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I feel like people here are missing the other factor that will drive adoption of self driving vehicles: economics. Safety is obviously important, but we alread
by cgrealy 5y ago
I feel like people here are missing the other factor that will drive adoption of self driving vehicles: economics.
Safety is obviously important, but we already accept a decrease in safety over money and convenience (otherwise, we would have a 30kph speed limit everywhere).
But most people use their car for commuting, groceries, dropping the kids to sports, etc. They may make one or two road trips a year for vacations or business.
To facilitate this, a middle class family will often own two vehicles, pay tax, insurance and maintenance on said vehicles, pay for parking, etc.
If that suddenly wasn't necessary, that would be a massive saving for most people. You no longer need the capital investment in something that loses value.
Even better, you don't need to bring little Suzy to football, you can put her in a waymo instead (once she's old enough obviously).
And when you want to go drive to see grandma, you rent a car for the longer trip.
All of that depends on affordable self driving transport of course.
- danpat 5y agoEconomics has also already given us lots of information on how much money people are prepared to sink into transportation - the owners of the self-driving cars/rental companies will attempt to extract that value. I don't doubt there will be a shift in the overall economic picture, but it may not be as large for the car _user_ as we would hope. It will need to be better/cheaper in some dimension for it to get adopted, but the rent-seeking vultures are always circling, spoiling the utopia :-(
- throwaway2037 5y agoI'm confused why many people automatically assume robot taxis will be cheaper. Financial Times (Alphaville Blog): The questionable economics of autonomous taxi fleets: https://www.ft.com/content/aa05823d-e58f-33ee-a99c-d50f2fd0cb7b https://www.ft.com/content/aa05823d-e58f-33ee-a99c-d50f2fd0c... ... quotes this Harvard/MIT study: Autonomous Taxis and Public Health: High Cost or High Opportunity Cost?: https://psyarxiv.com/6e94h https://psyarxiv.com/6e94h <<<Drawing on a wealth of publicly available data, Ashley Nunes and his colleague Kristen Hernandez suggest that the price for taking an autonomous taxi will be between $1.58 to $6.01 on a per-mile basis, versus the $0.72 cost of owning a car. Using San Francisco’s taxi market as its test area, the academics examined a vast array of costs such as licensing, maintenance, fuel and insurance for their calculations.>>> I can imagine that as the world grows more urbanised, and wealth concentrates in urban areas, that people will want to pay for the convenience and safety of a robot taxi.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoNotably, your 2nd paper puts the cost of a traditional taxi at $3.50 per mile. At the low end of the autonomous price range, it is still a half price taxi. For the autonomous taxi calculation they also include a 250k medallion plus interest paid off over 5 years, but don't include this for regular taxis. They also include a 200K/year to supervise the auto taxi for the high end ($6/mile). With all that said, Auto taxis are unlikely to be a cost effective replacement to owning a car for distance commuters. Even with lower costs than traditional taxis, taxis are horribly cost ineffective way to get to work and back for any significant distances.
- throwaway2037 5y agoThis is a great reply. You are right: Too much analysis is focused on the suburban car commuter. More analysis should focus on urbanites looking for a "human" taxi that will be more expensive than an equivalent robot taxi! Personally, I still think the future of taxi drivers is they become the maintenance workers for robot taxis at the same wages...
- s1artibartfast 5y agoThanks! It's always nice to get some feedback after putting thought into a post.