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VW Will Sell You Self-Driving for $8.50/Hour Someday. Too High or Too Low?
- endisneigh 6y agoToo high. You can take a train from the edge of Manhattan to Harlem, about an hour trip for what, $2? How long would that same trip take during the day via car? 45 minutes maybe? EDIT: clarified starting position
- genericone 6y agoThat's metro to metro where economies of scale dictate mass transit, but what about rural to rural, or rural to metro where there are no mass transit? What about last-mile? Last-mile is the most expensive step for parcel carriers even.
- willis936 6y agoYou can't even take a train from Baltimore to DC for less than $10, which is only an hour drive between two travel hubs.
- mc32 6y ago>”...in their cars...” That’s key. It’s their cars and they want to charge them seven bucks an hour? Yes, some people will be happy to sit back and sleep and pay that, but not Joe and Jill Six-Pack.
- bentaber 6y agoFWIW, Harlem is a neighborhood in Manhattan, and depending on where you start from elsewhere in Manhattan it's ~5-20 minutes.
- endisneigh 6y agothat's true. I clarified.
- hilbertseries 6y agoSelf driving cars will never be as cheap as a train... Why would you compare the two?
- endisneigh 6y agoThey both transport you places?
- tasssko 6y agoToo high for me too. I’d consider the marginal utility of their self driving more at a price like that. The motor industry is in a interesting place with more of them considering subscriptions for feature unlocks. I think it’s a good thing if it means they can invest more to create better software. I don’t agree with it however and if i buy a car i want to know i own the car and won’t need a subscription to operate features. For example My Mercedes Me subscription lapsed a year or two ago i can’t be bothered to renew it… the features are just not that useful. Considering that many of the Mercedes Me features are free on a Tesla.
- NikolaNovak 6y agoThat doesn't even seem apples and oranges, though. Today, if I want point-to-point, custom flexible timing and start/destination locations, with reasonable privacy and comfort, it'll cost me a lot more than either $2 or $8.5. For example, a taxi from my home to airport is ~45min and typically costs me $75-$90CAD. In Ottawa, a taxi trip from hotel to work is ~5-8min and is $11CAD. So $8.5 for an hour is literally an order of magnitude less than what I'm currently paying. But after going through the article I still don't 100% get what's the actual model - $8.50 total ad-hoc cost (essentially renting a service)? Or, as it appears, some implicit baseline hardware cost / traditional purcahse (buy a $xx,xxx.99 vehicle), in which case a subscription-based additional hourly cost would only serve to peeve me off?
- fallingknife 6y agoThis is taking advantage of the fact that the metro charges a flat fee for trips of any length, when the average trip is much shorter. It also assumes that you are going between two places that happen to be right next to metro stations.
- listenallyall 6y agoExactly. That's why yellow cabs, black cars, and Uber have never been able to gain a foothold in New York City. Those $2 subway rides to Harlem. /s
- nix23 6y agoIs it a diesel?
- rorykoehler 6y agoIf that happens I’d rather buy and install my own kit.
- NegativeLatency 6y agoI’d refuse to pay that on principal, I already own the car.
- layoutIfNeeded 6y ago$8.50/hr? I can hire a human driver for that price.
- genericone 6y agoWhat if you want to go to an obscure trailhead? What taxi or driver would be willing to drive out 2 hours? Getting picked up, what driver-for-hire will come out 2 hours to pick you up?
- BenjiWiebe 6y agoMaybe it's just a system where remote workers can drive the car for you! Might almost be feasible.
- outside1234 6y agoWill it cheat on the safety compliance tests?
- hughrr 6y agoI could just hire someone to drive for $7.25/hr or rent a whole car for $24 a day. Nope.
- GavinMcG 6y agoWho is subsidizing the $7.25/hr driver? That amount isn't enough to include health coverage, and is barely enough to cover necessities. Edit: just realized what a crazy world I live in when I unthinkingly categorize health coverage as something other than a necessity.
- hughrr 6y agoI’m actually from the UK myself. So I picked random Googled US min wage and assumed the poor driver would have to beg for tips and go bankrupt if he was sick.
- asciident 6y agoIt's at least double that now. Rental cars may be triple.
- hughrr 6y agoYeah to be fair I haven’t been to the US for about 5 years so that’s probably well out of date on car rentals.
