I wonder how the subscription would respond to a person's area being blocked off.
There construction happening a block down the road from me. As part of the work, the rightmost lane is often blocked during the day (in between rush hours), so that things like concrete pumping can take place. The lane block starts just before where I live.
Around the same time, I noticed that when I would try to take Waymo (which I used to get to PT), I'd be told that things are busy and rides are paused. Recently, I've noticed that if I'm at work (or the PT place) and I want to take a Waymo back home, I'm told "Can't get to that spot right now".
If I had Waymo Premier, I wonder how hard it would be to get a refund on my subscription.
The above talks about a complete block (or, a complete-enough block) to using the service, but what about a major impediment? For example, let's say I travel regularly, and use Waymo to get to/from San Jose airport. Waymo's been disabling highway routes, which for me equates to 20-minute (or more) travel-time increase from home to airport. Would that be enough to qualify for a refund on the subscription?
Is 20 minutes of extra time a major impediment? I don't think I would get a refund on an Uber if they were a little late to pick me up and drove slowly so I lost 20 minutes in total. Although if that does happen maybe I'm just naive about refunds
It will pay for itself if you spend >300$ per month. I personally wish Waymo have a 399$ per month subscription that give 2 free ride per day so I don't need to own a car just for work.
Depends where you live. In SF, parking is more than $300/mo if you have to pay for a spot. Also, many companies subsidize Waymo rides for employees as part of their commuter benefits.
Add tag tax, residential parking, subsidized work parking, maintenance, incurred violations, tolls.
400/mo or 5000/yr for not having to worry about all that plus never playing the "wait let's circle the block, maybe a spot has opened up" game... sounds tempting.
Yeah, that seems like an odd factor to include. The whole message of fines is supposed to be "don't do these specific anti-social things" not "be sure to factor in the arbitrary charges you'll be hit with".
Spread across a city probably more than you think, especially if you include parking tickets. I've never had a driving ticket, and maybe 4 parking ones over decades, but I'm probably on the lower end of the curve. In their first 40 days of operation, Oakland's speed cameras issued 82,000 tickets according to reports. I welcome those as they make streets safer, and I think they should be low cost, but high frequency.
I think they are just saying 400 * 72 gives you an absolute hard ceiling of 28.8k. Once you add in interests, sales tax, and other fees, something like ~22k should be feasible for the same term length though.
"the total average annual cost of ownership—which includes your car payment, depreciation, fuel, insurance, maintenance, and taxes—is approximately $12,297 per year (or $1,025 monthly) over a 15-year lifetime"
Can you explain where this comes from? I mean, that's not even close to what the norm is in Europe. Though, to be fair, we don't normally count fuel into TCO and the reasoning is: if you want to go distances then you are always paying for them. Whether it's public transport or taxis or whatever. Is fuel the major contributor in the number?
that's crazy. my 2005 volvo, 1991 nissan, and 1986 toyota altogether cost me a little over $1k per year (mostly insurance) and it was less than $10k total to buy them all. goes to show average financial literacy in the US. people won't save a few grand for a used car (or take out a small loan even!) and then pay 10x the cost for new
I think you and I may be a rarity. Most people seem to value having new vehicles, and I don't say that dismissively- there's definitely something to be said for modern safety features as vehicles continue to grow bigger and heavier.
Oil changes cost like $35/year if you do it yourself. Decent tires last 4-5 years, so that's like $100/year (to be generous). Air filters are so cheap and need replacement so infrequently as to not even be worth counting.
I can only get 1-2 years out of tires, but I also drive 25K+ miles a year. (And its a heavy EV Van) Tires are $800ish a set for the affordable ones (also due to heavy van)
Cabin air filter is twice a year at $18 a filter (I replace them as soon as it smells weird)
I used Waymo about 10 times in Austin - it was great. I wish they'd accelerate the rollout to other cities. I wonder what the major technical hurdles are for launching in a new city?
I saw a Waymo with safety driver driving around Boston a few weeks back. The concerning thing was just how much it backed up traffic getting off the freeway because they're not allowed to go any faster than the posted speed limit.
