> Drivers will only be able to make two trips per day, and the software will ensure they only travel from their home neighborhoods to their workplaces.
> There also won’t be a ton of money changing hands as a passenger will pay the driver only a nominal fare for the trip
I wouldn't have called Uber a "taxi rival" when they were an app for hiring a town car either. Things change.
This is Google's first toe-in-the-water for apps to request a ride, but it obviously won't be their last. Considering how much they've invested in autonomous vehicles only a crazy person would believe they're going to leave the entire market for self-driving taxis wide open for Uber etc. Google will have a taxi request service within a couple of years.
> This is Google's first toe-in-the-water for apps to request a ride, but it obviously won't be their last.
What makes you think it won't be their last? Google frequently puts their toes in the water and then decides it's too cold to swim. It's like, their modus operandi.
I think it's pretty clear that this won't be their last effort in this area. In this case, you can take the very-close-proximity efforts by them - self driving cars - that they are taking very seriously, and extend that expectation here.
Does it really make sense that Google would build self-driving cars without also thinking about ride sharing technology and userbase? I think the primary use case of Google's cars will be optimal ride sharing, doesn't everyone think this as well?
Sure, their MO is to try things out and ditch the ones that don't work - and this one may not work. But if it doesn't, I'd bet that they'd try again. There's a perfect fit between self-driving technology and ride sharing (hence Uber's interest in self-driving cars).
I agree, ride sharing with self driving cars is going to be pretty normal in the near future.
What will be cool is once they are self driving, they will be able to auto calculate quickest routes to pick people up, drop off, etc while being able to re-calculate to pick up people along the way.
Vast segments of the population (that is to say: probably 90%+ of women and 40%+ of men) are going to be deeply uncomfortable with getting into an automobile in the company of exactly one totally random stranger. Even if there are cameras.
For $3 of savings I bet a lot more people than that will do it.
I think lots of times it might save more than that, I picked a low number because I expect even modest savings will convince people to do it, especially if the impact on convenience is small.
I think that lots of people have lots of very self-contradictory beliefs about driverless cars.
For example: An UberX ride today generally costs between $10 and $20 here in sunny San Francisco (outside of surge). Nearly 80% of that goes to the driver! The premise of driverless cars leading to massive rides-for-hire is that driverless cars could massively reduce that cost -- probably from $10 - $20ish to $5 - $10ish.
So just there -- is ride-sharing really going to save $3? Presumably not for a $5 ride. Not for a $6 ride either. A $7 ride? Maybe! But if so Uber is sure as hell not getting a lot for driving ride-sharing.
Okay, so let's say that a driverless car would ordinarily cost you $10 per ride, and you can reduce it to $7 by sharing. First of all, note that this reduces the value of the service for you -- even if you have no safety concerns, it takes longer. Then add in the non-safety awkwardness thing. It's pretty close quarters for a relatively long ride. What if the other person is just socially awkward?
And then imagine if you will that it's someone that you feel -- rightly or wrongly -- is genuinely threatening. And you're cooped up in a Toyota Camry for 15 minutes with this person and absolutely no one to run interference for you.
For $3?
Also: if getting a driverless Uber costs $10, you should at least contemplate owning your own driverless car. $10 at current business write-off rates is about 18 miles. It sounds like in this hypothetical Uber isn't a great deal. You could realize most or all of your cost-savings by owning your own driverless car, and as a bonus you won't have to share your car with a stranger, and as a further bonus you won't get gouged at high demand times.
It may be realistic to have single seat cars. But that's not ride sharing.
Public transit has (typically) more than one stranger. Indeed, crowds. That is, somewhat ironically, less threatening than being trapped in close quarters with a single stranger.
Absolutely, this a million times. Realistically public transport should evolve to a network of self driving (smaller) vehicles - and yes, optimise the heck out of it. Bus systems are pretty inefficient things (except at peak times)
It's possible that this is like what they did with motorola, initially it looked like they were trying to have vertical integration similar to apple, but then for other reasons felt compelled to give that up.
