Bring it on.
Uber is Dead, my reflections on Waymo
I’ve been in San Francisco for just over a week, during which I’ve taken 7 rides with Waymo, a similar number with Uber, and a few with FSD Teslas.
My journey to SFO via Uber was alarming—the driver veered out of the lane multiple times and nearly crashed on a ramp, seemingly vying for a one-star rating or to genuinely scare me.
Conversely, my experiences with Waymo were virtually flawless, if you don’t consider overly cautious driving a fault.
I experienced a minor hiccup when we got stuck behind parked cars because the vehicle thought they were queuing at a red light. It quickly resolved the confusion and moved on, which was rather amusing.
Waymo, and other Level 5 autonomous vehicles, are poised to revolutionize the movement of people and goods.
The most apt analogy I can think of is that Waymo is transforming the real world into an automated Amazon warehouse, with people as the goods and Waymo vehicles as the robots shuttling them around.
With the advent of personal transportation becoming incredibly affordable, sending anything from point A to point B using a self-driving electric vehicle will soon be within easy reach.
One of Waymo’s standout features is privacy. Riding in an Uber often means being subjected to the driver’s loud group chats on some app, making the journey neither quiet nor private.
In contrast, Waymo offers a fully private experience, allowing you to have confidential phone conversations or chat freely with fellow passengers without distraction.
Waymo also reimagines the concept of a car. Without the need for a driver, we can eliminate the front console, reduce weight, and remove the steering wheel.
This opens up possibilities for passenger seats to be reoriented, perhaps facing backwards, or for the vehicle to become a mobile living room. Tomorrow’s vehicle designs will differ drastically from today’s.
Destinations that are currently expensive and logistically complicated to reach via Taxi/Uber, often lying outside public transport routes, can be simplified to a single “Waymo” journey.
This could shift the current model of “Uber public transport Uber” to a more streamlined experience.
As more cars become self-driving, we could see a reduction in the amount of time cars are parked—from 99% of their lifetime to perhaps just 25%.
This not only improves unit economics but could also decrease the number of cars on the road.
This transition represents one of the most significant shifts for Generation X.
In conclusion, the future is autonomous, electric, and efficient. Uber, as we know it, is dead.