If there were a fleet of a million Waymo cars, 2,000 support staff, and 2,000 engineers keeping a stable technology running, and vehicle wear and tear was low (possibly lower than a human driver running an ICE car ragged)...it could work. But they're going to be unprofitable for a long, long time.
It's hard for me to believe that Alphabet/Google even wants to be this huge robo-taxi service in the long run. I have to believe they want to be a technology supplier. Which means they need to enable robo-taxis-are-us to be a cheaper taxi service than Uber et al.
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If there were a fleet of a million Waymo cars, 2,000 support staff, and 2,000 engineers keeping a stable technology running, and vehicle wear and tear was low (possibly lower than a human driver running an ICE car ragged)...it could work. But they're going to be unprofitable for a long, long time.
2000 support staff handling troubleshooting, cleaning, and maintenance on 500 cars per person? Not likely.
Uber itself has 30,000 employees and 7M drivers and is highly profitable. Waymo could support a lot more staff than you suggest and be profitable.
It's hard for me to believe that Alphabet/Google even wants to be this huge robo-taxi service in the long run. I have to believe they want to be a technology supplier. Which means they need to enable robo-taxis-are-us to be a cheaper taxi service than Uber et al.
The want it because time you spend driving is time you could have spent browsing the web and therefore looking at Google ads
Price needs to be comparable, but not necessarily cheaper. Waymo rides are safer, cleaner, and more private than Uber rides.