In any case this is dissimilar to most google projects because it looks like it's mostly under Waze's control which atm has a lot of autonomy, it's likely being called a google project by the Waze team because of the brand recognition and by reporters because it's more interesting to talk about how google might be putting itself in a precarious legal position (vis-a-vis a conflict of interest), instead of saying Waze created yet another ridesharing app.
> Google frequently puts their toes in the water and then decides it's too cold to swim.
But only after a ton of people have started to use it, and weren't warned that Google was "toe-ing the water": health, reader, code(!), I'm certain there are others ...
For the same reason they don't make washing machines, or sell apples, or build houses - they believe their money is better spent on other things. Apple think they'll make more money in the long term innovating on consumer electronics.
That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see an Apple car within 5 years of the first autonomous vehicles going on public sale.
Maybe we'll see an Apple car. But i suspect in general ,that self-driving cars and especially taxis would push the car market to derive much less value from branding and marketing and much more value from hardcore technology with design being much less a differentiator than today - at least for the mass market.
But even if Apple sells cars to 5% of the population , it could be a big business for them.
>i suspect in general ,that self-driving cars and especially taxis would push the car market to derive much less value from branding and marketing and much more value from hardcore technology with design being much less a differentiator than today
A lot of people have hypothesized that autonomous vehicles will drastically change the economics such that daily car sharing/rental will be cheaper than car ownership, and similarly convenient. This might in turn lead to a decline in car culture and personal car ownership. With a larger percentage of vehicles being owned by companies (or at least by individuals who are often loaning out their vehicle to the network), the distinguishing factors in the market may shift away from personal taste and lean more heavily on efficiency and safety and gadgetry.
A lot of hypothetical guesswork in there of course, but those are the kind of ideas I've heard lately on the matter.
I see where you are coming from, but I wonder if Apple will play it's "luxury brand" card and cater not so much to the masses but to the wealthy. Privately owned self driving cars will definitely be preferred among those with wealth in the future. Sort of like owning the latest iPhone, it will be a status symbol that will also attract those for whom the cost is illogical beyond status.
What model of car was the last taxi you took? Did you pick that taxi because of its stylish design? In contrast, were you impressed that the driver knew a shortcut to avoid traffic by getting off one exit early and going through a parking garage?
Actually, I am surprised by how nice taxis are. I never find myself in an "old" taxi. But perhaps it's just that the heavy use wears the engine out before the exterior loses its shine.
Apple(and Google) has unique advantages as the owners of the major platforms, and and major mapping apps, with access to all travel data. Those are major building blocks of such a travel service.
Because Apple is smarter than that... they will do what they do best...
Let someone work out the kinks, then step in and make it better...
Why waste all the money on all of this regulatory squabbling... let Uber and Lyft do that, give all the free rides, lose money to make this thing legal... then when it's legal, swoop in and take over...
It's not so simple. There are network effects at play(if we're talking about shared trips) - and those are hard to fight against , even for large companies like Google and Apple. This is why i think, Google is entering now - because UBER and Lyft started offering shared rides(which BTW grow rapidly).
Why does Google want it? It's simple. Google is an advertising company. The more free time you have where you have nothing but your phone or computer, the more time you'll spend searching for things, and therefore clicking on their ads. An average person with a 30+ minute commute would sure as hell do a lot of shopping if they didn't have to drive. While we are all waiting on self-driving cars, this is another step in that direction. They want to validate the idea that having people drive less means more profit for them.
Apple is not an advertising company, they are a consumer electronics company. You won't be buying more iPhones by driving less, so they don't benefit from self-driving cars or car pooling quite as much.
Why do people talk about Google being an advertising company when, while it's a significant fraction of current revenue, it's also only a small portion of their interests and investments.
The first time you hear it, it sounds surprising. Then someone explains about revenue and it makes sense. So then you want to share the cleverness.
Of course, it's actually a pretty shallow analysis, unsupported by the company's history and inconsistent with some of the company's current behavior. How useful is it really to consider Google as being in the same equivalence class as TBWA\CHIAT\DAY? Well never mind, the meme is sticky!
You are trolling right? What is Google then? What's the in-depth analysis? Do you consider them some altruistic non-profit that just happens to sell ads in order to fund their "let's improve humanity" efforts?
