 hours ago
Maybe there just not enough interest? After all there is good public transportation (especially rail), increasing biking habits and just loving the driving experience.
By tuxone 14 hours ago
Wayve seems promising. I heard they want to open up in London soon
By sashank_1509 6 hours ago
> As a European, I can’t help but feel a bit sad that we’re missing out on the driverless side of things
I don't know about other countries, but Spain will probably be one of the last ones to get it, thanks to the Uber-powerful (heh) taxi driver lobby
By ghurtado 14 hours ago
Cruise is basically winding down. Tesla is the other major competitor
By leesec 14 hours ago
Apollo Go (the Chinese Waymo owned by Baidu) is planning to start road testing in Germany and the UK in 2026, in partnership with Lyft.
By standardUser 14 hours ago
I don't remember any plans Waymo has announced for Europe, but they are testing in Japan.
By xnx 13 hours ago
Mercedes is quite close. They have demonstrated commercially viable Level 3 ADAS systems.
By glitchc 13 hours ago
Cruise has been out of business for almost a year I think.
By leetharris 14 hours ago
> It seems like most of the meaningful deployments are happening in the US
Because they are.
Across Europe you can randomly encounter a major town with a taxi cartel still blocking rideshares, as if its 2012
By yieldcrv 4 hours ago
Regulation and under investment
By mtoner23 14 hours ago
Those darn regulators, don't they realise companies just want what's best for us?
By unfitted2545 14 hours ago
US and China basically.
By aaomidi 14 hours ago
We can’t even use Waymo when we land at SFO for a visit
By petters 14 hours ago
Isn't that what this article is about?
By xnx 13 hours ago
Wayve?
By whiplash451 14 hours ago
As an American with extensive time spent in Europe, I’d much, much rather have European-style metros and tramways than self-driving cars.
Waymo (though a technical marvel) is a bandaid over our inability to build and maintain public infrastructure. Be sure to cherish what you’ve got.
By archagon 14 hours ago
European cities have lots of taxis. Same with Asian cities. They will obviously have AVs in the future. I'm not sure why you think they should be mutually exclusive with transit.
By minwcnt5 10 hours ago
Many American cities don't have the population density to make metros and trams economically viable. And those few cities that do have comparable density (New York, Chicago, namely) do have metros.
Public infrastructure has high overhead costs, and low population density means there isn't enough ridership to make it viable.
By Manuel_D 12 hours ago
Rotterdam — a city with a population of around 650,000 — has both a metro and a tram system. Extraordinary density is not a prerequisite.
And in any case, there's no reason that public transit needs to be self-funded. We don't expect the same of most of our other public services.
By archagon 11 hours ago
Rotterdam has 3,000 people per square kilometer. Contrast that with the San Francisco bay peninsula's ~1,100 people per square kilometer.
This is demonstrating my point about population density and transit.
By Manuel_D 10 hours ago
The peninsula might not be dense, but San Francisco has a density of 7,194/km2 and the transit situation pales in comparison to Rotterdam's.
There are many urban areas in the US with population density of 3,000/km2 or higher that do not have any public transit at all.
By archagon 10 hours ago
American public transit construction costs are now ridiculous in terms of both money and political capital. Even somewhere as sprawled as San Jose now requires well over 1b/mi to build a subway under; BART could've acquired an entire autonomous driving company for the cost of the Silicon Valley extension.
By rangestransform 12 hours ago
As an American, I think you’re naive and short-sighted.
You must realize that, at some point, self-driving cars will be ubiquitous. Maybe not for 50 years, but they will be.
What you’re actually saying is “I’m virtue-signaling with Europe because that’s what the cool kids do”
By dgfitz 14 hours ago
…What? What sort of terminally online strawman would be spending his free time “virtue-signaling with Europe” to some anonymous bozos on a tech forum? What a dull and intellectually uncurious reply.
I think self-driving cars may eventually become common in areas where cars are currently common. I think public transit will continue to dominate in parts of the world where it currently dominates, because it is simply a superior user experience for the majority of people when the government cares to invest in it. (Not to mention far cheaper and more egalitarian.)
I am conveying my lived experience in most European cities I've been to.
By archagon 14 hours ago
> a superior user experience
A superior user experience is going exactly from where I am to where I want to be safely, quickly, and affordably. Self-driving cars are looking really good for those criteria.
By xnx 13 hours ago
$20+ per ride is affordable? Waiting 10m+ for your ride and slowly sifting through traffic is quick?
In London, Paris, or St. Petersburg, I pay a few bucks to hop on a train that runs every few minutes and rapidly end up across town, roughly in the area I need to be. It's literally the cheapest and fastest way to get from point A to point B, not to mention tested at scale and thoroughly battle-hardened over the course of a century.
Not every city has this privilege, of course, but surface trams are 80% of the way there, especially if they have right-of-way. And they don't make pedestrians' lives a living hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNTg9EX7MLw
By archagon 13 hours ago
The core for a good experience is a good structure.
In many regions of the U.S. people live too far apart, shops and businesses are zoned apart into wide spread business areas. Public transport won't provide a good experience.
In a notable part of European cities people live in denser quarters, where a "third place" is reachable in walking distance, some degree of shipping, doctor visits, work are close by. There public transport can fill the gaps for the remaining trips in an (space) efficient way. Self driving cars however would clog the area.
Adapting US settlement structure to allow public transport won't happen. However a self-driving car can turn the dial for individuals to move out of the urban European area into more rural areas. Question is how big that group is.
By johannes1234321 11 hours ago
Try moving a few bags of sod and mulch via public transit. Condescending tone is condescending.
By glitchc 13 hours ago
Designing our urban transit around the needs of the mulch-bearing 0.1% seems like a bad idea.
By archagon 13 hours ago
EU’s amazing infrastructure is the Minitel that will prevent it from getting the internet of self-driving.
Subways don’t solve last-mile problems or trucking.
By whiplash451 14 hours ago
Good. Cars ruin walkable cities, and the last-mile problem can be solved in other ways.
And it's not just the EU. I'm sure that e.g. China and Japan will continue to invest in their excellent public transit infrastructure even when there are more self-driving cars on the road.
By archagon 14 hours ago
Much of Japan's transit infrastructure is private. There's nothing special about transit that means the government has to own it; being a government, it can regulate things without owning them.
Americans have this idea that transit is for poor people, which translates to "it's not important for transit to make money", which translates to "we need to make it illegal for transit to possibly try to make money", so there aren't even vending machines at the platforms. Whereas in Asia they do profitable land development at the transit stations.
By astrange 13 hours ago
> Much of Japan's transit infrastructure is private. There's nothing special about transit that means the government has to own it; being a government, it can regulate things without owning them.
Japan's private transit infrastructure is only private in high-very high density environments (inner-city) and subsidized in low-density environments (rural, cross-country). Ultimately private group transit requires population density above a certain threshold to be viable.
By glitchc 13 hours ago
Don't worry, we're missing out on a lot of "progress" on this side of the ocean thanks to Trump's dislike of wind farms and RFK Jr's whole anti-vaxxer thing
By softwaredoug 14 hours ago
One thing you are missing out on: mandatory loud (97 to 112 db) 1000 Hz audible beep when the vehicle reversing, oh so slowly, such as at the recharging station. Also, constant shop vac five horsepower vacuum cleaner sound. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Oh wait, you thought those would be in the middle of nowhere? Nope.
Unless and until those noises that you mention are as annoying as those made by present time ICE vehicles, your point will remain irrelevant.
By ghurtado 14 hours ago
From the link:
These backup warning systems operate at approximately 1,000 Hz, producing sound levels between 97 and 112 decibels.
Santa Monica’s municipal code adds another layer of complexity, prescribing exterior noise limits of approximately 50 decibels during the day and 40 decibels at night.
The continuous operation—with vehicles reversing dozens of times hourly, including during late-night hours—continues to challenge community peace.
So, constant car screaming BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP I'M BACKING UP HERE right outside your residential window. Kinda sucks. A whole lot.
By egypturnash 13 hours ago
Ironically the car is virtually purpose built to not run over people, and likewise has an extensive sensor suite to detect people around it.
I suppose regulations don't care if you can see no one is behind you.
By Workaccount2 12 hours ago
The setup at SFO is currently quite annoying (Lyft/Uber require you to walk 5 mins to the garage roof, and drivers need to park/wait 5-10 mins away, so there's always a substantial delay). Taxis get the privileged parking spot immediately outside arrivals, but if it's busy you might still need to wait a bit.
I've been wondering for a while why Waymo can't offer a semi-managed solution to SFO to dynamically manage load, have just the right volume of cars inbound, maximize parking utilization, etc. with all of the nice intelligence that an app-based system would enable.
It feels like you should be able to have a buffer of cars waiting right at the curbside, and automatically refill that buffer on short notice depending on observed or predicted demand.
By theptip 10 hours ago
As an Uber rider, I actually love the SFO setup. The walk is short enough, there's actually enough space even during most busy times that there's no crazy honking of drivers trying to get in or out of the pickup zone.
Compare that to the mess that is Uber pickups at JFK, where you have big delays _and_ very poor traffic controls in and out of the pickup zones.
By eclipticplane 8 hours ago
I’ve never had to wait more than 5 minutes at SFO I don’t think and the system seems ok to me
By tomduncalf 2 hours ago
Taxis have a powerful local lobby; Google/Waymo doesn't.
