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Of course it can't scale. Putting 10000 cars with 1 human in them into a city is hard and just creates traffic. Putting 100 buses with 100 people in them is muc
by general1726 1y ago
Of course it can't scale. Putting 10000 cars with 1 human in them into a city is hard and just creates traffic. Putting 100 buses with 100 people in them is much easier.
Also why don't you use something what has less degrees of freedom like a train and thus is much easier to automate and also much easier to scale by just connecting more cars. You got that Loop thing, expand onto it and turn it into a subway...
Elon is trying to reinvent public transportation without a shred of understanding why did we get into current state - buses, subways, trams. There is natural development behind it, it is not like somebody said that city people shall only sit next to a stranger - you literally can't fit these cars in the city if you want to transport people to work and from work every day. There is no physical capacity for that. Unless you will use existing mass transportation solutions.
- Mountain_Skies 1y agoRarely have I been on a bus with 100 riders outside of a few cities like Vancouver. Even there, it's only during limited periods of time per day. Most buses in most cities run with only a small fraction of the bus's capacity. Transit systems can try to bump up utilization by making buses less frequent but then that lowers overall ridership. Simply creating more capacity doesn't itself create greater ridership. I'd argue for 500 buses with 20 people if you really want people to change their behaviors as reliability and frequency is far more important for attracting riders with options than larger buses that are less frequent.
- toxik 1y agoHow about smaller buses then? This is quite common in the Nordic region it seems.
- coffeecoders 1y agoI hear this argument often. Subways require billions in infrastructure and over 20 years of lead time. And they operate on fixed routes. Additionally, robotaxis and Waymo-style systems are trying to replace the private car and on-demand ride-hailing, not mass transit like subways or buses. Our country operates on 4-year political cycles, not 20+ years infrastructure visions. Hence long-term megaprojects are mostly pipe dreams.
- general1726 1y ago> Subways require billions in infrastructure and over 20 years of lead time Of course they does, because purpose of subways is to transport hundred of millions to billions of people a year. You just can't fit that on a road with a unscalable thing like a robotaxi.
- whynotmaybe 1y ago> Elon is trying to reinvent public transportation without a shred of understanding why did we get into current state No, Elon wants to cancel public transportation. Just like in the 1930's when car companies bought public transportation to shut them down. He already delayed public transportation work with his Boring company. The average people won't agree to spend money on public transportation when there are robotaxi available 24/7 on "already existing infrastructure".
- Zacharias030 1y agoCan you point to an article about the 1930s? This is interesting.
- rayiner 1y ago> The average people won't agree to spend money on public transportation when there are robotaxi available 24/7 on "already existing infrastructure". 90% of people hate public transportation. They want to be in a private cabin that takes you directly to where you’re going. There’s nothing you can do about it other than to impoverish the population. I have lots of immigrant family that move to NYC because that’s where our ethnic enclave is. They uniformly strive to move somewhere suburban where everyone can have their own car. My cousin just moved her family with three kids to Arlington Texas from Queens and is thrilled. Elon is trying to address the problem people actually have instead of the one some minority thinks we should be solving.
- triceratops 1y ago> you literally can't fit these cars in the city if you want to transport people to work and from work every day. There is no physical capacity for that There's no space for 4-seater sedans each carrying a single person. How about tiny 1-seater self-driving golf carts going no more than 30mph? They take up as much space as 2 bus seats. This is ok because you're saving the space from the bus's aisle and driver compartment, and because buses rarely run completely full so they already waste some space. These vehicles don't exist today. But I bet you could design and build them much cheaper than subway systems in most North American cities. These cities tend to be less dense than European or Asian cities, where trams and subways are more economical.
- Grimblewald 1y ago"this is ok because..." you might want to think a bit longer on the inefficiencies here.
- triceratops 1y agoDo tell... I see half-empty city buses running all the time and no one says boo about "inefficiencies" then. And even then city buses outside of dense metros run no more frequently than every 15 minutes, but only during rush hour, and only on popular routes. That's no way to get everyone loving public transport. I want to take public transport. I don't want to spend hours waiting for the bus. I don't want to wait 20 years for a subway to be built either. What do I do? The only answer is more frequent, smaller buses. But drivers are expensive. So then self-driving buses. And if the buses drive themselves, you really want to them to be completely full, all the time. What kind of "bus" is always completely full? A single-seater golf cart.
- queenkjuul 1y agoThe answer is just more frequent buses.
- __alexs 1y agoEven a half empty bus is considerably more efficient than most forms of personal transportation.
