GATES: Go to San Francisco and ask people “would you rather ride in a Waymo or rather ride with a human driver?”
So, he’s right about that—I’ve seen past polling that shows that people in the Bay Area do say that they prefer to not have to deal with a human driver and would prefer the robotic taxi over the human-driven one. But it’s also true, unless things have changed recently, and I have not been monitoring the situation, that Waymo’s rates were higher, and so it’s also not presently an even comparison. You have to pay a premium for the Waymo.
That being said, my bet is that a lot of Waymo’s costs are fixed, so those costs will drop on a per-ride basis as their fleet scales up. And they are expanding.
Whenever I visit SF for work once a quarter it feels like there is a cult running the city. So many cringe ads telling you that meta glasses will let you be more in the moment and some XY product will make AI work for you without really telling you anything about the product. Yet they can’t even keep their elevators at the transit stops working cuz fuck the poor and disabled. Point is, SF has a weird sense of priorities and I don’t really trust the common wisdom coming from that place. I love Oakland though, some of the best food to be found there
Yet they can’t even keep their elevators at the transit stops working cuz fuck the poor
Transit is underfunded currently but this is a problem in nearly every major city in the US right now. Transit ridership collapsed during the pandemic and hasn’t fully recovered since, so fare revenue is lower now.
San Francisco hasn’t voted down a transit proposition in decades though so it has it prioritized, and the upcoming election there’s going to be a proposition that will almost certainly pass to increase funding for the San Francisco municipal transport.
The problem is you might’ve been on bart which is the Bay area regional transit which, to a certain extent, is built around bringing suburban commuters into the city, which they aren’t doing because work from home. So they’re in a bigger budget deficit with plans to close stations if the separate proposition to fund it doesn’t pass. It is regional though so the suburbs get to vote, so even though it’ll probably pass overwhelmingly in SF and Oakland, it may not pass for the region.
TL;DR: SF prioritizes transit, but the suburbs don’t. Fair point on the meta / AI ads though
Can confirm, live in SF and prefer waymos. They don’t have a sense of urgency so they tend to drive safer then the Uber drivers who are trying to get you to the destination and out of the car as quick as possible to start the next ride, can’t blame them but they drive really aggressive sometimes. They are more expensive though…
So, he’s right about that—I’ve seen past polling that shows that people in the Bay Area do say that they prefer to not have to deal with a human driver and would prefer the robotic taxi over the human-driven one. But it’s also true, unless things have changed recently, and I have not been monitoring the situation, that Waymo’s rates were higher, and so it’s also not presently an even comparison. You have to pay a premium for the Waymo.
That being said, my bet is that a lot of Waymo’s costs are fixed, so those costs will drop on a per-ride basis as their fleet scales up. And they are expanding.
Human drivers, fuel, car parts, and compute are all non-fixed.
Whenever I visit SF for work once a quarter it feels like there is a cult running the city. So many cringe ads telling you that meta glasses will let you be more in the moment and some XY product will make AI work for you without really telling you anything about the product. Yet they can’t even keep their elevators at the transit stops working cuz fuck the poor and disabled. Point is, SF has a weird sense of priorities and I don’t really trust the common wisdom coming from that place. I love Oakland though, some of the best food to be found there
Transit is underfunded currently but this is a problem in nearly every major city in the US right now. Transit ridership collapsed during the pandemic and hasn’t fully recovered since, so fare revenue is lower now.
San Francisco hasn’t voted down a transit proposition in decades though so it has it prioritized, and the upcoming election there’s going to be a proposition that will almost certainly pass to increase funding for the San Francisco municipal transport.
The problem is you might’ve been on bart which is the Bay area regional transit which, to a certain extent, is built around bringing suburban commuters into the city, which they aren’t doing because work from home. So they’re in a bigger budget deficit with plans to close stations if the separate proposition to fund it doesn’t pass. It is regional though so the suburbs get to vote, so even though it’ll probably pass overwhelmingly in SF and Oakland, it may not pass for the region.
TL;DR: SF prioritizes transit, but the suburbs don’t. Fair point on the meta / AI ads though
Can confirm, live in SF and prefer waymos. They don’t have a sense of urgency so they tend to drive safer then the Uber drivers who are trying to get you to the destination and out of the car as quick as possible to start the next ride, can’t blame them but they drive really aggressive sometimes. They are more expensive though…