By star-glider 9 hours ago
counter point, I love the taxi setup, I wander out, no pre-planning, walk across the street with my headpones on and get in a car, my company pays for it. I suually pay more on uber or lyft, and it's faster and I don't do anything but walk from the plane to the car
By grogenaut 3 hours ago
I'm surprised and incredibly impressed at this announcement. It seems trivial, but the general feeling in the industry has been that SF would fight tooth and nail against robotaxis at SFO.
What likely happened now is that SFO got a kick up their backside from the Mayor after the press started asking why it was still dragging its feet, while SJC approved Waymo swiftly.
By ra7 9 hours ago
I genuinely think things have changed with Lurie as mayor and 6 growsf endorsed people on the board.
By mmmore 15 hours ago
It's going to take a long time for SF to overcome the reputation it built for itself in the 2010s.
By quotemstr 14 hours ago
Recent changes in the composition of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (i.e. Peskin being out of government) may have something to do with it being easier than expected.
By khuey 15 hours ago
The NIMBY/landlord supervisors who controlled SF, such as Aaron Peskin and Dean Preston, are now a thing of the past.
By avree 14 hours ago
Peskin is now reduced to showing up at protests with signs saying the rent is too low.
Waymo got approval for SJC last week. That probably accelerated approval for SFO, which had been stalling. Nice.
When they get clearance to drop people off at the main terminals, that will be more convenient. Pickup at the terminals is harder. There will be a need for a staging area somewhere in the parking structures.
By Animats 15 hours ago
Few major airports I've been to allow Uber/Lyft anywhere near the pickup area, so many fliers are already accustomed to walking a quarter mile or so to their rideshare. But their inability to use the drop-off area is a new inconvenience, and I can see it limiting the appeal.
By standardUser 15 hours ago
Waymo will probably get access to the drop-off area after a while. One step at a time seems to be the Waymo way.
Waymo at airports could work really well with automatic dispatching. They already have an app running in the customer's phone. It should be aware of when someone with a reservation gets off an airplane, and how close they're getting to the pickup point. With good coordination, as the customer heads to the arrival lanes, a Waymo pulls out of short-term parking and heads for the meeting point.
A few more years, and humanoid robots will put the luggage in the trunk.
By Animats 12 hours ago
this can be done today with humans. this is just dumb
By a456463 11 hours ago
Humans need to be paid, and often demand tips.
By warkdarrior 6 hours ago
> Few major airports I've been to allow Uber/Lyft anywhere near the pickup area
Few major airports have Waymo at all. Phoenix has allowed pick-up at the airport for ages. (EDIT: Never mind.)
By JumpCrisscross 14 hours ago
I'm talking about Uber/Lyft drivers being required by many airports to pick up away from the normal pick-up area, usually down the road a bit or in a parking garage.
By standardUser 14 hours ago
Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) is in a parking lot.
By alvarlagerlof 11 hours ago
What airports are you flying out of? Every major airport i have been to in the last year has a dedicated rideshare pickup lane.
By giggyhack 13 hours ago
Uber black and at least lyft extra room have no problem picking you up at the arrivals
By dilyevsky 14 hours ago
It’s wild that $goog is so undervalued (p/e 27) given Alphabet owns Waymo in addition to everything else, and yet Tesla is so overvalued (p/e 243!!!) despite zero Robotaxis in the near (or far) future and lackluster sales.
Goes to show empty promises and fraudulent showmanship sell better than actual working products that people use.
By agnosticmantis 13 hours ago
GOOGL is up like 25% over the last few weeks after they resolved the DoJ lawsuit about Search bundling. Clearly there were some investors who thought that was a material risk to the business.
Tesla is clearly a meme stock though, and an example of how the market can say irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
By Eridrus 13 hours ago
I finally capitulated and bought a few shares of TSLA, shorting wasn't working.
By supportengineer 11 hours ago
Err... that sounds like gambling sir
By giveita 11 hours ago
Wait until you read about options!
By Scoundreller 8 hours ago
Yeah "that'll go up" but now you have to know "when" and "when do I stop that bet".
By giveita 7 hours ago
So you think it's going to raise further?
By Yoric 11 hours ago
No, they were just scared of missing out.
By ethbr1 10 hours ago
I stuck some money in Uber at 90 recently based on fundamentals. I might be wrong but at least I used a calculator to be wrong :) and will learn.
It needs to beat Sp500 to be considered right.
By giveita 7 hours ago
If you buy Alphabet stock you're betting on the whole company doing well.
Google makes around $300B a year. Uber's entire business makes around $50B and that took a decade. Waymo would have to become a major business to move Alphabet's stock price in the near term.
Considering Waymo is very likely losing money, experiment very slowly with scaling up, and still raising billions in private capital outside Google... idk. Doesn't seem as simple as buy $goog in 2025.
Otherwise I agree Tesla is a bit of a meme stock.
By dmix 13 hours ago
I think Waymo has huge potential for being much larger than Uber - people are willing to pay more compared to ordinary uber drive just to avoid dealing with taxi drivers and tech will only get cheaper.
By azan_ 13 hours ago
More than that, I think the ride-hailing business is just the fist volley in the self driving vehicle space. It’s a short jump from there to self driving trucks, self driving package delivery, self driving private vehicles, and on and on.
By wanderingstan 12 hours ago
All of those spaces are actively being explored by various companies.
By Fricken 11 hours ago
Can any of those companies catch up on self-driving faster than Waymo can pivot to their niche? Cruise seemed to be a distant second, but did themselves in with an attempted cover-up.
By overfeed 11 hours ago
How does self-driving package delivery work? Who delivers the package?
By mulmen 10 hours ago
There are several “last meters” delivery robots developed.
Short range drones are being used in Australia.
And I heard of at least one company working with apartment architects to standardize a “port” on the building exterior to which a truck/robot would connect to “inject” packages to the inside.
By wanderingstan 10 hours ago
Tiny catapults. It's the only correct answer.
Sadly, this would still be an improvement on many smaller delivery services that especially Amazon is fond of using.
By groby_b 10 hours ago
The slaves obviously.
But to be serious, there may be a way of doing it, it just seems very far off unless you're talking about Amazon hub or something like that, where it would be more feasible (but still difficult to achieve).
By DiscourseFan 10 hours ago
Think of Waymo Driver as the equivalent of Android for vehicles. It's an operating system and a suite of cloud services for both autonomy and ride hailing.
By Zigurd 13 hours ago
The long history of "First mover advantage" being a myth implies they are more likely Nokia or Blackberry than Android
By dmix 10 hours ago
What about all the expensive hardware, gpus, lidars? That’s like having iOS on your phone and if you want android you need to buy extra things that are worth same price as your phone.
By cryptoegorophy 11 hours ago
And costs should be lower in the long run if you don't have to share the ride fee with a driver (not case yet because seems like they still have alot of staff to manage the cars)
By victorbjorklund 12 hours ago
Statistically Waymos are more expensive than Uber rides, but practically as an individual they are often cheaper than Uber, its very easy for the stated price to be lower
So its not even about willingness to pay more
Gig drivers are cooked
By yieldcrv 12 hours ago
A lot of times the Waymo is only a few bucks more, so if you were going to tip the uber driver it balances out anyway.
By pesus 10 hours ago
I'd still choose Waymo if it was 100% more than Uber, the experience is so much better and I feel so much safer.
By panarky 8 hours ago
Driving in a car that doesn’t smell like driver just farted right before picking you up is worth the premium.
By cryptoegorophy 11 hours ago
Ehhhhh maybe in some spaces...
I would need to see Waymo be able to handle something like Southeast Michigan before I could even get comfortable with trusting it to get me ubered t/o from home for maintaining the vehicle I need to commute when I can take a remote day or two...
And then also delivering that for a good cost.
I put it that way because, I do tip Uber drivers well (unless they cray cray) and they would need to properly 'undercut' uber with whatever model they serve up in more complex areas.
By to11mtm 6 hours ago
I’ve seen people claim, I need to say Waymo working In NYC, Chicago and other places but never Southeast Michigan. What’s so unique about that area?
Waymo works in SF Chinatown btw, which is probably the most complicated locality in its driving zone.
By sashank_1509 6 hours ago
Why is southeast Michigan difficult to drive in? I don't know anything about the area but I would guess if GPS navigation works and it's less dense than SF/LA, most of the major issues are solved?
By gaadd33 6 hours ago
*for now
By TrueSlacker0 8 hours ago
Waymo doesn’t own manufacturing of vehicles.
By cryptoegorophy 11 hours ago
Who are these people?
There is no downside to having someone drive you Uber has homogenised the experience.
By giveita 11 hours ago
Did uber/lyft get radically better in the last 12 months?
I had one rapidly cycle their prius between 50 and 70 on the freeway because regenerative brakes save gas (I felt carsick for hours after arriving at my destination), and another actually get an angry mob to tap on the windows and berate their driving. (The mob was justified.)
Since then, I’ve given up on using them whenever possible.
By hedora 8 hours ago
> rapidly cycle their prius between 50 and 70 on the freeway because regenerative brakes save gas (I felt carsick for hours after arriving at my destination)
Weird take to me, unless you were on a lot of hills; at least in my Maverick [0] 55-65 is 'ideal' MPG range for long trips, going between speeds tends to trip things up and actually -avoid- the weird 'battery has enough juice where we just kinda lug the engine' mode.
Doing regenerative 'braking' compared to using physical brakes, absolutely can give energy for momentum/acceleration and save on the physical brakes wear and tear, OTOH any normal cyclist would say it's better to 'maintain' a given output power vs allowing deceleration and then going back up to speed.
