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Waymo Depot, which in Atlanta and Austin will be run by Uber Waymo, the robotaxi unit of Alphabet/Google, has announced next year it will start offering service in Austin and Atlanta. That’s a big new leap, but in these cities, service will be done in partnership with Uber. In particular, you will only be able to book a ride through the Uber app, not through the Waymo One App.
In addition, Uber will be handling fleet servicing and depots, while Waymo will continue to handle remote assistance, roadside assist and most customer support. This new arrangement has a number of interesting attributes. Similar to the planned Uber/Cruise partnership, and subject to most of the issues written about in earlier coverage of that partnership , this situation will differ from the current Uber/Waymo partnership in Phoenix, AZ, where rides can be hailed with both Uber and Waymo One, and Waymo manages their depots.
(Waymo also operates in San Francisco and Los Angeles entirely on their own, with no partnership with Uber.) As written earlier, Waymo doesn’t long term want to be just a robotic Uber driver, leaving Uber in control of the customer and the money. That the relationship won’t stay this way doesn’t mean it’s not valuable today, with learnings (and revenue) for both companies.
Waymo will operate in two new cities Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Clues And Answers For Friday, September 20th Google Chrome Says Goodbye To Passwords On Windows, Mac, Linux, Android Trump Tells Fighting Antisemitism Event If He Loses In November, Jewish Voters Would ‘Have A Lot To Do’ With It The most interesting aspect of the deal, however, may be that Uber is handling the depots and ground logistics. For the ride-hail portion, riders will request a ride and they may, or may not, get a Waymo. They can specify that they prefer a Waymo, but there won’t be, as with Waymo One, the ability to say, “I only want a Waymo.
” Users can, however, decline a Waymo or indicate they never want one if they’re not comfortable with the robot ride. Prices will be the same as for human-driven Uber, though Waymo cars, being currently luxury Jaguars, will be available in the premium Uber services, though not exclusivly. Depots Making a working robotaxi is of course a huge technological achievement.
Not quite as hard, but still plenty of work, is managing all the logistics on the ground. That includes having crewed depots where vehicles can get charged, cleaned and serviced, and even wait while not in service. This is the task that Uber will do.
That’s a bit odd, as that is not a business that Uber is in, so it will need to learn how to do that, or subcontract to others. Uber’s current cars are refueled and serviced by their owner/drivers. One would have imagined that companies like Hertz which have deep experience in fleet management and servicing might have been a first choice, but it’s going to be Uber.
Outsourcing fleet management makes sense for Waymo. Waymo wants to focus on what it leads at—the system to drive the robotaxi and support the passengers. Other businesses where other companies have established track records can handle their lanes.
That’s why Waymo has Jaguar, and soon Zeekr, make the car body, and why Uber will run these depots. Charging At Depots There’s still a lot to do at a depot. One problem to solve is how to keep a large fleet of electric robotaxis charged.
Right now, there’s no charging stations with robotic plug in or “full service” charger jockeys to plug the cars in. Waymo needs staff at their depots to do this job. They presumably also do things like inspect the cars and clean them.
Robotaxis need a lot of charging—if they need power during peak business times, you want them back on the road fast, though overnight they can charge slowly like most EV drivers do at home. Making a charging depot for hundreds of cars is no tiny feat. This calls for many megawatts of power, which is not commonly available at all locations.
Cruise, for example, put in a charging depot and found it could not get the power installed for a year. They ended up building a system where they trucked in hydrogen to run fuel cells to make electricity—an expensive and inefficient solution, but better for the environment than diesel generators. Waymo has been seen running such generators from time to time.
Perversely, one of the reasons that DC Fast chargers for EVs are so expensive is that most non-Tesla chargers are heavily subsidized. Public charging stations are known to get subsidies of $150K per station, and it’s thus sadly not surprising that the stations often cost more than that to put in. Tesla, on the other hand, puts in banks of chargers for what is estimated to be under $30,000 per stall because they must pay the full cost.
Fortunately, the cost of this gear should drop a lot in price with time. Tesla keeps costs low by mass producing stalls in banks of 4 and delivering them by flatbed to sites. Cars should charge when at the depot, but ideally they can also charge at other charging stations to take advantage of that infrastructure.
At present, no system for robotic plug-in is deployed. Wireless charging can also work but is also not deployed and is expensive. Battery swap could actually make sense here because it is inherently automatic.
You can charge the batteries with cheap solar and cheap night power, so the electricity cost is always minimal. Swap is super-fast when you need a mid-day recharge. On the other hand swap is expensive and requires you have lots of extra batteries, even though current predictions suggest batteries might outlast cars.
(In that case, though, swap lets you re-use the battery through multiple cars.) Most cars don’t need swap’s speed, as they will be have long downtime during off-peak hours, while every car works at rush hour..
