Here’s welcome news for city travelers but not for central banks such as the Fed, damn insistent on price inflation.
Alphabet’s carpooling program in San Francisco offers rides at amazingly cheap rates of 54 cents a mile, and that’s with a driver.
Please consider Google Takes on Uber With New Ride-Share Service.
Google is moving onto Uber Technologies Inc.’s turf with its own ride-sharing service in San Francisco that would help commuters inexpensively join carpools, said a person familiar with the matter, jumping into a booming but fiercely competitive market.
Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., began a pilot program around its California headquarters in May that enables several thousand area workers at specific firms to use the Waze app to connect with fellow commuters. It plans to open the program to all San Francisco-area Waze users this fall, the person said, with hopes of expanding the service if successful. Waze, which Google acquired in 2013, offers real-time driving directions based on information from other drivers.
Unlike Uber and its crosstown San Francisco rival Lyft Inc., which each largely operate as on-demand taxi businesses, Waze wants to connect riders with drivers who are already headed in the same direction. The company has said it aims to make fares low enough to discourage drivers from operating as taxi drivers. Waze’s current pilot charges riders at most 54 cents a mile—less than most Uber and Lyft rides—and, for now, Google doesn’t take a fee.
Google and Uber were once allies—Google invested $258 million in Uber in 2013—but more recently have become rivals in some areas. Alphabet executive David Drummond said on Monday that he resigned from Uber’s board because of rising competition between the pair. Uber, which has long used Google’s mapping software for its ride-hailing service, recently began developing its own maps.
The two also are racing to develop driverless cars. Google has led the way with such technology, founding a project in 2009 that has now amassed more than 1.8 million miles of autonomous driving with its test cars. Uber earlier this month bought Ottomotto LLC, a six-month-old driverless-truck startup founded by Google veterans. Uber said it plans to start testing robotic taxis in Pittsburgh over the next several weeks, beating Google to a commercial test of self-driving technology.
Like Uber and Lyft, Waze’s drivers aren’t employees of the company, the person said. Unlike Uber, Google doesn’t plan to vet drivers for a Waze service, instead relying on user reviews to weed out problem drivers, the person said.
Waze, which operates as its own unit within Google, boasts 65 million active users, many of whom alert other users to police or traffic accidents—a hallmark of the app.
Driverless Waze
Waze will be driverless by 2022 if not before.
Millions of long haul truck jobs will vanish in the 2022-2024 time frame, at the latest. The demand for owning a car will collapse shortly thereafter (2026-2028), if not simultaneously.
This is not a prediction that household ownership of private cars will vanish. Rather, it’s a prediction that car ownership in urban areas declines 25% or more in the 2026-2028 time frame, then continues to sink over the years.
I may very well be way behind the curve.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Essentially a way to get someone to chip in for gas if you are the driver or get a cheap ride if you need a lift.
Brilliant!
Also a way for rapists and murderers to easily acquire vics.
So….phuck that!
Next!
No soup for you!
Add this one to the soon-to-be-dead-dumb-idea file.
“The demand for owning a car will collapse shortly thereafter”
I would love if my personal car expenses would go down (dramatically). There is just one problem. If the price comes down dramatically.. Would I get “my” car on demand ?
Taxi’s have always been ridiculously over priced. I would only use them on business trips, so I was reimbursed and didn’t care. They used to be license protected. It gave them a monopoly. Good riddance to their monopoly.
That’s twice what a truck driver will make. Wanna talk about the quality of the equipment now that we’re on the subject? Wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea as to why sales of new Class 8 trucks have fallen off a cliff…so to speak.
Mish – it’s pretty obvious you live in a large metropolitan area:
“The demand for owning a car will collapse shortly thereafter”
I live six miles down a dead-end road, followed by six more miles of lightly traveled road. The first 10 miles of my morning commute rarely involves being stuck behind someone or someone stuck behind me, hence it’s unlikely any sort of voluntary ride-sharing will work. Will “the market” force my family and I to move to town and live like rats, or will Uncle stop me from making my daily trip at the point of a gun?
I’m sure you’re aware that every self-driving car is and will be equipped with some sort of tracking device ala On-Star, which will be freely accessible by the car manufacturer as well as any government busybody. Perhaps I’m the only one with this concern, but the reason I would still own and drive my car (assuming I’m still allowed to) is that I enjoy the freedom of going wherever I want whenever I want without my car telling Uncle (or anyone else).
