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A geofenced robo taxi service does nothing to improve my life. The real usefulness of self driving cars will come when you can fall asleep in the back as it dri
by valine 7y ago
A geofenced robo taxi service does nothing to improve my life. The real usefulness of self driving cars will come when you can fall asleep in the back as it drives across the country. Also you can’t set up a mobile office in the back of a taxi, so productivity in robo taxis will be no better than regular taxis.
For self driving to be truly useful to the end consumer car ownership needs to be an option.
- rwmj 7y agoThat may apply to you, but I only drive long distance once every few months. My life would be much improved by a driverless car/service which could go back and forth between my house and the train station. It's a distance of about 4 miles with three roads and two junctions. (We use driven taxis for this at the moment but they're expensive and limited by availability of drivers. Buses would also be good but it appears there isn't sufficient demand to run a regular service at a profit).
- baron816 7y agoI’d be happy with it if it could drive me from my apartment in Menlo Park to downtown Palo Alto.
- LeanderK 7y agoYeah, my life is a different situation and I would very much benefit from a geofenced rob-taxi service to supplement public transport and medium range trips. I don't own a car and don't plan to, bicycle and public transport is sufficient for where I life. I don't even have a driving licences, I plan to do it one day but it's not important currently. I would never take the autonomous car to drive across the countries, i think taking the train is just the superior experience. In a car you're crammed in this tiny space, whereas a train is a smooth ride with lots of space, internet and something to charge your laptop. I don't think setting up a mobile office in a vehicle is that important for most people.
- adrr 7y agoYour use case is very limited. Using cabs instead of driving to work at a similar price point would cover majority of the population. Most costly part of a cab is the driver's time. I can browse my phone during my commute which i can't even do with my Tesla and Autopilot.
- ghaff 7y agoMost estimates put cost of the driver in a cab at about 50%. So if the cost of the car doesn’nge you half the cost of a cab. So maybe $1 per mile? 2x the IRS deduction for driving seems a reasonable ballpark for a managed service.
- imtringued 7y agoYou can already sleep in an aircraft, train, bus or car as long as someone else is driving the vehicle. I don't see how that is innovative.
- valine 7y agoA car can go pretty much anywhere, public transportation not so much. If you can sleep in a self driving car then logistically much more of the world will be accessible to you. Hit a button, go to sleep, wake up wherever you want. To me this would be much more exciting than cheaper taxies.
- semi-extrinsic 7y agoExcept sleeping in a car (or a bus, train, airplane) is really really uncomfortable. But cars more than the rest, since you are much more restrained due to seat belts.
- valine 7y agoThat’s because cars are not designed to be slept in. Inflatable mattress and a seatbelt/harness designed to be worn lying down and the problem is solved.
- falcor84 7y agoExactly. And perhaps it's even that once autonomous cars have proven themselves enough, you wouldn't even need a seatbelt for a regular ride. The car might just beep once every few hours to ask you to buckle up on particularly dangerous sections, like on an airplane.