19 ms·

I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their o

I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hoping for consumers to still want to own a vehicle rather than just pay $1 to get a ride So: How much is Uber's market share worth? I suspect it'll evaporate overnight in every market where another service has autonomous vehicles and they don't. Also: Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive. Which probably means general demand for vehicles will fall off a cliff. I predict blood on the walls.

scarmig 10y ago
Is there a particular reason to think Uber is going to be last to autonomous vehicles? I can see a good argument that they're head of the pack today, between Tesla's not-really-autonomous vehicles and Google's perpetual inability to execute.
- joeguilmette 10y ago
  This is a fair point. Uber has yet to ship any hardware, and really any software aside from an app that is a couple steps above "Uber for X" that are whipped out in a weekend. I know they gobbled up a bunch of researchers, but moonshot engineering feats like autonomous driving is not (yet) in their DNA. And their current business model is not profitable and will die the moment they go up against an autonomous service. They don't need to be last to market to lose, they need to be first in order to survive.
  - mikedh 10y ago
    >yet to ship any hardware Except for the fleet of Ford Fusions and XC90's covered in very nicely implemented custom sensor rafts http://theincline.com/2016/12/12/three-months-of-self-driving-cars-in-pittsburgh-a-look-back/ http://theincline.com/2016/12/12/three-months-of-self-drivin...
  - untog 10y ago
    I don't particularly care for Uber, but they do have prototype self driving cars on the street in Pittsburgh. So it's not quite fair to say they're failing at this.
  - Isamu 10y ago
    I see autonomous Uber cars out all the time near downtown Pittsburgh. In fact it's getting rarer that I don't see one.
  - robterrell 10y ago
    I saw an uber car covered in a crazy amount of sensors a couple of days ago on Van Ness avenue... There was a human driver, so I assumed it was mapping the environment, but it might have been a test vehicle; it looked similar to the pictures of the autonomous cars in Pittsburg.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  > Uber [...] they're head of the pack today Head of the pack of dreams maybe. What does Uber have, in a tangible manner, right now? At least both Tesla and Google have real systems that are on the verge of full autonomy.
- michaelbuckbee 10y ago
  Uber bought Otto [1] and is doing live trials of trucks on highways right now. Otto was granted permission and began driving on actual highways in Ohio last week: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/self-driving-truck-hits-the-road-as-ohio-discusses-research/2016/11/25/ee4c8568-b336-11e6-bc2d-19b3d759cfe7_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/self-driving-truck-h... 1 - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-tech-volvo-otto-idUSKCN10T1TR http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-tech-volvo-otto-idUSK...
bdrool 10y ago
> Also: Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive. Which probably means general demand for vehicles will fall off a cliff. Or, if everyone has a self-driving car of their own (or one that can be converted to self-driving), people will rent out their cars AirBnB-style when they aren't using them. I mean, why not? You've already got a garage, a driveway, etc. Might as well make a few extra bucks with your vehicle...
- derefr 10y ago
  Two sides of the same coin. If you can rent your neighbour's car, why own your own? Heck, why have driveways? In cities, at least, I could fully imagine new townhouse developments operating more like apartment buildings: one central parking lot for the "pool" of (mostly) driverless cars. Your car drops you off at your door and then parks in the pool; then comes back out to get you in the morning.
  - bdrool 10y ago
    > Heck, why have driveways? My point is that millions of them already exist, with a distributed network of roads leading to them, as well as storage (garages). It would be costly to suddenly rip all those up.
    - galdosdi 10y ago
      They could be used for other purposes. People filling their garages with other junk and then having to put their car somewhere else is so common already. The driveway can become a front yard.
  - aetherson 10y ago
    While driverless cars obviously make short-term car rental more attractive on a cost basis, I think that people here tend to overestimate the impact of this. * A large percentage of people will want to have their own car because they don't want to put up with the occasional hassle of unavailability of rental cars during a peak time, and/or occasional long waits for the car to reach them (particularly when they are being picked up in un-dense areas). And before you hand-wave this away, note that the more of a cost advantage you give to rental cars (ie, the higher the utilization of those cars), the more of a disadvantage cost/wait time will be. * People -- and very especially families with children -- also value cars as a mobile depot for their stuff. If you have kids of certain ages, this is practically a necessity. I definitely am not going to screw around with not just a carseat but like a dozen books and snacks and wipes and cups and so forth every time I get into/out of a rental car. * Then cleaning and status and all the other things that people regularly bring up here.
stormbrew 10y ago
Uber is literally all over the world, though. Google can barely launch a keyboard app outside the US. Or a payment system. Lyft is still constrained entirely to the US and a handful of large Asian cities. I think people severely underestimate Uber's worldwide push in preparing themselves to be a force to be reckoned with when the autonomous vehicle takes off.
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  It won't be worth anything because autonomous ride-sharing will be a pricing game. Anyone who undercuts Uber, and there will be plenty of willing and able companies, will beat them.
  - _spoonman 10y ago
    An app that books the cheapest ride for you out of all the ride-sharing companies. Like Kayak but for ride-sharing. This comment is the same as a patent, right?
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Google has ridesharing price comparison built into Maps already.
    - web007 10y ago
      Arbitrage for cars - Carbitrage. Someone already had the domain registered the last time I checked.
    - rorykoehler 10y ago
      https://www.urbi.co/en/ https://www.urbi.co/en/ same same but for car sharing services. Ediy: seems to also include ride sharing now.
    - aetherson 10y ago
      Uber attempts to keep control of what clients connect to its API for exactly this reason.
huevosabio 10y ago
There's also Zoox, which is trying to build the car and taxi service from scratch.
serge2k 10y ago
> in 5yrs bold prediction: They won't have fully autonomous cars.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Define "fully".
