Of Waymo, holiday shopping, and the buyer's market for homes

Riffing on themes in 10+ Charts

• Waymo ftw

• ‘tis the season (for shopping on your phone)

• it’s a buyer’s market for homes, as prices are getting a little less sticky

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Waymo ftw

Self-driving cars are very good and very safe.

Opposition to self-driving cars is one of the strangest, hardest-to-steelman, luddite causes that I can think of.

I mean, at some level, a scenario where all cars are subject to some centralized remote control or override, is perhaps a little terrifying, but that appears to be inevitable, self-driving or otherwise. And that’s not the gravamen of the self-driving objectors anyways! What, are people going to lose touch with the grind of their daily commute, if they get to sit back and enjoy their automated officepod (and that’s a bad thing)?

It makes no sense.

So, good on the NYT for publishing an op-ed detailing all the ways in which Waymos are a massive safety improvement to the status quo:

NYTimes

Waymo has had:

• fewer crashes by far

• less injurious crashes by far

The relative safety of self-driving waymos is a really big deal:

If Waymo’s results are indicative of the broader future of autonomous vehicles, we may be on the path to eliminating traffic deaths as a leading cause of mortality in the United States. While many see this as a tech story, I view it as a public health breakthrough . . .

. . . More than 39,000 Americans died in motor vehicle crashes last year, more than homicide, plane crashes and natural disasters combined. Crashes are the No. 2 cause of death for children and young adults. But death is only part of the story. These crashes are also the leading cause of spinal cord injury. We surgeons see the aftermath of the 10,000 crash victims that come to emergency rooms every day. The combined economic and quality-of-life toll exceeds $1 trillion annually, more than the entire U.S. military or Medicare budget.

We spend $1T per year on auto-related medical stuff? I will accept that estimate as iron-clad fact.

Of course Waymos aren’t perfect, and of course, there will be accidents. But, that’s besides the point. Humans set kind of a low bar when it comes to driving safety, so even marginal improvement would be worth it. Waymos, though, do way better than marginal—they reduce serious injury by a factor of 10!

This is low-hanging fruit. Let’s pick it. More Waymos, FSD Teslas, whatever.

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ICYMI

The month the labor market broke?

Family offices are risk-on, too

Some creaking and two shocks, walk into a bar

China feelin’ the pinch (maybe), and pinching back (maybe)

Where does all the sanctioned oil go?

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‘tis the season (for shopping)

Despite some of the handwringing around the Almighty Consumer, it’s been a bang-up holiday shopping season.