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>Unless electric cars are going to generate less revenue than petroleum based, which they won't, the pie is the same size As battery prices continue to fall, e
by woodandsteel 7y ago
>Unless electric cars are going to generate less revenue than petroleum based, which they won't, the pie is the same size
As battery prices continue to fall, electrics will get cheaper than ice's, so there will be less revenue. Beyond that, fsd means many people who now own a car will use robotaxis instead, which means many fewer autos needed. In addition Tesla is working on making its cars last a million miles. So total auto industry revenue is due to go way down.
- pnutjam 7y agoDon't believe the hype.
- woodandsteel 7y agoIf you think I am wrong, then it would be helpful if you explained what you think the truth is.
- pnutjam 7y agoSelf driving cars and rental instead of ownership is at least 15 to 20 years out.
- ctdonath 7y agoSelf driving is big. Like digital photography replacing film, once people see the value they'll switch to it seemingly overnight instead of decades. (Long drives go from painful to trivial.) Rental is overrated. When I need to drive, there better be a car in my driveway with my gear in it already. Rental may work for urban, but not suburban/rural.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoMuch longer for something that is safe outside the So-Cal weather environment.
- toss1 7y agoThe move motivated by Full Self Drive away from full-time ownership and towards robotaxis should indeed reduce the number of personally owned vehicles, but would it really reduce the number of vehicles? Instead of vehicles driving 150K miles over 11 years (~~ average car age now in US) a robotaxi could burn through 500 miles in a day or 500K miles in 2.7 years. They'd certainly need the interior replaced several times in that period. Overall miles driven, could it increase with robotaxis, if the cost per mile is less than for owned cars? I'd think so, since it would open up car usage to whole new classes of people who don't use cars much, since they can now 'buy' the usage of the car a lower rates and in the smallest package, of only the miles they need. Anyone have some data that points more strongly in either direction?
- the8472 7y ago> Overall miles driven, could it increase with robotaxis Perhaps, but when robotaxis are a thing then robobuses will be too, which can drive vehicle-miles down even as passenger-miles go up.
- Faark 7y agoRobotaxis will quickly become highly durable (well, maintenance become cheap), since for the first time incentives mostly align. The car will be produced and maintained by the same one of few powerful corporations. The bigger problem will be aligning incentives with the customer. Especially regarding safety, since riders can hardly evaluate that by themself.
- toss1 7y ago>>Especially regarding safety, Yes, that's a big one, and indeed may be setting up a commons problem, if not strongly regulated. For the short term, and for each individual company, cutting corners for safety will be in their interest (save funds now at no cost). But for the industry and the long term, the entire concept could be destroyed by a relatively small but tragic number of safety failures. A few high-profile passenger deaths will probably be covered in the volume of terrorist attacks, and even if the actual risk is still small, give the impression of horrible widespread risk. I'd like to hope that all the players are responsible and far-sighted, but the experience with Uber killing the cyclist in Arizona does not bode well -- they had many lapses and corner cutting, only reforming a bit when they killed someone.