Very helpful, thanks! Nothing else I've read so carefully address who undertakes the capital investment, and your analysis also helps me to think through the benefits of partnerships with Uber/Lyft for increasing capacity utilization. I will be using this as a framework for thinking about Baidu Apollo, Tesla, WeRide, Pony.AI and others. (I read Chinese, albeit slowly...) For example, I don't know if the AV entrants partner with DiDi; I now see how critical that is, both for utilization, and for letting ride hailers see a quick response time, something direct services can't.
Great article exploring the different scenarios. Seems like Waymo is still exploring which path to take but will be interesting to see how this develops.
Very helpful, thanks! Nothing else I've read so carefully address who undertakes the capital investment, and your analysis also helps me to think through the benefits of partnerships with Uber/Lyft for increasing capacity utilization. I will be using this as a framework for thinking about Baidu Apollo, Tesla, WeRide, Pony.AI and others. (I read Chinese, albeit slowly...) For example, I don't know if the AV entrants partner with DiDi; I now see how critical that is, both for utilization, and for letting ride hailers see a quick response time, something direct services can't.
Great article exploring the different scenarios. Seems like Waymo is still exploring which path to take but will be interesting to see how this develops.
Thanks, I do think it's clear they're shifting towards an asset light model and offloading operations/financial risk/etc onto willing partners.
This is an awesome article. Thank you. Huge help to me
Glad you enjoyed it - this was a fun one to write!