cphoover 10y ago
a whole industry of workers will be out of the job. How will society react? Will we have a socialist revolt? Want to stay clear from politics... but seriously why isn't anyone talking about the socioeconomic impact this will have once drivers are put out of the job? IMHO this is the reason Trump won the election, because there is no plan for these people.
- virmundi 10y ago
  There are plenty of conversations around that idea here. UBI for example. Some people think that the population in general will retool (some will get left behind). Others point to the horse population in the US that went from some 5 million to a few hundred thousand following mechanized transportation as an example of what will happen to the middle class.
  - Florin_Andrei 10y ago
    "Retooling" sounds like such a great idea when you're a 20-something urban male single software engineer, you've got nothing to lose, and the world is yours to take. It also sounds like a great idea when you're independently wealthy and you don't have to work for a living, so you can afford to bloviate from your ivory tower. Most other demographics have very a different perspective on that concept, and for good reason. There will be cataclysmic changes ahead if we don't seriously reconsider, well, everything about society. Under the current way of thinking, millions of people will get sent to the glue factory - to persist in your horse analogy here.
    - virmundi 10y ago
      I'm with you entirely. I have no idea how to solve this problem. My cousin's husband is a truck driver. He makes a six figure income running between Indy and Chicago (bang, bang). He's going to retire before they can get rid of him, but this is a huge issue. I tried to explain this problem to my father, who's a CPA. I've pointed out that his firm can get by with a dramatically smaller office than it use to due to tech. Same's true for his lawyer friends. I pointed out that the law firms are not training the next generation like they use to since they use fewer low-level lawyers for research thanks to Lexus Nexus. Account is next. I'm not a huge fan of UBI since I think that makes people slaves of their State. We've seen such enslavement in the US under welfare programs. We've set the program up to lock people in. If they try to get out, they will lose benefits (donut hole issue). I think UBI is like that, but worse.
mschip 10y ago
Uber will continue to hold a lot of the chips in this race. Consider the Tesla or GM examples - a regression in revenue will not be acceptable. So if they're currently selling x cars at y $ a year they will need to continue that revenue without actually selling cars. This means they'll have to get really good at understanding how many rides over the span of a vehicle will continue that revenue and provide just the right amount of vehicles to meet a regions needs. Uber has that information in spades.
- celticninja 10y ago
  I dont see how that is the case. User is currently burning through more eyes to maintain their market position and that is without a fleet of vehicles to operate and maintain. Moving to autonomous vehicles may cut their staff costs\remove drivers from their costs column, but this cost is moved to vehicles and in many jurisdictions at least for the medium term a human driver will be required even if it is just paid to sit there.
  - mschip 10y ago
    My point was that regardless of the dollars and cents for Uber to transition from staff to cars, or even if it works out at all, Uber still has the information to decide it will take X cars in Y region to make Z revenue. The only other player with that kind of information (on a smaller scale) is Lyft.
- AJ007 10y ago
  Netflix makes a good example it is possible to make a major business model adjustment and return shareholders very well. I think investors have a very realistic view of how much the automotive market is about to switch. The companies who provide no evidence of preparing for the switch are just as likely, to me, to see their market cap plummet as ones trying a risky pivot. Certainly some auto makers may choose to go down the route of executive assisted suicide and maximize shareholder (and executive) profit distributions in the process, as IBM decided to do. To pretend than the next 50 years will be like the last 50, I'm not sure how long that charade can hold up. Personally I think Google and Apple are the ones who hold all of the chips. This definitely can be turned in to a commodity business with a few OS adjustments. There are some cards Uber can play to avoid this, like exclusive infrastructure agreements, although not really sure where that will be permitted geographically. A more interesting question is will this look like smartphones where a single company gets 90% of the profits and the rest of the companies do huge volume but capture small to zero margins.
bambax 10y ago
> Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive But how is this going to work? In cities, everyone uses their car at exactly the same time: roughly, between 8-9 in the morning and 5-7 in the evening. If you don't own a car, chances are you won't get one when you need it to get to work on time. Or, if there are enough cars for peak hours, then demand for new cars will not fall that much (although the structure of ownership may in fact change). Other things that could change is the need for infrastructure (at least in Europe); you don't need highways and high speed trains that much if speed of travel matters much less. If your car drives itself during the night and you can sleep comfortably in it (or read, or watch movies, whatever), then the length of the trip is not paramount.
- intopieces 10y ago
  I could see apartment complexes and neighborhood associations partnering with these autonomous vehicle services to provide transportation for their residents, then eventually municipalities demanding it of new developments, with a reduction of parking space requirements in combination (similar to what Austin, TX does with ZipCar and businesses: if you have 2 Zip car spaces, you can reduce your parking requirement by 4).
- Retric 10y ago
  Often you need a car to get to the subway which does not take that long. Slug lanes also become more useful with self driving cars. Combine the two and you get a self driving car to central location > car or public transit to city center > self driving car in the city. Remember parking is often 10+$ a day due to land value, so two ~4$ trips can be a net savings. Finally, even a 20-30% drop in demand would be huge in such a capital intense industry.
  - Mz 10y ago
    Remember parking is often 10+$ a day. And can be more of a hassle or less conveniently located than a transit stop.
    - deleted 10y ago
yalogin 10y ago
If I have to bet against anybody it will be Uber. They will be burning cash and given that Google just gave up on building hardware why would one think Uber will succeed?
- Dibes 10y ago
  To be fair I don't think Google is the gold standard for hardware. Outside of a few successful hardware releases (Chromecast and arguably the pixel line) they seem to struggle in this area.
