Robotaxi : The business of competing with human drivers

[kabin]

Last week I attended a webinar on robo taxis and safety. I asked the Waymo representative
how Waymo expects to make money from the Jaguar iPace turned robo taxi when the average
cab ride consists of carrying 1.3 passenger....

A deafening silence. My question was completely ignored.

Sounds like the question wasn't the focus of the webinar.

For sure Waymo needs to simplify the design and reduce over all costs. They have been arguably slow and steady with their roll out. There might be a few obvious paths like licensing the technology, cherry picking regions and more profitable rides for themselves, taking marketshare from mass transit/uber/lyft, and building a fleet of vehicles with different/higher passenger capacities.

 

[ChooseFreedom]

Last week I attended a webinar on robo taxis and safety. I asked the Waymo representative
how Waymo expects to make money from the Jaguar iPace turned robo taxi when the average
cab ride consists of carrying 1.3 passenger....

A deafening silence. My question was completely ignored.

That's the reaction to all companies that are still in the raising funds for "research" phase.
They may have some working fleet, but really, they're still in development. They haven't asked the hard questions, like you did, about the long-term sustainability of their business model.
They're just like, "Hey, look at our cool software, and what our cars can do." Nevermind what it'll look like 5yrs from now, when they're still raising more investment money to continue "research".

 

[johnnycnote]

Just got back from a little over 400 mile round trip. Mostly highway, but navigated heavy pedestrian traffic in Cape May and Wildwood NJ several times. Very comfortable, safe, polite, and expected behavior from FSD. Received multiple thank you waves from drivers and pedestrians lol. Disengaged 4 total times. 3 due to FSD taking too long (maybe 5-7secs) at stop signs with drivers behind me getitting inpatient, and once because I just knew that FSD was going to miss an exit. That worked out to an average of a disengagement every 100 miles. However, impressively, we had zero safety related disengagements

Picked up friends to go to a restaurant and they didn't realize that FSD was the one that took us there and back. This tells me more about FSD than anything else...