You can probably infer the average number of active cars from trips and utilization metrics, which are out there (at least for California I believe they report this).

E.g. 450,000 trips/week * 15 min/trip / 0.56 loaded:empty miles / (24760) ~= 1200.

Alphabet is only giving up around a 3% stake. They continue to own most of it, and mostly bet their own money.

I think some of the external investors have board seats, so the outside people do get a (small) say in things. And to your point, that's probably also a good thing for avoiding another Stadia mistake.

"Yes it is that bad" - every woman I've ever talked to.

Building out depot and charging infrastructure and working with city officials are both slow processes, so I imagine you'll see them prioritize spreading out to a lot of cities first, in the most profitable areas (downtown), then expand the service area in each of them over time as they get more cars.

> There is no road in SF that is as hard to navigate as the average suburban London two-way traffic single car width road with parking on both sides.

I think you just described the entire Bernal Heights neighborhood in SF (except with 20+ degree steepness on top of that).

> People say yes it drives, but it drives like a rookie

I think you just made this up. Almost every anecdote I've heard, and I spend a lot of time in two cities where it's launched, is that "it drives better than most humans". Which is exactly how I would characterize it too. It doesn't drive exactly like a human. But for every subtle human behavior it doesn't do, there are probably several things it does much more skillfully than a human.

I rode in one in Austin TX for the first time last weekend. I was going from UT back to a hotel in a different part of downtown. No complaints, it was a smooth experience granted it didn't face anything I would see as out of the ordinary or unexpected while driving. Edit: well one thing i thought was interesting, it came up behind a delivery truck stopped in the lane. Instead of just stopping and waiting forever, which is what i expected, it turned on the blinker and got in the oncoming traffic lane, passed the truck and then returned to the correct lane. It crossed two solid yellow lines on the road to do this which is usually a no-no but in this case fine. That stuck out to me as something rather advanced to automate (when to wait and when to pass/overtake)

European cities have lots of taxis. Same with Asian cities. They will obviously have AVs in the future. I'm not sure why you think they should be mutually exclusive with transit.

It's a "joke" (I wouldn't call it that, but it's a vastly different product) because you have to pay attention to the road at all times.

You don't live in a Waymo city, so I understand. A lot of people who don't live in a Waymo city don't really get it.

Waymo is a completely different product than FSD. It's a robot that comes and drives you from point A to point B. You can do whatever you want while it's driving, such as take a nap or work on your laptop.

They're operating a Robotaxi service, not a robotaxi service.

If I create a shuttle bus service for my neighborhood and call it the "Space Shuttle", I am not operating a space shuttle.

The cars drive themselves. Not sure why your definition of robotaxi trumps their very reasonable one.