- freyr 10y ago
  > why would one think Uber will succeed Uber hasn't demonstrated a capacity to succeed, but unlike their rivals, they need self-driving cars to succeed for their company to succeed. The CEO has called self-driving cars "existential" to Uber. Contrast this with Google. Self-driving cars are an expensive hobby to Google, and completely inconsequential to the success of their core business.
googthrwwy1234 10y ago
None of the above. Tesla will reconsider and re-fashion Autopilot as an advanced driver assist. A car that you drive yourself, but can't crash would be worth a significant premium. Everyone else will ride the PR gravy train and GTFO a few years later. Google is just the first of many.
agumonkey 10y ago
Reminds me how quickly I forgot about Uber test fleet from not long ago.
rb808 10y ago
> Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive. Which probably means general demand for vehicles will fall off a cliff. I really dont agree with this. Cars a so cheap now and I'd much rather use my own than some dirty shared car. Already renting a car is annoying as you never know if you'll get charged for some damage that you didn't cause, I can't imagine having the same issue every day. Having the car drop me off then go away and autopark is something that I'd value though. :)
- 946789987649 10y ago
  I disagree on the damage thing purely because this would be the same situation as Boris Bikes, which actually work really well.
- j2bax 10y ago
  Presumably, in a shared autonomous vehicle, the only thing you'd be responsible would be the interior. I would think this would be fairly easy to monitor on a user to user basis.
- slackstation 10y ago
  It's not either or. Autonomous service for commuting is still highly valuable even if you retain your own car. Over the medium term, this will only encourage ever more massive and distant suburb creep. Also, with longer commutes less tiresome, the negative cost of having a longer commute will be mitigated. As for the stranger effect, there are many innovations on that front as well. Google is already has a working app that tries to arrange commutes for true ride sharing where passengers only compensate the driver for the pure cost of the ride. It's cheap and effective if you are a bit flexible in the morning. I can see autonomous services being so cheap that they become the new corporate perk and companies find value by having employees ride together, share ideas, socialize, etc. Also, the economies of scale alone would make a private automated car trip still cheaper than owning privately an autonomous vehicle. The technology will move fast enough that the vast majority people will be switching from a human operated car to a self-driving car service. I can see the ad campaigns now. Basically showing people how much cheaper and safer and more convenient it is. Cars can be seen like horses were before them, an expensive hassle that requires land for storage and usage. If you think about it, people have whole buildings just for storing cars, garages, like we did with horses, barns. 15 years from now suburbs will be built without garages and driveways. There will be a cottage industry for people to convert garages and carparks into more usable space. 20 years from now, multistory car parking lots will be the new conversion buildings like the old meat packing and textile plans that used to be in downtown areas that were turned into lofts. Polished concrete floors will feature the original parking space numbers. The open sides will feature panoramic views. Lastly, having your own car will be a throwback element. People who like to 4x4 or work on their own cars (a huge market that might actually grow in the medium term) will fill this but, even then they'll use automated services to commute. The number of people who have hobby cars (off-roading, auto racing, vintage collectibles, restoration) will skyrocket because a car no longer has to be a daily driver. Or people might care less about cars, I don't presume to know the complex of a future of human desire. But, in a world full of cheap cars that you driver yourself, automated car services will still create so much value that people will still switch.
rajeshp1986 10y ago
But that doesn;t mean companies should be afraid to try new things. History is evident that more companies died resisting the change than anything else. Car ownership going down should not mean companies like Uber should not venture into self-driving cars although by burning huge VC money. Even the VC's who funded would want Uber to the fore runner in the self-driving cars. The other factors why companies are still investing although they might loose money are: 1) It will take atleast 5-7 years for self-driving cars to become ubiquitous. Till then there is good uprising market for every player to make money. secondly, if you have a product ready, it might open up new markets in future which currently no one realizes. 2) Car ownership will still be there. People who can afford it will still prefer private self-driving car than waiting for Uber/Lyft. I would say self-driving private car will be seen as a new luxury status. 3) car manufacturing will definitely go down with less demand but car manufactures will venture into different pricing model with ride companies. Right now, a car is a one time sell for a manufacturer. It might be subscription which ride company uses.
coroutines 10y ago
All I see when I look at a car is a very costly set of risks. I'd rather pay for someone else to manage those risks. Car subscriptions++
devy 10y ago
Where is Apple's in that list? ;)
Animats 10y ago
Five years from now: * All the big auto manufacturers are shipping self-driving cars. Volvo is the first to ship a Level 3 system to real customers. * Tesla is doing OK, but the big electric car brand is Chevy. * Waymo is a Tier I supplier to Fiat/Chrysler. * GM and Ford are using their own self-driving technology. * Uber is still around, but is out of investor cash, and has to be profitable to pay back its loans. The service is much more expensive to use. Their self-driving thing never works out for them because they can't spend big money to buy cars, build garages, and staff up for maintenance. * Lyft is still around, about the same as it is now. * The mini autonomous bus people have some installations, but they're rare outside airports and campuses.
- DennisP 10y ago
  Why Volvo?
  - jfim 10y ago
    Volvo has been doing research on self-driving cars for a while, with existing vehicles in operation for research purposes.
  - tim333 10y ago
    "Level 3: Within known, limited environments (such as freeways), the driver can safely turn their attention away from driving tasks" Volvo have announced shipping that in 2017. I don't think anyone else has. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q00jIBhkq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q00jIBhkq4)
    - grecy 10y ago
      Based on the videos on YouTube, I would say Tesla are already shipping that.
      - tim333 10y ago
