"There are few limits to the service. The teen account must be connected to a parent or guardian, but once activated, teens can hail autonomous rides anywhere in Waymo’s service area in Nashville — and bring their friends along. Waymo told TechCrunch that teen account holders can bring up to three guests ages 13 to 17……… it may also be part of the appeal for parents who would rather their kids pile into a Waymo than in a vehicle driven by a teenager. "
Waymo’s charges are variable, so it’s hard to directly compare the costs of exclusively using it versus car ownership. However, for most young drivers, car ownership costs are probably north of $10k per year, perhaps nearer $15k. That means for the lighter/less frequent drivers, Waymo is probably cheaper. Plus, robotaxis are only going to get cheaper. The day will come when it will be the more economical option for almost all urban drivers.
Another plus point, especially for parents, is how much safer they are. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 24. What premium is there for avoiding the life-changing nightmare of your child dying in a traffic accident?
Once widespread robotaxis were a sci-fi hypothetical, but now it’s becoming real. If robotaxis are finally becoming widespread, why learn to drive at all? It will be interesting to see if there’s a falloff in the rate of driving tests among the young in Nashville.
Plus, robotaxis are only going to get cheaper.
Right, just like how everything else has been getting cheaper and cheaper these few decades.
The strategy of using Investor money to subsidize while building a user base doesn’t do wonders for price drops.
Kids would skip driving tests if there was good public transit.
Kids are already skipping driving tests even without good public transit. In comparison to when I was growing up, kids these days dont start driving as soon as possible anymore. According to a study by the Federal Highway Administration, far less than half of 16-19 year olds had drivers licenses in 2021. Assumedly it has only continued to decline in the last 5 years. Probably 1/3rd of eligible young people drive
They put restrictions on your license that make it useless, and families can’t afford cars for their Teens, and even working adults can’t pay for cars
New York. So many people don’t own cars or have a driver’s license because public transit is a way of life.
I know plenty of people even older than me who never had the need for a drivers license or a car cause they can do everything by bike and train.
This is just a ploy to get a generation hooked on Robo taxi services instead of learning how to drive
Nothing wrong with that, lots of people in NYC don’t drive. This probably isn’t as cheap as a subway but would serve a purpose
Given this is in Nashville and I’m guessing the public transport there is not great, they could be trying to take over that space
Public transport in nashville is basically non-existent, there’s a few busses that run downtown during the day, and allegedly there’s a single commuter train that goes back and forth in one direction with like 3 stops but I’ve never actually seen it in action.
car ownership costs are probably north of $10k per year, perhaps nearer $15k
I’d like to see the cost breakdown for how they came up with that number.
it is in their own interest to make their product look like the economical choice… so they’re probably using the average american new car payment (~ $750/mo) to help inflate the numbers, ignoring the fact that most teens don’t own a new car, or even own a car at all. that plus the cost of teen driver insurance on that new car (that the ‘bank’ owns) will easily get over $10k a year. the ‘nearer’ to $15k would be adding fuel, licensing, and other routine costs.
No one should be driving. Why the fuck did we let car companies decide how we build our cities? Good human orientated infrastructure means you always have “freedom of movement” they purport without having to spend tens of thousands of dollars personally, excluding taxes for infrastructure.
Once again implying everyone lives in a city and always drives around in a city. Fix the cities, sure, but people outside cities still need to drive.
You can make whatever argument you want but settlements all come down to design. There was no reason all these places could not have been connected by rail with a last mile shuttle by car. Theres no reason to live miles from your neighbors and the markets besides that you want to. Theres a farm smack dab in the middle of my own neighborhood (not in a cool way its a cash crop). Anything is possible but people want to defend what they know and it sucks that what we know is chaining everyone with increasingly expensive costs to everything.
There will always be some people that need to drive, yes.
But I once lived in a rural small town and was close to being able to live without a car, it helped that I could walk to work. If more Americans defaulted to trying to find public transit, the town could have supported public transit for me to live there without a car. There were a couple major employers there too, that could have been served by public transit.
I have doubts that it’s that much safer, given there are other drunk morons waiting to crash into a waymo at every turn.
