Waymo has more competition with Cruise, Aurora, and Argo than what Uber/Lyft is trying.
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).
Lyft is opening up their app for key players: They opened it up for Waymo and are working with others (i forgot their names) to also put them on their platform.
Well, what I mean is the ultimate goal of Waymo is on-demand rides from self driving cars, much like what Uber/Lyft do today with humans (rather than, for example, selling the cars).
I interviewed with one of those companies and it just seems bizarre that people are investing so many millions of dollars into building a taxi company. How big is the taxi industry when all is said and done?
They aren't replacing taxis, they are replacing 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.
That study doesn't seem terribly relevant. It concludes that owning a vehicle is important to people right now. It doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that in the future, cheap and ubiquitous ride sharing options could pretty quickly drive those percentages down.
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.
They're not taxi companies, they're tech companies. At least, until people listen to the little kid asking where's the clothes and everybody realizes the deceit (as happened to WeWork).
They hope that if they perfect autonomous vehicle technology that will allow them to both expand the taxi market, and license the technology to every other vehicle manufacturer.
I am sure if you are offered the choice between gamified ads and paying for the ride more than a few would rather waste some time interacting with an ad. Especially because nothing stops them from charging exorbitant cash rates. The app would disclose it , of course: this ride costs you a hundred dollars but if you want you can play Awesome Coke Hunting instead...
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).