Those data you referenced are per household, not per person, and the majority of that is loan+insurance. The actual cost in terms of maintenance, fuel, etc is quite low, and that's the price that eventually will be the goal line for autotaxi companies. 20% [net] profit margins do not generally exist in competitive real world industries, outside of perhaps something like real estate. A net profit margin of 5% would be huge, and I think it will likely be much closer to 1%, or even less, simply because in the end it's going to be a commodity where all that matters is price.

I also think you're overestimating the impact of things like ads, buses, etc. The second Waymos become less pleasant than any remotely comparably priced option, they will lose customers.

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crazygringo 3 days ago | parent [-]

No it's per adult not per household. The average household has 2.2 cars, so the figure per household is much higher. And it doesn't matter what proportion is loan vs insurance vs maintenance vs fuel, because Waymo replaces literally all of it.

And yes I assume Waymo will have high profit margins for an extended period of time because they have such a massive head start, and for a long time will be competing primarily against rideshare with human drivers, so won't be pushed below that. Their marginal costs will be much cheaper than that, not having to pay drivers. Hence 20% is not unreasonable.

Then, even in the long term, the economies of scale they develop and network effects will continue to give them a significant advantage. Not 20% margins, but way more than 1%. Especially as they start to vertically integrate the hardware at some point.

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somenameforme 3 days ago | parent [-]

Here is where you would generally cite sources. [1] Those are the data from the BLS. Total transport spending per household is $13,174. The term they use is consumer unit, which you may have conflated with consumer/person, but it's practically the same as household. There are 134m consumer units, and 131m households.

Waymo is currently charging substantially more than Lyft/Uber and is not profitable. Human drivers can taxi in anything with 4 wheels and a hood, and its 100% their responsibility to take care of their vehicle, fuel it, clean it, and so on. Each Waymo currently costs ~$200,000 and is going to have a proportionally higher maintenance costs, and all of those costs must be covered by Google. So their costs are far higher than you're ballparking.

As for competition - Tesla has already launched a live robotaxi trial in Austin, so it's already here.

[1] - https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cesan.pdf

	▲	crazygringo 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I was just going off the top Google result based on AAA data. Took a closer look and it turns out it's the average for new cars [1], so the discrepancy must be that your statistic takes into account the secondhand market. Thanks for the correction. In any case, the overall point is the same -- it's a vastly larger market than Search. And what Waymo currently charges, and the current cost of their cars, is irrelevant. Waymo's business model isn't based on the economics this year or next year. It's based on the economics ten and twenty years from now, when costs have fallen dramatically as they switch to cheaper models and gain massive economies of scale. As for Tesla, it's hard to take seriously given all the promises it's made and completely failed to deliver on. Their trial currently has a safety human in a front seat and is limited to a tiny group of testers. It's so many years behind Waymo already, and it's unclear if the technological approach it's taking will ever be able to catch up or meet minimal safety requirements. [1] https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/total-co...
	▲	metabagel 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Can’t imagine Tesla will be able to remove the passenger seat safety monitor any time in the next 5 years. Refusal to install lidar means Tesla’s AI has to be 100% perfect, which won’t happen for a long time, if ever.