How many people live six miles down a dead end road?
There are already millions of city folks who own cars and seldom use them.
It will soon be easy for them to make a switch.
By the way, I am not necessarily looking forward to this. I like to drive. But regardless of what you or I like, this is coming.
Mish
“How many people live six miles down a dead end road?”
Lots of them here in rural Texas, not to mention other rural areas across the country. A quick check of the US Census 2010 numbers shows that nearly 90 million people live in towns of 50,000 or less; of those, 60 million live in rural areas like myself. Not a majority, but still a significant number who likely don’t want to give up the family car and hike the 10 miles into town, wait an hour or two for an Uber to show up, or give up their lifestyle and move into the city.
People who live 6 miles down dirt roads will eventually start paying the full cost of their lifestyle choice. The subsidies will end.
the ‘rats’ in the cities will no longer subsidize the rural dwellers like today.
be prepared for $10 gas
Works for me – I don’t want the government “help” out my way anyway.
Can you please link to a study for your statement? The only proper study I’ve found (http://www.openskypolicy.org/rural-nebraskans-pay-more-in-combined-propertyincome-taxes) for this indicates people in rural areas in Nebraska pay more taxes than those in urban areas. It wouldn’t surprise me that most rural areas are that way. One other study (http://www.ibj.com/articles/15690-study-urban-tax-money-subsidizes-rural-counties) says that people in rural Indiana use more services than what they pay in taxes; I’d gladly give up all my “services” as long as the property and sales taxes for them went away.
If the number of vehicles declines, and more people car pool and therefore use less gasoline per person, then the demand for gasoline should decline rather than increase. There would be some population growth to counterbalance this, but not enough to cancel out a 25% or so drop in car ownership over about five years, which is very roughly what Mish appears to be estimating.
If demand drops then it seems likely that gasoline prices will also decline, rather than increase, according to the law of supply and demand.
I think you got it upside down. In a global economic meltdown it would be the rural “dwellers” that would subsidize the urban metrosexuals. This is how it all started you know.
You cannot live from HayDay on your iPad, it´s a fiction.
Fact of the day: CITY people are living off the COUNTRY people. Since birth of man. And of course the self … uhhh bogus.
Most city folks don’t own cars, and already use mass transit.
This dopey ride-share idea is going to go exactly nowhere, fast.
I agree.
I can’t wait to get my driverless car. I love to take long trips and just enjoy the view, while someone else does the work. I could just comfortably sit and read a book for hours at a time.
It would be perfect for you too. That long, boring commute will become a pleasure.
I disagree with Mish that car ownership will crater. Even though cars are under utilized, each commuter will still want one of their own. People willing to exchange their time for ride sharing already use buses, etc.
The companies in trouble are airlines and commuter rail. Why fly when you now have such an enjoyable car ride? No more standing in line to be groped and x-rayed. Other than long haul or trans ocean, they will dramatically shrink. Commuter rail completely loses it’s reason to exist.
You will be waiting a long time. Autonomous vehicles are not going to be sold to individuals, initially, rather they are going to be sold to and managed by fleets. This is because technology limitations will require it, e.g. limited scope of operation for the vehicle, and because of the cost, which will only make sense for a fleet that is maximizing the asset utilization for a commercial purpose. Some day maybe for the individual, but not in the first decade or so.
I’d love an app like this. I drive a lot for work between 3 major cities (office and construction project sites). If I can tell the app I’m headed from A to B and am willing to pick up and drop with <5 min detour then I'd gladly take riders. Everybody wins.
The app would need to vet/identify both drivers and passengers so we both know who the other person is, but that's a short hurdle.
So you finally get to your destination without getting robbed, or raped in the process.
Yay!
Conduct your business….like buying a bunch of groceries…Now what do you do?
Wait hours for some other wayward assclown that just happens to be going your way and stopping at your doorstep on the way back?
Have fun sitting in the parking lot on a hot August day while your ice cream melts and your food spoils.
Talk about stupid….yeesh!
I have a remote property that has no cell phone service So obviously cell phones will never be useful.
I expect in ten years my truck will be self driving to the gravel road and I drive from there. Eventually I’ll only be allowed to drive on my 145 acres. Self-driving cars will have less accidents so at the very least, a driver will have to be perfect to keep his license. Insurance rates for human drivers may make driving unaffordable.
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