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I think when it really works it will be more like the transition from feature phones to smart phones. very very quick. If they actually work it's just too compe

I think when it really works it will be more like the transition from feature phones to smart phones. very very quick. If they actually work it's just too compelling. Further, I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up because suddenly so many more people can use a car. For example, every one without a license. Kids, elderly, disabled. I also suspect it means there will be lots more long distance drives as suddenly it becomes "hey, wanna go to this place 3 hours away, we can play games and drink while the car drives us" I'd certainly consider visiting my family 9hrs drive away more often if Friday at say 12am I could just climb in the backseat and go to sleep and arrive at 8am vs having to drive myself (usually 7am to 4pm)

aardvarkr 5y ago
The phone -> smartphone transition stretched out over the course of a decade. It’s fast relative to the adoption of the automobile for example but nowhere near as quickly as you make it sound. Even in modern times we still have a surprising amount of Americans still use feature phones. The Pew Research Center found in 2018 that 17% of Americans still use feature phones. https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/19/a-foolish-take-17-of-americans-use-feature-phones.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/19/a-foolish-take-17-...
- Kye 5y ago
  I didn't get a smartphone until 2014. It was frustrating how so many people in the tech bubble acted like everyone had one long before most people did and just didn't bother with web sites anymore, leaving me out of so many new things. The failure to peek outside one's own experience is a continuing problem among the people deciding what the world will look like tomorrow. See also: the internet. People still discussed seriously whether or not it had staying power as recently as 2008. It didn't really take off until the 2008 election pushed so many people to participate in new mediums. 2004 was kind of a prelude with Howard Dean's campaign, but he mostly reached the already online set. I was already on in the 1990s, and it still surprises me when I meet people my own age who didn't get on until the 2000s or 2010s even though it's the more common experience.
  - frutiger 5y ago
    > It didn't really take off until the 2008 election pushed so many people to participate in new mediums. 2004 was kind of a prelude with Howard Dean's campaign, but he mostly reached the already online set. I find the idea that the Internet’s adoption was related to US presidential election cycles a little bizarre. I know they dominate the mainstream media for a few months every four years but surely the utility of the internet vastly exceeds that? What about online shopping or even email displacing paper communications?
    - benatkin 5y ago
      Obama famously used a Blackberry. That isn't a smartphone in the current use of the term IMO, but I think it was called that back then.
    - benatkin 5y ago
      Thinking about it more...I think texting, especially group texting, was much bigger during the 2008 campaigns than it was during the 2004 campaigns, and for some, rudimentary web browsing. And they did it on the pre-iPhone concept of a smartphone, that we've since thrown out. What they used to call feature phones back then (which I think are practically discontinued now - most current feature phones would be considered smartphones in 2006) supported texting but it was used less than on the 2006 concept of smartphones.
      - Kye 5y ago
        I still remember Helio's "don't call it a phone" ads. They almost beat the iPhone launch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helio_Ocean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helio_Ocean When they said social network, they meant SMS Twitter. It was a very interesting time with lots of companies vying to be the next evolution of mobile.
    - SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
      > I find the idea that the Internet’s adoption was related to US presidential election cycles a little bizarre. I know they dominate the mainstream media for a few months every four years but surely the utility of the internet vastly exceeds that? Not to mention the rest of the planet. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the majority of the world is not-America, and views American presidential elections as a newsworthy diversion for a few weeks every four years, and not much more than that. Those elections don't really drive any changes in behaviour. Hell, my own country's elections don't really drive any changes in behaviour.
bigtones 5y ago
Smart phones when launched cost less than $1200 which a majority of people could afford. Cars that have this technology onboard would cost upwards of $65000 which almost no one can afford comparatively. This is not going to be a fast rollout.
- russh 5y ago
  Think driverless Uber.
- jatone 5y ago
  businesses can afford it though. 65K to replace a very large, yearly, expense of a driver? you bet your ass they are going to switch and fast. That is what is going to cause most of the fallout. the ROI is basically 1 year, 2 tops.
- gibolt 5y ago
  The economics of a robotaxi are insane. Main cost now are the driver, and then fuel, and then vehicle wear/tear/depreciation. An autonomous EV taxi makes all three of those comparatively negligible. Profit per year per vehicle could be $25k+, meaning it is in their best interest to produce as many cars as possible. In addition, each taxi will be replacing at least 10 cars, if it is sufficiently cheap and convenient.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - at-fates-hands 5y ago
