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Taxis just aren't that highly demanded of a service. It's also very hard for me to imagine a world where today's two car family switches to a one-car plus robot

Taxis just aren't that highly demanded of a service. It's also very hard for me to imagine a world where today's two car family switches to a one-car plus robotaxi lifestyle. One car owned per adult is very inconvenient to deviate from in a car friendly urban environment, even if robotaxis can be made to have overall cost parity to car ownership. The net result, I think, is that robotaxis can only ever increase the total number of cars and concurrent drivers. Would you disagree? Is there some compelling reason I'm missing the motivation for families to switch from 2.5 cars to 1 because of robotaxis? Or, similarly, for single people to switch from 1 car or no car, just transit, to robotaxis? Robotaxis seem to me to have potential well solve the niches human taxis are bad at: late night safe driving, very long point to point going out of an urban core into a rural area, perhaps even personal cargo shipping, if a robo van could enable you to do furniture shopping without renting a truck. But these are edge cases that compete with private cars pretty intensely. I'd only prefer a late night taxi if I'm drunk. I'd only want a robotaxi to a rural area if I'm an urban living rock climber or hiker, and I don't care to own a car. The total available market is just wildly incompatible with the current and speculated valuation, as far as I see it.

jt2190 1y ago
> Is there some compelling reason I'm missing the motivation for families to switch from 2.5 cars to 1 because of robotaxis? Why wouldn’t the cost of car ownership be a factor?
wodenokoto 1y ago
> It's also very hard for me to imagine a world where today's two car family switches to a one-car plus robotaxi lifestyle. That’s because you live with scarce and expensive taxi service. I know plenty of people in Dubai who use taxi or uber/Careem for their daily commute and I have done so in periods too.
- ponector 1y ago
  Cheap taxi could be only if there are cheap cars and cheap (imigrant) labor available.
  - cowgoesmoo 1y ago
    Or cheap cars and no labor, which is the entire goal of driverless taxis
    - andreareina 1y ago
      Nothing about autonomous driving—how it's being pitched, the valuations, hardware, etc—suggests it's going to be cheap
      - Gareth321 1y ago
        Really? That appears to be one of the primary applications, and it's discussed in many investor calls re Waymo and Tesla. The driver component in the total cost of taxi service is 60-70%. EVs also have a lower total cost of ownership, and this scales with the number of miles driven because electricity is cheaper than gas. Even if the price of EVs stayed exactly as they are, autonomous taxis would cost 70-80% less than convention taxis. That's a market disrupting drop.
        ponector 1y ago
        Investor calls have bluff to pump stock prices. Total cost of ownership not always lower, as the depreciation is faster, insurance and repairs costs more. Cheaper than gas? Depends on your electricity source. In my country all taxi are LNG-powered and are cheaper/same per km as electric cars.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Some parts of the world, like the countryside of many European countries, if you don't own a car, or are unable to drive for for whatever reason, taxi is the only available transport. People help to drive the cost down by sharing taxis on common routes. We have great public transport network, but only if one is lucky enough to live close by to well known cities. Otherwise, you might have a few bus connections through the day if at all, and they might require walking down the village down to the closest stop a few km away.

jt2190 1y ago

> Is there some compelling reason I'm missing the motivation for families to switch from 2.5 cars to 1 because of robotaxis? Why wouldn’t the cost of car ownership be a factor?

wodenokoto 1y ago

> It's also very hard for me to imagine a world where today's two car family switches to a one-car plus robotaxi lifestyle. That’s because you live with scarce and expensive taxi service. I know plenty of people in Dubai who use taxi or uber/Careem for their daily commute and I have done so in periods too.

ponector 1y ago
Cheap taxi could be only if there are cheap cars and cheap (imigrant) labor available.
- cowgoesmoo 1y ago
  Or cheap cars and no labor, which is the entire goal of driverless taxis
  - andreareina 1y ago
    Nothing about autonomous driving—how it's being pitched, the valuations, hardware, etc—suggests it's going to be cheap
    - Gareth321 1y ago
      Really? That appears to be one of the primary applications, and it's discussed in many investor calls re Waymo and Tesla. The driver component in the total cost of taxi service is 60-70%. EVs also have a lower total cost of ownership, and this scales with the number of miles driven because electricity is cheaper than gas. Even if the price of EVs stayed exactly as they are, autonomous taxis would cost 70-80% less than convention taxis. That's a market disrupting drop.
      - ponector 1y ago
        Investor calls have bluff to pump stock prices. Total cost of ownership not always lower, as the depreciation is faster, insurance and repairs costs more. Cheaper than gas? Depends on your electricity source. In my country all taxi are LNG-powered and are cheaper/same per km as electric cars.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Some parts of the world, like the countryside of many European countries, if you don't own a car, or are unable to drive for for whatever reason, taxi is the only available transport. People help to drive the cost down by sharing taxis on common routes. We have great public transport network, but only if one is lucky enough to live close by to well known cities. Otherwise, you might have a few bus connections through the day if at all, and they might require walking down the village down to the closest stop a few km away.