I don't know if it's "nicer". I've had some great conversations with Uber/Lyft drivers. Hilarious fun conversations. Not all of them, but enough to make me question if a riding in a clanker car is actually "nicer". I guess if someone is socially awkward, it might be nicer for them.
> Waymo Premier costs $29.99 per month and will be initially offered to select riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
> Waymo Premier is a new invite-only membership program built for those who rely on us most. For a monthly fee, members gain access to a suite of exclusive benefits designed to make their journey more seamless and rewarding:
Priority Pickups: Skip the line with prioritized matching
Ride Savings: Earn 10% Waymo Cash back on every trip, and even more during busy times.
Early Access: Be among the first to experience Waymo in new cities, as we expand.
Flexible Cancellations: Peace of mind with up to five free cancellations per month.
---
ok so just amazon prime for waymo. its alright but i feel like they had the chance to go REALLY high end with like a $300/month plan that people will still pay for because supply is so limited. instead they went mass consumer with a name like "Premier". eh.
(sorry waymo person reading this i know what its like to name a thing and regret it)
>Be among the first to experience Waymo in new cities, as we expand
How is this useful in any way? by definition it's a subscription for people already using the service in the (few) supported cities. If I use it in Denver, why would I care to have early access in Washington?
I imagine they'll try to get new users to sign up for a month of Premier to try Waymo early once it becomes available in their city. Basically juice a few thousand early adopters for 30 bucks each, which also lets them judge demand and gives them some extra revenue to build out their vehicle/parking network before the full launch.
> I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to
I’m wondering what we lose as a society if people never have to be in even a mildly uncomfortable situation. There’s a book called The Comfort Crisis about this topic.
EDIT: The full quote is “I get privacy, time back, a safe ride, and I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to.”
In her quote she chose to separate safety and having a conversation with a stranger as two separate issues.
As a gay dude I experienced my fair share of "uncomfortable" Uber rides from or to various places. No thanks. I don't need to stimulate those kinds of social skills or whatever.
Gay here, but I've only experienced a concerning conversation once, and that was a longer trip where sometimes you find out too much. I took an exit ramp away from that topic of conversation and it was fine. Otherwise everyone has been decent to downright pleasant.
I'd feel like I'm losing something by giving up that human interaction, such that it is.
I don't care what people think about me. I care about the guy who has Jesus hung in every nook and cranny with a candle lit in his front cupholder telling me that I need to repent. In San Francisco, I might add.
I couldn't care less what people in the Philippines - one of the most gay-friendly countries in Asia - think of me through a camera stream.
Some regulation that limited the operators to work in the city they supervise would be an easy job win for some politicians. Create some jobs and look like you’re standing up to big tech.
> the human supervisors in the Philippines watch you through the Waymo cameras and talk about you
Literally don't care. What I don't need is to be evangelised with whatever conspiracy theory or fringe religion my driver just joined the entire way back from JFK.
One time I hopped in an Uber and got a missionary-like lecture on Islam and an invite to go to a mosque.
More typical of Christians so it kind of threw me off.
But anyway, a paid service shouldn't be starting that kind of conversation unless for some reason I started it and even then that'd make it just as uncomfortable for the driver.
I think "people should just deal with uncomfortable situations" (while in a vehicle that they have no control over!) is not a winning argument, but the continuing march toward tech-enabled isolation is absolutely bad.
It can be annoying to have to deal with irrational humans who make mistakes, but that really is just part of life! I'll take some cumbersome conversations over conducting my entire life via corporate app interfaces.
There are uncomfortable situations that you can walk away from like a checkout counter, and then there are uncomfortable situations where you are in a car in an unfamiliar location driven by the person making you uncomfortable.
I'm SO tired of subscription services that only offer the opportunity to buy more stuff.
- Doordash wants you to subscribe
- AMC movies want you to subscribe
- Now Waymo wants you to subscribe
You can't buy anything now without being hassled for a subscription. I don't see any value here except for when they degrade the service for non-subscribers to make the priority pickups seem worth it.