Notice how even last year 89.5% of Google's revenue is straight up advertising. What else would you call them?
Or if you don't buy this argument let's try it by comparison. Is Zappos a shoe store? For sure, they did things differently and focuses on happiness of employees and customer satisfaction, but at the end of the day, they sell shoes. They have an interest in people buying more shoes and if they could, they'd certainly do something to make people buy more shoes. Substitute Google and ads in those two sentences. Just because they spend some minute portion of their profits on other projects doesn't make them anything but an ad company, even if they are a much more innovative ad company than the others you mentioned.
Hmm, no. Considering them an ad company helps to keep what they do for money on the forefront. Trying to push it down as some ancillary activity makes sense if you're marketing for Google, but not in any other situation.
It's difficult to tell whether you're a troll or just very attached to a single perspective. Yes, it makes sense to look at Google as primarily an ad company in some contexts--for instance, attempting to understand their business model. In other senses, Google has done a lot to distance themselves from being just an ad company, diversifying in image, product, talent, markets, and company culture. Probably more, but I don't know too much about the intricacies of what Google actually innovated on. Just by doing this, yes, I do think it is inherently dishonest to group them with other entities that do just resell web space. And I do not think that Google would cease to exist if people boycotted advertised products tomorrow, either, because their grasp of tech culture is so strong. People will always need analytics, retargeting, and profiling, so reducing an entire company to advertisers is downright insulting. Just the competition to ios alone has irreversibly changed the future of smartphones, mostly for the better.
Hell, just the market value of Google's brand is enough to distinguish them. You cannot buy that trust, you earn it by providing more value than an advertising brand could.
> while it's a significant fraction of current revenue
That's why. They aren't doing anything out of the goodness of their hearts. If there's no money involved, at least tangentially, it's not something they are going to do.
Yea, but it's not like they are dedicated to making money advertising. They're dedicated to making money, period, and advertising is just the current mechanism.
Because right now they are an advertising company as their other investments are not significant revenue drivers, or are meant to provide additional audience data for advertising.
All of their interests and investments are all justified because it either drives people to look at advertisements or it generates more information about the users to make their ad platform more valuable.
UBER plans to attack the "drive to work" segment of the transportation market, and it's potentially a huge opportunity for UBER.This Google service, if successful, might fill that role very well.
And the fact that it's cheaper is basically "disruption from below" - a proven strategy in many businesses. While this exact transport service model generally failed , it did succeed in France(blabla car), and Google has unique marketing advantages that might make it succeed elsewhere.
Also, the main competitive barrier for UBER is that many consumers have the habit of ordering transportation through it's app. If Google gets that , the rest is relatively easy.
https://www.uber.com/ take a look at that-there all-caps branding. It's pretty prominent in the app, too. (At least for UBER as an overall brand - uberX and the like are gladly lowercased.)
Though they do use lowercase in some minor text. Still easy enough to make the mistake, though.
Everything on their home page is in all-caps, not just the word Uber. If you look at press releases, their social media accounts, their emails, anything other than their all-caps homepage, it's shown as Uber.
Blablacar is more disrupting long distance travel (from city to city). It is present in Germany as well, but it is not soooo popular (I can mostly find a ride from my city to any other city only on weekends).
> And the fact that it's cheaper is basically "disruption from below" - a proven strategy in many businesses.
I believe the business model you are referencing is generally known as "race to the bottom"[1]. FWIW, it typically is only a "proven strategy" for the business which can starve out everyone else.
Yep, a big factor to consider here is that while Uber has a head start, Google has a massive chest derived from other products and political clout to deal with the regulatory piece.
They can absolutely price Uber and others out of the market on this if they felt like it.
I keep seeing a bunch of Google Express vans sitting around idle because they don't have any goods to deliver, this sort of thing could easily capture a bit of revenue from those idle vehicles. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw that Uber was doing deliveries.
Well according to the drivers they aren't getting paid if they aren't driving. So it perhaps motivates them.
