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> Won't/can't read the article because Wired adwall, but what is this business model? 1) Replacing taxi drivers. 2) Replacing commuters who don't want to driv

> Won't/can't read the article because Wired adwall, but what is this business model? 1) Replacing taxi drivers. 2) Replacing commuters who don't want to drive. Both of those problems exist on the scale of hundreds of thousands / millions of people. Solving them with good margins is a business model.

mbil 11y ago
Not to mention shipping/delivery drivers.
- fweespee_ch 11y ago
  I think the delivery drivers will still be needed as they need to physically exit the vehicle and handle the packages. To me, at least, that seems like a use case where you'd need drones.
lallysingh 11y ago
3) Drive between owners to reduce the number of cars a family has to have.
- daveguy 11y ago
  This would be huge. Half or less of the cars equal mobility. If a single family car could drive home so my daughter could drive to school and then drive back to work so I could drive home it would be awesome. You still get near full autonomy for a family with a single car. No-human driving is probably a tougher policy hurdle than human-ready-to-take-the-wheel driving, but it would be amazing.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
    It's not very likely though. If a single car would suffice, then most families would already have just one car. The reason they tend to have two or more is because multiple people need to get to different places, in different directions, at roughly the same time. If my wife and I need to be at work by 9AM and we work in opposite directions, it doesn't matter if the car is self driving or not. Either one of us is going to be late, or we both have to leave exceptionally early. Likewise for going home. IOW: people tend to acquire multiple vehicles out of necessity, not poor planning.
a_imho 11y ago
Fair enough, but I still think the underlying problem of on demand transportation is already solved by friends/taxis/uber/planning, it is merely a different breakdown, you take out the human component and replace it with a machine. As someone who had problem with Google Services and was not able to contact anyone (no, the help pages did not work) it seems as a pipe dream, but maybe I am wrong and people will embrace it. Or you need an actual operator who can be called and you are back to square one. For that money I feel a fundamentally different solution should emerge than a mere augmentation - if at all. For 2, it is the same. Public transportation is a more efficient solution already. I'm from Europe, so I might have a different view on this, but it works really well here.
ghaff 11y ago
The million (billion) dollar question is the timeframe. Alphabet/Google has apparently decided to go down the full autonomy or bust route and many researchers in the space think that's decades out for commercial availability. Good assistive systems (probably leading in the nearish term to a level of full autonomy under some conditions) has already started to arrive from a variety of auto makers--but Google doesn't seem to be interested in participating there. So there's a definite business model for assistive/autopilot systems and there will be, some day, for fully autonomous systems. However, it's unclear whether the latter, taken by itself, will be profitable in any reasonable commercial timeframe.
- mjevans 11y ago
  Offhand, my educated guess based on how much it costs /me/ to drive, is that for any form of transport the order of costs from greatest to least is: 1) The human driver. 2) The fuel. 3) Maintenance. Even at a minimum wage, what really breaks bus routes is the human driver. You could send a smaller (more fuel efficient for low loads) vehicle on less profitable routes, but that doesn't modulate the biggest cost at all. Google, Ubur, Lyft, all seem to see a future where (to borrow from the older Total Recall movie) Johnny Cab is able to eliminate a lot of public transit and ride-sharing issues. I believe that the technical challenge is within our grasp (it'll be difficult but possible). It might, with sufficient volume, be cost effective and when factoring in the difference in accident rates surely will be. The hardest sell will be the truly glacial speed of modifying laws to get these vehicles on the road without drivers.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    >The hardest sell will be the truly glacial speed of modifying laws to get these vehicles on the road without drivers. I disagree with this. Yes, autonomous vehicles will be held to a very high standard--both in terms of statistical safety and in not doing "dumb things." A higher standard than humans almost certainly. But that is not an unreasonable bar to set. When vehicles can indeed go door-to-door reliably across a wide spectrum of roads and road conditions, I don't really expect laws to be the limiting factor. But I expect that to be pretty far out.
- 11y ago

mbil 11y ago

Not to mention shipping/delivery drivers.

fweespee_ch 11y ago
I think the delivery drivers will still be needed as they need to physically exit the vehicle and handle the packages. To me, at least, that seems like a use case where you'd need drones.

lallysingh 11y ago

3) Drive between owners to reduce the number of cars a family has to have.

daveguy 11y ago
This would be huge. Half or less of the cars equal mobility. If a single family car could drive home so my daughter could drive to school and then drive back to work so I could drive home it would be awesome. You still get near full autonomy for a family with a single car. No-human driving is probably a tougher policy hurdle than human-ready-to-take-the-wheel driving, but it would be amazing.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
  It's not very likely though. If a single car would suffice, then most families would already have just one car. The reason they tend to have two or more is because multiple people need to get to different places, in different directions, at roughly the same time. If my wife and I need to be at work by 9AM and we work in opposite directions, it doesn't matter if the car is self driving or not. Either one of us is going to be late, or we both have to leave exceptionally early. Likewise for going home. IOW: people tend to acquire multiple vehicles out of necessity, not poor planning.

a_imho 11y ago

Fair enough, but I still think the underlying problem of on demand transportation is already solved by friends/taxis/uber/planning, it is merely a different breakdown, you take out the human component and replace it with a machine. As someone who had problem with Google Services and was not able to contact anyone (no, the help pages did not work) it seems as a pipe dream, but maybe I am wrong and people will embrace it. Or you need an actual operator who can be called and you are back to square one. For that money I feel a fundamentally different solution should emerge than a mere augmentation - if at all. For 2, it is the same. Public transportation is a more efficient solution already. I'm from Europe, so I might have a different view on this, but it works really well here.

ghaff 11y ago

The million (billion) dollar question is the timeframe. Alphabet/Google has apparently decided to go down the full autonomy or bust route and many researchers in the space think that's decades out for commercial availability. Good assistive systems (probably leading in the nearish term to a level of full autonomy under some conditions) has already started to arrive from a variety of auto makers--but Google doesn't seem to be interested in participating there. So there's a definite business model for assistive/autopilot systems and there will be, some day, for fully autonomous systems. However, it's unclear whether the latter, taken by itself, will be profitable in any reasonable commercial timeframe.

mjevans 11y ago
Offhand, my educated guess based on how much it costs /me/ to drive, is that for any form of transport the order of costs from greatest to least is: 1) The human driver. 2) The fuel. 3) Maintenance. Even at a minimum wage, what really breaks bus routes is the human driver. You could send a smaller (more fuel efficient for low loads) vehicle on less profitable routes, but that doesn't modulate the biggest cost at all. Google, Ubur, Lyft, all seem to see a future where (to borrow from the older Total Recall movie) Johnny Cab is able to eliminate a lot of public transit and ride-sharing issues. I believe that the technical challenge is within our grasp (it'll be difficult but possible). It might, with sufficient volume, be cost effective and when factoring in the difference in accident rates surely will be. The hardest sell will be the truly glacial speed of modifying laws to get these vehicles on the road without drivers.
- ghaff 11y ago
  >The hardest sell will be the truly glacial speed of modifying laws to get these vehicles on the road without drivers. I disagree with this. Yes, autonomous vehicles will be held to a very high standard--both in terms of statistical safety and in not doing "dumb things." A higher standard than humans almost certainly. But that is not an unreasonable bar to set. When vehicles can indeed go door-to-door reliably across a wide spectrum of roads and road conditions, I don't really expect laws to be the limiting factor. But I expect that to be pretty far out.
11y ago