- johnfn 1y agoHave you used busses or the metro recently? My girlfriend refuses to ride them because they are dirty, uncomfortable, and most crucially, unsafe. And although I am an ardent supporter of public transportation, I tend to understand her side quite well when I see fare hoppers, people blasting loud music, shouting incoherently or doing drugs - and I probably see one of those every time I ride. I use public transportation frequently. But I feel that 50 years of work on public transportation has created a system that fails a large percentage of the population. Perhaps another solution is needed.
- __alexs 1y agoNone of those things particularly contribute to the traffic problem. If the problem you are trying to solve is "interacting with random humans" then sure Robotaxi is good. If you are interested in "moving a lot of people to where they need to go efficiently" then it's not.
- llbbdd 1y agoThe former is what individual people are interested in solving. The latter is not on their minds outside of threads like this.
- general1726 1y agoThat sounds like a self centered culture problem not a public transportation problem.
- mafuy 1y agoFor what it's worth, I prefer drugged up people in a bus rather than behind the wheel. It's better to be annoyed by them than to be dead from a car crash with them.
- DennisP 1y agoBut drugged up people in a driverless taxi seems best of all.
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- CooCooCaCha 1y agoElon is trying to reinvent public transportation in a way that he profits from.
- WalterBright 1y agoWho is going to subsidize money-losing enterprises?
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoThe tax payers currently subsidize pretty much all of our transportation infrastructure. The question is what is the best way to spend that money.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- WalterBright 1y ago> Elon is trying to reinvent public transportation without a shred of understanding Given Elon's enviable track record of proving the doubters wrong, I'd be hesitant to make such a claim.
- darkhorse222 1y agoThat's an appeal to authority. Either make an argument for why his reasoning is good or don't. But don't appeal to someone's reputation. That being said, I do think what the parent commenter is missing is that those other modes require significant investment. With cars you get profit and can scale one by one. So less up front investment. Should do nicely in all sorts of cities.
- WalterBright 1y agoAn appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, unless the authority is an expert in a relevant field. Elon is an expert at overturning conventional wisdom of what can be done in high risk enterprises. And transportation is one of his enterprises.
- buran77 1y ago> an expert at overturning conventional wisdom Did you just invent a field so you can win an argument? Does it mean you revolutionized the field of inventing fields to win an argument? What about his less successful ventures like the Boring Company or Solar City? The world is full of one or two hit wonders thinking they have some insight on everything.
- WalterBright 1y ago> one or two hit wonders Very few are two hit. Three is incredibly rare (Steve Jobs). Let's look at his hits: 1. Paypal 2. Tesla 3. SpaceX 4. Starlink 5. xAI 6. Neuralink (looking promising) 7. X (looking promising) 8. Boring (successful, but not a breakout success) 9. Solar City (less successful, now part of Tesla) BTW, Jobs had his failure too - Next By any objective measure, Musk's business success is incredible. I'm not just making an argument. I invested in his companies, and am enjoying the returns.
- oersted 1y agoI agree with your take on public transport, but I don't understand your point. Tesla's robotaxis are not trying to replace public transport, they are trying to replace taxis, and eventually private cars. Uber made taxis more accessible and it scaled plenty, perhaps Tesla can do the same thing, in principle, with another degree of accessibility and cost-effectiveness. If anything, they may reduce the number of cars on the streets if more of them are shared. I haven't yet formed a strong opinion on the viability of their vision, but that's beside the point. Public transport is the last thing they will replace, and it is to a large degree complementary just like it has been for the last century. Public transport is of course far more efficient if you are willing to sacrifice a bit of immediacy and, well, interacting with the public. For the rest there's the private transport option, with various degrees of who drives and how much you own the car, that's where Tesla is aiming.
- zhoujianfu 1y agoAlso, I realized a side effect of a hypothetical world where everybody rode in robotaxis/waymos/even ubers is we’d effectively get congestion pricing everywhere (due to “surge” pricing), and the use of roads would actually fit into regular supply and demand market forces!
- dougSF70 1y agoAlso, when I am not driving my car I park it, it is not adding to congestion. Waymo Taxis roam the streets in SF adding to congestion. I cant see how congestion can be reduced...the worst congestion happens during rush hour...replacing personal cars with a Waymo will have no effect.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoYour parked car is adding to congestion. It takes up space that could otherwise be used by humans. That is why parking lots make places un-walkable.