As for why, well I'm not a physics person, but in general it's that you are having to overcome the rotational mass/etc of the wheels (i.e. tires, axles, etc), and no regenerative braking within the current laws of physics will make slowing down and speeding back up more efficient, at least on a flat road.
[0] - OK It ain't quite a prius but it works fairly close aside from overall drag...
By to11mtm 6 hours ago
Anyone who's taken enough Ubers and/or has had bad enough luck to have gotten a terrible Uber driver. Pretty much everyone I know, along with myself have had multiple awful Uber driver experiences.
That TC article doesn't substantiate its overly broad claim. "People" aren't paying more, in general, across its US markets; it only shows that a subset of its customers in what is already the top-5 most expensive cities (SF) in the world are prepared, and at that, only 10-27% are prepared to pay significantly more ($5-10). Still fewer than the 40% who would pay “the same or less.”
Quoting: "Perhaps even more striking is how people answered a question about whether they would be willing to pay more for a Waymo. Nearly 40% said they’d pay “the same or less.” But 16.3% said they’d pay less than $5 more per ride. Another 10.1% said they’d pay up to $5 more per ride. And 16.3% said they’d pay up to $10 more per ride."
There are going to be lots of causal factors: number of rider(s), time of day, safety, gender, wait time, price estimate, predictable arrival. Let's see an apples-to-apples comparison/regression breaking out each.
By smcin 9 hours ago
I think waymo actually has a better km/accident ratio than the average driver. Plus if you haven't done it before, it'll be a cool experience to ride in a car with no driver!
But in the long term I think the point of waymo is that it'll be cheaper: no need to pay the driver if there isn't one!
By amarant 10 hours ago
Women. Turns out, Uber/Lyft can't really do anything about drivers assaulting passengers.
By fragmede 10 hours ago
Maybe with the HN readership, but in general the public don’t want to drive in driverless vehicles and don’t want them on the streets. It’s going to be a long uncertain road for them to be accepted.
I don’t think Waymo is very likely a losing money experiment. I give them a 50% chance to be successful within the next 10 years. Successful being that self-driving cars are able to operate in 50% of the world/terrain types/region types, probably within another 10 years to scale up.
By mettamage 13 hours ago
They have already spent an enormous amount of money. It’s hard to see how they could make it back quickly, if ever. I’d like to be wrong, but I expect they will continue to be a money losing experiment for a long time yet.
By robotresearcher 12 hours ago
How much money they've spent in the past is irrelevant. That money all came from investors, in exchange for a stake in the company. It never needs to be "paid back". Besides which, those investors have earned all those funds back already, and then some (on paper).
All that matters at this point is how much money they'll lose/earn in the future. There are no shortage of investors willing to put money into this effort, and they're growing exponentially, so there won't be any pressure for them to turn overall profitable for several more years.
By minwcnt5 10 hours ago
How much money do they make off the average person in the value of ads shown per year?
Now compare to how much money the average person spends on driving per year.
If Waymo winds up running half the market in autonomous transportation over the next several decades, it'll make search look like peanuts in comparison.
By crazygringo 11 hours ago
You need to consider profit margins. The cost of showing somebody an ad is very near $0, which is what makes digital products so profitable. But when you do things in the real world, especially in highly competitive markets where the customer is extremely price sensitive, your profit per mile is going to approach $0. For instance WalMart's profit per item sold is less than 3%, and for driving this will likely be substantially lower (given the combination of customer price sensitivity + competition). The way you make up for this is in massive volume, but Waymo for now remains a heavily ringfenced operation and so it's not entirely clear how they reach scale. Google also has a very poor record of long-term performance in competitive markets.
The winner in self driving will likely be enabled by extreme vertical integration - you want to be building your own cars, cleaning your own cars, repairing your own cars, and so on.
By somenameforme 5 hours ago
The entire global taxi market is ~$250B a year.
Google made ~$265B from its ads last year.
By robotresearcher 11 hours ago
Uber took 14 years to make it to profitability. Money's frequently characterized as impatient, unable to look past the next quarter, but when it wants to be, it can wait.
Waymo's older than Uber, but they hold many key patents by this point. Now that they've started running a taxi service, it seems straightforwards to scale up, assuming that is the business they want to be in. Then it's just a matter of charging more than it costs to run the service, and wait.
By fragmede 10 hours ago
Imagine if you could buy your own "Waymo-equipped car". No need for driving lessons. No aggravation. No road rage.
How many people would pay for such a luxury car? With the US population aging and public transit non-existent in most places, Waymo probably has a market for cars.
By 1024core 10 hours ago
There’s clearly a demand for self-driving privately owned vehicles as well, but think of it this way - why own a self-driving Chevy when you could hire a self-driving Cadillac when you need to go somewhere?
By rgmerk 6 hours ago
Assuming there are multiple providers of the software, I’d pay expect to pay normal automotive margins on top of the hardware cost.
That’s probably $1000-2000 per car, or about a penny a mile.
I’m not sure how much a few lidars will cost at scale. The compute board is a few hundred. Modern cars already have plenty of cameras.
By hedora 8 hours ago
I am I really hate driving long road trips.. So yes! Or they could even sell private taxi between states so I don't even have to own a car :)
By free652 9 hours ago
Tesla has 1/3rd the market cap.
If Waymo is a rounding error to GOOG, it's basically a rounding error to Tesla's implied valuation.
So what is Tesla valued in then?
Clearly not car sales, profit, and especially growth in either of those segments.
xAI is supposed to be where all the AI is.
Where is it?
By onlyrealcuzzo 12 hours ago
Future gains on political corruption?
By hedora 8 hours ago
Faith in the fact that Elon has never lost investors money.
By thorncorona 11 hours ago
Robotics I think.
By christkv 11 hours ago
Tesla’s robots during that investor event were shown to be controlled by humans wearing mimicking hardware
By lobsterthief 6 hours ago
Uber making 50B, probably means Uber is paying drivers around 200B or higher. So that is Waymo’s potential revenue in the long term as it releases in most ride share markets. I think it’s under 1B revenue now, which just shows how much growth ahead is possible. Even if we think Uber will be at least 50% market share in the coming decade, at least 100X growth is left for Waymo. This also completely ignores Waymo creating latent demand, which is wholly possible. I would for example trust a Waymo to drop my kids everyday over an Uber.
By sashank_1509 6 hours ago
Uber also has to pay drivers. How much of that $50B goes to the operator?
Meanwhile, for Waymo, a good chunk of it is profit (after the fixed cost of the vehicle, of course).
By 1024core 11 hours ago
The cost of the computers, LIDAR, special maintenance, vandalism, staffing humans for remote issue handling etc will probably costs the same as a year's income for an Uber driver. But after that it's mostly profit and they can run cars longer.
The most important thing for Waymo is scaling up production of LIDAR and maintaining them efficiently. They will have a massive fleet running very sophisticated radar+computers. That's a huge logistical investment when it's a million cars. Those sensors will break or be damaged.
By dmix 10 hours ago
They've been partnering with Uber to maintain the fleet in some cities haven't they since they already have regional infrastructure? I don't think they want to be in the fleet management business.
By tracerbulletx 9 hours ago
AFAIK Uber is doing app integrations + some local operational fleet management. Waymo is supplying the cars, radars, computers, remote service, the brand, etc. Waymo has to scale that production and maintenance up country wide and then globally.
Uber's CEO compared it to Marriot, people come in to run the hotels in the local region, but they actually don't own the hotels. It's like hired managers who take a cut.
It also makes sense to have people with local experience run them in each local region. But those businesses still involve margins and expenses that have to make sense.
By dmix 9 hours ago
Don’t forget that Waymo will always be a much lower margin business than search! Setting aside the decades of R&D expense, those cars require purchasing, maintenance, warehousing, etc.
By next_xibalba 13 hours ago
Autonomous cars won't sue you, never sleep, don't go on strike, don't sleep 8 hours a day, keep driving when the car needs obvious repairs.
By hadlock 12 hours ago
>Autonomous cars won't sue you
but the companies that own them will or their insurance carriers.
By edm0nd 11 hours ago
All that may be true. Human drivers are not the point of comparison. The search business is. Waymo will still always be a lower margin business than search for the reasons I enumerated.
Waymo may end up being great business. But it is unlikely to exceed what search is/was. For that reason, press X to doubt GP's claim that Alphabet is undervalued. "IT'S PRICED IN" [1]
But the market is so, so much bigger. And the margins will likely stay high for a long time while there are few competitors, and their main competition is human drivers.
Not having to pay drivers is an enormous source of profit.
By crazygringo 11 hours ago
As big as search!? Doubtful. The entire globe is unlikely to be the addressable market. China will never let Waymo in. India will undoubtedly field multiple worthy competitors. Europe is hostile to technological progress and even more-so to American tech cos. In most parts of the world, Waymo is unlikely to be able to deliver a positive gross margin business given the per-capita-income of most places.
It could be a big business. In fact, I hope it is. Lives will be saved. But there is still a lot to be worked out, and the margins will never be as sweet as those of search.
By next_xibalba 7 hours ago
Who pays for search though? Sure it's 100% margin, but it's 100% of not much.
By lmm 6 hours ago
I think the plan is that other entities will own and maintain the cars. That's why they're working with partners like Uber and Avis.