EDIT: Thinking about this a bit more what is the value of having nominal control over a fleet of vehicles of various capabilities sitting around a metropolitan area? Someone wants to go from point A to point B? Dispatch a nearby passenger capable vehicle to pick them up and drop them off. Package needs to go from here to there? Send a vehicle and driver over to get this package and take it over.
Imagine the economics of consolidating courier service, taxi cabs, emergency transport, into a single 'app' will all 'contract' labor.
You are correct: that's pretty much exactly how Lyft started: "oh, this is just ridesharing [1]", it's "just trips to places the driver would go anyway", and for which "you can choose to give them a nominal amount" to cover gas, totally optional (though they'll rate you poorly).
They've since dropped the pretense but a lot of the trappings remain.
Edit: Don't mean to sound like I'm "hatin' on" Lyft, just amused at the dance they have to go through to fend off busybodies.
[1] a term they still use against protest from journalists, and TBH, reasonable people
Lyft certainly lets you take more that 2 drives per day, and certainly not just too and from work. Also, at least in some locales Lyft has gotten rid of the "donation" fiction as many local laws explicitly state that any type of payment counts as a ride-for-hire.
This is basically just a carpooling app, and is nowhere near a rival to Uber or Lyft.
I suspect many of these things will change as features like only two trips per day doesn't seem very sustainable. Right now it's not even close to being a rival, but what it evolves into very well may.
The legal implications of this approach (compared to uber's) are way easier to deal with.
They are not trying to fix taxis, they are trying to fix car-pooling.
The title is misleading. RideWith isn't a direct Uber rival, as it's a feature of the Waze app matching people doing similar trips on a regular basis. It is therefore closer to ride sharing/carpooling than to private transportation.
Note: We have built a marketplace to connect drivers and passengers, so we understand some of the challenges in scaling a business like this.
Like all marketplaces, you are faced with the chicken and egg problem. The market place is supply constrained. There is demand for rides but not enough matching supply. People with cars much prefer to travel alone due the inconvenience of picking up others.
So, in order to get the drivers you need to give them a VERY convenient option. Someone that is along their route, that would not add more than 5-10 mins of extra commute time, this is also dependent on how long the total commute is. You also need to reach these drivers, without them searching for a solution. Which is insanely expensive since the cheap acquisition strategies do not work.
The best way to solve this IMHO is seeding the market with drivers (supply side). Once you have the scale to guarantee a ride in a specific area you open up ride-sharing.
* Uber is doing this by incentivizing drivers who want to make a profit.
* Google is uniquely positioned to do this as well, since they have the treasure trove of Wayze data
Google knows where every Android user and most of everyone else lives and works.
Frankly it would be trivial to ask Android users a question: "Are you interested in carpooling? [Y/N]" and then prompt them when the guy three doors down also answers yes.
Eh, but it would work inside Google Maps/Waze. Some people I know use Google Maps or Waze every day, despite knowing what the best way to get to work is. This means Google likely already has the "driver" supply, and just needs to find a good way to provide those drivers with appropriate passengers.
So when someone first opens Waze/GM, you could put up a notification: "Dakota Doe <picture, rating> is 2 minutes away and is also trying to go to X. Would you like to carpool them?" People who say yes get pushed it more and more often, people who say no get a screen the next time they open the app expounding on the benefits of carpooling.
The feature they're describing sounds like a good fit for Google Now. I don't know what "stock" is well enough to know whether Now counts, but Now definitely has tight integration with other Google services already; if RideWith appeared in there, it probably wouldn't raise many eyebrows.
And what if they add a button to Google Maps that showed a shared car? And tapping it started the on-boarding for a ride-sharing service. Completely opt-in.
Sometimes when I read about Google dipping their hands into totally new things (another example is Google +) I think, "those greedy ...", etc., but then sometimes I read it and think, "perhaps Google is simply trying to prevent monopolies in tech fields where competition is sparse.".
If the latter possibility is sometimes the true motive, even if it is done out of self interest, the result tends to be good for all of us (except for the monopolists themselves), because Google doesn't tend to be able to maintain a monopoly in any techs other than search and advertising.
One example of the benefits of this kind of competition is the advent of larger iPhones. If not for Google's Android and subsequent proliferation of large-sized phones that evolved out of customer demand, Apple might have ignored (or not been nearly as aware of) the demand for a larger iPhone.
