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posted by CoolHand on Thursday May 21 2015, @03:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the want-to-ride-it-all-night-long dept.

Barclays PLC analyst Brian Johnson predicts that U.S. automobile sales will drop 40% within the next 25 years due to disruption caused by driverless technology, and that vehicle ownership rates will be cut in half as families move to having just one car:

Large-volume automakers "would need to shrink dramatically to survive," Johnson wrote. "GM and Ford would need to reduce North American production by up to 68 percent and 58 percent, respectively."

Self-driving cars have become a frequent topic for auto executives as the technology for the vehicles emerges. The market for autonomous technology will grow to $42 billion by 2025 and self-driving cars may account for a quarter of global auto sales by 2035, according to Boston Consulting Group. By 2017, partially autonomous vehicles will become available in "large numbers," the firm said in a report in April.

Johnson's report, entitled "Disruptive Mobility," contends that the shift to cars that drive themselves will upend the auto industry. "While extreme, a historical precedent exists," Johnson wrote. "Horses once filled the many roles that cars fill today, but as the automobile came along, the population of horses dropped sharply."

"By removing the driver from the equation (the largest cost in a taxi ride), the average cost per mile to the consumer could be 44 cents for a private ride in a standard sedan and 8 cents for a shared ride in a two-seater," Johnson wrote, noting that would be "well below" the $3 to $3.50 a mile consumers now pay to ride in an UberX car or the $1 to $1.50 a mile for an UberPool vehicle.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Zinho on Thursday May 21 2015, @04:17PM

    by Zinho (759) on Thursday May 21 2015, @04:17PM (#186061)

    So, I've got a few kids and on Wednesday nights they need to sometimes arrive at three different places at the same time. Options are:

    1. teleportation
    2. multiple vehicles
    3. staggered arrival times

    These predictions of a drop-off in car sales fail to account for peak usage. I often get my kids to carpool with friends going to the same activities, but ride sharing of that sort requires coordination and smacks of public transportation. Assuming that ride sharing will be commonplace enough to reduce demand for auto sales implies a big shift in U.S. driving culture that I don't see being sparked by the adoption of driverless cars.

    In addition, even if my cars drove themselves I'd still need two. I have a small commuter car that gets great gas mileage that I use to drive to work, and I also have a van that fits my entire family for when we're traveling together. The small car won't hold construction materials for home repairs, either - I'm not this guy. [snopes.com] In contrast, my van will hold 10ft boards and 4x8 sheets of drywall/plywood with no problems (just have to take a few seats out). As long as I own a house and am doing projects I'll need a second car (van/pickup, really) in addition to my commuter car.

    I don't think my situation is unusual, and I don't see it changing any time soon.

    --
    "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @04:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @04:56PM (#186083)

    With only two adults in the family (typical for a modern family until the oldest kid grows up), there's no chance to bring three kids simultaneously to three different places anyway. Unless one of the kids takes a taxi, of course … which then could be a driverless taxi.

    • (Score: 2) by Zinho on Thursday May 21 2015, @06:34PM

      by Zinho (759) on Thursday May 21 2015, @06:34PM (#186141)

      That's true, and would result in one additional car on the road that isn't there now. Not a ringing endorsement of the author's claim of reduced car sales.

      --
      "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
  • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:15PM

    by Dunbal (3515) on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:15PM (#186099)

    Since it is impossible to be at three different places at the same time, not everyone is satisfied today. Therefore you can't claim that if not everyone is satisfied tomorrow, somehow something has changed. It will still be impossible to be at three different places at the same time. Ahh, but if you stagger, then an automated vehicle that can drive itself empty can be much more efficient.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Zinho on Thursday May 21 2015, @06:09PM

      by Zinho (759) on Thursday May 21 2015, @06:09PM (#186129)

      That's correct, I'm saying that both now and in the driverless future this problem will be the same, and will have the same level of dissatisfaction given the same number of vehicles available. I'm also saying that staggering is a suboptimal solution; it causes problems that didn't exist before (arriving early and late can both cause issues).

      The reason I bring this up is to refute the article's assertion that somehow, after cars start driving themselves, that there will be fewer cars on the street. My personal use case refutes that - I'd be using two cars whether they drove themselves or not. In fact, I'm willing to say that if the cars drove themselves (and didn't require a licensed driver to operate) that I'd probably buy a third car; the situation in my case is opposite of the trend the author proposes.

