General > General Technical Chat
Driverless taxi service getting approved in SF
tom66:
Yeah, I'm agreed with that. The average car spends ca. 95% of its time parked up. And it costs, what, $25k from new to buy? That's a huge amount of capital to invest in that 5% convenience. If you can offer an Uber-like service at 20 cent per mile, I suspect a lot of people will bite your hand off.
Automated cars solve a lot of the issues that driver operated cars have. And you can begin to optimise what a car *is*. If it's just 'you' going to work, then a one or two seater "smart car" could pick you up. You could packetise bus services more efficiently; now it's practical to have a four-seat bus that serves an otherwise unprofitable route. You can go out drinking and have your car drive you back home. No need to own a 7 seat family SUV because once in a blue moon you have to pick up the kids and their friends from school.
Whilst they do pose risks, the average car driver has an accident more often than once in a decade, and there were 42,000 fatalities in the US due to car accidents alone. If autonomous vehicles achieve twice the safety record of ordinary drivers, who are distracted by their phone, sometimes drunk and always human, then it will be worth it IMO.
pcprogrammer:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the idea, just questioning the technology.
Comparing between human drivers and automated drivers, one can question if the computer is capable of anticipating on other road users. How many of us have avoided accidents just by paying special attention to some of the other drivers on the road.
Your estimate of 20 cents per mile is rather low I think. Even though there is no driver, the owner of the car still want's return on his investment, but sure for a lot of people it might be a perfect fit. And like you say they can scale the cars and deploy according to demand, which can save on energy consumption. On the other hand if we had to use such a service to do our shopping, the car would have to come to our remote location first, then drive us to the shops and back to our home and then on wards to where ever, it consumes more energy then us having our own car and drive back and forth once a week. (Yes we try to minimize our shopping to only once a week. Good for our wallet and the environment.)
tom66:
--- Quote ---Your estimate of 20 cents per mile is rather low I think. Even though there is no driver, the owner of the car still want's return on his investment, but sure for a lot of people it might be a perfect fit. And like you say they can scale the cars and deploy according to demand, which can save on energy consumption. On the other hand if we had to use such a service to do our shopping, the car would have to come to our remote location first, then drive us to the shops and back to our home and then on wards to where ever, it consumes more energy then us having our own car and drive back and forth once a week. (Yes we try to minimize our shopping to only once a week. Good for our wallet and the environment.)
--- End quote ---
This is why the scale of the service is really important. For a commute, a one-person microvehicle could easily use only 5~8kWh/100km and maybe fit just a 15-20kWh battery on board. (It would, of course, be electric. I don't see any reason these should be powered by fuel.) With downtime every few customers for recharging or battery swaps, that vehicle can be utilised something like 16 hours a day, handling commuters in the morning, business travellers in the afternoon and return trips towards the evening. Even if it costs $50k to buy, if it lasts 10 years and does an average of 20mi/h in its service time, then it only cost 5c per mile, so the rest is just down to how much energy and maintenance it requires.
For your shopping example I see it going one of two ways. You would probably only need a one/two person vehicle to go to the shop, and a larger vehicle to go back. A supermarket could convert most of its parking lot into a dropoff/pickup area with vehicles waiting to return customers home. If the service is sized right then there's always a use for that return trip. Alternatively, the delivery vehicle could just take your goods home a few hours after you paid for them. That's much more efficient because the chances are, the route can be arranged to maximise efficiency with other customers served as well. Since a considerable amount of space would be freed not having to accommodate every customer's parking need for the hour they are there, the store could expand to fill the space, or other businesses could be co-located on site.
The whole idea is that you don't need the vehicle to be the same size all the time - it would adapt to your specific needs.
In this hypothetical world I still think private cars will be a 'thing', but they will be less common. Whether you will be allowed to drive as a human though is another matter which I'm sure will create plenty of debate.
pcprogrammer:
--- Quote from: tom66 on June 12, 2022, 03:35:24 pm ---In this hypothetical world I still think private cars will be a 'thing', but they will be less common. Whether you will be allowed to drive as a human though is another matter which I'm sure will create plenty of debate.
--- End quote ---
You are right that it will create a lot of debate. Just look at the 7 pages of arguing about mandatory USB-C port and charging adapters enforced by the EU. :-DD
Might be in the same corner as gun ownership.
pcprogrammer:
--- Quote from: tom66 on June 12, 2022, 03:35:24 pm ---Since a considerable amount of space would be freed not having to accommodate every customer's parking need for the hour they are there, the store could expand to fill the space, or other businesses could be co-located on site.
--- End quote ---
A better idea is to return it to nature. Plant some trees on it.
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