Forgive if I am misunderstanding, but Google Ventures invested in Uber, not Google itself. Wouldn't this statement from the article be half incorrect: "This puts Google squarely in competition with Uber, which is both an investment and customer of its Google Maps product."
I think it definitely does. Google Ventures has expressed in the past that their investments are not tied to any business plans of Google and function entirely separately.
I thought to some degree it does, given the stated 'independence' of GV but the thick spreading of association with Google. Perhaps that is why GV and GC exist, to support technological development, and help spur innovation at the mothership? Google can then acquire the incubated companies or become firmly connected with them.
Even if Google never moves to acquire Uber, though, they may simply look at it as Uber creating the social acceptance and market demand for this type of service. That would then make Google entering into the market with a competing service later an easier and a more predictably profitable venture.
Some of it is probably a bit of me-too-ism, but keep in mind that both Microsoft and Google are huge companies with a large number of people working semi-autonomously. Sometimes a team of a half dozen or so has been working on something just like it for three years on-and-off and, having been beaten to the punch, they go ahead and launch whatever they have rather than let it go cold.
It's not terribly surprising that some of these ventures are short-lived and half-baked; there's a reason they hadn't launched earlier. But once you've spent three goddamn years of your life on something, you might as well try a Hail Mary before the project is shut down.
It's usually a knee-jerk reaction to not being able to buy the original. Big and hairy company threats small company that they'll "crush them" if they refuse an acquisition offer, small company actually refuses, big and hairy company rushes to launch competitor just to follow through, even if it makes little business sense, big and hairy company knock off fails to get traction, small company thrives, and everyone forgets.
Unlike Microsoft, who had the will and executive ability to expand to new territories and destroy competitors, Google has a remarkable record of half-baked works and giving up. it's a joke.
Google has, very successfully I would argue, expanded into mobile. They bought a mobile OS and turned it into the global market leader. This is the biggest change in consumer technology since the web and they did not miss it.
There is a very serious benefit to recognizing a losing hand and folding before you're in too deep. You see a weakness in Google's execution, and I'd agree in some places, but there is some wisdom in closing up failed experiments rather than doubling down as Microsoft has done with several of their investments in the past.
I have zero problem with the fail-fast, fail-earlier strategy and attitude. ultimately it's business. there is no point to continue if it's obviously not going to work. there is a catch though: do fail because of innovation (crazy, big ideas). I'd argue all these experiments, except gmail/map/wave, have 0 substance. most of them are crappy implemented, poor planed cat projects.
IMO they have. Google maps (at least on Android) now shows me traffic incidents reported on Waze, and it will route me around these incidents in real time as I'm driving somewhere, e.g. "A faster route has become available. Say 'OK' to take this route."
Google Maps already uses some data from Waze (like route closures and accidents) though I really wish the Waze directions were fixed to match Google Maps. A combined app (or at least more unified set of two apps) would be amazing.
Most people don't want anything they like to be diluted or changed. People on HN don't want people from Reddit. People from Reddit don't want people from Facebook. People from Facebook don't want their parents. People in a gated community don't want poor people moving into their neighborhood. People in the city don't want rich folks moving in and gentrifying their block.
People, in general, are xenophobic and like their culture to stay small and untainted. Eternal September happens everywhere. It doesn't mean that Google has to keep two separate mapping applications running. Waze didn't stop to think about their community when they sold the application to Google.
I'm fairly certain directions in Google Maps integrate some sort of dynamic Waze navigation routes. This weekend Google Maps routed us around the highway due to heavy traffic, which is not what it used to do. There was no accident or roadwork, just traffic.
The premise behind uber's valuation is that they could own the marketplace for transportation. But what if the market is not monopolizable? If users (drivers and riders) can costlessly participate in multiple transportation markets, then it's impossible to form a monopoly. Users will just frictionlessly move to the cheapest market. I operate in multiple of these markets (check all of the apps before committing to a ride) and I know that many drivers do too (lyft on this phone, uber on that phone, etc). So shouldn't this monopoly unravel to the point that all of the transportation markets aren't able to capture any value from the transaction?
