After 5 Waymo rides
The first time I hailed a Waymo 18 months ago, it whizzed way past me and stopped at least 4 car lengths from me.
I just took my fifth ride and this time it flashed my initials and told me exactly where to expect it. The doors unlocked automatically as it sensed my Bluetooth connection. As I left my Waymo, I noticed it now automatically winds up the window that I had left open.
There are probably like 20,000 things Waymo has and is still working on getting right that has nothing to do with self-driving. These incremental improvements will have to be learnt by all other self-driving services and will probably give Waymo the head start even if other companies catch up with their own self-driving technology.
I also received a couple of big discounts for today’s ride, 30% off for riding before 2pm, and another $3 hailing it near the train station. Lyft quoted me double the price while Uber was still a third higher. So, this is one way Waymo can outcompete human-driven services like Uber or Lyft:
During peak demand, all of Waymo’s vehicles will likely be deployed. So, it might as well try and match Uber or Lyft pricing and make as much money as possible. But during low demand times, Waymo’s marginal costs are just the cost of electricity and maybe cleaning the car. Uber or Lyft however still need to compensate human drivers, who will not be willing to drive for peanuts. So, Waymo can afford to charge much less in order to maximize their existing fleet which would be sitting idle otherwise anyway.
Path to world domination?
How interesting you've been able to test Waymo out! They were only on the brink of testing the cars out when I left SF, so I've never had the chance and because I'm not exposed to it, I find myself thinking again that this is too wild of an idea and not something I would do. But I still remember how crazy it felt to get into my first Uber, a random person's car.