This type of subscription model is a little less annoying, most "normal" people will sign up for the non-subscription rate, and frequent users are already frequent users, so they will be more OK with a subscription.
Speaking personally, I don't see enough movies or do enough ride shares to want to subscribe to AMC or Waymo, but Doordash would make sense. Maybe it's OK for me to pay a higher price for the ~1 time per year I use those other services.
The problem is that they'll keep advertising it to you. I'm already giving them money, but they'll still push me to subscribe while I'm in the middle of trying to give them my money, because that's not enough for them.
The existence of loyalty clubs are fine. If you use the service a lot, then it is a better deal, and the company gets the benefit that you are more likely to consolidate your spending with them rather than shop around. Win-win.
It is the fact that you can't do anything without them being pushed down your throat that is infuriating. Every interaction with a company these days is an attempt to up-sell. When a small number of retail stores started that, I stopped doing business with them. Now they all do it.
I wonder if these services would be instead be like micropayments (charged by $0.01 per minute) instead of a costly $20/mo subscription it would make more sense.
> “I never got my driver's license, and I rely on Waymo to commute to an office every day," said Sarah Paige Roland, a Waymo rider in Phoenix. "I get privacy, time back, a safe ride, and I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to."
I recognize that this is a luxury product but I kind of laughed out loud at this testimonial. The amount of privilege you need to have to grow up and live in *Arizona* without ever learning how to drive is insane.
$30/mo is slightly mind boggling for this.
I’ve enjoyed the ~70 or so Waymo rides I have taken but to me Waymo, Uber, and Lyft are methods of last resort.
My feet, BART, and SFMuni are my primary methods of transportation and for $104/mo I can take an unlimited number of trips, usually very conveniently.
Cash back is huge for people expensing rides. “Spend company money on us, and take your personal rides every once in a while for free.”
Same model as airlines.
And hotels.com
I wonder how the subscription would respond to a person's area being blocked off.
There construction happening a block down the road from me. As part of the work, the rightmost lane is often blocked during the day (in between rush hours), so that things like concrete pumping can take place. The lane block starts just before where I live.
Around the same time, I noticed that when I would try to take Waymo (which I used to get to PT), I'd be told that things are busy and rides are paused. Recently, I've noticed that if I'm at work (or the PT place) and I want to take a Waymo back home, I'm told "Can't get to that spot right now".
If I had Waymo Premier, I wonder how hard it would be to get a refund on my subscription.
The above talks about a complete block (or, a complete-enough block) to using the service, but what about a major impediment? For example, let's say I travel regularly, and use Waymo to get to/from San Jose airport. Waymo's been disabling highway routes, which for me equates to 20-minute (or more) travel-time increase from home to airport. Would that be enough to qualify for a refund on the subscription?
Is 20 minutes of extra time a major impediment? I don't think I would get a refund on an Uber if they were a little late to pick me up and drove slowly so I lost 20 minutes in total. Although if that does happen maybe I'm just naive about refunds
It's a pain if that isn't communicated in the app prior to committing to payment.
It will pay for itself if you spend >300$ per month. I personally wish Waymo have a 399$ per month subscription that give 2 free ride per day so I don't need to own a car just for work.
That sounds more expensive than just owning a car.
Depends where you live. In SF, parking is more than $300/mo if you have to pay for a spot. Also, many companies subsidize Waymo rides for employees as part of their commuter benefits.
parking in my condo that i own is $200 because the parking spaces are not deeded, shit is crazy here in sf
Car payment, insurance, parking, gas/electricity? Going to be over $400/mo in almost all cases in any of the cities Waymo is in.
Add tag tax, residential parking, subsidized work parking, maintenance, incurred violations, tolls.
400/mo or 5000/yr for not having to worry about all that plus never playing the "wait let's circle the block, maybe a spot has opened up" game... sounds tempting.