Uber's valuation is also based on the perception that Uber can outgun the competition technologically and in global expansion. Uber might face more or less frictionless competition from regional rivals, like Lyft, but will have some durable advantages.
It heard that the branding team ruled out using "Google Hitchhiker".
What's the difference? Google's/Uber's/Lyft's imprimatur that your passenger is trustworthy? More surety of payment? If I want to take the risk, why won't cities let me give hitchhiker's rides for cash (or even credit card payments)?
In the US, especially among people of politically-influential age, hitchhiking has a fairly negative connotation. In most US states, hitchhiking is at least restricted, and sometimes entirely illegal. There was a long period in the 80's where hitchhikers were portrayed as criminal, untrustworthy and those who would pick them up were likely to want to hurt them.
Carpooling, on the other hand, is highly encouraged, even to the point where local governments create special infrastructure to encourage people to do it. Are hitchhiking and carpooling two sides of the same coin? Yeah, probably. Should we be more encouraging of hitchhikers? Again, I think so. But if you have a positive message "Look at all the cars we're taking off the road! We're helping people meet others in similar situations, who all want to commute together!" it sets you up for a very different interaction with the public and with governments than "Hey, wouldn't it be great if we could get people to hitchhike more?"
Every time you launch into something else, like this, I become a bit more convinced that commentators are right and you are slowly turning into Microsoft.
I get the sense that, internally, things are still significantly different than they are or ever were at Microsoft. But I become increasingly concerned about some encroaching "inevitable".
De-fuck Hangouts and your rats nest of "instant" products/services. Beat Verizon over the head until they actually update the Moto X that, at the time of purchase, you sold me. Stop launching the "next great thing" only to kill it 18 months later, over and over.
And as some have said, um, search? Give at least optional specific control back to the power users. And someone the other day raised the pertinent question of why it's not well-integrated into Hangouts.
I suppose RideWith is supposed to eventually overlap with your autonomous cars, or something. But I don't give a crap about the new, until the old and erstwhile reliable -- and so critical to so many -- starts working better, again.
Thanks.
P.S. Ok, that last paragraph is partially rhetoric. But, damnit, if I'm going to invest in your products -- in both dollars and time and effort -- I want some consistency, and an upward trend in features and usability. (See also Tim O'Reilly's recent comments about the -- cough -- "improved" interface in Contacts. (Pop-ups and clipped text -- really?))
5. New functionality - e.g. If you're going somewhere while using Google Maps for navigation and turn on "Carpool" mode, people can see your path and message you for a pick up. They pay you for partial journey via the app.
I still want the ability to add a destination en route to another destination, e.g. "Ooh, I need to find [cheap] gas on the way to my next errand". It'd also be nice to be able to plan out e.g. "I need to go 4 places, figure out when they all close and what the optimal route is between them all". These are currently very manual and pretty tedious.
I wish one of these traffic apps had "race mode." The traffic data is mostly worthless because it's not real-time, and even when it does give a good route it's hard to confirm it after arrival. Instead it would be cool to compare my route to an alternate traversed by another app user who left the origin around the same time.
Waze enables this (add a destination en route to another destination) pretty seamlessly for a single additional point. They don't really do multipoint trip optimization afaik.
When google announced Uber integration in their maps, I called it a trojan horse [1] Basically making maps the interface for ride sharing and then adding their own service on top.
I'd assumed that integration was more about learning Uber's fleet size at different times, how long people are willing to wait for a car, what locations they request from, etc.
I think the barrier to this sort of behavior being more common in the masses is that it's difficult to make these sort of connections.
If Google is basically able to say hey - your neighbor down the block drives to within a 5 minute walk of your office, then this could be a really useful tool for this sort of networking.
The benefits of driver-less vehicles in terms of accidents and fatalities aside, consider for a moment just how under utilized the current transportation capacity is in this country. On average, even at peak drive times, what percentage of vehicles are actually being used? Just look down your street or at any parking lot you pass on your way into the office.
