Comment by Animats 2 days ago
Waymos will get cheaper to make as they scale up. The Ioniq version [1] costs less to build. All the sheet metal and mechanical mods for Waymo are done at the Hyundai factory in Georgia.[2] Waymo just mounts the electronics.
Jobs at the Hyundai factory start at $23.66/hour, with reasonably good benefits.[3]
[1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/10/waymo-and-hyundai-enter-partn...
[3] https://careers-americas.hyundai.com/hmgma/job/Ellabell-Prod...
this is 10000% the wrong approach— the approach is to build better, more walkable cities, with better zoning, and public transit so elderly or disabled people aren’t left out of society.
these people shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car; to me one of the biggest annoyances with american life
My father can barely walk a block before he needs to sit and rest. Your plan would not work for him. A more walkable city would be great for me, someone who can walk well. Him? Nope.
Wheelchairs and other assistive devices work well in walkable cities.
So roughly the distance from the car to the store's entrance.
In a neighborhood like Culdesac Mesa AZ, your father could downsize to an electric scooter. And maybe meet his neighbors.
So tear down every city in the country and rebuild them all from scratch, then force the ~45% of people that don’t live in those cities to move there.
And that’s better than mandating a small percentage of the population use FSD cars?
Not sure I like the autocratic tone of that plan
This is a pretty uncharitable read of the parent poster. Many cities are upzoning, which means that corridors are being torn down and built more densely. During those times, we're seeing a lot more mixed use, walkable and bikeable spaces introduced. In Seattle we're seeing streets being closed and lanes being removed to support biking and walking.
You can make walkable enclaves neighborhood by neighborhood. And those sites are really desirable. Especially near transit. The right approach is to build more like this until there's no one left who wants to live there and cannot. For the remaining folks who have no interest in it, sure, they can have automated cars.
But right now the line is out the door for this sort of place and we cannot build them fast enough.
> This is a pretty uncharitable read of the parent poster.
Which is pretty fair because the parent poster was using a very uncharitable read of what they were replying to. 10000% the wrong approach, really?
Hell, it’ll make MY life easier. Can’t wait for the day where I can do whatever the hell I want while my car drives itself. Affluent seniors that shouldn’t be driving are an obvious market and it would have been helpful for those in my life, too.
Waymo and Toyota have a deal to do just that.[1]
[1] https://waymo.com/blog/2025/04/waymo-and-toyota-outline-stra...
Well, you wouldn't have to sell the car. You could also setup a licensing / loan / dedicated car system.
It would work well for local municipalities that want to provide low-cost door-to-door service for the elderly.
We have a bus service here, The ART, and a dedicates "paratransit" bus service that provides door-to-door service to eligible riders.
And a couple private large-scale developed and managed neighborhoods that have driverless non-automated (remote controlled) transit systems.
If you know a large portion of your riders have disabilities, dedicated buses or vans make sense.
I'm sitting here advocating for this, and it's a great service that I'm glad they have it for those in need, and yet I need fucking plywood for hurricanes myself.
Yeah, it is Florida. But honestly, the transit system here and bike infrastructure development and traffic planning is good.
> You could also setup a licensing / loan / dedicated car system.
I think the word you were searching for is leasing the vehicle.
> the word you were searching for is leasing the vehicle
Car leasing tends to be time based. A self-driving car may depreciate more like an airplane, based on miles driven.
For the same reasons why you accept a lower price when selling in bulk basically. There are fewer overhead costs for you to deal with. You have to deal with the risks and the slower payout and money now is worth more than money later, the very premise responsible for loans.
We're far from them doing it, but I have to imagine at some point Waymo, assuming they survive, will operate similar to Uber and Lyft in terms of pricing vs vehicle type. They have to realize how critical consistency-of-ride is so I'm not suggesting they'll have tons of options, but they will "have to" tier their offering lest someone else comes along (assuming the tech becomes more widespread) and offers a tier they don't offer. At the least I would think they'll end up with a base ride (like an Ioniq or even something extremely basic), an Ioniq or Ioniq+ type in the middle and then some kind of larger, more luxurious option. I mean this as it relates to rideshare because I'm sure Waymo has had plenty of internal conversations about the various verticals they can eventually operate (shipping, mass transit, etc.).
There's a larger Ioniq 9. But the real future is probably a 2-seater with no steering wheel. That handles most usage.
That's actually a really interesting question. Because it's not necessarily about handling most usage, but also about handling peak usage. Is it worth the cost to keep everything 4-seater if that means they can all enter "carpool mode" whenever required at times of peak demand?