- richardanaya 6y agoI look forward to the first competitor to undercut.
- vagrantJin 6y agoIs uber cheaper or more expensive?
- tyingq 6y agoI always pay significantly more than $8.50 for trips that are significantly less than an hour. I think $8.50/hour sounds incredibly cheap, like "wholesale" cheap considering the cost of fuel.
- vishnugupta 6y agoIn the US, Uber is an order of magnitude more expensive. For comparison I did a few Uber trips from Palo Alto, CA to downtown SF. It's about 45 miles (~70KM) I think and took tad under an hour. Uber charged me somewhere between $50-$60. In India, on the other hand in a metro city you can cover between 20KM-30KM in an hour for which Uber charges around $7 (i.e., ~ INR 500).
- tlb 6y agoAn interesting price point. Some relevant comparisons are (at highway speed): - $8/hr in gas for compact gasoline cars (30 MPG, $4/gallon) - $2.25/hr in electricity for electric cars (0.25 kWh/mile, $0.15/kWh) - $12/hr in depreciation ($40k car lasting 200k miles) - $32/hr is the IRS-approved reimbursement rate, supposed to cover fuel, maintenance, depreciation
- savanaly 6y agoThe missing part, not that we have a way to estimate, is cost of labor to drive the car. People don't usually factor it in but self-driving offers the ability to sleep, listen to music, work, have conversation or whatever during the driving time. People seem to value their time at wildly different rates but it's not $0/hour.
- PaulHoule 6y agoI am always shocked that a craft store has 100+ kinds of acrylic yarn and maybe one or two wool yarns if that. It seems a grandmother will spend 20 hours knitting a scarf and not care that they can make a much better product for a few $ more in materials. In other case synthetic materials be might really better, but for knitted scarfs, sweaters, and such it no contest. One material will protect you from fire by forming a char (wool) and the other will melt and transport heat right to your skin and make sure you get burned.
- Syonyk 6y agoExcept I can do most of those things already. Listen to music, yes, for most of the vehicles I've owned, though the most recent purchase has no radio (it predates radios in cars being a thing). Have a conversation, I mean... yes? This is where my wife and I get a lot of discussions in, rolling down the road. If I want to talk to someone remotely, I can just pair my phone and have a conversation that way. Work? Not directly, but I'm certainly free to have a complex problem rolling around in my head, pondering it from various angles, as I navigate down the road. At least for the stuff I do, this is the hard part, not the actual typing of code. Sleep? No, but I work with technology for a living. There's no way in hell I would trust self driving nearly enough to close my eyes, much less actually sleep. Maybe in a few decades, but... if I drove in some areas like the current self driving tech, I'd be pulled over for driving while plastered. I've no problem with driver assist technologies, but with where self driving is, we may as well be discussing antimater powered starships. "What would you pay for a ride on the Enterprise?"
- Meerax 6y agoAgain with buying a product and having to pay extra to rent/lease capabilities already baked in? Is there some parallel here to the right to repair arguments with John Deere?
- mrtksn 6y agoThat’s suspiciously like remote driver from 3rd world salary with added commission.
- stewx 6y agoThat's actually a pretty good idea. I don't see a problem with this. Virtual cab driver for your own car.
- frompdx 6y agoSo, even self driving AI will demand more than the federal minimum wage?
- PeterStuer 6y agoToo high or too low is the wrong question. Is this a business-model we should entertain is a better question.
- murph-almighty 6y agoIf they do this, self driving will shoot itself in the foot. No one's paying for a robot to do this for _slightly less than minimum wage in most states_.
- fallingknife 6y agoSounds like you have to own the car so too high. If I don't have to own the car and could just call it like an Uber, this would be a great price.
- duxup 6y agoI'd be a bit irked by the subscription style / pay extra for the thing I already bought ... the idea they could just turn it off if I don't pay? model here.
- genericone 6y agoSubscription style might be the only stomach-able model if the car company is going to be liable for "driving your car for you", almost like additional insurance only for when the fleet is operating in self-driving mode, and standard warranty terms when the car is operated by the user or idle.
- luke2m 6y agoCosts more than a minimum wage worker makes in the USA.
- sirsinsalot 6y agoWell, yet another needless subscription service. There will come a point where we own nothing and rent everything. If your income stops, so does everything else. Some of us im sure could manage the cashflow, and benefit from it, but for most it'll be subsistence in disguise.
