Brilliant points. And I think 100% right for the next few years. But my prediction further out, for the Waymo End Game (and my prediction batting average is very poor, you've been warned!) is that Waymo fleets are in the end just DEMONSTRATIONS OF VIABILITY. That in the very long run Waymo doesn't want to run even ONE car, with or without Uber! Sell or rent the hardware and software etc. to a ridehail fleet like Uber (on the app select Human or Robot car...) AND to OEMs.
Imagine "The new BMW 7-Series: the top-of-the-line 7AV is fully autonomous! Why pay a robotaxi by the mile when you can own your own robotaxi? You've taken Waymos and loved them, why not have your own private AV? No need to inhale germs from the prior rider!" Right now of course a personal robotaxi is prohibitively expensive. But when does the price of IT hardware and software NOT come down? Get it to a $20,000 upcharge at purchase and $500 a month and I bet upscale car buyers will line up for it. (I seem to recall many buyers of a certain EV paying quite a lot for a much LOWER level of autonomy.....)
Great point. I alluded to Waymo's strategy over the long term: they would much rather operate a high margin software business that pushes their driver technology into every vehicle in the world instead of a low margin one where they own, manage or operate a massive fleet of expensive vehicles.
The rideshare use case gives them the highest possible utilization so it makes sense to focus here to start, since they'll be able to achieve the highest potential margins. But yes their TAM is really every vehicle on the planet, so if they really want to take a big swing, it totally makes sense to shift towards a tech provider since they can be much bigger than Uber in this way.
Brilliant points. And I think 100% right for the next few years. But my prediction further out, for the Waymo End Game (and my prediction batting average is very poor, you've been warned!) is that Waymo fleets are in the end just DEMONSTRATIONS OF VIABILITY. That in the very long run Waymo doesn't want to run even ONE car, with or without Uber! Sell or rent the hardware and software etc. to a ridehail fleet like Uber (on the app select Human or Robot car...) AND to OEMs.
Imagine "The new BMW 7-Series: the top-of-the-line 7AV is fully autonomous! Why pay a robotaxi by the mile when you can own your own robotaxi? You've taken Waymos and loved them, why not have your own private AV? No need to inhale germs from the prior rider!" Right now of course a personal robotaxi is prohibitively expensive. But when does the price of IT hardware and software NOT come down? Get it to a $20,000 upcharge at purchase and $500 a month and I bet upscale car buyers will line up for it. (I seem to recall many buyers of a certain EV paying quite a lot for a much LOWER level of autonomy.....)
Great point. I alluded to Waymo's strategy over the long term: they would much rather operate a high margin software business that pushes their driver technology into every vehicle in the world instead of a low margin one where they own, manage or operate a massive fleet of expensive vehicles.
The rideshare use case gives them the highest possible utilization so it makes sense to focus here to start, since they'll be able to achieve the highest potential margins. But yes their TAM is really every vehicle on the planet, so if they really want to take a big swing, it totally makes sense to shift towards a tech provider since they can be much bigger than Uber in this way.