3 ms·

Too much capex

by amazingamazing 3mo ago

Too much capex

oblio 3mo ago
Ok, self driving buses on fixed routes. Likely 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars.
- amazingamazing 3mo ago
  Nope. Fixed routes have chaos. You would have the same problem, converging on fsd. It’s the same reason Waymo isn’t deployed everywhere now. Not to mention buses are a couple orders of magnitude more expensive than a car and would be slower for any given median occupant compared to a car.
  - unfitted2545 3mo ago
    If it was popular, it would remove cars from the road. Would that not decrease congestion for everyone?
- jrapdx3 3mo ago
  You're probably right about comparative costs. But the problem of getting to an autonomous bus will remain a significant barrier to public transportation use. My neighborhood is close to the city center. Even so, bus service is very sparse, recently reduced to just twice a day. In addition walking to bus stops is long and difficult, or even impossible, for many elderly or disabled residents. I envision a Waymo-like car service transporting people to/from destinations or if it's more practical, a transit center. I concur car services wouldn't be the cheapest option but may well be the most effective.
- arjie 3mo ago
  Google only spent $1.1B for the first six years of Waymo. At 1/1000 the price you’re spending about $1.1M over that period or about $200k/year. That’s cheap enough that you should just do it.
  - oblio 3mo ago
    LOL. Why would you only count the first 6 years? Be intellectually honest and count the total funding so far, about $30bn.
    - arjie 3mo ago
      I’m not “only counting the first 6 years”. I’m saying you can get to 6 years on $1.2 m if you can do it at a thousandth the cost. I’m sure if you have some success by then, the $30 m over the next decade won’t be too hard. To be honest, if you have a good path to this the $30 m won’t be hard to raise. If I had the skill to do this at 1/1000 cost I would not hesitate to start the company tomorrow. I think autonomous buses would be terrific. But for a different reason: it removes labor as a cost centre and scheduling constraint, allowing demand responsiveness. Thought so last year too so it’s not like I’m arguing here https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-02-15/Fully_Autonomous https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-02-15/Fully_Autono...
      - Breza 2mo ago
        > scheduling constraint Honestly I think this is the only real advantage of a self-driving bus. Driving a bus is hard work and it doesn't pay well. Getting drivers to cover all the routes every day is an ongoing challenge. I would honestly be nervous to ride a self-driving bus much of the time. Drivers limit the level of shenanigans that can happen. The subway has emergency intercoms and staff at every single station, but a bus could take you miles away from the nearest transit cop.
- ChadNauseam 3mo ago
  > Likely 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars. I think self driving buses would be awesome. I can imagine having smaller ones that come more regularly too. Add some amenities like a tracker that tells you exactly when to leave to catch the bus, and exactly when you'll reach your destination, and it would probably be an awesome UX. But I don't know if I agree that it'd be 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars. And the overhead of a car is huge, you need one driver for a maximum of 4 passengers and probably a mode of 1 passenger. The overhead of a bus is smaller, because one driver can carry 30 or 60 people. Arguably, you'd need less of them because busses carry more people, but for some reason the unit economics often doesn't work out like that IRL. It'd make more sense for a neighborhood to have just one xbox that everyone shares when they need it, rather than everyone having their own xbox that's idle 95% of the time, but that's not how it went. (Same for any other computing device.)
- Breza 2mo ago
  Bus drivers don't make much money, at least not here in the United States. I was shocked when I learned how low the average salary is, considering you might be tasked with navigating a massive vehicle carrying dozens of people through narrow streets during rush hour. And I'm not even considering the customer service aspects and public safety aspects of what they do. All that to say, we are far from the point where a self-driving bus is cheaper than buying a regular bus and paying a driver.
jrflo 3mo ago
Realistically it's "too much 'environmental' review", aka NIMBYs killing any project that will actually implement good public transit because it will ruin the view from their kitchen
trymas 3mo ago
Capex for car infrastructure seemingly is uncapped (and I don’t talk only about USA either). But when it’s non-car transit suddenly it’s too much money, not profitable, nimby, etc. When cars enjoy fuel subsidies , (mostly) free roads and endless expansion. Update: some car brains over the world decided that even bike lanes are an issue. When bike lanes have bigger throughput, costs don’t even make a dent compared to roads, maintenance is negligible, etc.
- HDThoreaun 3mo ago
  Because 99% of Americans use cars. There’s no point spending money on something that only 15% of the population will even consider using, you’ll still have to spend just as much on roads.
  - trymas 3mo ago
    > Because 99% of Americans use cars. I wouldn't want to be a kid, elderly, sick, blind, disabled in USA. > There’s no point spending money on something that only 15% of the population will even consider using Induced demand. Though seriously you had everything: trains, trams/streetcars, great towns - now say it's impossible (after 80-100 years of lobbying and crazy subsidies). I bet if "right" startup popped up that by accident would be public transport adjacent - atitude would shift on a dime. I saw a bunch of articles about pedestrian accessibility improvements, due to delivery bots[0]. Apparently it may be easier to improve things for businesses instead of people. [0] first article I've found: https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/could-delivery-robots-help-pay-for-better-sidewalks https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/could-delivery-robots-hel...
panick21_ 3mo ago
Capex for countries isn't really that big of a problem. You can raise lots of capital for long term, a proper investment should increase land values (or property values). Generally societies that invest a lot of capex in high capacity transit do quite well. Also roads have high capex along with operation cost, along with high private cost. Not even mention the additional cost for health and other hidden costs. If you go by total lift-time cost by capacity then its a fantastic deal.