- nawgz 6y ago> for most it'll be subsistence in disguise I fear the world is already going this way. As a person approaching 30, most of my peers who did not stumble into lucrative tech careers are not doing well. Student debts still not paid off, working crappy paid jobs full time to rent cheap apartments, savings barely appearing let alone down payments for nice housing. It doesn't surprise me to see the corporations lean into "services" and subscriptions; they are a great resource extractor
- Syonyk 6y ago> where we own nothing and rent everything This is literally the "dream" of many - see the World Economic Forum's predictions about the future. It's a great dream for those doing the renting of stuff, and a nightmare for everyone else.
- xattt 6y agoWait till self-driving capabilities are imposed by authorities in the name of safety. Don’t like it‽ Take the publicly funded option: the bus!
- irishloop 6y agoIs it needless? Right now car ownership has a lot of extra costs for your normal, middle-class American * Car payment * Insurance payment * Maintenance costs * Parking costs * Possible tolls * Repairs * Possibly roadside assistance * Property tax (in some jurisdictions) These are all costs of ownership. For people who own very cheap cars, or who can afford to pay cash for cars, it may be costly, but for many others, it may, in fact, streamline quite a few costs that they're already absorbing and managing.
- tomrod 6y agoRight to repair is not supported by this business model, so its disuse is a foregone conclusion.
- bradtemp 6y agoIt is challenging, but so far, have people refused to buy products/services they can't repair? Have all those products died in the market as a foregone conclusion?
- tomrod 6y agoNo -- the issue is when you have a durable good, there is more return to encourage obsolescence than there is to make it repairable.
- saynotobloat 6y agoToo high. There are car sharing companies renting as low as $6 an hour in a normal market.
- temp667 6y agoPerfect - this is exactly what I want vs paying $15K. Running errands, no need to it. But I drive to clients and other longer trips, this is game changing if I could go full hands off and work during that time. Uber runs about $100/hr I think - so if I could use my own car and not have to take uber (I often take uber precisely so I can work) then it's perfect. If price is 1/10th of the the marginal cost even better.
- varispeed 6y agoThe title should be corrected - "VW Will _Rent_ You (...)". Regardless the price, I prefer to own things, so I am not a target customer.
- xkcd-sucks 6y agoAbout enough to pay the wage of a remote-control driver located in a developing country
- cm2012 6y agoI mean Uber costs $100 an hour in NY so thats a huge bargain?
- Syonyk 6y agoWrong concept, fundamentally. "We must extract as much value from every minute of a person's life, in recurring fees!" is the sort of thinking that means I won't "engage with a product." Even if I end up using an objectively worse solution that isn't trying to put a timer on everything in my life and bill for it. This, and every other modern way of trying to charge for features like this, continues down the path of "Sure, you might hold the title to the equipment, but it's still the manufacturers, and you will use it at their pleasure or not at all." It's more and more true in cars, it's exceedingly true in new farm equipment, and it's nonsense, in all forms. Sell me a feature I can use as I choose, or don't bother. I don't want an always-on cellular OTA VPN link to the mothership to validate my credit card before engaging cloud-learning-based 5G self driving. I'd like a car I can use to get around, on my terms, with the tracking I choose (I choose none). Practically speaking, though, since self driving doesn't exist outside some very limited cases, probably won't exist in a generally useful form for a decade or longer, and probably won't handle things I do on a regular basis (passing a tractor on a rural two lane), it's like asking me what I'd be willing to pay for fusion power. Make it work first, then ask.
- dghlsakjg 6y agoFantastic price if it is the full cost of running the car. Pretty bad deal if it is the marginal cost on top of having to own and operate the car and have to pay for the hardware to run the AP when you buy the car. I get why subscriptions are a thing for access to a continuously maintained and improved software product. I just hate that they are trying to pin it on incremental use instead of access. To me this feels too much like if Netflix tried to charge per hour consumed. I don't rent movies anymore because I like having access to a library. I feel the same way about my car. I bought a proper 4x4 because I need the ability to access high clearance low traction areas, and I paid for that upfront in the cost of the vehicle. I don't want to pay an extra $8/hr to use those features after already paying for them.
