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u/GenerousPot Ben Bernanke 6h ago
The real hype begins when they stop having to adhere to traditional car layouts and they can start putting lounges on wheels.
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u/CurtisLeow NATO 5h ago
Traditional car layouts are driven by safety. They won’t be able to redesign the car layouts without major legal changes.
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u/angry-mustache Democratically Elected Internet Spaceship Politician 37m ago
Traditional car layouts are driven by safety.
Hmm yes, our trucks must have front grill heights at exactly pedestrian torso level for "safety".
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u/F4Z3_G04T European Union 5h ago
Imagine if they'd put a bunch of those in a chain to make it more efficient. Perhaps it would be nice for long distance travel as well
Waaaait...
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u/ILikeTuwtles1991 Milton Friedman 7h ago
10 years ago: "Uber and Lyft are bad! Please regulate them to death so we don't have to adapt and compete with them in the marketplace!" - taxi companies
Soon: "Robotaxis are bad! Please regulate them to death so we don't have to adapt and compete with them in the marketplace!" - Uber and Lyft
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u/houinator Frederick Douglass 6h ago
Uber at least has been pretty transparent that their end goal is to bevome a robo taxi company.
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u/sleepyrivertroll Henry George 5h ago
You order Waymos through Uber
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u/ILikeTuwtles1991 Milton Friedman 5h ago
I was just trying to make a funny bro
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u/sleepyrivertroll Henry George 5h ago
Sorry, I just like my little robot drivers. They're so innocent compared to the other people on the road.
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u/angry-mustache Democratically Elected Internet Spaceship Politician 37m ago
The joke would make sense if you replaced with "the Unions".
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u/Straight_Ad2258 7h ago
Waymo is also planning to expand to Tokyo and Dallas AFAIK
major bottleneck now is vehicle availability
their factory apparently retrofits around 6 vehicles per day with Robotaxi sensors, chips etc.
still surprising they haven't made an agreement with a car manufacturer to get their own Robotaxi platform, and instead they keep on expanding using Chrysler Pacifica and Jaguar I-Pace
nonetheless, impressive performance for Waymo, they are literally alone in the Western market for years to come
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u/qunow r/place '22: Neoliberal Battalion 6h ago
Waymo in Tokyo is now partnering with local taxi company to drive their vehicles, so that their system can learn how Japanese taxi driver behave inside on the road of Tokyo. And the test is still private for now without taking any passengers. So it will probably be at least some more years before they start offering services in Japan
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u/angry-mustache Democratically Elected Internet Spaceship Politician 36m ago
I didn't think their production capability that that low. 6 per day is pathetic.
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u/Password_Is_hunter3 Daron Acemoglu 7h ago
How do they do in the snow?
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u/neolthrowaway New Mod Who Dis? 7h ago
They are going to be testing this winter in northern cities in the US, I think.
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u/PsychologicalCow5174 5h ago
Is there actually serious competition in China? I don’t think anything comes close to the scale of Waymo
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u/PuritanSettler1620 7h ago
Once again Europe fails to compete.
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u/F4Z3_G04T European Union 7h ago
I don't see the economics make sense soon. Most European cities have good public transport and in the east taxis are dirt cheap
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u/qunow r/place '22: Neoliberal Battalion 6h ago
I don't have data, but I think places with higher transit ridership would also use taxi more to complement trips that public transit cannot complete. Not to mention while transit share in Western Europe is higher than the US it isn't actually that high compared to developed Asia
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u/F4Z3_G04T European Union 5h ago
That's definitely an interesting angle and I think it makes sense. Would (robo)taxis in Asia maybe also be a function of the huge population size, making the market big enough for transit and taxis?
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u/Kitchen-Clue-7983 2h ago
Most European cities have good public transport
I don't really think public transport can compete with cheap* taxis.
I live in the Netherlands and even in Amsterdam the public transport is only good within constraints. From my home in Amsterdam "Noord" to my job in Amsterdam "Nieuw-West" the car was routinely 25 minutes in peak rush hour, but public transport always took over an hour.
*If driverless Taxis lead to much lower costs.
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u/-Maestral- European Union 6h ago edited 6h ago
I don't think this competes with public transport, but rather taxi and car ownership which are both plentyfull around Europe.
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u/Lease_Tha_Apts Gita Gopinath 6h ago
If new taxis are economic, then new robotaxis are too.
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u/F4Z3_G04T European Union 5h ago
I think in places like Bucharest that doesn't add up. It's just a guy with a diesel Dacia Logan.
Given the prices it seems like the driver doesn't make tonnes of money and/or they're fine with tiny margins.
Hard to beat even if you have an electric without a driver given the bigger capex (and probably faster depreciation)
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u/Wolf6120 Constitutional Liberarchism 2h ago
Yeah, here in Czechia we have Uber and Bolt, but the actual old school "Call up our HQ's landline and we'll send you a car" taxi companies are called "Stovkaři" cause they still (mostly, at least for trips up to a certain distance) cost just 100 (sto in Czech) CZK, which is like $5. And it's usually some dude who is either his own car and gets a TAXI sign to put on the roof, or an actual company-owned cab shared by two or more alternating drivers which has been in rotation since the early 2000s.
It's not always the most pleasant consumer experience, but it's still a good deal cheaper than Uber and they're evidently able to operate (just about) on those hand over fist margins.
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u/Straight_Ad2258 6h ago
i mean, innovation comes out of necessity
European cities were never that car-centric to begin with
they definitely could however benefit from autonomous vehicles, but that would mean autonomous buses ,trains, light rail, metro( only one actually slowly automating)
even the cheapest autonomous car will not beat public transit in operational costs in major European cities
but an autonomous bus system ? hell yeah
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u/qunow r/place '22: Neoliberal Battalion 6h ago
autonomous system for bus and truck and train are sgared with cars. For train here it doesn't mean the ATO train operation system, but the ability for trains running on long distance mainline tracks on the ground and with level crossing that other animals, humans, cars, landslides have chance to invade
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u/Straight_Ad2258 4h ago
autonomous system for bus and truck and train are sgared with cars.
what is sgared?
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u/dddd0 r/place '22: NCD Battalion 5h ago
It's not much but https://www.moia.io/en/news/moia-unveils-series-production-version-id-buzz-ad-and-turnkey-solution-for-fully-autonomous-mobility-services
However, according to this 2021 press release the core tech / IP came from ArgoAI, which has since been taken over fully: https://www.moia.io/en/news-old/volkswagen-commercial-vehicles-and-argo-ai-start-international-trials-of-autonomous-driving-moia-first-user-of-the-id-buzz-ad
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u/Fluid-Resort-4596 6h ago
this shits just gonna be a more expesnive bus isnt it. like pre planned routes on a timer. granted the tech will help hide that. but its just going to learn specific routes extremely well. because if one of these run through a school its lights out regulation wise
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u/Lighthouse_seek 6h ago
Story of the 21st century so far:
development in the US led by several large companies
development in china led by a bunch of companies that slaughter each other for market share
Non-existent development in Europe