    Just looking at some data on Tesla's: According to RepairPal, the average Tesla maintenance cost is $832 per year. That compares to an average of $652 per year for all car models sold in the United States. Depending on which services your Tesla needs, you may end up spending much more than the average car owner on yearly maintenance needs. Also, Tesla's aren't known for their reliability: Though not much information exists yet about the overall reliability of Tesla models, early results aren’t encouraging. In the J.D. Power 2021 U.S. Vehicle Dependability StudySM, Tesla ranked 30th of 33 car brands for overall reliability. That’s better than only Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, and Land Rover among all automakers across the country. J.D. Power reported an average of 176 mechanical issues per 100 Tesla vehicles, compared to an industry average of 121 issues. The organization notes, though, that it doesn’t rank the electric car brand with other major automakers because it doesn’t meet the study’s criteria. What can be known is that Tesla models break down relatively regularly and that Tesla maintenance costs are pretty steep. https://jalopnik.com/advisor/tesla-maintenance-cost/ https://jalopnik.com/advisor/tesla-maintenance-cost/ Unreliable cars and a pretty steep per year cost to maintain them, along with steep repair costs (a broken door handle will run you about 1K plus labor)? This doesn't sound like the pipedream you're selling me here.
remus 5y ago
I think price is an important difference between phones and cars. When they started coming out smart phones were expensive, but within reach for a big slice of people. There's a lot of people who don't buy brand new cars because they're expensive and poor value so I suspect there'll be a natural transition where the tech takes ~10years or so to trickle down in to the second hand market.
- ISL 5y ago
  When liability insurance costs plummet, the total cost of ownership will drop, too.
bduerst 5y ago
>Further, I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up because suddenly so many more people can use a car. You're assuming that the cost will be much less with self-driving than ride share or cabs. It likely won't be a significant reduction for a while.
- ghaff 5y ago
  It’s not just cost though. I’m a bit over an hour drive to the nearest major city. I find I’m even less inclined than I used to be to head in for evening social event. If I could be driven, I’d be far more inclined to do that sort of thing and a (reasonable) cost wouldn’t be a huge factor.
  - bduerst 5y ago
    >If I could be driven, I’d be far more inclined to do that sort of thing The same way a taxi or ride-share would drive you right now?
    - ghaff 5y ago
      The cost for me to get into the city with a human-driven car is close to $100 each way which is too high for pretty much anything other than going to the airport. Cut that in half and eliminate parking and it’s more thinkable for an evening event.
      - bushbaba 5y ago
        You assume self driving will be any cheaper. I doubt it.
        ghaff 5y ago
        I don’t necessarily disagree. A lot of people seem to assume that self-driving will be super-cheap, hence my use of the term treasonable. In fact, some trike today’s IRS deductions are probably the floor especially for anyone who isn’t trying to use a clunker of some sort. I actually agree that today’s Uber/taxi rates are probably a good estimate for many years even once self-driving is practical.
babyshake 5y ago
> I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up because suddenly so many more people can use a car. With autonomous vehicle adoption, we may see the concept of blockchain "gas" (fees paid with rates based on real-time demand) come full circle as a real-time congestion tax.
ryukafalz 5y ago
> I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up This sounds horrific for those of us who live in cities that are already overrun with cars.
- copperx 5y ago
  The problem with the US transportation-wise is its low population density. One possible solution could be to have robotaxis take care of last mile transportation, and have reliable and punctual mass transport take care of the bulk of the commutes.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    We don't need robotaxis for that. Just put giant parking lots at subway stations.
  - ryukafalz 5y ago
    Another possible solution is to increase population density, for example by eliminating bans on higher-density development.
wiremine 5y ago
> I think when it really works it will be more like the transition from feature phones to smart phones. very very quick. If they actually work it's just too compelling. The definition of "very very quick" is important here. The smart phone adoption took over a decade. to get to 80+%. [1] Cars are much more expensive than phones, and last longer. The average age for a car in the US is 11.5 years [2] and people replace their cars between 5 and 7 years. [3] And my guess is self-driving technology will be used at the top-end of the market, and slowly trickle down. This is similar to pretty much any consumer technology: the technology starts off as a premium and becomes a commodity over a longer period if time. So, if we use cell phones as a benchmark, it will take 10 years at a minimum. It likely will take 20 years given the duty cycle of vehicles. (Assuming we all still own a vehicle. If we all move to subscriptions, that might be a different story.) Fleets will be replaced sooner, because the commercial ROI will be compelling. But it still takes a ton of capital to replace a fleet, and they need to get the ROI out of their _existing_ fleet before they invest in new ones. So even that won't be immediate. But it might be uneven. I 100% agree with your example of sleeping through the night. If I can do that with a rental, and that's cheaper than flying, I might consider it. [1] https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/US-Smartphone-Penetration-Surpassed-80-Percent-in-2016 https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/US-Smartphone-Penetra... [2] https://www.carchex.com/research-center/auto-warranties/how-often-do-people-change-cars/ https://www.carchex.com/research-center/auto-warranties/how-... [3] https://www.quora.com/How-often-do-people-replace-their-cars https://www.quora.com/How-often-do-people-replace-their-cars