By minwcnt5 10 hours ago
One of the main reasons to vertically integrate is to expand margins by squeezing cost out of the value chain. My point still stands: Waymo will never have margins as good as search.
By next_xibalba 7 hours ago
Indeed. The richest showman that ever lived and successfully duped both liberal and conservative population and politicians. Well deserved I say.
By esalman 13 hours ago
Wild that people will call the founder of SpaceX a "showman"
By spaceman_2020 13 hours ago
Let's settle on calling the founder of Hyperloop a "showman".
By luma 13 hours ago
Yes. Because we should all be judged by our failures.
By lacy_tinpot 8 hours ago
Hey, Im a fan. Fail fast. Build things.
Most very rich people just sit and roll in their money in the finance markets like scrooge mcduck.
But… I think the performance in the whitehouse was performative nonesense.
What a waste of everyone’s time for the sake of appearances.
More building things, less dancing please Elon.
By noodletheworld 8 hours ago
He has done many impressive things, but one consistent thing about the man is that he always over promises and regularly under delivers. The examples are too numerous to count (smashing the CT's "armour" glass, humans to Mars in 2024, Thai cave submarine, naming your driver assistance technology Full Self Driving, etc, etc)
Perhaps that's simply the price of achievement, but Showman is apt
By derektank 4 hours ago
That is a real, important accomplishment, but he's also a showman.
By skybrian 13 hours ago
Don’t forget Zip2, PayPal, Neuralink, OpenAI, and The Boring Company.
There are large swaths of people that accept headlines as fact and/or cannot or will not grapple with nuance and complexity (“I think Elon’s a jerk and he is a formidable engineer.”) Perhaps it’s a sign of these polarized times, or, as I believe, people have always been like this. We just have more time and resources to dedicate to outrage and flamewarring than we did in the past.
By next_xibalba 13 hours ago
I don't deny his accomplishments. On the contrary, I think he is a genius. It's just that he is an extremely, damagingly biased genius.
Genuine question - are there (or have there been ) any geniuses that are not unhinged?
By testing22321 12 hours ago
He was ousted from Paypal before anything major happened, he was basically just a shareholder.
The Boring Company is an obvious bust. So is the Hyperloop. Neuralink is another likely bust. Tesla solar is going nowhere. The Cybertruck is a millstone around Tesla's neck. Etc, etc.
By oblio 12 hours ago
He wasn't even a fonder of Tesla. He was just a investor that became the CEO.
And the tweet below makes me question a lot about him. Doesn't sound like a genius to me.
"Lidar and radar reduce safety due to sensor contention. If lidars/radars disagree with cameras, which one wins?
This sensor ambiguity causes increased, not decreased, risk. That’s why Waymos can’t drive on highways.
We turned off the radars in Teslas to increase safety. Cameras ftw."
By Grazester 11 hours ago
Usually Elon's technical flaws aren't on display, or at least he covers them well. For example while it's true FSD hasn't worked out, but I don't know you could say at the time "most competent AI devs knew it wouldn't work out". However, when Elon attempted to move PayPal from Linux to Windows, most competent software engineers would have advised against it. Paypal isn't an example of Elon's genius in action - it's the opposite.
By rstuart4133 12 hours ago
I think the real purpose of the Boring Company and Hyperloop were preventing/slowing expansion of public transit, and that by that measure they were successful.
By _whiteCaps_ 11 hours ago
I am "just a shareholder" in Paypal. Elon Musk had a > 10% stake inherited from his ownership of one of the companies that was the precursor to Paypal itself. It's not remotely the same thing. And listing failures is not meaningful at all. Failure is the default outcome in business.
By terminalshort 12 hours ago
Wild that people will call a guy who bought SpaceX the founder of SpaceX.
By tempacct2cmmnt 10 hours ago
Either go ague with Wikipedia, or put some argument in the comment when making claims you expect people to verify themselves. People are just going to look it up on Wiki.
> SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 with a vision of decreasing the costs of space launches, paving the way to a self-sustaining colony on Mars.
Deceiving people doesn't mean you deserve your gains.
By izzydata 13 hours ago
"Deserve" is a human construction.
By esseph 10 hours ago
We are humans.
By lobsterthief 6 hours ago
Right, but we're adults, we realize that "deserve" is only as real as the ability to enforce it.
By esseph 4 hours ago
Largely because investors fear that Google's new products (especially AI) will cannibalize its massively lucrative ads business.
By spaceman_2020 13 hours ago
Fear is a bit of an understatement
By hadlock 12 hours ago
but if they're google's products how would they cannabalize ads biz. would revenue not just shift? or do you believe ai search will be overly adopted but not as profitable?
By thatguy1874 13 hours ago
I think its the later. And also the fact that they are not the firstmover in AI search. More people know about chatgpt than they know about gemini
By israrkhan 12 hours ago
Google was late to search, late to smartphones, late to internet email. I'm having a hard time thinking of any of their large markets where they were a first mover, maybe YouTube-ish, widespread user uploaded internet video wasn't meaningfully available before the rise of YouTube.
On topic, Waymo is clearly a first mover in self-driving, having the first legal commercial services.
But, being the first mover is usually more of a disadvantage than an advantage, IMHO.
By toast0 12 hours ago
I'm struggling to think of a single product where the first mover won. At best they are able to hold some market share like Dropbox or Slack, but eventually big tech moves in and crushes them by just offering the same thing but cheaper and more integrated.
By SchemaLoad 5 hours ago
But the earnings of Waymo (or hypothetically Tesla) are nothing in Alphabet as a whole.
If you get a great deal on your house and then massively overpay for some avocados, the latter's going to barely move your overall wealth.
By OJFord 7 hours ago
Stocks are narrative-driven, and sometimes this aspect swamps the "fundamentals." Keynesian beauty contests all the way down.
By exolymph 12 hours ago
Waymo is a small portion of Alphabets business, while cars are a massive portion of Tesla's. If waymo was seperated out from Alphabet maybe it's p/E would be that high.
By ViscountPenguin 7 hours ago
I believe TSLA also represents their humanoid robot segment with some questionable addressable market definitions done by investment analysts. I believe it’s overvalued but they are a forcing function for the other tech companies to push ahead
By gerash 9 hours ago
PE has been irrelevant since the dotcom crash if not sooner. us equities are no based in reality
By sitzkrieg 7 hours ago
Google is just not a risk taker these days. You don't risk you don't get rewarded.
By CGMthrowaway 12 hours ago
Tesla is literally operating a robotaxi service.
By fastball 13 hours ago
They're operating a Robotaxi service, not a robotaxi service.
If I create a shuttle bus service for my neighborhood and call it the "Space Shuttle", I am not operating a space shuttle.
By minwcnt5 10 hours ago
A whole 15 cars, with "supervisors" in the drivers seat!
And only last week did they even open up the waitlist to non-influencers.
The day this news was released, Elon released the video of him talking to the Optimus bot to overshadow the news. Showman gonna showman.
By Workaccount2 12 hours ago
TIL. I stand corrected. Though worth pointing out (as the article does) that on September 1st, new legislation in Texas was passed adding some restrictions to autonomous vehicles. So seems reasonably likely this is more regulatory than necessary.
By fastball 12 hours ago
They've managed to automate it but reduce the labor costs by zero in the process. Now that's innovation.
By adrianmonk 6 hours ago
Unsafe at any speed
By supportengineer 11 hours ago
There are about 1,500 Waymo cars in existence, versus about 7,000,000 Teslas in the last seven years.
By levocardia 13 hours ago
But there are 0 Teslas that are as effective at self-driving as Waymo, so they're still ahead.
By aqme28 13 hours ago
My Model Y in Vancouver drives me to and from work daily. I cannot get a Waymo here -- and I certainly cannot purchase one privately. Which is more effective where I live?
By LanceJones 13 hours ago
Teslas have a ~about 500 miles between interventions (they don't release actual data, no surprise), whereas
Waymo is at around 17,000 miles.
That's a 34x divide. At full scale that's something like 30% of Teslas having an intervention every day.
By Workaccount2 12 hours ago
I don’t doubt that Waymo car is more advanced than FSD, but that comparison isn’t as impressive as it sounds. The numbers of FSD equipped Teslas dwarfs that of Waymos, and they are available everywhere, not just selective cities. You have to take that into account.
Teslas is also much cheaper, and easier to scale. Tesla has better growth potential even if their tech is less impressive.
By signatoremo 10 hours ago
You are supposed to supervise Tesla FSD. Waymo doesn't require someone in the driver's seat at all. They aren't the same thing.
By dagenix 12 hours ago
We’ve also not seen how capable Tesla is at evasive maneuvers. We have plenty of videos (hundreds now) of Waymo making instant swerves to avoid children running onto the road, cars running red lights, a person falling from a Scooty etc. These are not maneuvers you would expect from a human, which shows how Waymo has pretty successfully crossed the human bar in safety. If Tesla does not demonstrate this, on top of driving normally, I don’t think they have a product. The barrier to give control to a computer is super human not human like driving.
Also philosophically I don’t see how a big neural network will create such evasive maneuvers, unless you try to create such scenarios in a simulator and collect evasive data. Seems prohibitively expensive to do so in the real world.
By sashank_1509 6 hours ago
Market says “as effective” doesn’t matter. Needs to be “good enough”.
By dzhiurgis 13 hours ago
I mean FSD is pretty good and useful. But yes, not unsupervised.
By wilg 13 hours ago
The Coca-Cola company sells even more units than Tesla, but if those units don't drive themselves they're moot to this discussion.