In order to get the convenience of not having to call a taxi which could then require a long wait every time we need to go somewhere, we take out loans for tens of thousands of dollars to own a vehicle that is all ours. We then pay to maintain the multi-ton machine, build custom paths and storage buildings on our homes just to store them, and everywhere we go large swatches of land are set aside just to give us temporary storage for our vehicles since we can't reasonably visit any location without this machine in tow.
In a reality where we must own a vehicle in order to move around quickly and easily, all of these things make perfect sense and are just a part of our lives so much so that we don't even think about them most of the time. This one "little" change can completely transform it all.
One big advantage of Google's solution over Uber's is the relative climate change impact of your transportation choice. In reverse order of benefit, based on my amatuer analysis:
* For a baseline, let's use one party (generally a person or a couple) with a personal car. Traveling someplace creates P marginal greenhouse gasses (GHG), plus there is the fixed cost of manufacturing the car (but I have no idea how much that is).
* Uber and taxis net GHG emissions should be worst and greater than P: Your trip uses P but added to that is the GHG generated when the taxi/Uber car has no passenger and is 'cruising'. Also, I expect taxis/Uber cars are larger on average than personal cars, and thus less fuel efficient, because they need to fit several adults comfortably in the back. If you give up a personal car for Uber/taxis, then you get the manufacturing benefit.
* Car share services (e.g., ZipCar) should net less than P emissions, if you give up a personal car when you join. The car is parked when nobody is driving it, so the marginal cost of one trip is P. But it also eliminates the emissions created from manufacturing the car, whatever that is. EDIT: As hayksaakian points out below, this is the same as buying a used car.
* Google's RideWidth's net GHG emissions should be much less than P: For every added passenger, one less car is on the road emitting P.
* Public transit probably is second best. The marginal GHG emissions of the bus/train carrying your fat a-- on its normal route probably don't amount to much. On the other hand, it probably depends on the average passenger load of the vehicle -- certainly a train/bus with only you on it costs much more per passenger than P, but those fixed costs are spread over many more passengers than Uber/taxis.
* Best of all, of course, are biking or walking. Though has anyone calculated the GHG emissions of the human energy cycle, from growing the cattle feed to transport to refrigeration to cooking to human methane emissions?
Also not calculated are the effect your use of one service or another has on demand, driving up the number of Uber/taxi/busses, etc. on the road.
Carpooling has fundamental challenges that are perhaps impossible to overcome.
For one, dynamic routing for two or more people is always going to hurt the user experience. Imagine you're running late and your car re-routes to pick up another passenger - ugh!
Shared transportation for anything more than a neighbourhood trip should be professionally driven and to a schedule. That schedule can be dynamic as anything but must be solid and offer guarantees BEFORE the trip starts as to start point, route, etc.
In Germany, carpooling has been a mainstream thing since the mid-90ies or perhaps even earlier. The majority of trips are long-distance, i.e across-country. You are right that carpooling has has some shortcomings but it's so ridiculously cheap that many people happily accept those shortcomings. I used it many times when I was a student and 90% of the trips went as planned.
On the other hand, for commutes from, say, SF to Mountain View, or Mesa to Scottsdale, I bet a lot of drivers would love to have an extra passenger so they could use the HOV lane. During rush hour, the difference between being able to use the HOV lane vs. not could easily be 30 minutes.
Correct me , I don't find it as a Uber rival . I think they are trying to promote car pool which is much needed here in India , only problem I see is security of passsengers
Doesn't sound like a play against Uber -- seems more like a companion concept to self-driving cars, which would naturally be good candidates for commuter ride-sharing.
This sounds more like Lyft's "Line" service which connects driver and passengers going the same way on regular trips. I'm not familiar with Uber's offerings though so maybe they have a similar service?
Lyft Line and UberPool match 2 passengers going roughly in the same direction, and put them in the same ride-for-hire vehicle. The driver's preferences have no bearing. :)
Is it just me or does that page have an annoying ad network which AUTOMATICALLY redirects your mobile browser to the app store? I've seen a proliferation of these now.
UberPool in SF is currently $7 each way within city limits and my wife takes it to/from work frequently.
