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This is pretty close. Benedict evans did a more accurate calculation , and got ,for electric self driving cars, 14-19 cents/mile: https://twitter.com/benedicte

by petra 11y ago

This is pretty close. Benedict evans did a more accurate calculation , and got ,for electric self driving cars, 14-19 cents/mile: https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/636684338352951297 https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/636684338352951297 One thing he forgot - what about shared transport - say sharing with 3 people could offer ride time relatively close to a car. That gets us to 4.5 cents/mile. That comes about to $50 a month/american-person(avg 13.5K miles/year) , less for a kid, surely less for people in dense cities(say $25) . EDIT:and if you're willing to ride an on demand bus/minibus , maybe it could go to 1/2-1/3 of that , so maybe your monthly transport demands could be met by less than $10.

hugh4 11y ago
Sharing rides with strangers is precisely the kind of thing that I'd hope to avoid by replacing public transport with self-driving cars. But anyway, yes, it does appear that the economics of the self-driving taxi beat the economics of the bus or the train, especially given that buses and trains generally operate at a large loss and still charge people, on average, a higher fare than what they'd pay for a self-driving taxi. A self-driving bus that operates a route could be even cheaper, but why bother when you can hail a cab to take you straight to your destination without stops for just a few tens of cents more?
- kps 11y ago
  When all cars are self-driving, small single-person cars are a realistic option.
- petra 11y ago
  I can imagine a self-driving taxi , for shared rides, that's designed for privacy , so you don't feel like riding with others, except for a bit of an extended trip. I wonder why nobody have build such a car yet, but there's good likelihood it will happen in a huge self driving market.
mdorazio 11y ago
I did my own calculations last week and came to about 2x his numbers (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-cheap-can-uber-self-driving-ride-get-michael-dorazio https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-cheap-can-uber-self-drivi...). He makes a few faulty assumptions (ex. maintenance costs and depreciation are tied to miles, not years) and in my opinion underestimates costs significantly in areas like insurance, and over-estimates billable miles that will be driven per day. Still amazingly cheap, though, especially if carpooling and/or using public transit part of the time. For comparison, CalTrain runs between 17 and 25 cents per mile if you take it more than one zone.

by petra 11y ago

hugh4 11y ago

Sharing rides with strangers is precisely the kind of thing that I'd hope to avoid by replacing public transport with self-driving cars. But anyway, yes, it does appear that the economics of the self-driving taxi beat the economics of the bus or the train, especially given that buses and trains generally operate at a large loss and still charge people, on average, a higher fare than what they'd pay for a self-driving taxi. A self-driving bus that operates a route could be even cheaper, but why bother when you can hail a cab to take you straight to your destination without stops for just a few tens of cents more?

kps 11y ago
When all cars are self-driving, small single-person cars are a realistic option.
petra 11y ago
I can imagine a self-driving taxi , for shared rides, that's designed for privacy , so you don't feel like riding with others, except for a bit of an extended trip. I wonder why nobody have build such a car yet, but there's good likelihood it will happen in a huge self driving market.

mdorazio 11y ago

I did my own calculations last week and came to about 2x his numbers (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-cheap-can-uber-self-driving-ride-get-michael-dorazio https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-cheap-can-uber-self-drivi...). He makes a few faulty assumptions (ex. maintenance costs and depreciation are tied to miles, not years) and in my opinion underestimates costs significantly in areas like insurance, and over-estimates billable miles that will be driven per day. Still amazingly cheap, though, especially if carpooling and/or using public transit part of the time. For comparison, CalTrain runs between 17 and 25 cents per mile if you take it more than one zone.