Uber: Waymo GTM & Autonomous Vehicle Economics

This is a snippet of the transcript.Contact Salesto get full access.

One question we have is, we understand clearly why Waymo wouldn't want to handle the operational aspects of owning and maintaining the assets. However, there's clear value in being the platform, right? You don't need to pay a take rate to another party, but you do have the cost of acquiring customers. How do you think about this? Why wouldn't Waymo want to be the app and expand Waymo One to a broad set of cities and become a real competitor to Uber? Why wouldn't that be the goal?

I think that could definitely be the goal. However, I believe there's a higher ROI in being a technology provider rather than running the business. If you look at the margins when you allocate a vehicle with minimal human resources and earn, let's say, about 50 or 40 cents a mile over, say, 100,000 miles on average—or maybe that's on the higher side—but even if a robotaxi runs about 80,000 miles a year and you earn 50 cents a mile, you're still generating about $40,000 per vehicle in revenue with minimal overhead.

This is a snippet of the transcript.Contact Salesto get full access.

One question we have is, we understand clearly why Waymo wouldn't want to handle the operational aspects of owning and maintaining the assets. However, there's clear value in being the platform, right? You don't need to pay a take rate to another party, but you do have the cost of acquiring customers. How do you think about this? Why wouldn't Waymo want to be the app and expand Waymo One to a broad set of cities and become a real competitor to Uber? Why wouldn't that be the goal?

Now, Uber's average revenue per mile is about $4. If you take half of that, you get about $2. So for 80,000 miles a year with an average mile cost of $4, even if Waymo gets half of it, which is $2, each vehicle generates about $160,000 in revenue. That's a significant amount and almost breaks even the BOM cost of the vehicle in a year or less. In a first-party model, there's a lot of infrastructure setup needed and human labor involved, which is difficult to model for. In dense urban environments, where robotaxis are feasible, labor is expensive.

This is a snippet of the transcript.Contact Salesto get full access.

Do you think that in two years Zoox will be on par with Waymo in terms of software quality?

Yes, I believe that in two years, Zoox will reach a level of maturity and stabilization similar to Waymo. Waymo has hit a saturation curve with their 1,500 vehicles operating in the five major cities in the U.S. They are not learning anything new; they are just running as a service. Zoox will likely hit that maturity curve in two years, becoming extremely safe unless someone else is at fault.

This is a snippet of the transcript.Contact Salesto get full access.