Because once they become ubiquitous, I suspect the vast majority will be operating in carpool mode at rush hour. Most people won't be willing to pay 4x to get a private vehicle if they're by themselves. Especially since the more vehicles there are, the more efficient carpool mode becomes for everyone.
The price depends on a lot of factors. And there are many factors that can turn it into a large discount. And the larger the fleet is, the less difficult it becomes.
Of course it's less attractive at the same price, but if it's cheaper enough it becomes more attractive for the average rider. And we can even imagine cities implementing single rider surcharges at rush hour to keep traffic running smoothly.
Rush hour will be a bottleneck. So something has to be done, and it will involve trading off price and convenience. Whether it's carpool mode or self-driving buses or likely a combination of the two.
That's really interesting because I hadn't actually thought about that in-depth before. I think Tesla's robotaxi prototype was even a 2-seater. My knee-jerk reaction to your comment was "no, 2 seater won't happen because the incremental cost of the additional seats and doors is immaterial to the overall cost of the car."
But then thinking more about it I thought of how great we (all the people who like Waymo) think it performs around bikes and pedestrians. So now I agree with you directionally but you might not be taking it far enough. Once (if?) autonomous vehicles rule the road, and they're known to be safe, the future will likely be the broad spectrum from autonomous buses (on the large side) to super-cheap, bike-like vehicles (on the small side) that cost way less than a car. For a single occupant, if you knew another vehicle wasn't going to kill you, wouldn't you take an e-bike (with a cover and basket on it?) for short trips if the fee was proportionate to the cost of the vehicle? I would. Assumes lidar shrinks I guess and that automated kickstands are a thing, but that seems tractable in the years to come.
Or a 4-seater with two rear facing seats. The design space gets bigger quickly once you no longer have to account for a driver and their field of vision, especially if the cars usually travel at city speeds where aerodynamics don't matter as much.
I figure the real future will be 2-3x 2-seater separate soundproof bubble domes per car.
>Waymos will get cheaper to make as they scale up.
Meaning their profits will rise as they inevitably increase prices
Minority view here I'm sure but maybe profits are a just reward for inventing the future - this is literally science fiction come to life
Self-driving cars are cool but I'd rather have good public transit. These vehicles clearly have utility beyond just public transit, but I'd rather they be an edge case rather than considered a main solution. So yeah, from my perspective the problem is being focused on profits instead of trying to solve the real problem with solutions that have already existed for decades.
If you zoom out a bit, your argument would be more-or-less the same when regular automobiles were replacing the functioning transit systems in the USA, specifically in LA.
I've never really understood this "improve public transit instead of autonomous vehicles" argument. They're two entirely distinct funding sources. Nothing is preventing us from improving public transit except the same things that always have.
> Self-driving cars are cool but I'd rather have good public transit
False dichotomy.
Good public transport would be self driving cars as a feeder network to mass transit once the self driving tech is cheap enough.
It could only work well as work habits change to stop having peak hours (peak usage for low-utilization self-driving cars doesn't seem likely to be economical).
> Self-driving cars are cool but I'd rather have good public transit.
Last mile is a PITA in the US. It is difficult to take the train from San Diego northward if you don't get there at 7AM because the parking will fill up.
At some point, Waymo can cross over into replacing a personal car for the last mile task. Right now, it's a bit expensive: $20/ride 2 ride/day 5 days/week * 50 weeks = $10,000 per year. Purchasing your own car still makes more sense. If that were $1,000 per year? No brainer--I'd dump my car in a heartbeat.
Even in cities with good public transit, it will not take me home at 3 AM, with possibly few exceptions like New York.
For many of us "good public transit" would make zero difference in our daily lives in the US. We just don't live somewhere that there will realistically be a bus stop or train stop within easy walking distance. I'm not even a long drive from a train station but it's absolutely unworkable as transportation for most purposes aside from going into the big city 9-5.
Why? Why is not "everyone has access" and "wellbeing for everyone" the reward for inventing the future?
Why is "that person gets to be extraordinarily wealthy" for inventing the future rather than "we all chipped in so we could all benefit" for inventing the future?
If Waymos make the world better and safer and more convenient, why are they not simply something we figure out how to make a public good?
In Star Trek you didn't have to pay to take the turbolift or transporter around large spaces, everyone got the benefits of the technology.
> Why is "that person gets to be extraordinarily wealthy" for inventing the future rather than "we all chipped in so we could all benefit" for inventing the future?
Well obviously we want a lot of the benefit to be the latter. But if you don't have some of the former, then almost no multi-billion-dollar-cost inventions get made in the first place.
