We finally talked to an actual Waymo passenger – here’s what he told us | Hacker News Reader

We finally talked to an actual Waymo passenger – here’s what he told us

arstechnica.com

25 pointsvotepaunchy7 comments

> Richardson has found Waymo's prices to be relatively expensive. Richardson said that he recently considered taking a Waymo ride that would have cost $14. "Lyft cost a dollar less for the same trip," he said. "Uber was two dollars less."

This seems like a very odd pricing decision by Waymo. Even if they are subsidizing the cost of the rides, shouldn't they be cheaper than (or at least on par with) their competitors? Especially given that it's an inferior service right now?

Perhaps they are betting on having enough early adopter / fanboy users in their closed beta that price is immaterial. Just seems surprising to me that they aren't investing a little more in subsidies here.

The pricing is pretty much guaranteed to be a loss for Waymo, since their safety drivers are compensated better than Uber drivers, the cost of the vehicles, the maintenance for the vehicles, and the insurance is all probably also higher.

Presumably they're charging for the sake of charging for it, and to see what prices work and what prices don't. I would guess a lot of people would pay an extra dollar for the novelty value of riding in a self-driving car.

They want people who want to ride in driverless cars. At this stage, that is the demographic that matters most. Price is a good way find people who see a value in the trip being self-driving. The worst demographic they can find are people whose main criteria are price, the benefits of self-driving vehicles are not front and center in their minds.

> Price is a good way find people who see a value in the trip being self-driving. The worst demographic they can find are people whose main criteria are price

I think that's a better way of thinking about it than what I came up with.

> As our technology is new, we are going to be cautious because safety is our highest priority.

Good to hear that.

As the only 'true' player in the self driving arena right now, it's the priority every other self driving company that exists would want Google to have. After the media and PR fallout from Uber's screw-up, all involved companies know whats at stake if safety is not #1. Preregulation. Regulation before the identification of actual issues, regulation by politician's gut feelings and uninformed public sentiment. That environment would stifle self driving companies by a decade.

so their solution is on rails without the rails. the difference being they don't have the benefit of isolation from other traffic but they cannot anywhere where they haven't effectively laid down rails (think rail shooter - your path does not deviate and you only interact where allowed).

impressive in one regard but clearly shows how far they have to go.

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