An interesting article in the WSJ reports on the growing acceptance of autonomous vehicles being used for ride hailing. The dominant platform, Waymo, is currently operating 300 retrofitted Jaguars in San Francisco and 400 in a few other other west coast cities.
It is doubtful that they are profitable yet but there are reasons to believe that the service will achieve economies of scale. Consumer acceptance is growing with Waymo customers being more loyal than Uber or Lyft. As it scales, the trips without paying passengers, now 40% of all trips, should fall. And, while luxurious Jaguars are a nice way to introduce the service, Waymo, plans to introduce less expensive vehicles.