You are referencing fiction unironically as an argument which is a rather worrying sign for your connection to objective reality. You also don't have to worry about logistics in RTSes, but that isn't an argument for revolutionizing military strategy.
As for why it isn't something you can figure out how to make a public good? In order for it to truly be a public good you have to either make it as one in the first place via the public sector or at very least pay a large sum of money in order to buy it out (which you have already objected to). Otherwise it is just plain stealing.
Well it depends on their competition and what the market will bear. If they have competitors with a similar-quality product that is undercutting them on price, Waymo will have to lower prices to compete.
And regardless, there's always a ceiling when it comes to what people will pay. In the case of a robotaxi there's of course significant marginal cost to expand the fleet of vehicles, but if they can make more money with more cars at a lower price point (than fewer cars at a higher price point), then they'll do so.
> If they have competitors with a similar-quality product that is undercutting them on price, Waymo will have to lower prices to compete.
Oligopoly, cartels, huge barriers to entry into the market.
I appreciate your optimism in the free market for a domain where you have to spend tens of billions of dollars to even enter it
There is plenty of competition coming to hold prices down.
In my experience, most price increases are in labor-intensive industries. Construction, etc.
Compare with tech, which is what a Waymo is like: computers, TVs, etc are insanely cheap compared to their equivalents in the past.
I had to point out to a Gen Zer complaining about how video game companies keep jacking up prices ("this game for the Switch is $80!") by pointing out that when you adjusted for inflation, a Super Nintendo game cost over $100 in today's money.
the next step has already been announced. the holdup is regulatory approval for less-conventional vehicles.
https://insideevs.com/photos/802937/waymo-zeekr-robotaxi/#69...
Why would they even entertain the idea of even talking to a Chinese OEM. This is obviously very important technology and Google must know the Chinese history of IP theft. They are not in the Chinese market because of this!
Zeeker must have given them such an unbelievable deal that Google couldn't pass it up. Either that or the other OEMs have really soured on them. I always thought the idea of OEMs being reduced to generic white label badges while companies like Waymo make all the profit on the future of "on demand" transportation is not appealing to them. Companies like GM tried to cut Waymo out by buying Cruise but it hasn't worked out. I guess if the stock price of one of these OEMs falls enough, maybe Waymo can just buy them out but do they really want to take on that obligation?
What's expensive about operating a Waymo? Do the capital costs exceed that of the driver's salary?
$23.66/hour in Savannah, GA in 2025 is a starvation wage. Savannah has a bad housing squeeze with very few apartments and they still cost nearly $2K/mo when you find them. God bless those poor souls.
Savannah's COL is 22% below the national average. $23.66/hr starting pay plus benefits definitely isn't a "starvation wage".
> In Chatham County, the living wage per hour necessary for one adult with no children is $22.46 while those with one kid is $35.70, two kids is $43.45, and three kids is $56.93.
https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/2024/12/09/what-is-a-...
So that's fine then? A family of four with both parents working at $23.66/hr each is $3.87/hr above that level.
Unless you're saying "starvation wage" and "living wage" are the same thing, which I don't think is a reasonable characterization.
Only problem is if they decide to have a third kid, or if you have a single parent with one or more kids. And while I get that unforeseen things happen to people that lower their wages after they already have their kids, I'm also tired of people becoming parents without considering the financial aspects ahead of time. If you're making minimum wage and are barely surviving, don't have kids until you're on steadier ground.
"Living wage" in that report isn't "starvation wage", though. For the housing component for instance, they use 40 percentile rents. The methodology page isn't too clear about how they determine the next highest cost component (transportation), but it looks like they also use the median cost for used cars. The "living wage" might not correspond to a luxurious experience, but it's nowhere near destitute, either.
So the entry level job at the factory is a living wage for the area it's in. Sounds like that's what people have been asking for?
Most factory workers are non-exempt employees and are eligible for overtime pay.
And the Hyundai Metaplant is not in Savannah itself.
The living wage says its right on the edge for the savannah area.
> In Chatham County, the living wage per hour necessary for one adult with no children is $22.46
https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/2024/12/09/what-is-a-...
The other day I almost got ran over by an old lady in her old Volvo wagon at a stop sign. She seemed to have gotten confused a little and was turning left but couldn't figure out the right move to make. People behind her honked and she decided to just go for it. I happened to be in the crosswalk and just happened to look over at the honking, and saw her coming, so managed to jump out of her way.
She was easily over 90, if not over 95.
People like her could really benefit from a personal Waymo. Just sell a car with FSD built in, at the level of a Waymo, and bam! That would make so many senior citizens' lives easier!