        Tesla say you should look where you're going still.
dboreham 10y ago
This assumes autonomous vehicles exist, which they don't.
- jedberg 10y ago
  Wait five years. It'll almost certainly happen. The technology is solvable and lots of very big companies are spending billions to make it happen.
  - marssaxman 10y ago
    That's what people said five years ago. I am sure something will happen eventually, but it will take longer than people expect and the results will never be as good as people are currently fantasizing that they might be. We'll get to "good enough" but never to "great".
    - jedberg 10y ago
      I don't know of anyone who was saying self driving is only five years away in 2011. It was still a fantasy then. Now we actually have working software and hardware, and real people are experiencing self driving. I live in the bay area, but not a month goes by that I don't see a self driving vehicle at some point. And that's not counting the Teslas that are autopiloting their way down the highway next to me that I don't even know about.
      - marssaxman 10y ago
        How is it that "real people are experiencing self driving"? I was under the impression that Google's autonomous vehicle and other projects like it were still all technology research prototypes. There is a very big difference between the sort of next-generation cruise control driver assistance features Tesla and others are providing, and the sort of fully autonomous wheeled robot people are fantasizing about when they hyperventilate over the city of the future and its wondrous transportation technologies. Maybe my negative feelings are excessive; I'm just really, really tired of having people jump in with the whole "but self-driving cars will change everything!!!" routine every time people try to have a serious conversation about public transit investment.
shostack 10y ago
And the fallout for the economy will be interesting. What does it do to home prices when a long commute is less of an issue? What happens to all the cottage industries built around the assumption of someone owning and driving their car? Etc.
jcranmer 10y ago
> Also: Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive. Which probably means general demand for vehicles will fall off a cliff. I've seen this sentiment so many times now that I have to ask a serious question to anyone who echoes this sentiment: Do you own a personal car right now? If so, why? All of this... excitement over the transformations that self-driving vehicles will bring to the world of transit basically boils down to a model that's a mixture between taxi service and (really crappy) bus service, both of which exist today and have existed for several decades--and basically predate the automobile when you think about it. Yet somehow self-driving vehicles are supposed to completely change the mix of transit use when it's not really adding any capability changes. So I'm genuinely curious as to what the magic sauce is that makes people so giddy for this future.
- anonymousDan 10y ago
  Exactly, unless self driving cars become cheaper than taxis then what is the point?
  - Gravityloss 10y ago
    I thought that was the whole idea?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ygjb-dupe 10y ago
    They don't need to be cheaper, they need to deliver better service. Depending on the city, better might be faster, more available, less racist, less intense experience, cleaner, etc, etc, etc. They don't need to be cheaper in most places, at least not yet.
- hehheh 10y ago
  Taxis suck and busses suck. Self driving cars have the potential to give you the benefits of the taxis and busses without as many downsides. Not sure what more you'd need to understand why folks are excited about this. Not having to own, insure, maintain, or park a car. End to end transportation with no transfers that allows you to internet while you travel. Cheaper than human driven cabs (presumably).
flexie 10y ago
Why would anyone own a house when they can rent an apartment? Why don't we share bathrooms with the neighbors? Why have a small garden that needs maintenance when there is a huge park nearby? Why did I just buy a printer when I need it so rarely and there is a copy shop downstairs? Why do people have washers when laundromats exist? I think ownership means more to most people than just convenience or being the cheapest option.
- hehheh 10y ago
  A lot of people do choose to rent. Most people get food from stores, not gardens. Roads themselves are shared resources. Why did you buy a printer?
- icebraining 10y ago
  It does mean more, but it's not immune to other constraints, and it may be enough to make demand fall off a cliff. Cars are expensive (relative to the average income) and for many, it'll be hard to justify ownership if the alternative is cheaper.
atarian 10y ago
It's too bad these companies are not working together on this stuff since any improvements to safety would be a win for everyone.
- nothrabannosir 10y ago
  I would disagree: fierce competition is what will get us there the fastest. Every company is already a team of people working together. Let the games begin, and may the best team win. And may we, the consumer, forever reap the benefits :) In a cooperative environment, bad players bring everyone down. In competition, they drown, and only the strongest survive.
ams6110 10y ago
You've mentioned $1 a ride a couple of times. Where is this number coming from? It doesn't pass the smell test to me. Even bus fare is several times this amount.
- nojvek 10y ago
  Let's do some rough math here. Say initial cost of the electric self driving car is $50,000. It has life of 20 years. After 20 years, value will go to 0. Per year: $2500 Service per year: $2500 (HN mechanics, is this reasonable?) Miles travelled/ year: 50,000 (5x human utilization) Miles/Kwh: 3 (based on tesla efficiency) Avg electricity cost in US: 12c / Kwh Cost to drive 50,000 miles: $2000 Total / year: $7000 Cost per mile: 14c / mile Average trip length: 7 miles Cost per trip: 98c (very close to $1) I think this is definitely possible.
  - arghbleargh 10y ago
    50,000 miles/year * 20 years = 1,000,000 miles does not seem reasonable...
    - nojvek 10y ago
      1 million miles is unreasonable for humans driving gas guzzlers. Not for electric self driving cars which optimize for safety and wear and tear. They have less moving parts too. There are plenty of trucks, buses and taxis that have done a million miles in 20 years.
perseusprime11 10y ago
Can we also make it mandatory for these autonomous cars to be electric and not use gas?
ainiriand 10y ago
I have the feeling that Toyota actually is going to make it for everyone. They are incredible car makers.
- jpindar 10y ago
  And incredibly horrible software makers.
norswap 10y ago
The world is bigger than Silicon Valley, or even the US.
joeguilmette 10y ago
And here we go: https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/ubers-self-driving-cars-start-picking-up-passengers-in-san-francisco/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/ubers-self-driving-cars-st...