- deegles 5y ago
  Not if existing fleets can be retrofitted to be self driving. At $15/hr, if you can keep a car or truck driving 100 hours per week that's $6,000 month of labor costs saved. It's reasonable to expect insurance costs will be lower as well. Fuel economy would be better too, since a self driving car would be happy to drive at 60mph or less to get more MPG. Even if the system + retrofit costs $50,000 that's an ROI of ~8 months. These numbers are made up but even with the most pessimistic of assumptions I believe widespread adoption will happen much faster than 10 years.
  - 5y ago
dvirsky 5y ago
> I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up This could also play out totally opposite to that - think cheaper on demand rides, no need to park near your work if your car can just go do something else, etc. This might play out as actually less people owning a car, or families owning just one car instead of two, etc. I remember a prediction from a few years ago that it may reduce the number of cars by 80%, which I doubt, but I also don't think it will necessarily mean more people buying cars.
- hibikir 5y ago
  First, it's unlikely, as most trips happen in small windows of time, and in the same general directions in a city, leading to very little chance to reuse: Peak cars on the road at 8 am on a Tuesday is not really going to drop, and then very few trips will be happening at 2am. It's the same thing that happens in many US cities for commuter trains: A large fleet spends the night on depots far from the center, and then makes a single trip downtown, where they stay put all day, just to make a lone trip out later in the day: The demand is just too low in the other direction to not have most trains idle most of the day. But let's ignore that fact, and instead look at a different definition of number of cars on the road: Instead of how many cars actually exist, count how many cars are on the road at any given time. It's not just that there might be more cars in the end, but even with fewer cars, each car will be doing more miles, because you don't need a driver. Children visiting each other while being less of a nuisance for parents mean more trips. Old people that are uncomfortable driving. People going further away in geneeral, because being driven would be less stressful when the technology is doing well. More visits to the bar, now that you don't have to call an uber, or risk a DUI on the way. And let's not forget letting the car go back home to park, instead of paying for expensive downtown parking: Same number of miles with a passenger, but bonus congestion for everyone else. When driving is cheaper, the number of miles driven goes up, and therefore the number of cars that you actually find on the road goes up, even with fewer cars.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
season2episode3 5y ago
> Further, I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up > I also suspect it means there will be lots more long distance drives This is the wrong direction for the world to move in. We need to make our transportation efficient both to reduce emissions and not pillage the earth for rare minerals for these self driving electric cars. MOST (not all) 3 hour drives can and should be done through train trips. Trains are efficient, they offer more equitable access to transportation, and they can be very fast. The American obsession with the automobile, and the way that obsession is pushed internationally through exported media, will ruin us all.
lhorie 5y ago
Honestly, I doubt it. If you're gonna make predictions, you kinda gotta look at what already exists. People that buy cars to ferry their kids around will look at things like safety ratings. Safety reports for robocars are super hush hush, which just doesn't inspire confidence. The stats aren't there either. People that over-rely on Tesla FSD already get a bad rep. Price is another really big factor. Car buyers are generally not willing to spend even $3k on optional bells and whistles. My understanding is a lidar system costs like $20k. You can buy an entire car for that price tag. Sleeper buses and the like also already exist and demand isn't really that high. Greyhound shut down a bunch of lines during the pandemic. I.e. if demand drops, an operator can go out of business. What makes a SDV fleet operator any less prone to the same sort of risk profile? Another factor that seems suspiciously absent from Waymo discussions is Google's abysmal track record wrt customer support. Comms from Waymo always come out as carefully written press releases, but people actually using the service have to sign NDAs. Seems... kinda fishy?
geodel 5y ago
