What are the incentives, though? There’s not actually that much money to be made here, despite dreams of self driving taxis (something that could never be possible). Maybe in the trucking industry, but the tech doesn’t exist and is nowhere close to being reliable enough consistently enough.
I’m not sure. So long as a safety driver is needed there’s no cost savings over regular taxi service. Given the human infrastructure that will be required behind the scenes to support the fragility of these cars’ operation (sensor cleaning, monitoring for problems, etc) and the added expense of the self driving tech, I’m not seeing much opening for money to be made here ever...
They're not incentivized because in the next 5-15 years they're going to be operating fleets of self-driving cars. They just need to float til then with whatever is the cheapest option.
Tangentially, but I'm wondering how the calculations really go with the robo-taxis. Taxidrivers here are probably getting $5/h or so and it's a job you can get without any skills at all, you don't need to speak the language and you don't need any tests, you just need to be able to sit down, input stuff on a GPS and drive. So there's an infinity of people to employ if you're a cab company. Neither Waymo nor Tesla want to give the tech away for free. Is there a market (without corporate subsidies from Waymo etc)?
Drivers don't have an incentive, but car manufacturers do. The dream for Uber was a robofleet of driverless cars, which can still happen; it'll be General Motors getting into the taxi trade if such a thing ever became feasible.
Yeah which I think the only remaining good application of self-driving car ( taxi ) doesn't bring that much convenient, since taxi here is already somewhat reasonably priced. I can't speak for the the US experience.
Also the article touches briefly on drivers going into jobless. A lot of drivers where i'm from seems to be retiring middle-old age working in taxi. I think it's a good job fit for them and I don't know how the new self-driving industry can provide the same thing (?)
What economic benefits? Seriously, I don't see any. I mean, I see some for the producers of said cars, but not for a city that mandates only self-driving taxis.
To me, it seems like the incentives to own a car may not be so great once self-driving taxis are available, especially in the city. No need to worry about parking, insurance, maintainence, or gas.
Wait, how is offering driver less cabs penalizing all drivers?
The only motivation I see that drives self-driving taxi development is reduced labor costs. But that isn't different than what has happened since the industrial revolution.
A valid point. Especially as self driving is nowhere close to bringing in revenue for any of the companies involved. Other than engineers working with batteries or metals which lead to actual billion dollar revenues.
But the article is about self-driving taxis. There is little productivity gain there for the users, since they are already free to spend their time in the car working or doing whatever they like, driver or no driver. Likewise, self-driving cars won't make everyone richer, taxi drivers will definitely be on the losing side.
Really self driving cars won’t be much difference than how pervasive taxi use is in countries where labor is cheap, except traffic will be much more optimized.
So if they're relying on driver subsidies to be competitive but can't make money that route is there a plan for them to make money without relying on autonomous vehicles? Or is that the bet?
The margins on taxi services are so incredibly thin I find it difficult to believe there is any value in autonomous taxis. Especially when you take into account all the edge cases that will have to be accounted for, and the traffic that will be generated. Shipping and trucking are a massive industry, and I think automating highway driving has a much much better cost/benefit. Not to mention being safer.
So next up: will they be able to reach profitability servicing SF and Phoenix. So far, highly small scale subsidized pilot projects.
The hardware is more expensive than regular cabs. The software has cost billions, an may cost billions more.
Operationally, energy use should be marginally higher. Hourly cab-driver wages: gone. Insurance and write off — we'll see, but if the software is any good this should be considerably lower.
I guess it comes down to the big unknown: will it work at scale. Can we find enough cities with great weather, where enough people will use it? What will happen when the price goes up? What is a fair, sustainable price? Will that be higher than human-driven car?
There is no way you can justify the expense of development unless it is the plan. You can't make that much money selling self-driving as a very expensive (and finicky) option. Ride-sharing puts cars on the road, rolls them out regionally, and maximizes the utilization.
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