For those curious:
Waymo is owned by Google (well, Alphabet), and is looking to compete with Uber/Lyft.
Nuro is backed by Softbank, and is looking to start with food/grocery deliveries.
Waymo is owned by Google (well, Alphabet), and is looking to compete with Uber/Lyft.
Nuro is backed by Softbank, and is looking to start with food/grocery deliveries.
I've heard that Uber ATG is barely staying afloat and Lyft is just pumping money just as a desperate attempt (their platform is much more powerful, which is what they're betting on).
What they need is to figure out how to massively decrease operating margins, and for many years now the story has been how it'll be done - at least partly - with autonomous vehicles. I'm skeptical, but we'll see. It would make a lot more sense to me if the robotaxis were used only on certain roads outfitted with multiple types of redundant roadside sensors to assist the self-driving cars.
Unless you want to own a specific speciality car (Ferrari, Jeep, etc), Waymo eliminates the need for you to buy one. It's Uber but without the overhead of paying a person, which means price could normalize so close to the actual operating expenses of the vehicle that it just doesn't make financial sense to use anything else.