> Further, I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up because suddenly so many more people can use a car. That's just assuming rides will be dirt cheap. I don't expect that. With billions invested in R&D, costly hardware for self-driving car and tax starved governments to make money, these rides will be nowhere cheap where anyone could take ride anything between 10 min and 10 hours without second thought. With all said and done I believe pricing will be in range of cab rides not bus rides.
- merely-unlikely 5y ago
  Also (local) government imposed monopolies/supply caps will keep prices up in many areas.
saltminer 5y ago
> Further, I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up because suddenly so many more people can use a car. For example, every one without a license. Kids, elderly, disabled. And in areas with already bad traffic, it will only get worse. Much worse. You thought LA or SF pre-COVID were bad? Those will be the "good old days." And that's not just traffic, that's also hunting for parking everywhere you go (those cars have to be stored somewhere, after all). A comprehensive public transportation system means people unable to drive can still get around. People act like self-driving cars are the solution when we already had a solution but (at least in America) proceeded to tear it apart as soon as we heard "cars are the future, get with the plan" and derided public transit as "welfare". Fundamentally, we cannot "fix traffic", self-driving cars or no, because a 15-foot car holding 1-6 people cannot hope to compete with a 30-foot bus holding up to 30 passengers (on top of the driver), and that still doesn't hold a candle to a single train car (an 85-foot Bombardier MultiLevel railcar, for example, holds 132 people...and has a bathroom). Compounding this is the American obsession with single-family housing and large minimum lot sizes: it is a fundamentally inefficient and unsustainable use of land. There is not enough space to build in this manner in the areas most in need of housing (which are, not so coincidentally, the areas where most of the jobs are), and it is this same inefficient use of land which makes public transportation difficult to run frequently enough that people stop using their cars for most trips. When you build densely, you can run comprehensive public transportation that alleviates the need to have a car every time you need to go to work, the doctor, the grocery store, the park, etc. This also means people who cannot drive are afforded far more freedom than if they were to live in your average American suburb where sidewalks and pedestrian infrastructure more generally are an afterthought. Far from a utopia, the future self-driving car advocates proclaim would be a nightmare. A nightmare where people are more isolated [0], more municipalities are struggling with debt [1], and even worse climate change [2]. This is not the future we should be excited for, it should be the one we are attempting to prevent at all costs. Self-driving cars are fine (not having to deal with the TSA would be wonderful), but the way people think they will reshape society is nothing but a net-negative - we shot ourselves in the foot, but the proposed treatment is just putting on a band-aid and calling it a day. A high-tech band-aid, but a band-aid nonetheless. [0]: https://citymonitor.ai/environment/citymetric-advent-22-snapshot-social-isolation-suburbs-587 https://citymonitor.ai/environment/citymetric-advent-22-snap... [1]: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme [2]: https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-characteristics-causes-and-consequences-of-sprawling-103014747/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-charac... Edit: Another thing to consider - if self-driving cars enable way more people to get around, this isn't good for the environment because only 40% of US electricity is from renewable sources [3] (20% of that being nuclear, which we desperately need more of but which many environmentalists have an existential panic over due to envisioning them all as impending Chernobyls). Burning gas might be bad for the planet, but electric cars don't have a perfect footprint, either. In isolation, replacing all gas vehicles with electric (minus stuff like trucks) would likely reduce emissions, but adding a massive increase in trips would be far worse than if we had comprehensive public transportation in more cities and towns. [3]: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
HWR_14 5y ago
> I'd certainly consider visiting my family 9hrs drive away more often if Friday at say 12am I could just climb in the backseat and go to sleep and arrive at 8am vs having to drive myself Have you ever done it via the bus. Because that gets you exactly what you want and overnight buses exist almost everywhere. There's a reason most people prefer to fly.
- autoexec 5y ago
  Except with buses you're limited to their schedule, still have to drive to and then wait around in a terminal with all of your stuff, deal with tickets, and then you're crammed into a bus with a bunch of random strangers with all their noises and smells. It's a much more involved and stressful situation than climbing into your own private vehicle at a time of your own choosing and not seeing another soul until you're at your destination.
nelsonic 5y ago
Firstly, the adoption of smartphones is ongoing there are still people with "feature" phones (for whatever reason). As technologists/early-adopters we have an observation bias that everyone adopted them overnight, it's simply not the case. Secondly, the adoption of tech in entrenched industries is much slower because the decision makers are older and more risk-averse. Next is the cost-benefit of the adoption. If it costs 5-10x to adopt a "driverless" truck that still requires a skilled driver for 2% of cases there is still very much a driver on-board, only now they have to be retrained in the new skill.

aardvarkr 5y ago

The phone -> smartphone transition stretched out over the course of a decade. It’s fast relative to the adoption of the automobile for example but nowhere near as quickly as you make it sound. Even in modern times we still have a surprising amount of Americans still use feature phones. The Pew Research Center found in 2018 that 17% of Americans still use feature phones. https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/19/a-foolish-take-17-of-americans-use-feature-phones.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/19/a-foolish-take-17-...

Kye 5y ago
I didn't get a smartphone until 2014. It was frustrating how so many people in the tech bubble acted like everyone had one long before most people did and just didn't bother with web sites anymore, leaving me out of so many new things. The failure to peek outside one's own experience is a continuing problem among the people deciding what the world will look like tomorrow. See also: the internet. People still discussed seriously whether or not it had staying power as recently as 2008. It didn't really take off until the 2008 election pushed so many people to participate in new mediums. 2004 was kind of a prelude with Howard Dean's campaign, but he mostly reached the already online set. I was already on in the 1990s, and it still surprises me when I meet people my own age who didn't get on until the 2000s or 2010s even though it's the more common experience.
- frutiger 5y ago
  > It didn't really take off until the 2008 election pushed so many people to participate in new mediums. 2004 was kind of a prelude with Howard Dean's campaign, but he mostly reached the already online set. I find the idea that the Internet’s adoption was related to US presidential election cycles a little bizarre. I know they dominate the mainstream media for a few months every four years but surely the utility of the internet vastly exceeds that? What about online shopping or even email displacing paper communications?
  - benatkin 5y ago
    Obama famously used a Blackberry. That isn't a smartphone in the current use of the term IMO, but I think it was called that back then.
  - benatkin 5y ago
    Thinking about it more...I think texting, especially group texting, was much bigger during the 2008 campaigns than it was during the 2004 campaigns, and for some, rudimentary web browsing. And they did it on the pre-iPhone concept of a smartphone, that we've since thrown out. What they used to call feature phones back then (which I think are practically discontinued now - most current feature phones would be considered smartphones in 2006) supported texting but it was used less than on the 2006 concept of smartphones.
    - Kye 5y ago
      I still remember Helio's "don't call it a phone" ads. They almost beat the iPhone launch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helio_Ocean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helio_Ocean When they said social network, they meant SMS Twitter. It was a very interesting time with lots of companies vying to be the next evolution of mobile.
  - SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
    > I find the idea that the Internet’s adoption was related to US presidential election cycles a little bizarre. I know they dominate the mainstream media for a few months every four years but surely the utility of the internet vastly exceeds that? Not to mention the rest of the planet. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the majority of the world is not-America, and views American presidential elections as a newsworthy diversion for a few weeks every four years, and not much more than that. Those elections don't really drive any changes in behaviour. Hell, my own country's elections don't really drive any changes in behaviour.

bigtones 5y ago

Smart phones when launched cost less than $1200 which a majority of people could afford. Cars that have this technology onboard would cost upwards of $65000 which almost no one can afford comparatively. This is not going to be a fast rollout.

russh 5y ago
Think driverless Uber.
jatone 5y ago
businesses can afford it though. 65K to replace a very large, yearly, expense of a driver? you bet your ass they are going to switch and fast. That is what is going to cause most of the fallout. the ROI is basically 1 year, 2 tops.
gibolt 5y ago
The economics of a robotaxi are insane. Main cost now are the driver, and then fuel, and then vehicle wear/tear/depreciation. An autonomous EV taxi makes all three of those comparatively negligible. Profit per year per vehicle could be $25k+, meaning it is in their best interest to produce as many cars as possible. In addition, each taxi will be replacing at least 10 cars, if it is sufficiently cheap and convenient.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- at-fates-hands 5y ago
  Just looking at some data on Tesla's: According to RepairPal, the average Tesla maintenance cost is $832 per year. That compares to an average of $652 per year for all car models sold in the United States. Depending on which services your Tesla needs, you may end up spending much more than the average car owner on yearly maintenance needs. Also, Tesla's aren't known for their reliability: Though not much information exists yet about the overall reliability of Tesla models, early results aren’t encouraging. In the J.D. Power 2021 U.S. Vehicle Dependability StudySM, Tesla ranked 30th of 33 car brands for overall reliability. That’s better than only Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, and Land Rover among all automakers across the country. J.D. Power reported an average of 176 mechanical issues per 100 Tesla vehicles, compared to an industry average of 121 issues. The organization notes, though, that it doesn’t rank the electric car brand with other major automakers because it doesn’t meet the study’s criteria. What can be known is that Tesla models break down relatively regularly and that Tesla maintenance costs are pretty steep. https://jalopnik.com/advisor/tesla-maintenance-cost/ https://jalopnik.com/advisor/tesla-maintenance-cost/ Unreliable cars and a pretty steep per year cost to maintain them, along with steep repair costs (a broken door handle will run you about 1K plus labor)? This doesn't sound like the pipedream you're selling me here.

remus 5y ago

I think price is an important difference between phones and cars. When they started coming out smart phones were expensive, but within reach for a big slice of people. There's a lot of people who don't buy brand new cars because they're expensive and poor value so I suspect there'll be a natural transition where the tech takes ~10years or so to trickle down in to the second hand market.

ISL 5y ago
When liability insurance costs plummet, the total cost of ownership will drop, too.

bduerst 5y ago

>Further, I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up because suddenly so many more people can use a car. You're assuming that the cost will be much less with self-driving than ride share or cabs. It likely won't be a significant reduction for a while.

ghaff 5y ago
It’s not just cost though. I’m a bit over an hour drive to the nearest major city. I find I’m even less inclined than I used to be to head in for evening social event. If I could be driven, I’d be far more inclined to do that sort of thing and a (reasonable) cost wouldn’t be a huge factor.
- bduerst 5y ago
  >If I could be driven, I’d be far more inclined to do that sort of thing The same way a taxi or ride-share would drive you right now?
  - ghaff 5y ago
    The cost for me to get into the city with a human-driven car is close to $100 each way which is too high for pretty much anything other than going to the airport. Cut that in half and eliminate parking and it’s more thinkable for an evening event.
    - bushbaba 5y ago
      You assume self driving will be any cheaper. I doubt it.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        I don’t necessarily disagree. A lot of people seem to assume that self-driving will be super-cheap, hence my use of the term treasonable. In fact, some trike today’s IRS deductions are probably the floor especially for anyone who isn’t trying to use a clunker of some sort. I actually agree that today’s Uber/taxi rates are probably a good estimate for many years even once self-driving is practical.

babyshake 5y ago

> I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up because suddenly so many more people can use a car. With autonomous vehicle adoption, we may see the concept of blockchain "gas" (fees paid with rates based on real-time demand) come full circle as a real-time congestion tax.

ryukafalz 5y ago

> I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up This sounds horrific for those of us who live in cities that are already overrun with cars.

copperx 5y ago
The problem with the US transportation-wise is its low population density. One possible solution could be to have robotaxis take care of last mile transportation, and have reliable and punctual mass transport take care of the bulk of the commutes.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  We don't need robotaxis for that. Just put giant parking lots at subway stations.
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  Another possible solution is to increase population density, for example by eliminating bans on higher-density development.

wiremine 5y ago

> I think when it really works it will be more like the transition from feature phones to smart phones. very very quick. If they actually work it's just too compelling. The definition of "very very quick" is important here. The smart phone adoption took over a decade. to get to 80+%. [1] Cars are much more expensive than phones, and last longer. The average age for a car in the US is 11.5 years [2] and people replace their cars between 5 and 7 years. [3] And my guess is self-driving technology will be used at the top-end of the market, and slowly trickle down. This is similar to pretty much any consumer technology: the technology starts off as a premium and becomes a commodity over a longer period if time. So, if we use cell phones as a benchmark, it will take 10 years at a minimum. It likely will take 20 years given the duty cycle of vehicles. (Assuming we all still own a vehicle. If we all move to subscriptions, that might be a different story.) Fleets will be replaced sooner, because the commercial ROI will be compelling. But it still takes a ton of capital to replace a fleet, and they need to get the ROI out of their _existing_ fleet before they invest in new ones. So even that won't be immediate. But it might be uneven. I 100% agree with your example of sleeping through the night. If I can do that with a rental, and that's cheaper than flying, I might consider it. [1] https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/US-Smartphone-Penetration-Surpassed-80-Percent-in-2016 https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/US-Smartphone-Penetra... [2] https://www.carchex.com/research-center/auto-warranties/how-often-do-people-change-cars/ https://www.carchex.com/research-center/auto-warranties/how-... [3] https://www.quora.com/How-often-do-people-replace-their-cars https://www.quora.com/How-often-do-people-replace-their-cars

deegles 5y ago
Not if existing fleets can be retrofitted to be self driving. At $15/hr, if you can keep a car or truck driving 100 hours per week that's $6,000 month of labor costs saved. It's reasonable to expect insurance costs will be lower as well. Fuel economy would be better too, since a self driving car would be happy to drive at 60mph or less to get more MPG. Even if the system + retrofit costs $50,000 that's an ROI of ~8 months. These numbers are made up but even with the most pessimistic of assumptions I believe widespread adoption will happen much faster than 10 years.
- 5y ago

dvirsky 5y ago

> I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up This could also play out totally opposite to that - think cheaper on demand rides, no need to park near your work if your car can just go do something else, etc. This might play out as actually less people owning a car, or families owning just one car instead of two, etc. I remember a prediction from a few years ago that it may reduce the number of cars by 80%, which I doubt, but I also don't think it will necessarily mean more people buying cars.

hibikir 5y ago
First, it's unlikely, as most trips happen in small windows of time, and in the same general directions in a city, leading to very little chance to reuse: Peak cars on the road at 8 am on a Tuesday is not really going to drop, and then very few trips will be happening at 2am. It's the same thing that happens in many US cities for commuter trains: A large fleet spends the night on depots far from the center, and then makes a single trip downtown, where they stay put all day, just to make a lone trip out later in the day: The demand is just too low in the other direction to not have most trains idle most of the day. But let's ignore that fact, and instead look at a different definition of number of cars on the road: Instead of how many cars actually exist, count how many cars are on the road at any given time. It's not just that there might be more cars in the end, but even with fewer cars, each car will be doing more miles, because you don't need a driver. Children visiting each other while being less of a nuisance for parents mean more trips. Old people that are uncomfortable driving. People going further away in geneeral, because being driven would be less stressful when the technology is doing well. More visits to the bar, now that you don't have to call an uber, or risk a DUI on the way. And let's not forget letting the car go back home to park, instead of paying for expensive downtown parking: Same number of miles with a passenger, but bonus congestion for everyone else. When driving is cheaper, the number of miles driven goes up, and therefore the number of cars that you actually find on the road goes up, even with fewer cars.

deleted 5y ago

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season2episode3 5y ago

> Further, I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up > I also suspect it means there will be lots more long distance drives This is the wrong direction for the world to move in. We need to make our transportation efficient both to reduce emissions and not pillage the earth for rare minerals for these self driving electric cars. MOST (not all) 3 hour drives can and should be done through train trips. Trains are efficient, they offer more equitable access to transportation, and they can be very fast. The American obsession with the automobile, and the way that obsession is pushed internationally through exported media, will ruin us all.

lhorie 5y ago

Honestly, I doubt it. If you're gonna make predictions, you kinda gotta look at what already exists. People that buy cars to ferry their kids around will look at things like safety ratings. Safety reports for robocars are super hush hush, which just doesn't inspire confidence. The stats aren't there either. People that over-rely on Tesla FSD already get a bad rep. Price is another really big factor. Car buyers are generally not willing to spend even $3k on optional bells and whistles. My understanding is a lidar system costs like $20k. You can buy an entire car for that price tag. Sleeper buses and the like also already exist and demand isn't really that high. Greyhound shut down a bunch of lines during the pandemic. I.e. if demand drops, an operator can go out of business. What makes a SDV fleet operator any less prone to the same sort of risk profile? Another factor that seems suspiciously absent from Waymo discussions is Google's abysmal track record wrt customer support. Comms from Waymo always come out as carefully written press releases, but people actually using the service have to sign NDAs. Seems... kinda fishy?

geodel 5y ago

> Further, I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up because suddenly so many more people can use a car. That's just assuming rides will be dirt cheap. I don't expect that. With billions invested in R&D, costly hardware for self-driving car and tax starved governments to make money, these rides will be nowhere cheap where anyone could take ride anything between 10 min and 10 hours without second thought. With all said and done I believe pricing will be in range of cab rides not bus rides.