By Fricken 11 hours ago
Same could be said about Tesla when it started.
By giveita 11 hours ago
Because some people read beyond headlines and realize that Tesla will most likely dominate with Robotaxi. Their traditional consumer vehicle revenue could pale in comparison. And Optimus could be another order of magnitude larger.
That’s the optimistic bull case. It’s not impossible.
Tesla will be able to scale Robotaxi much quicker than Waymo can scale.
By Rover222 7 hours ago
Why? In principle the basic Waymo technology could be adapted to work on any modern vehicle. They aren't dependent on Jaguar manufacturing capacity to scale up.
By nradov 6 hours ago
It's capital intensive to make all of those devices. Tesla's strategy is to rent back devices they sell to consumers. This lowers the necessary capital costs and will enable quick scaling. It's a similar ploy to how Amazon quickly grew its delivery capabilities.
By surajrmal 6 hours ago
Alphabet has $95B of cash and short-term investments on hand. I don't think lack of capital is the obstacle to scaling here.
Tesla still has no autonomous vehicle that customers can actually buy, let alone rent back for taxi service. So any "strategy" remains entirely hypothetical.
By nradov 6 hours ago
>Alphabet has $95B of cash and short-term investments
Not only that, but also they could probably raise 10 times that much by creating new shares and selling them (if they had a plausible story to tell investors as to why the money would be well spent).
By hollerith 6 hours ago
Overvalued by traditional (PE) means. I've ridden in Waymo (50+) and Austin Robotaxis (12). Tesla has Waymo beat in terms of human-like feel, interior features (sync to your own Spotify, Youtube, etc). When Tesla removes the passenger seat monitor, scaling will happen much faster than Waymo... Tesla just received the initial license for driverless Robotaxi in Nevada. Tesla also produces more Robotaxi-capable Model Ys in ~6 hours as Waymo has cars in service (in total).
By LanceJones 13 hours ago
Tesla's self-driving technology is a joke compared to Waymo's and the Tesla brand is extremely toxic now. I see from your other comments that you're big on Tesla (own several and have a son who works there) but as an unbiased observer I cannot fathom them winning this market.
By bugufu8f83 13 hours ago
I have 2 AI4 Teslas with FSD, and I don't find V13.2.9 lacking at all in the Vancouver area. V14 will be a 10x increase in parameters, too. Why do you feel it's a "joke"?
By LanceJones 13 hours ago
It's a "joke" (I wouldn't call it that, but it's a vastly different product) because you have to pay attention to the road at all times.
You don't live in a Waymo city, so I understand. A lot of people who don't live in a Waymo city don't really get it.
Waymo is a completely different product than FSD. It's a robot that comes and drives you from point A to point B. You can do whatever you want while it's driving, such as take a nap or work on your laptop.
By minwcnt5 10 hours ago
> I have 2 AI4 Teslas with FSD
That is false. No Tesla is capable of full self-driving.
Mandatory supervision by a human on the driver’s seat is not full self-driving, no matter how much Elon insists on calling it that.
By umanwizard 4 hours ago
Tesla was SAE level 2 in 2013, and they are still SAE level 2. Waymo's Robotaxis are SAE level 4, and they can drive on public roads empty with no human supervision, both technically and legally.
By Fricken 11 hours ago
> When Tesla removes the passenger seat monitor
This is a huge jump, possibly still 5+ years away.
By xnx 13 hours ago
I have friends on the Autopilot team (and a son). Their goal is by end of year. I've been on HN for 15+ years, and seemingly the only downvotes I get are when I post my thoughts and opinions on Tesla.
By LanceJones 13 hours ago
Tesla FSD has been autonomous by the end of the year for 8+ years now. Don't believe people desperate to make Elon's lies seem plausible.
I wouldn't not be surprised if they figure out some very narrow way to have no safety driver in the car (1:1 remote ops?) by the end of the year.
By xnx 13 hours ago
1:1 is going to be ruinously expensive. You need three shifts of remote operators. Even in the Philippines or Vietnam, if you can make the latency work, that's prohibitive.
By Zigurd 12 hours ago
How do Elon Musk's predictions relate to Tesla achieving a robotaxi service or not?
Ignore his predictions and just... look at whether or not the Tesla FSD team is making progress.
By fastball 13 hours ago
FSD is widely considered to be off its originally-stated goal by at least 5 to 6 years.
By terabytest 13 hours ago
Can we expect you to come back on Jan 1, 2026 and provide an update?
By telcodud 11 hours ago
Yeah, I also heard Sky Ferreira’s album is coming out this year.
By umanwizard 4 hours ago
You're not "posting your opinions on Tesla", you're literally shoveling them into everybody's throats. You'd be "posting your opinions" when it was one, two comments, and not plenty, like under this news. You're a Tesla freak or fanboy, not an objective commenter.
By HackerThemAll 10 hours ago
> Their goal is by end of year.
It's like what 6-7 years since the goal was "end of the year".
By super_flanker 11 hours ago
> Their goal is by end of year.
Ummm.
By Zigurd 13 hours ago
I think the downvotes might be due to one or more of the following:
- You're uncritically parroting the notoriously untrustworthy talking points of a notoriously untrustworthy company, and HN posters expect more critical thought in comments.
- You're redirecting to some rumored "goal" rather than a realistic prediction, which was the topic, and HN posters liked the topic.
- HN posters may think that your vested interest in tesla behooves you to think more critically than the average person on matters involving tesla, rather than less, to overcome any implicit bias you might have.
- I have a goal of end-of-month, so that means I'll have it even sooner than tesla, right? This is how many view the claim by tesla, except I, a random person, literally have less of a reputation for dissembling and failure to deliver than tesla does.
By ImPostingOnHN 5 hours ago
Waymo does not have YouTube sync, but they do have Apotify sync.
By CaliforniaKarl 13 hours ago
> When Tesla removes the passenger seat monitor
They literally moved that monitor to the driver's seat! Progress, indeed.
By FireBeyond 12 hours ago
I drove for Uber/Lyft back in 2020 and let me tell you, SFO is a nightmare. I missed a turn once and had a passenger trying to make a flight furious at me. I quickly figured out there were a group of drivers who specialized in SFO and amatuers like me should avoid the place. When Waymo announced San Jose I thought ok, that makes sense because SJC is easy, but SFO? Wow, I'm impressed. I hope it goes to plan.
By labrador 12 hours ago
Those turn offs for specific terminals are very small and easy to miss.
By jonny_eh 9 hours ago
Nothing more rewarding than a company working hard and seeing real-world, first of its kind results in action. Makes me feel giddy about a company again like peak tech back in the 2010 era.
Congrats to the Waymo team, I’m sure this was a huge milestone internally.
By testfrequency 13 hours ago
Looks like this Kiss & Fly area where pickup will be is at the car rental center.
By ajmurmann 16 hours ago
Oh, this makes a bit of sense. The Avis/Budget fleet team will be part of managing the vehicles, so they can be quickly cleaned and fueled up when they slide into the airport, too.
Same. I go to the rectal car center at least 4 times each year. I just was there on Saturday and had no idea either. Still don't know what it is other than Waymo pickup.
By ajmurmann 16 hours ago
>rectal car center
Known nickname or typo?
By owlninja 16 hours ago
Definitely phone autocorrect issue. I'm gonna leave it though
By ajmurmann 15 hours ago
How often do you type "rectal" for that to become an autocorrect default for you??
By blindriver 15 hours ago
Otherwise known by its popular name “Cloaca-Rent—A-Car”
By pryelluw 15 hours ago
Or both :-D
By SirFatty 16 hours ago
It - along with cell phone waiting lots - are ways for people to drop others off and avoid the traffic around the terminals themselves.
Which can be bad - I often find it easier to just pay for a few minutes parking on dropoff/pickup.
By bombcar 16 hours ago
Yeah, but the SFO cell phone lot is particularly bad, and traffic to the terminals is bad.
On the flip side, there are airports like Cleveland where people just park their car at arrivals and disappear for 20 minutes.
By rconti 10 hours ago
I did always find the term kiss and fly confusing and weirdly intimate, as if everyone is getting a ride to the airport from a spouse or parent. Definitely a throwback to another era.
By smelendez 14 hours ago
I think it's also a regional thing; I'd never heard of it.
By bombcar 14 hours ago
> rectal car center
That's way mo' information than needed thanks.
But seriously. I wonder why they have a designated pickup point if it would make sense to spread the cars out to alleviate traffic bottlenecks.
By whycome 15 hours ago
What's even better is the variety of names this thing has. I'm my area, it's the "cell phone lane"
By ghurtado 14 hours ago
If Waymo can pull off airport pickups smoothly, it might shift how we think about edge entry to city traffic. Most cities still struggle with that "last mile" problem maybe self driving fits perfectly there.
By Daisywh an hour ago
Does this mean they'll be able to take the freeways to get there? Surface streets from SF to SFO would be pretty slow.
By Tossrock 16 hours ago
I'd hope so. As an aside, I wish Waymo was more transparent on the app that their cars are not allowed to take passengers on the freeway. I was unaware of this restriction when I booked a ride from SF to Burlingame last month and I was stuck in a Waymo for an hour going down residential streets!
By nickvec 16 hours ago
Doesnt it show the route and the ETA before your book the ride?
By bitpush 15 hours ago
No, they need to add a pop up with even more text users will not read.