scarmig 10y ago

Is there a particular reason to think Uber is going to be last to autonomous vehicles? I can see a good argument that they're head of the pack today, between Tesla's not-really-autonomous vehicles and Google's perpetual inability to execute.

joeguilmette 10y ago
This is a fair point. Uber has yet to ship any hardware, and really any software aside from an app that is a couple steps above "Uber for X" that are whipped out in a weekend. I know they gobbled up a bunch of researchers, but moonshot engineering feats like autonomous driving is not (yet) in their DNA. And their current business model is not profitable and will die the moment they go up against an autonomous service. They don't need to be last to market to lose, they need to be first in order to survive.
- mikedh 10y ago
  >yet to ship any hardware Except for the fleet of Ford Fusions and XC90's covered in very nicely implemented custom sensor rafts http://theincline.com/2016/12/12/three-months-of-self-driving-cars-in-pittsburgh-a-look-back/ http://theincline.com/2016/12/12/three-months-of-self-drivin...
- untog 10y ago
  I don't particularly care for Uber, but they do have prototype self driving cars on the street in Pittsburgh. So it's not quite fair to say they're failing at this.
- Isamu 10y ago
  I see autonomous Uber cars out all the time near downtown Pittsburgh. In fact it's getting rarer that I don't see one.
- robterrell 10y ago
  I saw an uber car covered in a crazy amount of sensors a couple of days ago on Van Ness avenue... There was a human driver, so I assumed it was mapping the environment, but it might have been a test vehicle; it looked similar to the pictures of the autonomous cars in Pittsburg.
Florin_Andrei 10y ago
> Uber [...] they're head of the pack today Head of the pack of dreams maybe. What does Uber have, in a tangible manner, right now? At least both Tesla and Google have real systems that are on the verge of full autonomy.
michaelbuckbee 10y ago
Uber bought Otto [1] and is doing live trials of trucks on highways right now. Otto was granted permission and began driving on actual highways in Ohio last week: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/self-driving-truck-hits-the-road-as-ohio-discusses-research/2016/11/25/ee4c8568-b336-11e6-bc2d-19b3d759cfe7_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/self-driving-truck-h... 1 - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-tech-volvo-otto-idUSKCN10T1TR http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-tech-volvo-otto-idUSK...

bdrool 10y ago

> Also: Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive. Which probably means general demand for vehicles will fall off a cliff. Or, if everyone has a self-driving car of their own (or one that can be converted to self-driving), people will rent out their cars AirBnB-style when they aren't using them. I mean, why not? You've already got a garage, a driveway, etc. Might as well make a few extra bucks with your vehicle...

derefr 10y ago
Two sides of the same coin. If you can rent your neighbour's car, why own your own? Heck, why have driveways? In cities, at least, I could fully imagine new townhouse developments operating more like apartment buildings: one central parking lot for the "pool" of (mostly) driverless cars. Your car drops you off at your door and then parks in the pool; then comes back out to get you in the morning.
- bdrool 10y ago
  > Heck, why have driveways? My point is that millions of them already exist, with a distributed network of roads leading to them, as well as storage (garages). It would be costly to suddenly rip all those up.
  - galdosdi 10y ago
    They could be used for other purposes. People filling their garages with other junk and then having to put their car somewhere else is so common already. The driveway can become a front yard.
- aetherson 10y ago
  While driverless cars obviously make short-term car rental more attractive on a cost basis, I think that people here tend to overestimate the impact of this. * A large percentage of people will want to have their own car because they don't want to put up with the occasional hassle of unavailability of rental cars during a peak time, and/or occasional long waits for the car to reach them (particularly when they are being picked up in un-dense areas). And before you hand-wave this away, note that the more of a cost advantage you give to rental cars (ie, the higher the utilization of those cars), the more of a disadvantage cost/wait time will be. * People -- and very especially families with children -- also value cars as a mobile depot for their stuff. If you have kids of certain ages, this is practically a necessity. I definitely am not going to screw around with not just a carseat but like a dozen books and snacks and wipes and cups and so forth every time I get into/out of a rental car. * Then cleaning and status and all the other things that people regularly bring up here.

stormbrew 10y ago

Uber is literally all over the world, though. Google can barely launch a keyboard app outside the US. Or a payment system. Lyft is still constrained entirely to the US and a handful of large Asian cities. I think people severely underestimate Uber's worldwide push in preparing themselves to be a force to be reckoned with when the autonomous vehicle takes off.

rorykoehler 10y ago
It won't be worth anything because autonomous ride-sharing will be a pricing game. Anyone who undercuts Uber, and there will be plenty of willing and able companies, will beat them.
- _spoonman 10y ago
  An app that books the cheapest ride for you out of all the ride-sharing companies. Like Kayak but for ride-sharing. This comment is the same as a patent, right?
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Google has ridesharing price comparison built into Maps already.
  - web007 10y ago
    Arbitrage for cars - Carbitrage. Someone already had the domain registered the last time I checked.
  - rorykoehler 10y ago
    https://www.urbi.co/en/ https://www.urbi.co/en/ same same but for car sharing services. Ediy: seems to also include ride sharing now.
  - aetherson 10y ago
    Uber attempts to keep control of what clients connect to its API for exactly this reason.

huevosabio 10y ago

There's also Zoox, which is trying to build the car and taxi service from scratch.

serge2k 10y ago

> in 5yrs bold prediction: They won't have fully autonomous cars.

icebraining 10y ago
Define "fully".

cphoover 10y ago

a whole industry of workers will be out of the job. How will society react? Will we have a socialist revolt? Want to stay clear from politics... but seriously why isn't anyone talking about the socioeconomic impact this will have once drivers are put out of the job? IMHO this is the reason Trump won the election, because there is no plan for these people.

virmundi 10y ago
There are plenty of conversations around that idea here. UBI for example. Some people think that the population in general will retool (some will get left behind). Others point to the horse population in the US that went from some 5 million to a few hundred thousand following mechanized transportation as an example of what will happen to the middle class.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  "Retooling" sounds like such a great idea when you're a 20-something urban male single software engineer, you've got nothing to lose, and the world is yours to take. It also sounds like a great idea when you're independently wealthy and you don't have to work for a living, so you can afford to bloviate from your ivory tower. Most other demographics have very a different perspective on that concept, and for good reason. There will be cataclysmic changes ahead if we don't seriously reconsider, well, everything about society. Under the current way of thinking, millions of people will get sent to the glue factory - to persist in your horse analogy here.
  - virmundi 10y ago
    I'm with you entirely. I have no idea how to solve this problem. My cousin's husband is a truck driver. He makes a six figure income running between Indy and Chicago (bang, bang). He's going to retire before they can get rid of him, but this is a huge issue. I tried to explain this problem to my father, who's a CPA. I've pointed out that his firm can get by with a dramatically smaller office than it use to due to tech. Same's true for his lawyer friends. I pointed out that the law firms are not training the next generation like they use to since they use fewer low-level lawyers for research thanks to Lexus Nexus. Account is next. I'm not a huge fan of UBI since I think that makes people slaves of their State. We've seen such enslavement in the US under welfare programs. We've set the program up to lock people in. If they try to get out, they will lose benefits (donut hole issue). I think UBI is like that, but worse.

mschip 10y ago

Uber will continue to hold a lot of the chips in this race. Consider the Tesla or GM examples - a regression in revenue will not be acceptable. So if they're currently selling x cars at y $ a year they will need to continue that revenue without actually selling cars. This means they'll have to get really good at understanding how many rides over the span of a vehicle will continue that revenue and provide just the right amount of vehicles to meet a regions needs. Uber has that information in spades.

celticninja 10y ago
I dont see how that is the case. User is currently burning through more eyes to maintain their market position and that is without a fleet of vehicles to operate and maintain. Moving to autonomous vehicles may cut their staff costs\remove drivers from their costs column, but this cost is moved to vehicles and in many jurisdictions at least for the medium term a human driver will be required even if it is just paid to sit there.
- mschip 10y ago
  My point was that regardless of the dollars and cents for Uber to transition from staff to cars, or even if it works out at all, Uber still has the information to decide it will take X cars in Y region to make Z revenue. The only other player with that kind of information (on a smaller scale) is Lyft.
AJ007 10y ago
Netflix makes a good example it is possible to make a major business model adjustment and return shareholders very well. I think investors have a very realistic view of how much the automotive market is about to switch. The companies who provide no evidence of preparing for the switch are just as likely, to me, to see their market cap plummet as ones trying a risky pivot. Certainly some auto makers may choose to go down the route of executive assisted suicide and maximize shareholder (and executive) profit distributions in the process, as IBM decided to do. To pretend than the next 50 years will be like the last 50, I'm not sure how long that charade can hold up. Personally I think Google and Apple are the ones who hold all of the chips. This definitely can be turned in to a commodity business with a few OS adjustments. There are some cards Uber can play to avoid this, like exclusive infrastructure agreements, although not really sure where that will be permitted geographically. A more interesting question is will this look like smartphones where a single company gets 90% of the profits and the rest of the companies do huge volume but capture small to zero margins.

bambax 10y ago

> Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive But how is this going to work? In cities, everyone uses their car at exactly the same time: roughly, between 8-9 in the morning and 5-7 in the evening. If you don't own a car, chances are you won't get one when you need it to get to work on time. Or, if there are enough cars for peak hours, then demand for new cars will not fall that much (although the structure of ownership may in fact change). Other things that could change is the need for infrastructure (at least in Europe); you don't need highways and high speed trains that much if speed of travel matters much less. If your car drives itself during the night and you can sleep comfortably in it (or read, or watch movies, whatever), then the length of the trip is not paramount.

intopieces 10y ago
I could see apartment complexes and neighborhood associations partnering with these autonomous vehicle services to provide transportation for their residents, then eventually municipalities demanding it of new developments, with a reduction of parking space requirements in combination (similar to what Austin, TX does with ZipCar and businesses: if you have 2 Zip car spaces, you can reduce your parking requirement by 4).
Retric 10y ago
Often you need a car to get to the subway which does not take that long. Slug lanes also become more useful with self driving cars. Combine the two and you get a self driving car to central location > car or public transit to city center > self driving car in the city. Remember parking is often 10+$ a day due to land value, so two ~4$ trips can be a net savings. Finally, even a 20-30% drop in demand would be huge in such a capital intense industry.
- Mz 10y ago
  Remember parking is often 10+$ a day. And can be more of a hassle or less conveniently located than a transit stop.
  - deleted 10y ago

yalogin 10y ago

If I have to bet against anybody it will be Uber. They will be burning cash and given that Google just gave up on building hardware why would one think Uber will succeed?

Dibes 10y ago
To be fair I don't think Google is the gold standard for hardware. Outside of a few successful hardware releases (Chromecast and arguably the pixel line) they seem to struggle in this area.
freyr 10y ago
> why would one think Uber will succeed Uber hasn't demonstrated a capacity to succeed, but unlike their rivals, they need self-driving cars to succeed for their company to succeed. The CEO has called self-driving cars "existential" to Uber. Contrast this with Google. Self-driving cars are an expensive hobby to Google, and completely inconsequential to the success of their core business.

googthrwwy1234 10y ago

None of the above. Tesla will reconsider and re-fashion Autopilot as an advanced driver assist. A car that you drive yourself, but can't crash would be worth a significant premium. Everyone else will ride the PR gravy train and GTFO a few years later. Google is just the first of many.

agumonkey 10y ago

Reminds me how quickly I forgot about Uber test fleet from not long ago.

rb808 10y ago

> Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive. Which probably means general demand for vehicles will fall off a cliff. I really dont agree with this. Cars a so cheap now and I'd much rather use my own than some dirty shared car. Already renting a car is annoying as you never know if you'll get charged for some damage that you didn't cause, I can't imagine having the same issue every day. Having the car drop me off then go away and autopark is something that I'd value though. :)

946789987649 10y ago
I disagree on the damage thing purely because this would be the same situation as Boris Bikes, which actually work really well.
j2bax 10y ago
Presumably, in a shared autonomous vehicle, the only thing you'd be responsible would be the interior. I would think this would be fairly easy to monitor on a user to user basis.
slackstation 10y ago
It's not either or. Autonomous service for commuting is still highly valuable even if you retain your own car. Over the medium term, this will only encourage ever more massive and distant suburb creep. Also, with longer commutes less tiresome, the negative cost of having a longer commute will be mitigated. As for the stranger effect, there are many innovations on that front as well. Google is already has a working app that tries to arrange commutes for true ride sharing where passengers only compensate the driver for the pure cost of the ride. It's cheap and effective if you are a bit flexible in the morning. I can see autonomous services being so cheap that they become the new corporate perk and companies find value by having employees ride together, share ideas, socialize, etc. Also, the economies of scale alone would make a private automated car trip still cheaper than owning privately an autonomous vehicle. The technology will move fast enough that the vast majority people will be switching from a human operated car to a self-driving car service. I can see the ad campaigns now. Basically showing people how much cheaper and safer and more convenient it is. Cars can be seen like horses were before them, an expensive hassle that requires land for storage and usage. If you think about it, people have whole buildings just for storing cars, garages, like we did with horses, barns. 15 years from now suburbs will be built without garages and driveways. There will be a cottage industry for people to convert garages and carparks into more usable space. 20 years from now, multistory car parking lots will be the new conversion buildings like the old meat packing and textile plans that used to be in downtown areas that were turned into lofts. Polished concrete floors will feature the original parking space numbers. The open sides will feature panoramic views. Lastly, having your own car will be a throwback element. People who like to 4x4 or work on their own cars (a huge market that might actually grow in the medium term) will fill this but, even then they'll use automated services to commute. The number of people who have hobby cars (off-roading, auto racing, vintage collectibles, restoration) will skyrocket because a car no longer has to be a daily driver. Or people might care less about cars, I don't presume to know the complex of a future of human desire. But, in a world full of cheap cars that you driver yourself, automated car services will still create so much value that people will still switch.

rajeshp1986 10y ago

But that doesn;t mean companies should be afraid to try new things. History is evident that more companies died resisting the change than anything else. Car ownership going down should not mean companies like Uber should not venture into self-driving cars although by burning huge VC money. Even the VC's who funded would want Uber to the fore runner in the self-driving cars. The other factors why companies are still investing although they might loose money are: 1) It will take atleast 5-7 years for self-driving cars to become ubiquitous. Till then there is good uprising market for every player to make money. secondly, if you have a product ready, it might open up new markets in future which currently no one realizes. 2) Car ownership will still be there. People who can afford it will still prefer private self-driving car than waiting for Uber/Lyft. I would say self-driving private car will be seen as a new luxury status. 3) car manufacturing will definitely go down with less demand but car manufactures will venture into different pricing model with ride companies. Right now, a car is a one time sell for a manufacturer. It might be subscription which ride company uses.

coroutines 10y ago

All I see when I look at a car is a very costly set of risks. I'd rather pay for someone else to manage those risks. Car subscriptions++

devy 10y ago

Where is Apple's in that list? ;)

Animats 10y ago

Five years from now: * All the big auto manufacturers are shipping self-driving cars. Volvo is the first to ship a Level 3 system to real customers. * Tesla is doing OK, but the big electric car brand is Chevy. * Waymo is a Tier I supplier to Fiat/Chrysler. * GM and Ford are using their own self-driving technology. * Uber is still around, but is out of investor cash, and has to be profitable to pay back its loans. The service is much more expensive to use. Their self-driving thing never works out for them because they can't spend big money to buy cars, build garages, and staff up for maintenance. * Lyft is still around, about the same as it is now. * The mini autonomous bus people have some installations, but they're rare outside airports and campuses.