- headcanon 6y agoI don't think I would want that if I have to pay for the car on top of that, although I can see it being useful for long road trips - a drive to Chicago is about 5 and a half hours for me and $40-50 is about what I would pay in gas to get there, but I don't think I would feel too good about paying it, which would impact my brand relationship long term.
- ceilingcorner 6y agoPretty soon it will be considered anti-social or outdated to want to own your own independent vehicle that isn’t managed by centralized software systems or rented monthly. This is already largely the case with music and other digital products. It really worries me that the next generation of automobiles seems anti-decentralization by design.
- StanislavPetrov 6y ago>Pretty soon it will be considered anti-social or outdated to want to own your own independent vehicle that isn’t managed by centralized software systems or rented monthly. Given the trajectory of society this only makes having an independent vehicle more attractive.
- jcims 6y agoIs it level 5 that can drive on its own? if i could summon my car from a bar and have it drive me home for $5 i'd pay it all day long. If you fully financed a Tesla FSD option for 6 years it would run ~$150/mo or $5/day.
- frabjoused 6y agoThe premise of this article just ruined self driving for me. Right or wrong, I always imagined the self-driving future as something the car just does. You buy a car, you get air conditioning, self driving and windshield wipers. A subscription for this feels toxic.
- starclerk 6y agoProbably. I used to commute a stressful ~40 mins by car and would happily spend $6 to be able to read or nap on the way home. I'd definitely pay more to use someone else's self-driving car (and insurance liability, more importantly).
- ortusdux 6y agoThe best pre-covid estimate I could find for annual driving time is 18 days/adult/year. At 8.5$/hr, that works out to $3,672/year for the average adult. Tesla charges $10k for their software upgrade to ~level 2 driving. So roughly 3 years to the break-even point, if the service is the same.
- patatino 6y agoThat would be great for our current needs. I work from home, and we drive maybe 10 000 km annually. Let's calculate with 50km/h because a lot of that is not on the highway. So 200 hours * $8.50 = $1600 I would love that! Now to the crucial part as a family: - Is the car coming with the two seats for my kids? - How to load/unload all the stuff we have? Stroller, Kickboard etc?
- malf 6y agoCorporations are going to capture all the value of automation, aren’t they? No need to worry about right-to-repair laws when you can make last year’s firmware illegal for “safety” reasons. Someone hit your jailbroken car? Oops, no insurance for you.
- annoyingnoob 6y agoVW can keep its 'smart car'. I'll keep maintaining my dumb car - look at Cuba and North Korea, you can keep old cars running a long time.
- iamEAP 6y agoWas hoping the actual linked interview would clarify this, but it too didn’t seem crisp: would it be the cost of buying the car new + $8.50 per hour? Or is the idea that I never have to buy the thing outright, but I could get access to a self-driving car for $8.50 per hour? The former seems absurd for many of the reasons found in the comments here. The latter would be appealing to me.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- warmfuzzykitten 6y agoRidiculously high. Say you have a one-hour commute each way. That would be $170/week for driving. Costs more than leasing the car.
- mgarfias 6y ago8.50/hr if I’m sitting in Portland traffic!? Shut up and take my money
- Bancakes 6y agoHow do you charge someone hourly for a static piece of code? It's already been written, the AI has been trained. How do you justify spending money on a product that doesn't change?
- bradtemp 6y agoThese systems are expected to be constantly changing and improving, and making use of constant streams of new data on updates to roads, traffic, and more in order to run.
- Bancakes 6y agoI don't want that, I just want to drive to the mall and back.
- bradtemp 6y agoYes, but the road to the mall changes from time to time, and the parking lot in the mall changes (watch a video of Waymo having to deal with a christmas tree lot set up in the parking lot of one of the malls they take a customer to.) No, they won't sell you the self-driving without the update service because they can't pass the liability on to you unless you're very rich.
- sorethescore 6y agoSelf driving is a safety feature that will save lives. Charging a subscription fee or a fee per hour will cost lives and isn't worth whatever profits they might make.
- notatoad 6y agobefore reading the article, i thought $8.50/hr for self-driving sounded like an amazing deal, assuming they meant a waymo-like service where that was the total cost. but $8.50/hr to unlock a feature of a car you purchased and have to pay maintenance and fuel costs on seems like a pretty terrible deal.