By eptcyka 15 hours ago
They have had permission to be on freeways for a while [0], although so far they have only done employee testing (I believe)
I wonder how that'd feel. I took a Waymo in SF last fall and I was pretty impressed. But it was also slow city speeds. I wonder if it feels different going at freeway speeds with "no one" at the wheel.
By davidw 15 hours ago
While the margin of error is much lower on a freeway due to the speeds, other drivers are generally a lot more predictable (also in part due to the speeds).
By mynameisvlad 15 hours ago
Sure - a good freeway is actually a lot more predictable in most circumstances than city driving, so as a problem to solve it's likely a little bit less complicated. What I wonder about is what it feels like as a passenger. I wonder if it would be more or less frightening than being a passenger when my 17 year old is driving.
By davidw 15 hours ago
I use adaptive cruise control a lot, where I rely on the car for keeping a safe distance.
I have a limited version of SuperCruise which means it operates hands-free on freeways but nowhere else. My wife's Equinox EV has the regular version, which operates on a lot of arterials near us and has more capabilities. The first time that the Equinox signaled, changed lanes to pass, signaled, then changed lanes back was shocking.
We moved to a small town and drive a lot more than we used to and I find that having those capabilities really helps relieve the stress.
I will say that I move to the center lane when going through a notorious set of curves on I-5 in Portland because my Bolt doesn't steer as smoothly as I'd like near the concrete barricades. I wanted SuperCruise because it has a fantastic safety record. There are lots of times it's not available but when it is, I have near-total confidence in it.
By jdeibele 14 hours ago
I took a Waymo that drove on an 'expressway' which had a speed limit of 40mph and it was definitely a different feeling. I did feel a bit scared, at 25mph it feels like a gentle theme park ride, at 40mph it's beyond that and feels dangerous.
By rdoherty 14 hours ago
There was a good overview on here a while ago about the challenges[1]. You need to plan longer in the future and your sensors need to reach further. It's also a much bigger challenge to collect sensor data as fewer diversions happen per mile (but those that do have higher stakes).
Roads that get used more collect more debris. They also break and require maintenance more often. That maintenance is exceptionally disruptive to the normal operation of the road.
Other drivers aren't your only challenge out there.
By themafia 13 hours ago
From the article “ Pickups and dropoffs will initially start at SFO’s Kiss & Fly area – a short AirTrain ride from the terminals – with the intention to explore other locations at the airport in the future.”
By transitorykris 14 hours ago
They're still working on freeways, doing employee riding testing.
By TulliusCicero 14 hours ago
Waymo already had the permit, but they're just being (overly) cautious.
By summerlight 12 hours ago
The surface street route that bypasses 101 near Brisbane is surprisingly often faster than 101.
People love crashing there.
By buckle8017 15 hours ago
One concern I have is how the user data collected by self driving cars will be handled. Companies like Waymo likely hold even more data than Uber. If such data is truly used in sensitive locations like airports, I hope there will be clear and transparent mechanisms.
By ChaoPrayaWave 2 hours ago
Hopefully Waymo does a better job than SF Uber drivers. I can't tell you how many times I've had drivers make a wrong turn trying to find their way to the pickup point.
By phendrenad2 15 hours ago
Boy, if they could actually navigate terminal traffic, I’d give ‘em true self driving.
By roughly 16 hours ago
SFO traffic is not bad at all. Send them to LAX and we're talking.
By wagwang 16 hours ago
Its not true self driving until the Waymo asks if dropping you off at arrivals is ok.
By jayd16 16 hours ago
There's the big sign there telling you to go to arrivals for drop-off. This is probably a stupid question but can Waymo cars interpret those temporary display signs and follow them? Would it?
By andy99 15 hours ago
It seems to handle the standardized ones (think "construction ahead, detour left") perfectly well from the rides I've taken, but there's all sorts of ways they could be 'cheating' on that.
By OkayPhysicist 15 hours ago
Thats AGI
By apwell23 15 hours ago
I'll be honest, I think LAX's traffic is better than SFO's.
It feels like there's a lot less spaghetti at LAX, the shortcuts are reasonable, and you don't have separate international and domestic loops.
By ian-g 15 hours ago
LAX's many parking lots with left lane entrances definitely threw me for a loop the first couple of times.
Overall though, I think I agree with you.
By rkomorn 15 hours ago
JFK is probably the 10th circle of hell
By whippymopp 15 hours ago
I was also thinking JFK is pretty bad.
By Grazester 3 hours ago
I don't touch JFK with 10mi pole. I've always found EWR to be much more consistent and easier to get to
By lunarboy 14 hours ago
Send them to BOS and we're talking
By javiramos 15 hours ago
Is the mark of intelligence being able to navigate to BOS, or refusing to drive through the big dig in the first place?
By dgacmu 15 hours ago
The Big Dig, for all the digs it rightfully got for taking forever and costing a shitton, actually does the job it's supposed to (mostly). I'm generally pleasantly surprised how few problems it had when I lived there.
I didn't go to Logan a ton though.
By Andrex 14 hours ago
JFK has entered the chat
By asah 15 hours ago
I'll take JFK over LAX. The construction going on right now at JFK sucks, but LAX is comically bad. Just last week I was on a rental car shuttle at LAX and watched 3 separate groups of people at different terminals miss their flights because traffic just wasn't moving.
By mtalantikite 15 hours ago
Maybe, but this approvals only allows them to go to the rental car center, which is quite far from the terminals. The passenger will need to take the air train to the terminals.
By jonny_eh 9 hours ago
They already do in PHX.
By ra7 16 hours ago
Can you handle parking structures? I heard a lot of the autonomous cars were using 2D maps and couldn't handle multiple levels. Haha! This was just a year or two ago.
By phkahler 15 hours ago
Google maps has been able to figure out parking structures for me recently. Not sure what technology is involved (gps isn't great for vertical) but it's clearly possible.
By cperciva 14 hours ago
Google has been collecting data on building interiors for several years now. Not just parking structures. This data is currently used in streetview. Google's geospatial data is unequaled and maybe a bigger advantage than is readily visible.
By Zigurd 13 hours ago
Do they need a "map" of a parking tower though, just like how humans don't exactly need Google Maps inside of one? I feel like this is something self driving + vision (exit signs and arrows) can handle
By lunarboy 14 hours ago
one of the waymo depots in SF is a multi level parking building
By fnord77 15 hours ago
Do taxis need to park tho?
By kayamon 15 hours ago
I mean, depending on the situation, of course. Do taxi drivers in US drop people right in the middle of a busy street?
By mystifyingpoi 14 hours ago
Kinda yeah? They certainly don't navigate into long-term multi-storey parking structures.
By kayamon 14 hours ago
Fair point, both extremes don't really happen in reality.
By mystifyingpoi 4 hours ago
Seems like Tesla keeps talking big, while waymo conquers city by city.
By Traubenfuchs 15 hours ago
LOL
By gitfan86 8 hours ago
Man, I’m flying into SFO next week. Wish this was already available; I’d take it in a heartbeat.
By sgarland 7 hours ago
I think this is a really exciting development for Waymo and the future of autonomous transportation. Imagine the next steps; waymo flights
By cat-whisperer 12 hours ago
Waymo ride costs are getting really expensive in SF.
By olivermarks 15 hours ago
Not sure if you have a recent side-by-side example with Uber, but this seems like it would have to happen if the demand is there. How else can you offer a quality product (i.e., car shows up in a reasonable amount of time) if you don't have enough cars to satisfy the demand? Pricing is the primary demand lever.
There's so much polarizing opinion on Tesla's offering and whether they'll get to Waymo's level sooner than later, but this seems like it's going to be or already is a huge issue for Waymo where they can't manufacture the vehicles fast enough to satisfy the demand as they expand both locally (because they capture more of the market) and into new geographies. Will they try and acquire a manufacturer? I don't think that's economically feasible for Waymo (Geely market cap is $25b, per Google snippet fwiw), and obviously being in the car business is different than autonomous, but I'm sure Google would bankroll a purchase if they thought it was the right growth strategy.
I guess Tesla, even if their autonomous is on par with Waymo tomorrow, also has to manufacture the fleet, but it seems extremely beneficial to have that capacity in house vs. relying on partners. Maybe I'm wrong and it's not that much of an advantage, but at first glance it would seem to be.
By harmmonica 15 hours ago
The CEO of Uber was quoted as saying Waymos complete more rides per day than 99% of Uber drivers. He didn't give a precise ratio but this makes me think that hundreds of Waymos can replace thousands of Uber drivers and their cars.
CMs like Magna have the flexibility to manufacture, at the low end, hundreds of vehicles, and at the high end thousands. I doubt Waymo will ever make their own vehicles. They are already working with Toyota on adapting Waymo technology to privately owned cars. That implies mass production. That would be a supply of vehicles that are probably simple to adapt to robotaxi use.
By Zigurd 14 hours ago
That's a crazy statistic and an interesting one for him to actually say out loud. Was that in the context of Uber partnering with Waymo in Austin? And thanks for the insight on the manufacturing side. Sounds like it might actually be to their advantage to use third parties because you can spread the demand around and since auto margins are not high the added cost for that benefit is minimal.
By harmmonica 14 hours ago
Private cars have a ridiculously low duty cycle. They mainly sit around waiting for their owners to use them. I suppose at some point in the future there might be a traffic jam of autonomous vehicles, but only if the providers are antisocial and don't coordinate ride destinations and routes.
By Zigurd 13 hours ago
@harmmonica I do. we prefer to use Waymos in SF but Uber has been a lot cheaper in the last six months or so regardless of time of day...
