It's limited to a few specific markets though. My bet is they aren't going to be able to roll it out widely easily. Probably need to do years of tests in each location to figure out the nuances of the places.
It's limited to a few specific markets though. My bet is they aren't going to be able to roll it out widely easily. Probably need to do years of tests in each location to figure out the nuances of the places.
Yeah, I have no idea if Waymo will ever be a rural thing honestly, mostly for economic reasons. I'm skeptical it would get serious suburban usage this decade too. But for major cities where less than 80% of people own cars, test time doesn't seem to be making a difference. They've been expanding in Austin and Atlanta, seemingly with less prep time than Phoenix and San Fran.
Atlanta seems to be a bit contradictory to some of your other thoughts.
The city itself is relatively small. A vast majority of area population lives distributed across the MSA, and it can create hellish traffic. I remember growing up thinking 1+ hour commutes were just a fact of life for everyone commuting from the suburbs.
Not sure what car ownership looks like, and I haven’t been in years, but I’d imagine it’s still much more than just 20%
Austin is also a car city, everyone has a car there. Public transit in Austin is a joke, and Waymo can't get on the highway so it's only useful for getting back to your hotel from Rainey Street, and maybe back to your dorm from the Drag, but nobody is using Waymo to commute from Round Rock
> Not sure what car ownership looks like, and I haven’t been in years, but I’d imagine it’s still much more than just 20%
I said "less than 80% car ownership", not "80% do not own a car". Technically these are not mutually exclusive but I think you read it as the second one. I haven't really found much analysis about how public transit interfaces with self driving cars honestly.
They keep expanding in places where it doesn't snow.
They've got testing facilities in Detroit ( https://mcity.umich.edu/what-we-do/mcity-test-facility/ ) ... but I want to see it work while it is snowing or after it has snowed in the upper midwest.
https://youtu.be/YvcfpO1k1fc?si=hONzbMEv22jvTLFS - has suggestions that they're starting testing.
If AI driving only works in California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas... that's not terribly useful for the rest of the country.
If I were in charge of Waymo, I’d roll out in snowy places last. The odds of a “couldn’t be avoided” accident is much higher in snow/ice. I’d want an abundance of safety data in other places to show that the cars are still safe, and it was the snow instead of the tech that caused the accident.
They're testing in Denver and NYC so its coming.
Define the rest of the country?
If you refer to rural areas, thats 1/7 of the population and ~10% of GDP. They can be tossed aside like they are in other avenues.
Doesn't it snow in NYC?
I could see it taking off in the suburbs/rural areas if they start having a franchise model when it’s more mature.
I saw this timeline a while ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/s/mSm0E3yYTY that shows their timeline in each city. Shows Atlanta at just over a year. I think once they've handled similar cities it gets easier and easier to add new ones.