Comment by hamdingers
11 hours ago
The whole point of self-driving cars (to me) is I don't have to own or insure it, someone else deals with that and I just make it show up with my phone when I need it.
11 hours ago
The whole point of self-driving cars (to me) is I don't have to own or insure it, someone else deals with that and I just make it show up with my phone when I need it.
Imagine this for a whole neighborhood! Maybe it'd be more efficient for the transport to come at regular intervals though. And while we're at it, let's pick up other people along the way, you'll need a bigger vehicle though, perhaps bus-sized...
Half-jokes aside, if you don't own it, you'll end up paying more to the robotaxi company than you would have paid to own the car. This is all but guaranteed based on all SaaS services so far.
This only works in neighborhoods that are veritable city blocks, with buildings several stories tall standing close by. Not something like northern Houston, TX; it barely works for places like Palo Alto, CA. You cannot run buses on every lane, at a reasonable distance from every house.
The point of a car is takes you door to door. There's no expectation to walk three blocks from a stop; many US places are not intended for waking anyway. Consider heavy bags from grocery shopping, or similar.
Public transit works in proper cities, those that became cities before the advent of the car, and were not kept in the shape of large suburban sprawls by zoning. Most US cities only qualify in their downtowns.
Elsewhere, rented / hailed self-driving cars would be best. First of all, fewer of them would be needed.
> if you don't own it, you'll end up paying more to the robotaxi company than you would have paid to own the car
Maybe for you, I already don't own it and have not found that to be true. I pretty much order an uber whenever I don't feel like riding my bike or the bus, and that costs <$300 most months. Less than the average used car payment in the US before you even consider insurance, fuel, storage, maintenance, etc.
I also rent a car now and then for weekend trips, that also is a few hundred bucks at most.
I would be surprised if robotaxis were more expensive long term.
Self-driving municipal busses would be fantastic.
Also, a real nightmare for the municipal trade unions. (Do you know why every NYC subway train needs to have not one but two operators, even though it could run automatically just fine?)
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Why would you need buses?
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> Maybe it'd be more efficient for the transport to come at regular intervals though
Efficient for who, is the problem
Focusing only on price, renting a beafy shared "cloud" computer is cheaper than buying one and changing every 5 years. It's not always an issue for idle hardware.
Cars are mostly idle and could be cheaper if shared. But why make them significantly cheaper when you can match the price and extract more profits?
Cars and personal computers have advantages over shared resources that often make them worth the cost. If you want your transport/compute in busy times you may find limitations. (ever got on the train and had to stand because there are no seats? Every had to wait for your compute job to start because they are all busy? Both of these have happened to me).
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> But why make them significantly cheaper when you can match the price and extract more profits?
Even better — charge 10% less and corner the market! As long as nobody charges 10% less than you…
> Cars are mostly idle and could be cheaper if shared. But why make them significantly cheaper when you can match the price and extract more profits?
Yeah, this would rely on robust competition.
Nah, I don't want to share my car with anyone. It's my own personal space where I can keep some of my stuff and set it up exactly the way I want.
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For the vast majority of people who own a car, continuing to own the car will remain the better deal. Most people need their car during "rush hour", so there isn't any savings from sharing, and worse some people have "high standards" and so will demand the rental be a clean car nicer than you would accept - thus raising the costs (particularly if you drive used cars) Any remaining argument for a shared car dies when you realize that you can leave your things in the car, and you never have to wait.
For the rest - many of them live in a place where not enough others will follow the same system and so they will be forced to own a car just like today. If you live in a not dense area but still manage to walk/bike almost everywhere (as I do), renting a car is on paper cheaper the few times when you need a car - but in practice you don't know about that need several weeks in advance and so they don't have one they can rent to you. Even if you know you will need the car weeks in advance, sometimes they don't have one when you arrive.
If you live in a very dense area such that you almost regularly use transit (but sometimes walk, bike), but need a car for something a few times per year, then not owning a car makes sense. In this case the density means shared cars can be a viable business model despite not being used very much.
In short what you say sound insightful, but reality of how cars are used means it won't happen for most car owners.
> sometimes they don't have one when you arrive.
Or, if they are Hertz, they might have one but refuse to give it to you. This happened to my wife. In spite of payment already being made to Hertz corporate online, the local agent wouldn't give up a car for a one-way rental. Hertz corporate was less than useless, telling us their system said was a car available, and suggesting we pay them hundreds of dollars again and go pick it up. When I asked the woman from corporate whether she could actually guarantee we would be given a car, she said she couldn't. When I suggested she call the local agent, she said she had no way to call the local office. Unbelievable.
Since it was last minute, there were... as you said, no cars available at any of the other rental companies. So we had to drive 8 hours to pick her up. Then 8 hours back, which was the drive she was going to make in the rental car in the first place.
Hertz will hurts you.
I personally would have changed it to a round-trip then just returned the car to the other Hertz location and let them figure it out.
Hertz this time, but things like that have happened with every rental company I know of.
This is the nightmare scenario for me. A forever subscription for the usage of a car.
Subscription for self driving will almost be a given with so many bad actors in tech nowadays, but never even being allowed to own the car is even worse.
I think this is purely psychological. The notion of paying for usage of some resource that you don't own is really rather mundane when you get down to it.
One mean tweet and your self driving subscription is taken away is way better than one mean tweet and your car is taken away.
Subscription for changes to maps and the law makes sense. I'd also pay for the latest safety improvements (but they better be real improvements). However they are likely to add a number of unrelated things and I object to those.
How do maps changes make sense to subscribe to when they are on OSM?
And what do you even mean by subscription to changes to the law?
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That's the point of self-driving fleets. Or maybe a special category of leased vehicles.
This is about a self-driving car you own.
I think part of the issue in California at least is that you must have insurance. You gonna get a giant fine if you don't.