Also saw some Zoox self driving boxes on the las vegas strip last week but no one seemed to be using them.
By olivermarks 12 hours ago
Thanks for sharing, oliver. For anything local I've almost entirely switched and I guess I haven't been doing much price comparison between the two. One thing I have noticed here in LA, albeit only a couple of times, is that during rush hour the waiting time is significantly longer for Waymo. I've taken some Ubers because the wait for a Waymo has been way too long.
By harmmonica 10 hours ago
Zoox just started allowing rides in Vegas 6 days ago.
I've seen them driving around SF as well, but they're not yet available here.
By Aloisius 10 hours ago
Waymo is a premium ride product that happens to be self driving.
By JumpCrisscross 14 hours ago
just use Robotaxi. 1/3 of the price, sometimes less
By yetiofparis 15 hours ago
How much per mile? For some recent example rides, let's say. One I took was exactly $2 / mile but not in SF.
By natch 14 hours ago
What's that? An app? I see a Chinese app of that name in the android play store, but it only has about 1k downloads
Not sure why you're downvoted. I've tried Robotaxi a few times and has been great. They still have a safety driver these days and wait time is a big high though.
By chucknthem 14 hours ago
I wonder what the ultimate price of this service will be compared to alternatives.
By baggy_trough 16 hours ago
It will remain higher for a while. From reporting I have seen, they are close to maxing out their vehicles, and many people prefer it to other options, so are willing to pay a premium. As long as that is true, it's going to be priced as a premium product. It won't be until fleets grow significantly in size and/or another driverless taxi service enters the market that we will maybe start to see prices driven down closer to marginal cost of a ride.
-edit- multiple other comments apparently disagree with this. I'll defer to people who actually use them over the reporting. Odd that there is that disconnect though.
By MostlyStable 16 hours ago
I know this is only a single data point, but I recently took one in Hollywood. Uber Lyft quoted $33 and Waymo was $20
By lunarboy 14 hours ago
It's also higher right now because it is a novely. Plenty of people are booking it just to say they rode in a Waymo and take pictures. When that wears off they will have to start competing strictily on price and wait/ride time.
By paxys 15 hours ago
Lots of people, myself included, pay a premium to not have a human at the steering wheel; it's nice to have the car to yourself.
By bradleybuda 15 hours ago
Yourself and three dozen recording devices and call centers full of people tracking the car and reviewing the footage, yes.
By paxys 15 hours ago
To be fair, Waymo claims to not record or transmit audio without you either manually engaging such (by requesting support), or a very unambiguous announcement (presumably when the car gets into some sort of emergency situation). And lying about that claim would probably run afoul of California's 2 party consent law. So still a step up in privacy versus having someone in the car listening in on your conversation.
That said, even if they were listening to you, there's a lot of things that are completely inconsequential from a perspective of an anonymous call center employee far away listening in on, that I probably wouldn't want to talk about in front of a taxi driver.
By OkayPhysicist 15 hours ago
I know this is somewhat besides the point of the discussion, but.. many Ubers have recording devices inside the car too. The drivers have gotten savvy and protect themselves from false claims or even harassment.
By blinding-streak 10 hours ago
I still count that as a win.
By mystifyingpoi 14 hours ago
Like, the driver's presence bothers you? Even if they don't talk?
By octo888 15 hours ago
This is just me, but maybe helps explain it. It's not that the presence of a driver is bothersome, but in the pre-Waymo world your interaction with the outside world starts when you step out the door of your house. Now the interaction with the outside world starts when you get to your destination and step out of the Waymo. I really enjoy the outside world, mind you. But it just feels easier to traverse my local area in solitude and with a consistent and comfortable vehicle, and non-erratic driving style.
I imagine how nice it could (will?) be when you can hop into a self-driving car for a longer ride or even a road trip. I think you'll feel like it's an extension of your living room vs. being in a car.
By harmmonica 14 hours ago
The problem isn't when they don't talk and just drive, the problem is when it's late at night and the passenger is a woman who is inebriated. Not having a driver entirely makes that much harder.
By fragmede 10 hours ago
Yeah they need scaling and competition before the prices get lower. As long as supply is saturated with demand and nobody else is on their level, there's little reason to lower prices.
By TulliusCicero 14 hours ago
Yeah, and just to add even though it's implied in your comment, there's plenty of reason to keep prices where they are independent of a desire to increase revenue. Customers will not wait forever for the car and so if the demand is high you have to keep the price high to discourage people from using it so wait times remain in check. Tricky tightrope they're going to be walking while they optimize the fleet size for local adoption and geographic expansion.
By harmmonica 14 hours ago
On other threads I've seen conflicting anecdata regarding pricing being higher or lower than an Uber ride. That's not too surprising since the supply and demand variables are going to be different for Waymo.
By Zigurd 14 hours ago
Their goal is to have lower cost Hyundai models hit the market though, right? So the Jags probably remain the premium/higher cost option.
By kylehotchkiss 15 hours ago
In my experience so far, Waymo costs about the same as an Uber when you take into account tipping, but takes longer (they're not yet doing freeways). With the addition of SFO to their zone, I can't imagine freeways are far behind, because getting from the city to SFO without using the freeways would be... a novelty.
By OkayPhysicist 16 hours ago
That's not been my experience... 90% of the time when I check, Waymo is still a good 20-50% more expensive in SF, when comparing to a tip-included Uber or Lyft price.
By kelnos 14 hours ago
I've used Waymo countless times in SF. It's typically 15% cheaper than an Uber/Lyft and trip time/wait are generally the same. I much prefer the Waymo.
By ru552 16 hours ago
I've never encountered it being cheaper, what hours do you generally use it?
By WorldPeas 15 hours ago
Generally between 11a and 7p. Going to lunch/dinner.
By ru552 14 hours ago
Self driving taxis are fundamentally much cheaper to provide.
- No driver to pay.
- Smaller simpler car.
- Can drive 24h a day.
- Needs much less parking space.
But fully realizing these benefits is probably a decade away.
By BurningFrog 13 hours ago
Cheaper than uber rn. Long term once they own the market? Too much.
By bix6 16 hours ago
They still have to compete with alternate modes of transportation such as buses, bikes, trains, e-scooter rentals, self-owned cars, Uber with human drivers.
If it would be "too much", then there's no reason why taxis (incl uber/lyft) wouldn't be too much today.
By gretch 16 hours ago
I don’t really think they have to compete much.
Direct competitors are uber and Lyft which they can undercut since they don’t pay drivers.
The people who want to take buses and trains will continue to do so although Waymo might sway some with their ease and if pricing is reasonable.
Bikes and e-scooters only get you so far. Last time I was in SF I didn’t see too many bikes but I saw a ton of e-scooters. Are you really taking an e-scooter further than a few blocks? And when it rains?
Self owned cars make sense for longer trips out of the city but parking is a pain and driving is stressful so this is an easy win for Waymo.
It’s cheaper now so they can take market share. And their cost will certainly be lower than Ubers so they can win the pricing battle. But long term monopoly gonna monopoly. Perfect pricing is a given with the wealth in SF and how many rides will be on a business CC.
By bix6 14 hours ago
from what I heard, the intention is to make it much more affordable than it is now. I don't remember the source right now but I did think it was a blog post or something like that.
I think if it's affordable then people will easily take that. instead of drinking and driving at night or other unsafe activities. if it's affordable then people can just take a waymo home and then back again to get their car when it's safe again.
By ElijahLynn 15 hours ago
Certainly they aim to make it affordable now in order to undercut Lyft and uber. Long term they will own the market and jack up prices as monopolies do.
By bix6 14 hours ago
But still no Waymo app in the European App Store for iOS.
By jacobgorm 12 hours ago
Waymo has planes too??
By thomasjudge 7 hours ago
That's great to hear
The title makes it sound like GA but it's still in testing
By airstrike 16 hours ago
at first I thought they were doing those cargo quad copter things...
By caycep 14 hours ago
Looks like this would (eventually) include service to not just San Francisco, but also the Peninsula (Silicon Valley) via freeways.
By tantalor 15 hours ago
I certainly hope so. And if yes, I imagine people are gonna start using it as a transfer point, to take a Waymo from the peninsula to SF.
By CaliforniaKarl 13 hours ago
Is Waymo L5?
By perfmode 15 hours ago
L5 means the car can drive everywhere a human can. Waymo's refuse to drive outside of a constrained area, and occasionally stop to ask for assistance, so that makes them L4.
By bryanlarsen 15 hours ago
This whole autonomous driving levels kinda muddies the waters. Some would argue this isn't full L4 even. But it is a self driving car in the places it offers its services.
By horhay 14 hours ago
What would be the argument that Waymo is anything except L4?
By AlotOfReading 14 hours ago
No, L5 is a car that can drive itself anywhere in any conditions.
By yakz 15 hours ago
I think there's an implicit "where a decent human driver could drive safely" for L5, otherwise you get increasingly ridiculous scenarios like, "can Waymo drive safely in a whiteout blizzard?" or "can Waymo safely escape an erupting volcano??"
By TulliusCicero 14 hours ago
Too bad waymo is more expensive than uber most of the time
By fnord77 15 hours ago
Why is that too bad?
By SoftTalker 14 hours ago
is waymo really that good???
how good it compared to Tesla FSD/Robotaxi ???