- josephcsible 1y ago
- maxlin 1y ago[flagged]
- fwip 1y agoAre you familiar with the concept of induced demand? It's often used in the context of road expansion, in which adding another lane increases the number of trips taken, and hence cars on the road. Often, traffic is often very similar to before the upgrade, if not worse (because the connecting infrastructure was not upgraded). Demand for trips is elastic, and depends on many factors. Similarly, if the Tesla robotaxi system is better than driving for anyone, it will necessarily increase the number of trips taken. Whether that's people who prefer to let the machine drive than drive themselves, or people who can't drive themselves (no car or no license), there will be more trips. Additionally, some number of people will take them instead of public transit, which will increase traffic without increasing trips served.
- maxlin 1y agoI know in Europe so I do know of walkable cities and how things do find a way with some limitations. We even reduced the amount of roads accessible to personal cars, literally 2 blocks from where I live. With Robotaxi? Especially with the unavoidable fact (that I kind of don't like) of human driving eventually becoming curtailed with regulations, we can just use all of the existing capability that isn't used by transit, for Robotaxis that don't ever need to park even close to high traffic areas. Induced demand won't ever overload the much more fluid system, especially as in peak times the prices can just go up a bit, and centers will become "gentrified" in favor of the more controllable Robotaxis way before driving your own car becomes literally illegal. Hell, driving your own car in Finnish cities is already ass.
- ta12653421 1y agoYou hit a nail here: Some weeks ago, there was a story that people paid a premium of whatever double-digit-USD to get a PERSONFREE robo-taxi. This clearly shows that people will accept robo taxis, because this shows most are more comfortable in a "private room" than in public transport (esp. when i think about public-toilets like Berlin or Frankfurt) And by today, peoplre are already paying a premium, so i see a clear opportunity here.
- hammock 1y agoWhy take a plane to Europe with 300 pax when you can take an oceanliner with 7000 pax , fewer degrees of freedom, more energy efficient and use ports and harbors that have existed for 1000s of years rather than building new runways and introduce noise pollution?
- oersted 1y agoIndeed, individuals optimise for latency not throughput. They may be willing to go for high-throughput low-latency options if the cost-savings are significant, but that is often not the case.
- general1726 1y agoBut when you want to roundtrip transport 1M people a day, then you are kind of missing space in the air.
- aunty_helen 1y agoThere’s 20k planes in the air at any one time. You can do the maths from here.
- iand675 1y agoTo be fair, I absolutely would take ocean liners for this purpose if such a thing existed. The closest that you can get on this front is basically seasonal route switches for cruise liners. The thing is, cruise lines price gouge on WiFi, so I'm not really able to work while taking the slow route, and I'm also having to pay food, lodging, etc. The latency itself / limited freedom for a week or two, I don't mind. But it's the other expenditures and tradeoffs that are rather hard to stomach.
- renewiltord 1y agoIt’s actually not that much easier. Putting cars on the road with digital dispatch means that the cost to route is near zero. But getting efficient allocation for buses is very hard. You need high frequency for urban transit to work. A single line at once per fifteen minutes is 48 bus visits at each stop in a 12 hr day. Just try it. Put 100 buses in Austin in some sim. You won’t get 100 people in them. SF is 49 sq mi with 800k people. Second densest city in America. 1200 buses. It’s a doomed proposition with 100 buses.
- babypuncher 1y agoBillionaires obsession with transporting people in tiny little private pods and calling it the future continually perplexes me. I've seen billionaire-backed projects that are literally just 6 passenger pods that use existing rail infrastructure. Sounded neat, until you realize that just a handful of 6 person pods would clog up a small rail system just as much as a handful of small trains capable of carrying 60 passengers each. It's like they're completely detatched from the needs of everyday people. All they can think of when they see public transit is "gross, I have to sit next to poor people!" and they try to solve only that problem and nothing else.
- baron816 1y agoI hope at some point, ride hailing companies will start offering something like a bus service. The trick will be normalizing prescheduling trips. Like, if I schedule a vehicle to pick me up at 8:15am to drive me to the office Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and a return trip at 5:30, you'd be able to better optimize picking up more people on the way who are going to a similar location and to do so in an appropriately sized vehicle. That would bring down prices a whole lot, while mitigating congestion. I'd be willing to pay a bit more vs a bus if it means I can have a reliable pickup time, a guaranteed seat, and I feel safe.
- jerlam 1y agoUber Shuttle already exists: https://campuslifeserviceshome.ucsf.edu/transportation/uber-commute-shuttle https://campuslifeserviceshome.ucsf.edu/transportation/uber-... https://www.timeout.com/chicago/news/you-can-now-get-a-ride-from-the-united-center-via-uber-shuttle-for-just-5-030625 https://www.timeout.com/chicago/news/you-can-now-get-a-ride-...
- HPsquared 1y agoHow about 300 automated mini-buses carrying 30 people each? You'd have higher frequency and variety of buses, so less walking / waiting needed. Maybe they can also have more flexible routes than ordinary buses.
