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Am I the only one thinking a targeted convergence with driverless cars down the road (no pun intended)? Once you remove the largest cost factor (the human), do

Am I the only one thinking a targeted convergence with driverless cars down the road (no pun intended)? Once you remove the largest cost factor (the human), does pricing reduce to $.56/mi (or whatever the Standard Mileage Rate, or derivative thereof, is at the time). Added with Express to overload deliveries to maximize utility (maybe offer riders a discount if they can make an express stop along the way...)

nilkn 12y ago
On-demand driverless transportation from any A to any B at $.56/mile would be truly revolutionary. I wonder how many years off we are from this.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  Electric vehicles cost about 1-3 cents/mile for the electricity. They also require so little service, I would assume the cost would be closer to 10-20 cents/mile for a self-driving electric vehicle.
  - rottyguy 12y ago
    I was baselining from here: http://www.irs.gov/2014-Standard-Mileage-Rates-for-Business,-Medical-and-Moving-Announced http://www.irs.gov/2014-Standard-Mileage-Rates-for-Business,... but, sure, it would most likely be less.
    - toomuchtodo 12y ago
      My mistake!
    - ajju 12y ago
      That $0.56 number includes depreciation. There are other costs like insurance which are non-trivial. Initially at least, it's not going to be much less.
      - rottyguy 12y ago
        Actually, insurance in driverless cars should be trivial. Accidents should drop to near 0 (over time) due to driver error... at least in theory.
        ajju 12y ago
        Eventually it might, but that assumes that all cars will be driverless. Even if driverless cars have a 0 error rate, human driven cars will run into them at at least the same rate as they run into static objects. At any rate, this eventual reduction in insurance is why I started by saying "Initially at least". With time, the cost of manufacturing self driving cars will also go down.
        benmanns 12y ago
        That would be fall the human driver's liability and/or uninsured/underinsured coverage, which is going to be much less than comprehensive insurance.
        username223 12y ago
        That's like saying "software should become bug-free over time." I'm not sure it's actually getting worse over time, but it sure isn't getting better. Have you ever had to find a bug in a Wordpress plugin written in PHP by a part-time developer, that generates JavaScript, that in turn generates buggy HTML? I doubt wonky driverless cars trying to optimize a bunch of conflicting metrics (operation cost, utilization, revenue (from fares/ads/analytics), security, etc.), plugged into a constantly updating global mapping system, will have a decreasing number of bugs over time.
        bsdpython 12y ago
        Google has an insane level of motivation to wring out any and all bugs from a driverless car. Even a single deadly accident in one of their cars could potentially destroy their entire business. Comparing that type of software to a Wordpress plugin makes no sense. The potential cost of a bug is huge in this case thus you will get very good software with any driverless car.

nilkn 12y ago

On-demand driverless transportation from any A to any B at $.56/mile would be truly revolutionary. I wonder how many years off we are from this.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
Electric vehicles cost about 1-3 cents/mile for the electricity. They also require so little service, I would assume the cost would be closer to 10-20 cents/mile for a self-driving electric vehicle.
- rottyguy 12y ago
  I was baselining from here: http://www.irs.gov/2014-Standard-Mileage-Rates-for-Business,-Medical-and-Moving-Announced http://www.irs.gov/2014-Standard-Mileage-Rates-for-Business,... but, sure, it would most likely be less.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    My mistake!
  - ajju 12y ago
    That $0.56 number includes depreciation. There are other costs like insurance which are non-trivial. Initially at least, it's not going to be much less.
    - rottyguy 12y ago
      Actually, insurance in driverless cars should be trivial. Accidents should drop to near 0 (over time) due to driver error... at least in theory.
      - ajju 12y ago
        Eventually it might, but that assumes that all cars will be driverless. Even if driverless cars have a 0 error rate, human driven cars will run into them at at least the same rate as they run into static objects. At any rate, this eventual reduction in insurance is why I started by saying "Initially at least". With time, the cost of manufacturing self driving cars will also go down.
        benmanns 12y ago
        That would be fall the human driver's liability and/or uninsured/underinsured coverage, which is going to be much less than comprehensive insurance.
      - username223 12y ago
        That's like saying "software should become bug-free over time." I'm not sure it's actually getting worse over time, but it sure isn't getting better. Have you ever had to find a bug in a Wordpress plugin written in PHP by a part-time developer, that generates JavaScript, that in turn generates buggy HTML? I doubt wonky driverless cars trying to optimize a bunch of conflicting metrics (operation cost, utilization, revenue (from fares/ads/analytics), security, etc.), plugged into a constantly updating global mapping system, will have a decreasing number of bugs over time.
        bsdpython 12y ago
        Google has an insane level of motivation to wring out any and all bugs from a driverless car. Even a single deadly accident in one of their cars could potentially destroy their entire business. Comparing that type of software to a Wordpress plugin makes no sense. The potential cost of a bug is huge in this case thus you will get very good software with any driverless car.