merely-unlikely 5y ago
Also (local) government imposed monopolies/supply caps will keep prices up in many areas.

saltminer 5y ago

> Further, I expect the number of cars on the road to go way up because suddenly so many more people can use a car. For example, every one without a license. Kids, elderly, disabled. And in areas with already bad traffic, it will only get worse. Much worse. You thought LA or SF pre-COVID were bad? Those will be the "good old days." And that's not just traffic, that's also hunting for parking everywhere you go (those cars have to be stored somewhere, after all). A comprehensive public transportation system means people unable to drive can still get around. People act like self-driving cars are the solution when we already had a solution but (at least in America) proceeded to tear it apart as soon as we heard "cars are the future, get with the plan" and derided public transit as "welfare". Fundamentally, we cannot "fix traffic", self-driving cars or no, because a 15-foot car holding 1-6 people cannot hope to compete with a 30-foot bus holding up to 30 passengers (on top of the driver), and that still doesn't hold a candle to a single train car (an 85-foot Bombardier MultiLevel railcar, for example, holds 132 people...and has a bathroom). Compounding this is the American obsession with single-family housing and large minimum lot sizes: it is a fundamentally inefficient and unsustainable use of land. There is not enough space to build in this manner in the areas most in need of housing (which are, not so coincidentally, the areas where most of the jobs are), and it is this same inefficient use of land which makes public transportation difficult to run frequently enough that people stop using their cars for most trips. When you build densely, you can run comprehensive public transportation that alleviates the need to have a car every time you need to go to work, the doctor, the grocery store, the park, etc. This also means people who cannot drive are afforded far more freedom than if they were to live in your average American suburb where sidewalks and pedestrian infrastructure more generally are an afterthought. Far from a utopia, the future self-driving car advocates proclaim would be a nightmare. A nightmare where people are more isolated [0], more municipalities are struggling with debt [1], and even worse climate change [2]. This is not the future we should be excited for, it should be the one we are attempting to prevent at all costs. Self-driving cars are fine (not having to deal with the TSA would be wonderful), but the way people think they will reshape society is nothing but a net-negative - we shot ourselves in the foot, but the proposed treatment is just putting on a band-aid and calling it a day. A high-tech band-aid, but a band-aid nonetheless. [0]: https://citymonitor.ai/environment/citymetric-advent-22-snapshot-social-isolation-suburbs-587 https://citymonitor.ai/environment/citymetric-advent-22-snap... [1]: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme [2]: https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-characteristics-causes-and-consequences-of-sprawling-103014747/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-charac... Edit: Another thing to consider - if self-driving cars enable way more people to get around, this isn't good for the environment because only 40% of US electricity is from renewable sources [3] (20% of that being nuclear, which we desperately need more of but which many environmentalists have an existential panic over due to envisioning them all as impending Chernobyls). Burning gas might be bad for the planet, but electric cars don't have a perfect footprint, either. In isolation, replacing all gas vehicles with electric (minus stuff like trucks) would likely reduce emissions, but adding a massive increase in trips would be far worse than if we had comprehensive public transportation in more cities and towns. [3]: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

HWR_14 5y ago

> I'd certainly consider visiting my family 9hrs drive away more often if Friday at say 12am I could just climb in the backseat and go to sleep and arrive at 8am vs having to drive myself Have you ever done it via the bus. Because that gets you exactly what you want and overnight buses exist almost everywhere. There's a reason most people prefer to fly.

autoexec 5y ago
Except with buses you're limited to their schedule, still have to drive to and then wait around in a terminal with all of your stuff, deal with tickets, and then you're crammed into a bus with a bunch of random strangers with all their noises and smells. It's a much more involved and stressful situation than climbing into your own private vehicle at a time of your own choosing and not seeing another soul until you're at your destination.

nelsonic 5y ago

Firstly, the adoption of smartphones is ongoing there are still people with "feature" phones (for whatever reason). As technologists/early-adopters we have an observation bias that everyone adopted them overnight, it's simply not the case. Secondly, the adoption of tech in entrenched industries is much slower because the decision makers are older and more risk-averse. Next is the cost-benefit of the adoption. If it costs 5-10x to adopt a "driverless" truck that still requires a skilled driver for 2% of cases there is still very much a driver on-board, only now they have to be retrained in the new skill.