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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: 1) by anotherblackhat on Wednesday July 26 2017, @02:39PM (3 children)
I see three predictions being made here;
1. Electric cars will replace gassers.
2. Self-driving cars will replace driving.
3. Once those happen, most people will stop owning cars and instead rent them.
I agree with 1 - electric cars are already displacing gassers. Once they become cheaper than gassers, they will capture most of the market.
Prediction 2 seems less likely.
Sure, there will be some self driving cars, but a self driving car will be more expensive than a human driven one.
So far the self driving option is a fairly hefty expense.
But OK, let's assume that eventually self driving cars are cheap enough that they become the rule, not the exception.
But do those really affect prediction 3?
Cars are rated in miles.
My car has 150,000 miles on it, and when it gets to 250,000 I will likely have to replace it.
I will drive it until it dies.
I'm already extracting close to the maximum amount of utility out of it that can be extracted.
The driver is an expense, but getting rid of the driver doesn't make a taxis cheaper than owning your own car.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:46PM (1 child)
Your sequence is wrong, therefore your conclusion is based on wrong assumptions.
Yes, 1 is a prerequisite. But the order of 2 and 3 is not the one I understand. Rather it's:
1. Electric cars will replace fuel-driven cars. (You agreed on that.)
2. Electric cars will make car ownership more expensive. On the other hand, autonomous driving will make public transportation (both mass transport and individual transport) cheaper.
3. Therefore in the long run, the market will shift from car ownership to public transportation. This shift will be so massive that car ownership will be the exception rather than the norm.
Note that in this sequence, at no point the need of ownership of self-driving cars for personal use of the owner arises. It only needs to replace paid drivers in that scenario.
You agreed on 1.
The first part of 2 is debatable (I expect the price of electric cars to come down with advances in technology and mass production). The second part of 2 is IMHO inevitable.
On 3, changing relative prices will cause a market shift towards the product that's relatively getting cheaper. The debatable question is whether this market shift is as complete as the authors think.
(Score: 1) by anotherblackhat on Wednesday July 26 2017, @05:00PM
Doesn't matter what the price is.
It cost me the same to own it that it cost the rental agency (or taxi company or whatever).
Renting a moving van makes sense. I pay more per mile but less than the total cost because I don't drive the moving van very often.
Renting something I'm going to use up completely doesn't make economic sense.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 26 2017, @05:18PM
I think you're wrong about #2. The CEO of Berkshire-Hathaway, who owns GEICO (Warren Buffet) says that autonomous cars will be very cheap to insure, human-driven cars very expensive, because people really suck at driving. If you don't see how badly most people drive, you're probably one of them.
I agree with the rest of your comment.
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