- ACCount36 1y agoYou clearly have a pet issue. Why do you think that it's in any way relevant to the conversation at hand though? Do you seriously think that the main challenge Tesla is going to face when trying to scale Robotaxi up is that there isn't enough room on the roads for all the Teslas? In a world where there's currently a dozen Robotaxi Teslas per city?
- palata 1y ago> In a world where If you consider that "the world" is "the US". But in countries that did not completely fail their urban planning, public transportation works. Now admittedly the US probably has to compromise because of how it was built. No way the robotaxi works e.g. in Europe. And that's without considering the fact that robotaxis belong to a guy who makes nazi salutes.
- llbbdd 1y agoHow has the US failed urban planning?
- general1726 1y agoIf you are living in US, can you walk to your nearest grocery store?
- llbbdd 1y agoYes, and I used to live within walking distance to several, and this has been the case everywhere I've lived in the US. However I don't even really think of walkability to grocery stores as a good metric for urban planning - I've since moved and get groceries delivered instead. I don't need to own a car, there are fewer cars on the road doing specific tasks. Good urban planning is flexible around the reality that the physical world is hard to plan and change for.
- queenkjuul 1y agoCountless US cities demolished their downtowns to build parking lots and countless more kicked minorities out of their homes to build highways
- interestica 1y ago> Elon is trying to reinvent public transportation If done well, this should fix the most critical gap in public transit. You can move massive amounts of people via trains and buses -- but that doesn't get them from transit to home (unless you're lucky enough to live near an access point). The robotaxis should be solely used for that 'last mile' -- reduce the need for transit parking (which is insane for commuter lots).
- intended 1y agoI see this as a call for the robo-rickshaw.
- rsynnott 1y agoAbout the only place I’ve ever been to where this complaint really rings true in suburban areas is the US, and I’d be inclined to put that more down to poor funding and planning than anything else. If anything I kinda have the opposite complaint; there are bus routes in Dublin with literally a stop every hundred metres, in weird winding routes, and you can’t get rid of them because people will write to their TD (MP). This is what happens when you move a bus stop: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/dublin/2024/03/18/legal-action-from-artane-residents-threatens-new-busconnects-corridors-in-dublin/ https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/dublin/2024/03/18/legal-a...
- Larrikin 1y agoBus routes and other expansions are constantly fought against in the suburbs, not because they don't want to conveniently get to the city, but because they don't want certain people conveniently coming from the city to the suburbs. There's a history of exactly why the suburbs exist in the US.
- Mawr 1y agoHumans have these weird appendages called "legs". Non-americans often use them to get places. More seriously, bicycles exist. There is no "gap in public transit". Transporting people in cities is a solved problem. It's trains+trams/buses+bicycles. There, done.
- spikels 1y agoActually it's mass public transit that can't scale. Despite $1.3T in cumulative subsides US public transit usage is tiny: ~1.5% of trips and ~1% of passenger-miles. Getting 100 people in a bus is not "easy" because very rarely do 100 people all want to from/to the same place at the same time. We end up bunching people in both time and space and making multiple stops and/or connections - which all make the journey longer and less competitive with alternatives. And even then buses are only near capacity in our very biggest cities (top 10-15) for a hundful of hours during weekday rush hours. For example, in SF while buses/railcars may occasionally get crowded they are usually empty: Muni averages only 6 passengers per vehicle, BART only 8 per traincar. On a passenger-mile basis this makes the service very expensive (Muni ~$4 and BART ~$2 including capital) and very energy inefficient (Muni(LRV) ~400Wh and BART ~600Wh). Explaining why both systems are struggling financially and require massive ongoing subsides keep operating. Because busses/subways/trains (i.e. mass transit) require lots of passengers to make financial - or even environmental - sense they will always be a niche, if very important, part of transportation. Robotaxis are competing in the much, much larger car/light truck market (80-85% of trips and passenger-miles). Uber/Lyft (plus traditional taxis) is already much bigger than public transit (~2% vs ~1-1.5%) and still growing and with what should eventually be a much lower cost structure robotaxis should greatly expand this. In other words robotaxis like Tesla will likely be much more scalable than public transit.
- bgnn 1y agoThis is so wrong outside US. SE Asia and Europe is proof of public transport being viable.
- spikels 1y agoNot as familiar with EU statistics but for shorter trips (under 300km) public transit is well under 10% of trips while cars are over 50%. For all intra-EU travel in passenger-miles cars are around 75% while busses/trains of all types is well under 15%. Viable sure, more scalable probably not. You have numbers for SE Asia?