"Incurred violations" should be effectively $0. How often are you getting a traffic ticket? I think the last time I got a ticket was a decade ago...
Yeah, that seems like an odd factor to include. The whole message of fines is supposed to be "don't do these specific anti-social things" not "be sure to factor in the arbitrary charges you'll be hit with".
Spread across a city probably more than you think, especially if you include parking tickets. I've never had a driving ticket, and maybe 4 parking ones over decades, but I'm probably on the lower end of the curve. In their first 40 days of operation, Oakland's speed cameras issued 82,000 tickets according to reports. I welcome those as they make streets safer, and I think they should be low cost, but high frequency.
I would expect tickets issued during the first 40 days to be higher than later, as people haven't adjusted yet
maintenance, petty car body degradations.. things gets pricey real fast
I've got 200,000 miles on my Toyota and it's only ever had oil changes, brake pads, and new tires.
It'll probably make it another decade. Or two.
And in SF your car will be broken into at least 2x/year, unless you always have protected garage parking everywhere you go.
That payment gets you a $28k used car at best, assuming no other costs. It won't be anything fancy.
> assuming no other costs.
Assuming normal costs, you are looking $21-$22k not including taxes.
There is no way you are finding a car for $28k for just $400. Trust me.
I think they are just saying 400 * 72 gives you an absolute hard ceiling of 28.8k. Once you add in interests, sales tax, and other fees, something like ~22k should be feasible for the same term length though.
72 months sounds stupid, because it is, but 72 month car loans are becoming increasingly common these days https://www.marketscreener.com/news/new-experian-automotive-...
"the total average annual cost of ownership—which includes your car payment, depreciation, fuel, insurance, maintenance, and taxes—is approximately $12,297 per year (or $1,025 monthly) over a 15-year lifetime"
Can you explain where this comes from? I mean, that's not even close to what the norm is in Europe. Though, to be fair, we don't normally count fuel into TCO and the reasoning is: if you want to go distances then you are always paying for them. Whether it's public transport or taxis or whatever. Is fuel the major contributor in the number?
that's crazy. my 2005 volvo, 1991 nissan, and 1986 toyota altogether cost me a little over $1k per year (mostly insurance) and it was less than $10k total to buy them all. goes to show average financial literacy in the US. people won't save a few grand for a used car (or take out a small loan even!) and then pay 10x the cost for new
I think you and I may be a rarity. Most people seem to value having new vehicles, and I don't say that dismissively- there's definitely something to be said for modern safety features as vehicles continue to grow bigger and heavier.
Do they run on air?
You don’t pay for gas? Oil changes? New tires? Air filters?
Oil changes cost like $35/year if you do it yourself. Decent tires last 4-5 years, so that's like $100/year (to be generous). Air filters are so cheap and need replacement so infrequently as to not even be worth counting.
If you are doing the work yourself, you have to count the value of your time, then.
I can only get 1-2 years out of tires, but I also drive 25K+ miles a year. (And its a heavy EV Van) Tires are $800ish a set for the affordable ones (also due to heavy van)
Cabin air filter is twice a year at $18 a filter (I replace them as soon as it smells weird)
Home electricity is cheap at least. (7¢/kw)
I used Waymo about 10 times in Austin - it was great. I wish they'd accelerate the rollout to other cities. I wonder what the major technical hurdles are for launching in a new city?
Well, recently in Austin Waymo cars blocked emergency services during a mass shooting event.
That may be causing other cities some caution.
Mapping, legislation and licensing, marketing, existing taxi lobbies, consumer trust...
So jealous we dont have this in the Northeast. Hurry up!
I saw a Waymo with safety driver driving around Boston a few weeks back. The concerning thing was just how much it backed up traffic getting off the freeway because they're not allowed to go any faster than the posted speed limit.
"Car obeys the speed limit, drivers lucid with rage" definitely sounds like my memories of Boston.
I'd be more interested in a $29/month surcharge if Waymo weren't already significantly more expensive than Uber/Lyft to begin with.
When you consider the required tipping, the cost is quite close. And the Waymo is nicer.