      Therefore you can't claim that if not everyone is satisfied tomorrow, somehow something has changed.

      I'm not the one saying a change is coming, the author is. They are proposing that a specific change (cars driving themselves) will have a specific effect (fewer cars on the road). The burden's not on me to prove the author correct. By saying that fewer cars will be sold, the author is suggesting that people will suddenly be satisfied with fewer cars than they are with the current number. I don't believe that's the case for everyone, and gave specific reason why it's not the case for me.

      YMMV. (pun intended)

      --
      "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @07:32PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @07:32PM (#186173)

        With driverless cars taxis will be cheaper, so that leads to it being more economical to get rid of the second car and just use taxies on the occasions where a second car would be needed for some families. Perhaps it wouldn't be worth it in your case, but I'm sure there are plenty of cases where that is true. Will it be as much as is claimed, it is too difficult to say, I think it is too far in the future and there are too many variables to have any confidence in the numbers given, though I think it is likely correct with the general trend.

        • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday May 21 2015, @09:48PM

          by Dunbal (3515) on Thursday May 21 2015, @09:48PM (#186214)

          My personal fear is that taxis, while cheaper, will be so disgusting no one will be able to use them. I am imagining short term rental driverless cars just a little less hygenic than amusement park rides. Especially at night. Yeurk. Kudos to the company that prides itself in spotless cars.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:53PM (#186123)

    > So, I've got a few kids and on Wednesday nights they need to sometimes arrive at three different places at the same time
    >
    >I don't think my situation is unusual, and I don't see it changing any time soon.

    I think your situation is unusual.

    In the USA average number of children per married couple is under 2.0. [census.gov] It is even less for single-parent families. You, with at least 3 kids are an outlier.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Zinho on Thursday May 21 2015, @06:29PM

      by Zinho (759) on Thursday May 21 2015, @06:29PM (#186136)

      You know, I was going to call you out on statistics abuse, but you understated your case. Current census numbers [census.gov] indicate that nationwide the average children per family is 0.9; this only goes up to 1.86 when you filter out the families with no children. (see table ST-F1-2000)

      I have to wonder how many standard deviations 3 children is out from that mean. The CIA factbook still lists US fertility rate at 2.01 children per woman, [cia.gov] so we're keeping the birthrate up somehow despite the numerous families w/o children and the many with fewer than 2.

      --
      "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @09:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @09:03PM (#186199)

        A family that has/will-have/has-had n children, where n≥1, could go through 5 states:

        1. 0 children -- newlyweds, no children born
        2. <n children -- not all born yet
        3. n children -- all born, still living at home.
        4. <n children -- some have grown up and/or moved out
        5. 0 children -- all gone.

        Of course there's other sources/sinks (e.g. adoption and death), and even without them there's the possibility that the last child is born after the first child leaves (1 -> 2/4 -> 5), but I think the full sequence should be typical for n≥2. Note that for n=1, they go through states 1 -> 3 -> 5, skipping 2 and 4.

        One might expect the average number of children for families in state 3 to correspond closely to the fertility rate (assuming low child mortality, and few permanently childless families) -- but if you consider all families with children in an attempt to estimate fertility rate, you're (correctly) dropping families presently in states 1 and 5, but including families in states 2 and 4, who have less than a full complement of children, thus underestimating fertility rate. OTOH, you're also (incorrectly) dropping families who never have children, which would lead to overestimating the fertility rate -- evidently the former effect is larger than the latter.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @06:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @06:46PM (#186146)

    God knows we don't want to

    smacks of public transportation

    ! Isn't that for old people and students?

    • (Score: 2) by Zinho on Thursday May 21 2015, @07:32PM

      by Zinho (759) on Thursday May 21 2015, @07:32PM (#186172)

      I wasn't trying to make a value judgement on public transportation, just pointing out that it is stigmatized; sorry if I wasn't clear. I really enjoyed using buses when I visited Europe, and I kinda wish they worked as well in the States.

      Regardless of my feelings or yours on the topic, ignoring the stigma or pretending it doesn't exist is silly when making predictions about nationwide patterns of vehicle usage. If peak traffic goes down and the same people are going to the same places then somehow rides are being shared (publicly or privately). Expecting Americans to suddenly feel good about using public transportation or participating in carpools just because the car dries itself now is naive. If they don't do it now, I don't see how a driverless car will make it more attractive.

      --
      "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin