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Another point that I don't see that is often discussed. I think future of cars are autonomous cars that you pay monthly subscription fees to drive you around. Y

by pavs 8y ago

Another point that I don't see that is often discussed. I think future of cars are autonomous cars that you pay monthly subscription fees to drive you around. Yes, autonomous cars still have some way to go. But since we are talking about the 10-year timeline here - it's not unreasonable to assume that fully autonomous cars will be ready by 10 years time. If anyone, where to ask who are the top 10 autonomous carmakers, is, Tesla wouldn't be even on the top 10, because what they are selling is driver assist and ALL serious autonomous car project has LiDAR, except for Tesla. Elon is kinda hell-bent on LiDAR not needed, side of the argument. At top of the autonomous car companies, Waymo is very far ahead of the rest of the crowd and most car companies have some kind of series side project and working on their own solutions. There is a common consensus among (most) car manufacturers is that autonomous cars will kill the personal car industry - or at least severally constrain it. I actually think this to be true. Most car companies will find a way to adapt to this changing industry by deploying their own solution or partnering with the market leader (like Waymo). Car companies that are already struggling financially, like Tesla, will be severely affected when this change comes along. Tesl's biggest selling point is their battery (EV), and there is nothing magical going on that other manufacturer cannot replicate a similar performance. The reason jumping on EV bandwagon right away (almost all of them have projects that are 2-3 years away if not more), is because the demand is minuscule compared to the overall market share. There are more that one way that Tesla future doesn't look that good. They need a lot of things to go right for them to survive in the next 10 years.

sliken 8y ago
I don't see it mattering. Seems reasonably likely that 75% of the population will want to commute during rush hour, thus no large decrease in the number of cars needed. So sure volume will go down, but duty cycle will go up. So instead of $35k cars that last 150k miles on average we will end up with $70k cars that last 300k or more miles. You can be sure that in today's litigious society (at least in the USA) that unreasonable safety standards (think of the children) that will be very expensive to meet. Notice that every tesla crash is "news", yet tow trucks are quite busy with accidents of non-telsa, and ICE car fires are hardly rare. I suspect even at 10x as safe as human drivers that people will be actively asking for more regulation and higher standards. Seems strange that people will push for higher standards, which means higher prices, which means fewer cars, which means more road deaths. But that seems to be where we are today.

by pavs 8y ago

sliken 8y ago

I don't see it mattering. Seems reasonably likely that 75% of the population will want to commute during rush hour, thus no large decrease in the number of cars needed. So sure volume will go down, but duty cycle will go up. So instead of $35k cars that last 150k miles on average we will end up with $70k cars that last 300k or more miles. You can be sure that in today's litigious society (at least in the USA) that unreasonable safety standards (think of the children) that will be very expensive to meet. Notice that every tesla crash is "news", yet tow trucks are quite busy with accidents of non-telsa, and ICE car fires are hardly rare. I suspect even at 10x as safe as human drivers that people will be actively asking for more regulation and higher standards. Seems strange that people will push for higher standards, which means higher prices, which means fewer cars, which means more road deaths. But that seems to be where we are today.