I don't know if it's "nicer". I've had some great conversations with Uber/Lyft drivers. Hilarious fun conversations. Not all of them, but enough to make me question if a riding in a clanker car is actually "nicer". I guess if someone is socially awkward, it might be nicer for them.
> Waymo Premier costs $29.99 per month and will be initially offered to select riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
> Waymo Premier is a new invite-only membership program built for those who rely on us most. For a monthly fee, members gain access to a suite of exclusive benefits designed to make their journey more seamless and rewarding:
Priority Pickups: Skip the line with prioritized matching
Ride Savings: Earn 10% Waymo Cash back on every trip, and even more during busy times.
Early Access: Be among the first to experience Waymo in new cities, as we expand.
Flexible Cancellations: Peace of mind with up to five free cancellations per month.
---
ok so just amazon prime for waymo. its alright but i feel like they had the chance to go REALLY high end with like a $300/month plan that people will still pay for because supply is so limited. instead they went mass consumer with a name like "Premier". eh.
(sorry waymo person reading this i know what its like to name a thing and regret it)
>Be among the first to experience Waymo in new cities, as we expand
How is this useful in any way? by definition it's a subscription for people already using the service in the (few) supported cities. If I use it in Denver, why would I care to have early access in Washington?
I imagine they'll try to get new users to sign up for a month of Premier to try Waymo early once it becomes available in their city. Basically juice a few thousand early adopters for 30 bucks each, which also lets them judge demand and gives them some extra revenue to build out their vehicle/parking network before the full launch.
Pay $30 to be a beta tester for self driving cars in a new city. I wouldn’t sign up for that.
I assume it’s for business travelers.
If you travel a lot for work and would prefer to use Waymo over Uber or renting.
i assumed it's for influencers who want to make a video of the new city or something
yeah, as with so many things, sounds like enterprise users are the target. and enterprise users travel to different cities all the time!
A lot of people (myself included) would pay $30 to get Waymo a month earlier in their home city.
Agreed! If you're a 20+ company in SF you're required to offer commuter benefits (up to $340 / month).
That's usually things like caltrain / muni. But I would definitely sponsor a $300/mo waymo subscription if it was like 20 rides a month.
What I want is a way to rent a car for an hour or two, so that I can leave shopping items or child seats in the car while making stops around town.
AAA had car-sharing as a service nine years ago, but it and many of its competitors have closed:
https://oaklandside.org/2024/07/25/gig-will-shut-down-its-ca...
I think you're looking at $60 an hour which is not horrible (estimating Waymo avg is 3 rides / hour x $20 per ride)
I assume you mean a self-driving vehicle but if not: https://www.zipcar.com/cities
Like Waymo meets Zipcar?
That actually sorta? exists! Vay uses remotely teleoperated vehicles in Vegas to drop off your rental, then take it away once you're done.
https://vay.io/
This caught my eye:
> I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to
I’m wondering what we lose as a society if people never have to be in even a mildly uncomfortable situation. There’s a book called The Comfort Crisis about this topic.
EDIT: The full quote is “I get privacy, time back, a safe ride, and I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to.”
In her quote she chose to separate safety and having a conversation with a stranger as two separate issues.
As a gay dude I experienced my fair share of "uncomfortable" Uber rides from or to various places. No thanks. I don't need to stimulate those kinds of social skills or whatever.
Can't even imagine what women go through.
Gay here, but I've only experienced a concerning conversation once, and that was a longer trip where sometimes you find out too much. I took an exit ramp away from that topic of conversation and it was fine. Otherwise everyone has been decent to downright pleasant.
I'd feel like I'm losing something by giving up that human interaction, such that it is.
Now the human supervisors in the Philippines watch you through the Waymo cameras and talk about you.
I don't care what people think about me. I care about the guy who has Jesus hung in every nook and cranny with a candle lit in his front cupholder telling me that I need to repent. In San Francisco, I might add.
I couldn't care less what people in the Philippines - one of the most gay-friendly countries in Asia - think of me through a camera stream.
