Comment by BarryMilo
14 hours ago
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?)
Why?
3 replies →
Why would you need buses?
Mass transit is a capacity multiplier. If 35 people are headed in the same direction compare that with the infrastructure needed to handle 35 cars. Road capacity, parking capacity, car dealerships, gas stations, repair shops, insurance, car loans.
Believe it or not, in some cities that have near grid-lock rush-hour traffic - there's between 50-100%+ as many people traveling by bus as by car.
If all of those people switch to cars, you end up with it taking an hour to travel 1 mile by car.
It's almost as if they have busses for a reason.
6 replies →
> 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).
I ran the numbers, and for most non-braindead cities something like a fleet of 6-seater minivans will easily replace all of local transit.
And with just 6 people the overhead if an imperfect route and additional stops will be measured in minutes.
And of course, it's pretty easy to imagine an option to pay a bit more for a fully personal route.
6 replies →
> 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.
That's how some people feel about airplanes. Presumably you're not one of them. For some people, the inconvenience of being responsible for a car would outweigh the benefit of setting up their stuff inside of one.
1 reply →