DennisP 10y ago
Why Volvo?
- jfim 10y ago
  Volvo has been doing research on self-driving cars for a while, with existing vehicles in operation for research purposes.
- tim333 10y ago
  "Level 3: Within known, limited environments (such as freeways), the driver can safely turn their attention away from driving tasks" Volvo have announced shipping that in 2017. I don't think anyone else has. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q00jIBhkq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q00jIBhkq4)
  - grecy 10y ago
    Based on the videos on YouTube, I would say Tesla are already shipping that.
    - tim333 10y ago
      Tesla say you should look where you're going still.

dboreham 10y ago

This assumes autonomous vehicles exist, which they don't.

jedberg 10y ago
Wait five years. It'll almost certainly happen. The technology is solvable and lots of very big companies are spending billions to make it happen.
- marssaxman 10y ago
  That's what people said five years ago. I am sure something will happen eventually, but it will take longer than people expect and the results will never be as good as people are currently fantasizing that they might be. We'll get to "good enough" but never to "great".
  - jedberg 10y ago
    I don't know of anyone who was saying self driving is only five years away in 2011. It was still a fantasy then. Now we actually have working software and hardware, and real people are experiencing self driving. I live in the bay area, but not a month goes by that I don't see a self driving vehicle at some point. And that's not counting the Teslas that are autopiloting their way down the highway next to me that I don't even know about.
    - marssaxman 10y ago
      How is it that "real people are experiencing self driving"? I was under the impression that Google's autonomous vehicle and other projects like it were still all technology research prototypes. There is a very big difference between the sort of next-generation cruise control driver assistance features Tesla and others are providing, and the sort of fully autonomous wheeled robot people are fantasizing about when they hyperventilate over the city of the future and its wondrous transportation technologies. Maybe my negative feelings are excessive; I'm just really, really tired of having people jump in with the whole "but self-driving cars will change everything!!!" routine every time people try to have a serious conversation about public transit investment.

shostack 10y ago

And the fallout for the economy will be interesting. What does it do to home prices when a long commute is less of an issue? What happens to all the cottage industries built around the assumption of someone owning and driving their car? Etc.

jcranmer 10y ago

> Also: Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive. Which probably means general demand for vehicles will fall off a cliff. I've seen this sentiment so many times now that I have to ask a serious question to anyone who echoes this sentiment: Do you own a personal car right now? If so, why? All of this... excitement over the transformations that self-driving vehicles will bring to the world of transit basically boils down to a model that's a mixture between taxi service and (really crappy) bus service, both of which exist today and have existed for several decades--and basically predate the automobile when you think about it. Yet somehow self-driving vehicles are supposed to completely change the mix of transit use when it's not really adding any capability changes. So I'm genuinely curious as to what the magic sauce is that makes people so giddy for this future.

anonymousDan 10y ago
Exactly, unless self driving cars become cheaper than taxis then what is the point?
- Gravityloss 10y ago
  I thought that was the whole idea?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ygjb-dupe 10y ago
  They don't need to be cheaper, they need to deliver better service. Depending on the city, better might be faster, more available, less racist, less intense experience, cleaner, etc, etc, etc. They don't need to be cheaper in most places, at least not yet.
hehheh 10y ago
Taxis suck and busses suck. Self driving cars have the potential to give you the benefits of the taxis and busses without as many downsides. Not sure what more you'd need to understand why folks are excited about this. Not having to own, insure, maintain, or park a car. End to end transportation with no transfers that allows you to internet while you travel. Cheaper than human driven cabs (presumably).

flexie 10y ago

Why would anyone own a house when they can rent an apartment? Why don't we share bathrooms with the neighbors? Why have a small garden that needs maintenance when there is a huge park nearby? Why did I just buy a printer when I need it so rarely and there is a copy shop downstairs? Why do people have washers when laundromats exist? I think ownership means more to most people than just convenience or being the cheapest option.

hehheh 10y ago
A lot of people do choose to rent. Most people get food from stores, not gardens. Roads themselves are shared resources. Why did you buy a printer?
icebraining 10y ago
It does mean more, but it's not immune to other constraints, and it may be enough to make demand fall off a cliff. Cars are expensive (relative to the average income) and for many, it'll be hard to justify ownership if the alternative is cheaper.

atarian 10y ago

It's too bad these companies are not working together on this stuff since any improvements to safety would be a win for everyone.

nothrabannosir 10y ago
I would disagree: fierce competition is what will get us there the fastest. Every company is already a team of people working together. Let the games begin, and may the best team win. And may we, the consumer, forever reap the benefits :) In a cooperative environment, bad players bring everyone down. In competition, they drown, and only the strongest survive.

ams6110 10y ago

You've mentioned $1 a ride a couple of times. Where is this number coming from? It doesn't pass the smell test to me. Even bus fare is several times this amount.

nojvek 10y ago
Let's do some rough math here. Say initial cost of the electric self driving car is $50,000. It has life of 20 years. After 20 years, value will go to 0. Per year: $2500 Service per year: $2500 (HN mechanics, is this reasonable?) Miles travelled/ year: 50,000 (5x human utilization) Miles/Kwh: 3 (based on tesla efficiency) Avg electricity cost in US: 12c / Kwh Cost to drive 50,000 miles: $2000 Total / year: $7000 Cost per mile: 14c / mile Average trip length: 7 miles Cost per trip: 98c (very close to $1) I think this is definitely possible.
- arghbleargh 10y ago
  50,000 miles/year * 20 years = 1,000,000 miles does not seem reasonable...
  - nojvek 10y ago
    1 million miles is unreasonable for humans driving gas guzzlers. Not for electric self driving cars which optimize for safety and wear and tear. They have less moving parts too. There are plenty of trucks, buses and taxis that have done a million miles in 20 years.

perseusprime11 10y ago

Can we also make it mandatory for these autonomous cars to be electric and not use gas?

ainiriand 10y ago

I have the feeling that Toyota actually is going to make it for everyone. They are incredible car makers.

jpindar 10y ago
And incredibly horrible software makers.

norswap 10y ago

The world is bigger than Silicon Valley, or even the US.

joeguilmette 10y ago

And here we go: https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/ubers-self-driving-cars-start-picking-up-passengers-in-san-francisco/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/ubers-self-driving-cars-st...