>Now cut the price of the car in half (no front seats, steering column, etc needed)... You're kidding, right? steering column, steering wheel + pedals cost a

>Now cut the price of the car in half (no front seats, steering column, etc needed)... You're kidding, right? steering column, steering wheel + pedals cost a fraction of the cost of a car. That's assuming they aren't left in there for manual override (parking ,etc). Front seats? Where are the passengers going to sit? Taking away 1 driver seat will just mean 1 more person capacity, which wouldn't affect revenue because very few cab calls are 1 seat over, resulting in two cabs. Now that you've saved $500 on the cost of the cab by taking out the steering wheel (or making it removable) now add in the $x,000 worth of sensors. >Now cut out the pay for the time cabbies spend waiting for calls At $10/hr, the most you're going to pay for a cabbie sitting around all shift is $120. Which doesn't happen, because cab companies already effectively model utilisation patterns. >Now cut the fleet size by 75% Cab fleet size is dictated by peak usage patterns as a function of revenue, not by drivers. Cabs can be autonomously profitable - many cities have privately owned cabs. The fixed costs of running a cab company are actually quite low in comparison to the marginal costs per cab.