Compared to us buying a second car, this is incredibly cost-effective, and would be worth it at 3x the price. (Monthly cost of ownership of a used car in SF would be ~$1000/mo including parking spaces at work and home).
The only other cost-competitive option is MUNI, which is $2.25 each way (or less if you commit to a monthly pass, and/or pay using before-tax income). She does use MUNI occasionally, but there are no direct routes serving her commute, and it is often unreliable at commute times.
Ridesharing for commuters is not always some absurd luxury--it can be an economically sensible luxury :)
I do. It's a pretty big extravegence, but the train costs 2-3bucks and takes 25-40 min and uber costs 9 for 15 minutes if I wait past the worse of rush hour.
I can expense the way home if I work late enough.
It's cheaper than driving since I'd have to pay 320 a month for a parking space at work.
It seems absurd to me too, but I know plenty of people that do it at Amazon. Typically in positions that are paying $300k+, or people that are 75+% travel. I guess it's about the convenience of not having to park more than anything else.
I lot of my friends in the bay area use Uber actually to get to and/or from work. I find it rather insane with all the other transit options and you know, walking? But to each their own.
Could be just a very limited service for a narrow use case. Google may want to better know which techie in Israel goes where. Say, for the purposes of optimising hiring, investment, product development, security ...
Even if this isn't quite an uber rival, this is ultimately Uber's problem. All they are is an app with some marketing, and anyone with a bit of money can easily come up with a competing app.
>All they are is an app with some marketing, and anyone with a bit of money can easily come up with a competing app.
I think I'll let your first statement stand, but in regards to the second. Uber has raised $5.9bn dollars, is doing ~2m rides per day, is in 300+ cities -- sure you can create a competing app, but the chances of meaningfulness are small if non existent.
The relevance is that a $5.9b valuation is dubious when it's based on an illegal enterprise. That "value" can disappear in an instant when municipalities start cracking down.
If sharing a ride with someone frees up my attention to use my smartphone instead of watching the road, google can make more money advertising to me during that time.
At least from personal experience they've been 3x cheaper and arrived 10x faster than the taxi alternative.
Uber is not lobbying to remove competition and maintain a bad product and high prices. They're lobbying so the backwards laws can be removed.
The opposite of what the taxi cartel is doing.
Just wait until some billion-dollar funded company decides to ignore all normal business rules, in your particular market of interest. I'm curious what your response will be then.
May I ask why you need to trust this from that standpoint? With other Google services I agree with the concern. In this case, if they discontinued, you revert to your old way of commuting. I don't imagine anyone doing anything stupid like selling their car over this.
It's like Shopping Express for me. Was AMAZING while it was free and I used it every week. Now I don't because the fee is in place. Since Amazon pantry is not a good fit for my needs either, I just do things like in ancient times and pick things up at the grocery store while I'm out running errands and spend a few more minutes.
I didn't flesh out my thought process but I'm thinking that there has to be some real reason to go with this over Uber or Lyft.
Obviously, no one should restructure their life around the availability of this kind of service. I'm just saying that this feels like bandwagoning to me. I can't be the only one thinking that this isn't going to last long. Uber and Lyft will be in that business until they close up shop or are regulated out of a market.
If you're going to try a non-traditional taxi-type service, why go with Google over one of the existing players?
Hard to say at this point given that this hasn't launched yet. I'll need to see what it looks like when it does its pilot in Israel.
Google's long-term play has a decent chance of involving self-driving cars and monetizing via advertising and data with some fee from the ride. Nothing says "open up your wallets" to large brick and mortar advertisers like "we literally drove the customer to your doorstep."
Getting users hooked and getting this tested via commute data is a great approach before branching out to something else. It also lets users browse the web, and Google likely has clear visibility into the search behavior of users searching while in their rides to determine the incremental ad revenue this enabled.
Google doesn't need to offer this for free to provide a great experience at a lower price than any current competitors like Uber or Lyft. They have substantial revenue from other areas to fuel this and so can price their competition out of the market. Other companies do the same thing to squeeze into a dominant position in a market they want to enter.
> There also won’t be a ton of money changing hands as a passenger will pay the driver only a nominal fare for the trip
I'd hardly call it a Uber rival