Too much capex

oblio 3mo ago

Ok, self driving buses on fixed routes. Likely 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars.

amazingamazing 3mo ago
Nope. Fixed routes have chaos. You would have the same problem, converging on fsd. It’s the same reason Waymo isn’t deployed everywhere now. Not to mention buses are a couple orders of magnitude more expensive than a car and would be slower for any given median occupant compared to a car.
- unfitted2545 3mo ago
  If it was popular, it would remove cars from the road. Would that not decrease congestion for everyone?
jrapdx3 3mo ago
You're probably right about comparative costs. But the problem of getting to an autonomous bus will remain a significant barrier to public transportation use. My neighborhood is close to the city center. Even so, bus service is very sparse, recently reduced to just twice a day. In addition walking to bus stops is long and difficult, or even impossible, for many elderly or disabled residents. I envision a Waymo-like car service transporting people to/from destinations or if it's more practical, a transit center. I concur car services wouldn't be the cheapest option but may well be the most effective.
arjie 3mo ago
Google only spent $1.1B for the first six years of Waymo. At 1/1000 the price you’re spending about $1.1M over that period or about $200k/year. That’s cheap enough that you should just do it.
- oblio 3mo ago
  LOL. Why would you only count the first 6 years? Be intellectually honest and count the total funding so far, about $30bn.
  - arjie 3mo ago
    I’m not “only counting the first 6 years”. I’m saying you can get to 6 years on $1.2 m if you can do it at a thousandth the cost. I’m sure if you have some success by then, the $30 m over the next decade won’t be too hard. To be honest, if you have a good path to this the $30 m won’t be hard to raise. If I had the skill to do this at 1/1000 cost I would not hesitate to start the company tomorrow. I think autonomous buses would be terrific. But for a different reason: it removes labor as a cost centre and scheduling constraint, allowing demand responsiveness. Thought so last year too so it’s not like I’m arguing here https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-02-15/Fully_Autonomous https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-02-15/Fully_Autono...
    - Breza 2mo ago
      > scheduling constraint Honestly I think this is the only real advantage of a self-driving bus. Driving a bus is hard work and it doesn't pay well. Getting drivers to cover all the routes every day is an ongoing challenge. I would honestly be nervous to ride a self-driving bus much of the time. Drivers limit the level of shenanigans that can happen. The subway has emergency intercoms and staff at every single station, but a bus could take you miles away from the nearest transit cop.
ChadNauseam 3mo ago
> Likely 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars. I think self driving buses would be awesome. I can imagine having smaller ones that come more regularly too. Add some amenities like a tracker that tells you exactly when to leave to catch the bus, and exactly when you'll reach your destination, and it would probably be an awesome UX. But I don't know if I agree that it'd be 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars. And the overhead of a car is huge, you need one driver for a maximum of 4 passengers and probably a mode of 1 passenger. The overhead of a bus is smaller, because one driver can carry 30 or 60 people. Arguably, you'd need less of them because busses carry more people, but for some reason the unit economics often doesn't work out like that IRL. It'd make more sense for a neighborhood to have just one xbox that everyone shares when they need it, rather than everyone having their own xbox that's idle 95% of the time, but that's not how it went. (Same for any other computing device.)
Breza 2mo ago
Bus drivers don't make much money, at least not here in the United States. I was shocked when I learned how low the average salary is, considering you might be tasked with navigating a massive vehicle carrying dozens of people through narrow streets during rush hour. And I'm not even considering the customer service aspects and public safety aspects of what they do. All that to say, we are far from the point where a self-driving bus is cheaper than buying a regular bus and paying a driver.

jrflo 3mo ago

Realistically it's "too much 'environmental' review", aka NIMBYs killing any project that will actually implement good public transit because it will ruin the view from their kitchen

trymas 3mo ago

Capex for car infrastructure seemingly is uncapped (and I don’t talk only about USA either). But when it’s non-car transit suddenly it’s too much money, not profitable, nimby, etc. When cars enjoy fuel subsidies , (mostly) free roads and endless expansion. Update: some car brains over the world decided that even bike lanes are an issue. When bike lanes have bigger throughput, costs don’t even make a dent compared to roads, maintenance is negligible, etc.

HDThoreaun 3mo ago
Because 99% of Americans use cars. There’s no point spending money on something that only 15% of the population will even consider using, you’ll still have to spend just as much on roads.
- trymas 3mo ago
  > Because 99% of Americans use cars. I wouldn't want to be a kid, elderly, sick, blind, disabled in USA. > There’s no point spending money on something that only 15% of the population will even consider using Induced demand. Though seriously you had everything: trains, trams/streetcars, great towns - now say it's impossible (after 80-100 years of lobbying and crazy subsidies). I bet if "right" startup popped up that by accident would be public transport adjacent - atitude would shift on a dime. I saw a bunch of articles about pedestrian accessibility improvements, due to delivery bots[0]. Apparently it may be easier to improve things for businesses instead of people. [0] first article I've found: https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/could-delivery-robots-help-pay-for-better-sidewalks https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/could-delivery-robots-hel...

panick21_ 3mo ago

Capex for countries isn't really that big of a problem. You can raise lots of capital for long term, a proper investment should increase land values (or property values). Generally societies that invest a lot of capex in high capacity transit do quite well. Also roads have high capex along with operation cost, along with high private cost. Not even mention the additional cost for health and other hidden costs. If you go by total lift-time cost by capacity then its a fantastic deal.