Costs of Waymo Rides

After 70 rides with Waymo One Robotaxis in San Francisco between September 7, 2023 and May 29, 2024, I did a small evaluation of the costs. In total, I drove 90.2 miles (144.3 kilometers) during this period and spent $842.75 (€781.03).

On average, I drove 1.32 miles (2.11 kilometers) per trip, which took an average of 8 minutes and 40 seconds. The longest journey took 40 minutes for 6.5 miles (10.4 kilometers). In addition to the cost of the trip, there was always a 2 percent surcharge imposed by the city of San Francisco for traffic congestion.

Without the surcharge, the average fare was $11.84 per mile ($7.4 per kilometer). Again, the fare varied depending on the time of day. I’ve broken down the trips by the hours of the day and you can see the fluctuations based on demand.

Breakdown of costs in US dollars per mile by daily hour

The most expensive times for Waymos are at 1, 3, 4, and 6 p.m., where the price is over $14 per mile ($8.75 per kilometer).

How does this compare to Lyft, for example? I have my own experience of this, when I had to take a Cruise for the outward journey and then a Lyft for the return journey due to rain. Read more here.

UPDATE: to better understand the taxi fees in San Francisco, the SF Municipal Transport Authority has the following taxi service fare amounts approved:

  • First one-fifth mile of flag rate is $4.15.
  • Each additional one-fifth mile or fraction thereof is $0.65.
  • Each minute of waiting or traffic time delay is $0.65.

KREATIVE INTELLIGENZ

Über ChatGPT hat man viel gelesen in der letzten Zeit: die künstliche Intelligenz, die ganze Bücher schreiben kann und der bereits jetzt unterstellt wird, Legionen von Autoren, Textern und Übersetzern arbeitslos zu machen. Und ChatGPT ist nicht allein, die KI-Familie wächst beständig. So malt DALL-E Bilder, Face Generator simuliert Gesichter und MusicLM komponiert Musik. Was erleben wir da? Das Ende der Zivilisation oder den Beginn von etwas völlig Neuem? Zukunftsforscher Dr. Mario Herger ordnet die neuesten Entwicklungen aus dem Silicon Valley ein und zeigt auf, welche teils bahnbrechenden Veränderungen unmittelbar vor der Tür stehen.

Erhältlich im Buchhandel, beim Verlag und bei Amazon.

This article was also published in German.

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