By tonyhart7 15 hours ago
haven ridden in both a few times, yes, Waymo is head and shoulders better. It's smooth and I don't think I've ever seen any false alarms or behavior that made me feel unsafe in a Waymo, while I've had a few scary or annoying situations in the Teslas. I took a 6-minute robotaxi in drizzling weather where it parked in intersections twice because the cameras were obscured. Meanwhile Waymo can drive perfectly in heavy fog.
Both the Waymos and Teslas have that central display that shows you what the car sees (pedestrians, dogs, traffic cones, other cars, etc). The Waymo representation of the world reaches pretty far is is pretty much perfect from what I've seen. Meanwhile the Tesla one until recently had objects popping in and out.
Neither is perfect, of course; both will hesitate sometimes and creep along when (IMO) they should commit. But they're both still way better in that regard compared to the zoox autonomous cars I see in SF.
By djsavvy 15 hours ago
Tesla doesn't have a real robotaxi yet, they're still in the testing/prototyping phase where they need a safety driver or safety monitor in the car.
They might be close to a real robotaxi in some areas, but it's hard to say until they actually pull the trigger on removing any employees from the car.
By TulliusCicero 14 hours ago
Waymo cannot scale. So for most people it's irrelevant.
Tesla FSD makes driving 90% less taxing mentally. It does 99.9% of the driving perfectly. And its getting better. We are quickly approaching a situation where people who don't drive Teslas are like people who cut their grass with Sickle as compared to people who have driving lawn mowers
By gitfan86 8 hours ago
tesla robotaxi is worse than waymo was 3 years ago when I was a tester
By fnord77 14 hours ago
Until just now I had no idea Tesla had a taxi service. Otoh I've seen hundreds of Waymos in SF and the west side of LA.
By dboreham 14 hours ago
An interesting thing about this is that there are fewer than 1000 Waymos in the SF service area. I don't know today's total, but I'm pretty certain that there are fewer than 5000 Waymos in existence. Maybe as few as half that.
Some months ago Waymo claimed to be providing 250,000 rides per week. If the fleet size was 2500 at the time, that would be 100 rides per vehicle per week.
By Zigurd 14 hours ago
Wait, what is special about driving to/from airports?
By amelius 15 hours ago
What’s special about the airport is that the City of San Francisco owns and regulates it (as opposed to the streets that are regulated by the state CPUC), and the Board of Supervisors previously were regulatory captured by taxi medallion owners and Teamsters union (https://missionlocal.org/2024/12/waymo-rolls-toward-san-fran...). Specifically, Aaron Peskin (BoS supervisor from 2001–2009, 2015–2025, and board president for the last 2 years) said, “Their entire M.O. is, ‘The state regulates us; we don’t have to work with you, we don’t have to partner with you.’ My response is: There are things we do control. Including where you charge your cars. And the airport. What I intend to do, is condition their deployment and use of the airport property on their meeting a number of conditions around meeting this city’s minimum standards for public safety and transit.” https://missionlocal.org/2023/11/waymo-rebuffed-by-sfo-sf-gu...
By yonran 15 hours ago
I’d say it puts a lot of Uber (and similar) drivers at risk because airport rides are a good source of income. Waymo undercutting them will reduce the amount of passengers available for pick up.
Not saying it’s a bad or good thing. Just that it has real world impact on people and the economy.
By pryelluw 15 hours ago
Usually you'd have to take the BART one stop then the waymo, which seems to be a common tourist attraction for fresh deplaners. Perhaps the airport was afraid without that step of friction, too many people would try this and cause a waymo-jam
By WorldPeas 15 hours ago
Isn't it by far and wide the most common use of taxi services? It certainly is basically the only time I ever use one.
Waymo getting into that space seems like a pretty big step up in market penetration.
By Chabsff 15 hours ago
Hope you like traffic!
By pastureofplenty 15 hours ago
Waymo can deliver as many rides as Uber with a small fraction of the number of vehicles.
By Zigurd 14 hours ago
And they're all electric.
By MetaWhirledPeas 11 hours ago
How would this reduce or increase traffic? The demand is staying the same.
By thinkingtoilet 15 hours ago
Presumably the increased supply of "drivers" going to SFO will lower rideshare prices for everyone and make public transit less appealing
By Rebelgecko 14 hours ago
Public transit connections to SFO are shit-tier. Rideshare prices have little to do with it.
By triceratops 13 hours ago
You can BART from there to downtown, that beats a lot of cities. (yes, yes, BART quality can vary, but still.)
By easton 12 hours ago
surge pricing FTW!
By jgalt212 15 hours ago
I see a monopoly about to take shape. DOJ/FTC is sleeping on breakup schemes. USDOT should start government/private ventures in this space.
By nashashmi 14 hours ago
What kind of monopoly?
By ezfe 12 hours ago
They are cornering rideshare and automatic vehicles. They are the sole provider of an automatic vehicle.
By nashashmi 11 hours ago
Fair enough, I suppose they have a monopoly. Good thing that isn't illegal if they're not anti-competitive about it.
By ezfe 8 hours ago
They aren't the only autonomous vehicle for hire service. Zoox is operating in Vegas.
Even if they were the only one, it would be odd to classify autonomous rideshare as a distinct market given they compete directly with other vehicle for hire services where they have nothing close to monopoly-like power.
By Aloisius 9 hours ago
Nobody needs this. This is, in all likelihood, just private enterprise developing technologies for automated warfare.
By Atlas667 12 hours ago
Can't wait to argue over outsourced call centers to a non human while being stuck in traffic in a dangerous situation
By a456463 11 hours ago
Have you priced this out compared to a regular taxi or Lyft?
It’s waaaay mo’
By james_marks 16 hours ago
Inside SF, my experience is that Uber and Lyft are ~10-15% cheaper than Waymo, but that's before tipping. I don't have to tip a robot, so they work out to nearly identical prices.
By OkayPhysicist 16 hours ago
You don't have to tip an Uber or Lyft driver either.
By rowls66 15 hours ago
Preach.
By mystifyingpoi 14 hours ago
You also don't have to tip a taxi driver. They get paid for giving rides, it's not an extra service.
By gkbrk 16 hours ago
Yup, but it is kinda culturally expected to tip. You're right, you dont need to, but then again we do a lot of things just because it is .. polite.
By bitpush 15 hours ago
Waymo food delivery will be incredible. You won't even get your food if you don't tip your ubereats.
By kylehotchkiss 15 hours ago
The inherent problem there is the edges, most food delivery isn't the trip, it's the person getting out of the vehicle and putting it on your doorstep or going through the building. Zipline and their droneports for buildings seem to have the better solution, at least until waymo has some sort of legged robot that can bring the bag the last meter(s)
By WorldPeas 15 hours ago
I think the frustration with tips is so prevalent that the advertising could just be "Skip the tip, simply walk to the street to pick up your order!"
Would work great in suburbs where a robot car could pull in front of home for a minute or two, your food will be bid to another customer if you don't pick it up in 5 minutes. maybe the little robots in NYC are better.
By kylehotchkiss 15 hours ago
Aren't the "first meters" also pretty problematic? Are Waymos going to double park in front of a restaurant waiting for someone to come out and put the right order in the right vehicle?
By rkomorn 15 hours ago
I have a relative in Texas who is looking into leasing a drone to operate for food delivery. Apparently, that's already a thing there? If we could get food/small packages delivered to our building's roof instead of the front door, it would be a huge win for everyone in the building.
By corysama 15 hours ago
Using an otherwise empty 5 person vehicle to move a grocery bag worth of food is pretty stupid though
By asdff 15 hours ago
If it's a robot, why can't it have 10 lockers, and the right one pops open when it arrives to your place?
By kylehotchkiss 13 hours ago
>I don't have to tip a robot
Now that tips are tax free, it's only a matter of time before some clever SV accountants figure out how make everything a tip.
By ForHackernews 15 hours ago
Self-serve ordering terminals already often ask for tips. Presumably to be legal they're being paid to the kitchen staff, but I think sticking to "tips are for workers who have to pretend to like me" is a pretty firm boundary to stick to.
(Also, arbitrarily reclassifying things as tips is hard, because legally 100% of tip revenue has to go to workers, not management, and certainly not the company's investors or coffers).
By OkayPhysicist 15 hours ago
That's why they're clever accountants.
Tax-free tips paid to robots go to the hardworking AI engineers -> AI engineers voluntarily donate part of their tips to a 501(c)(3) that helps support struggling venture capitalists.
Something like that. We'll work it out the details once the right PAC donations are in place.
By ForHackernews 15 hours ago
Okay what're the odds on how long it is until there's a stray Waymo on the tarmac. Hopefully with enough warning to divert any planes about to land on it.
By egypturnash 14 hours ago
Zero. For the same reason there are never any stray civilian cars on the tarmac.
Cause what this country needs is to automate away even the gig economy jobs that are out there. Let's keep making a few people rich and screw all the normal people out there.
By amykhar 14 hours ago
Why the downvotes? That jobs will be lost is fact. Does this represent an increase in wealth concentration? Obviously. Is that a net bad? I don't know, let's discuss instead of silencing people.
By eagsalazar2 13 hours ago
Waymo are toast, Tesla will out scale them in months if not sooner. They can't compete on costs, 100k plus for an ugly Waymo vs < 40k for Tesla model Y or cyber cab.
By roman_soldier 9 hours ago
Who at Waymo can I speak to about using Waymo’s as an affordable housing solution? I work in commercial real estate and have a handful of affordable projects I am involved in and believe this to be a very interesting solution no one is talking about.
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