What happened to the Waymo hype? If Waymo manages to break through and become a sufficient AI taxi, then car ownership becomes optional for a majority of Americans (unlike today).

Waymo has always been just a year or two from breaking through.

Google's gotten through the first 95% of the work, but the remaining 95% is gonna take awhile.

Dude they are running an open public taxi in Phoenix, it has the run of the whole city.

Isn't Phoenix:

1. Car infested ergo perfect venue area for testing autonomous cars, since the infrastructure is through and through car oriented at the detriment of every other form of mobility (walking, cycling, buses, trams, trains, etc)?

2. Super hot and sunny, ergo no fog, no rain, no sleet, no ice, no special weather conditions to handle.

3. Flat like a pancake, making terrain management, coupled with the nice, wide roads from point #1, so super easy mode.

Let's see them scale Waymo to at least 3 out of the following: San Francisco, NYC, Bucharest, Istanbul, Mumbai, St. Petersburg, etc.

That could be at least a decade away.

Yes Phoenix is ideal, that is why they've been using it. I think it indicates they are more than 5% done though, is my point. Also they are operating fully autonomous public taxis in San Francisco, but not the run of the whole city, I think its just airport to downtown. But even navigating downtown SF I think is an accomplishment.

That maths sure make it a very hard problem to solve. But jokes aside I see your point. Isn’t that always the case with this kind of issues? Doing the first big chunk is relatively easy and then the final details are very hard?

Google is an ad-driven company and they haven't yet figured out to generate ad revenue from Waymo... (Having said that, it's cool that the Mountain View office building I used to go to is now occupied by Waymo).

I wouldn’t be surprised if they got spun off to die. The amount of cash they burned on that is insane.

> becomes optional for a majority of Americans

No it won't. It will be an option for those who can depend on a car service due to proximity to a city.

Data from the 2010 Census: 80.7%: Percent of the U.S. population is urban (living in Urbanized area or Urban Cluster).

Sounds like a majority to me.

"Urban" includes second, third, and fourth tier "cities" with low populations and no fleet of Ubers today. There won't be a market for automated ride share for most of the US.

Agreed that a lot of Google’s bets don’t get enough press/credit re investment potential.

At the same time, a lot of these platforms ran effectively unopposed for many years, and now competition in advertising is spreading quite rapidly

Except their ad sales declined this last quarter, so even that feels... googley.

It’s definitely because Susan Wojcicki is at the helm. Interestingly, Google started in her (parents?) garage.

Here’s a tour of the recreation https://maps.app.goo.gl/syHHp9GWmaGA5Woz7