Some regulation that limited the operators to work in the city they supervise would be an easy job win for some politicians. Create some jobs and look like you’re standing up to big tech.
> the human supervisors in the Philippines watch you through the Waymo cameras and talk about you
Literally don't care. What I don't need is to be evangelised with whatever conspiracy theory or fringe religion my driver just joined the entire way back from JFK.
Yes, and? What is your threat model here?
One time I hopped in an Uber and got a missionary-like lecture on Islam and an invite to go to a mosque.
More typical of Christians so it kind of threw me off.
But anyway, a paid service shouldn't be starting that kind of conversation unless for some reason I started it and even then that'd make it just as uncomfortable for the driver.
This is the real issue:
"Uber received over 400,000 sexual assault and misconduct reports between 2017 and 2022"
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/06/uber-liable-pay-8-5-million-...
That averages out at 220 reports a day, which kind of sounds like a lot to me.
I think "people should just deal with uncomfortable situations" (while in a vehicle that they have no control over!) is not a winning argument, but the continuing march toward tech-enabled isolation is absolutely bad.
It can be annoying to have to deal with irrational humans who make mistakes, but that really is just part of life! I'll take some cumbersome conversations over conducting my entire life via corporate app interfaces.
There are uncomfortable situations that you can walk away from like a checkout counter, and then there are uncomfortable situations where you are in a car in an unfamiliar location driven by the person making you uncomfortable.
Yes, some people apparently can't figure out that if you sit in the back of the cab, the driver doesn't talk and probably also prefers it that way.
They need a technical solution for issues that a 10 year old can figure out.
I'm SO tired of subscription services that only offer the opportunity to buy more stuff.
You can't buy anything now without being hassled for a subscription. I don't see any value here except for when they degrade the service for non-subscribers to make the priority pickups seem worth it.This type of subscription model is a little less annoying, most "normal" people will sign up for the non-subscription rate, and frequent users are already frequent users, so they will be more OK with a subscription.
Speaking personally, I don't see enough movies or do enough ride shares to want to subscribe to AMC or Waymo, but Doordash would make sense. Maybe it's OK for me to pay a higher price for the ~1 time per year I use those other services.
The problem is that they'll keep advertising it to you. I'm already giving them money, but they'll still push me to subscribe while I'm in the middle of trying to give them my money, because that's not enough for them.
> The problem is that they'll keep advertising it to you
If you don’t like it, then change providers.
If all providers do it, then you must pay to avoid advertisements.
Or, complain to your elected government representatives.
What’s that? Your Chase/Amex credit card gives you a monthly/annual credit? Ok. No more complaints then.
AMC doesn't fit here, once you subscribe to a list there's basically no additional cost. And the lower tiers skip fees etc
The existence of loyalty clubs are fine. If you use the service a lot, then it is a better deal, and the company gets the benefit that you are more likely to consolidate your spending with them rather than shop around. Win-win.
It is the fact that you can't do anything without them being pushed down your throat that is infuriating. Every interaction with a company these days is an attempt to up-sell. When a small number of retail stores started that, I stopped doing business with them. Now they all do it.
What's worse... subscription hassle or a tip hassle?
If done right, this is more like a monthly bus pass
Why not just get a monthly bus pass?
> Why not just get a monthly bus pass?
It's less convenient, doesn't work nationally and isn't as fun?
The other people on the bus.
I wonder if these services would be instead be like micropayments (charged by $0.01 per minute) instead of a costly $20/mo subscription it would make more sense.
> “I never got my driver's license, and I rely on Waymo to commute to an office every day," said Sarah Paige Roland, a Waymo rider in Phoenix. "I get privacy, time back, a safe ride, and I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to."
I recognize that this is a luxury product but I kind of laughed out loud at this testimonial. The amount of privilege you need to have to grow up and live in *Arizona* without ever learning how to drive is insane.
Alternatively, consider the person is disabled and is physically incapable of driving.
And then spend at least $800/month commuting.