Oct 13, 8:21pm: In SF on a ride of my choosing.
Oct 13, 11:00pm: To be more accurate I will look at 5 potential trips in SF and take the median of the results.
I don’t think Waymo prices are that informative about their operating cost. The value of operating the current Waymo rides is driven in a large (but not exclusive) part by the testing info/feedback it provides, both directly for improving the service and also for proving to regulators that it’s safe. The long-term prize is a multi-trillion-dollar market, so a few (tens of) million bucks a month on cars is relatively small. My guess is they are pegging prices to be in the neighborhood of Uber regardless of actual cost. So this market is really a bet on Waymo’s pricing strategy for maintaining positive consumer experience, and mostly not a bet on how advanced the technology is.
The future market for self-driving taxis depends greatly on the public attitude towards it as there is still a big room for improving vehicle technology and safety regulations. Based on the latest news and developments in the field of autonomous vehicles, we can see there is a speed increase in market penetration of self-driving taxis with a market size of $158.31 billion in 2023 and a prediction of $2353.93 billion by 2032. This will greatly result in reduced congestion once it passes a certain threshold at some point in 2024, which will definitely bring down the cost of self-driving taxis due to greater energy efficiency and no labor costs.