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You bring up a valid point, but it's worth considering that Taxi drivers have homes. Let's think about driving from SF to Palo Alto at 11pm. This is probably

You bring up a valid point, but it's worth considering that Taxi drivers have homes. Let's think about driving from SF to Palo Alto at 11pm. This is probably not great for a taxi driver who: a) might have wanted this to be his last shift b) lives closer to SF There are other ways of selecting for this, but a self-driving taxi doesn't need to care and can just be managed as a fleet. Yes, some miles will need to be driven by an empty car, but for the most part demand for transportation has a balance, but this balance is very hard to reach in practice with actual drivers.

ghaff 11y ago
There are certainly scenarios where the cost delta between our hypothetical fully-autonomous vehicle and a taxi as we know it today is greater and where it is less. I'd argue that in Manhattan, the distances are short enough and the utilization high enough that self-driving probably buys you very little over a taxi today. With the scenario you describe, the cost difference is probably greater. (On the other hand, if that's 50% of today's taxi costs, most people won't be using it to commute every day.) Of course, there are still other cases where it's not feasible for most people to hire a driver today--say going away for the weekend because the driver costs start to dominate the vehicle rental costs. (And in that scenario, you just rent a car today if you don't own one.) In any case, when such vehicles become available in however many years, they will probably reduce car ownership. But, as with Zipcar, I suspect the difference will be at the margins.
- jegutman 11y ago
  I actually think NY is a pretty compelling case for driverless. A large number of people go from hubs into the city, travel around the city, and then leave the city. Also there's an issue with balancing taxi load in the outer boroughs vs midtown / downtown manhattan. There's a reason uber has been so successful even in NY at increasing the total number of passenger trips and not just stealing customers away from traditional taxis.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    A piece discussed here last week (a FiveThirtyEight blog) seemed to suggest that Uber pickups in NY have mostly come at the expense of taxis rather than being accretive.[1] Though, anecdotally, Uber works significantly better for the outer boroughs than taxis do. NYC experiences are hard to generalize though. And traffic probably means you can't inject many more vehicles around peak times. My basic point was that, given high utilizations and somewhat balanced traffic patterns, taxi/Uber drivers don't add a huge amount of cost relative to the vehicle itself. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10387310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10387310

ghaff 11y ago

There are certainly scenarios where the cost delta between our hypothetical fully-autonomous vehicle and a taxi as we know it today is greater and where it is less. I'd argue that in Manhattan, the distances are short enough and the utilization high enough that self-driving probably buys you very little over a taxi today. With the scenario you describe, the cost difference is probably greater. (On the other hand, if that's 50% of today's taxi costs, most people won't be using it to commute every day.) Of course, there are still other cases where it's not feasible for most people to hire a driver today--say going away for the weekend because the driver costs start to dominate the vehicle rental costs. (And in that scenario, you just rent a car today if you don't own one.) In any case, when such vehicles become available in however many years, they will probably reduce car ownership. But, as with Zipcar, I suspect the difference will be at the margins.

jegutman 11y ago
I actually think NY is a pretty compelling case for driverless. A large number of people go from hubs into the city, travel around the city, and then leave the city. Also there's an issue with balancing taxi load in the outer boroughs vs midtown / downtown manhattan. There's a reason uber has been so successful even in NY at increasing the total number of passenger trips and not just stealing customers away from traditional taxis.
- ghaff 11y ago
  A piece discussed here last week (a FiveThirtyEight blog) seemed to suggest that Uber pickups in NY have mostly come at the expense of taxis rather than being accretive.[1] Though, anecdotally, Uber works significantly better for the outer boroughs than taxis do. NYC experiences are hard to generalize though. And traffic probably means you can't inject many more vehicles around peak times. My basic point was that, given high utilizations and somewhat balanced traffic patterns, taxi/Uber drivers don't add a huge amount of cost relative to the vehicle itself. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10387310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10387310