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Comment by xnx | Hacker News Reader

Waymo is far more advanced than anyone else, but not cheap enough to undercut the pay of an Uber driver ($9/hour?). There's still huge value if the Waymo Driver (their name for the self-driving system) can be added to private vehicles as a upgrade. A car that could pilot itself on road trips while you sleep overnight would be a game-changer for weekend getaways. Imagine leaving your Chicago office after work on Friday and waking up in Denver to go skiing Saturday morning with all your gear, no rental car, and no airport hassle.

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Sounds like a night train with transit? You'd have to carry the luggage on the station though.

And have no easy way to get around once you arrive

Add some autoracks to the back of the train and let people bring their cars with them. (Amtrak already has such a service between DC and Florida; I've always thought a Chicago-Denver trip would make a lot of sense as well).

The problem is that, unlike Uber, they need to pay the cost to maintain their fleet of vehicles.

I’m guessing they aren’t comfortable enough with their tech to deploy it everywhere. What happens if it starts snowing on your trip to Denver, you’re asleep, you’re in traffic, and there isn’t sufficient internet access for a safety driver to intervene in an emergency?

I'd assume it would have failsafe upon failsafe. E.g. in your example it would pull over at the earliest safe location while waking up the driver because the remote backup was unavailable.

A L4 system should be able to find a safe spot and park there until you wake up

That’s assuming that they have a truly L4 system. I don’t think it’s that simple. Danger can go from 0 to 100 fast in a car. There are so many corner cases that it isn’t hard to imagine a few stacking up and serious accidents happening.

That Phoenix, with its very clear weather, is the only market with their taxi service is damning.

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