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from the I'm-sorry-Dave,-I-can't-do-that dept.
[...] some experts believe as much as 95% of passenger miles could be electric, autonomous by 2030, thanks to some basic economics. Because electric vehicles cost a whole lot less to drive and maintain—but more to buy—and because autonomous vehicles greatly reduce the cost of commercial driving, a combination of the two technologies will make autonomous Transportation as a Service exponentially more cost competitive than either owning a car, or hiring a car and driver. It's also exponentially more profitable for car companies, who have long feared the loss of maintenance and service profits associated with a transition to electric cars.
This question will come up more frequently as self-driving technology advances. Will perfection of that technology make a difference, though, in the face of social behaviors that have been deeply ingrained over the past century?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @11:34AM (3 children)
Why exactly would this be a monopoly? All you need to get started in this business is a phone app and a car. Ideally more than one car, but still. You can get into this business for a couple of million dollars with basically off the shelf technology. Barrier to entry is zero, unless there's some stupid licensing scheme, but even that seems relatively unlikely (there's a licensing scheme to get into trucking or limo driving but it's relatively easy... Taxis and their crazy licenses are the exception, not the rule, and their licensing is not likely to transfer to this, especially in the wake of Uber, etc). And it's not like you can lock customers in because a car is a car, so they'll choose whichever service is best for them at that moment. I actually see a side business for a matching service, dispatcher like, that can find a car for a given customer from whichever service has one closest. Google will probably do that if nobody else does. Different companies might specialize in different kinds of cars, one is cheap, one provides luxury cars, one has the lightest capacity usage so your waits are shorter, whatever.
I actually have a hard time thinking of a business that is less likely to turn into a monopoly.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 26 2017, @02:10PM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @02:56PM
> Their value isn't from running a fleet of vehicles, it's from running the booking system.
Uber's "value" is from idiot investors.
For a company (whose only products are an app and a huge team of lawyers) to lose $2.8 billion in a single year is a spectacular feat. Anyone who thinks this company is headed for success deserves their impending investment loss.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_(company) [wikipedia.org]
http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-2016-financial-numbers-revenue-losses-2017-4/ [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:45PM
Because our Congresscritters are idiots and in the pockets of established market leaders.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"