To be fair, this is not a new take on the potential “robotaxi revolution.” Robotaxi tech has been expensive for as long as robotaxis have been in development. That is one of the reasons robotaxis aren’t all over the place already. But I was curious to run some numbers after seeing this latest comment and dive into the discussion a bit myself. After all, it does seem to be “robotaxi week” here on"These things are expensive. The Waymo cost of that whole vehicle… is about $300K.
“And these things are expensive. The Waymo cost of that whole vehicle, with all the spinning thing you see on top of the car, is about $300,000. That’s not going to replace a driver financially anytime soon.”well, how long would it take to make up the cost of the vehicle? Googling a bit, I found the average salary of a taxi driver in the US ranging from about $30,000 to $57,000. However, in the latter case, estimated total pay was around $72,000. If we use the $300,000 vehicle cost and low $30,000 salary, that’s 10 years to reach payback. However, if we use $50,000, we’re down to 6 years. And if we use $70,000, we’re down to 4.3 years. Now, that $57,000/$72,000and was identified as the median.
From my simple evaluation of the matter, I see robotaxis growing pretty fast in use and replacing tax drivers in more and more big cities in the years to come. Though, as noted the other day, I’ve become more skeptical about a robotaxi revolution making a large portion of car owners ditch their own cars for robotaxis instead,Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here onas its director, chief editor, and CEO.