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When Do Robocars Become Cheaper Than Standard Cars?
Hallie Siegel writes: With all the extra sensors and technology that have to go into autonomous cars, you might expect them to cost more. After all, autonomous features like park assist and auto lane changing are added-value components that you pay extra for on current vehicles. But autonomous car expert Brad Templeton thinks it could be that the overall cost of autonomous vehicles per mile driven will lower than traditional cars. Not only because features of traditional cars, like dashboards and steering columns, will not be necessary in robocars, but also because autonomous cars are more likely to be shared and constantly in use, rather than sitting in your driveway 90% of the time.
>> because features of traditional cars, like dashboards and steering columns, will not be necessary in robocars
That makes the question easy. Robocars will be cheaper after fully autonomous cars - with zero driver intervention - are allowed. In other words, probably never.
>> autonomous cars are more likely to be shared and constantly in use
Not my car. I pay the extra money to have my own seats that no one else's bum touches, my own cup holders that never hold alcohol or drippy milkshakes, and my own seat fabrics that only my kids drop their toys onto.
That's what bribery is for ... no, wait - I mean PAC donations!
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
park assist and auto lane changing
Admittedly I haven't bought a car in 8 years, but ... are those tasks somehow considered "difficult" such that it makes any degree of sense whatsoever to add expense to the vehicle to perform them automatically?
I should think anyone competent to be operating the vehicle to start with should find them trivial by definition, and anyone not finding them trivial should not be operating the vehicle.
Wait until you're 75. Or have a stroke. Or lose your peripheral vision. Or something.
Yes, 18 year olds should be able to parallel park despite an enormous amount of practical information to the contrary, but the real promise of automated vehicles is that it will allow people that cannot (or should not, a much large category) drive 'manually' have access to individual transportation.
That said, I think the premise of TFA is ridiculous. Most people are not going to be sharing vehicles nearly as much as he thinks. Even if they do, fleet vehicles tend to need more maintenance than driveway queens.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I pay the extra money to have my own seats...
And when such private automobiles are no longer sold for any amount you can afford?
That's easy:
Then I shall print one.
If you have a stroke or lose your peripheral vision perhaps you shouldn't be driving at all.
If you have a stroke or lose your peripheral vision perhaps you shouldn't be driving at all.
He mentioned that with: "but the real promise of automated vehicles is that it will allow people that cannot (or should not, a much large category) drive 'manually' have access to individual transportation."
Right now, if you suffer from a condition that renders you unable to drive, it can be a massive expense and inconvenience to you. Suddenly you're dependent upon family to drive you everywhere, or lacking that public transportation(and it's limitations) or expensive taxies.
We also have the problem of the damage new drivers tend to cause during the learning experiences, and some never seem to learn. Somebody with a tendency to tap bumpers might find 'park assist' handy.
Personally, I like the idea of my vehicle dropping me off at the door of wherever I'm going, then going off and parking, then picking me up at the door, especially when I'm loaded down with groceries.
I don't read AC A human right
Admittedly I haven't bought a car in 8 years, but ... are those tasks somehow considered "difficult" such that it makes any degree of sense whatsoever to add expense to the vehicle to perform them automatically?
YMMV but personally I hate parallel parking with my no assist, no camera, no proximity sensor car. I hate trying to predict through the mirrors how far I got left until I bump into someone, mostly I'm overcautious meaning it takes me way too many cycles of back and forth. And even minor superficial damage is very expensive if they get need to get it fixed through their insurance company, which I'm either paying out of pocket or suffering a big bonus loss.
I've tried using more modern cars with sensors/cameras, honestly that makes it quite easy. But once you're there it's not really a big step cost-wise to just let the car assist you, though I do consider a bit useless half-step. I'd rather have a fully automatic system, but I guess they're not ready for that quite yet. I guess it's coming sooner than the self driving car though.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
And when you are late for work, they will happily chug along at the speed limit no matter how much you yell at them. Fleet operators might also decide to tweak maximum speeds to save gas money when prices rise (like airlines did for awhile), maybe even giving you the ability to select to go at the full speed limit for an extra fee. I think of the airlines as to how very cool technology can be completely made miserable once in the grasp of the invisible hand.
I know a lot of people who really dislike being passengers, and that won't change when we are all asked to become passengers.
Sometimes, a "news story" is so obviously a press release that it's almost embarrassing.
Here's a couple of news stories that hit the wire in the past few days, so you tell me why you think there's suddenly a story about how we're all going to live in a robocar utopia:
http://gizmodo.com/hackers-hav...
http://gizmodo.com/chrysler-re...
(emphasis mine)
You are welcome on my lawn.
I also do like the idea of not having to waste my time driving anymore, but the problem of being unable to drive is a "first world problem". If you are unable to drive and live in a place where there is no public transportation, then you should sell your nice cozy house, leave your nice cozy town and move to a city where there is adequate public transportation. Becoming dependent upon your family is nothing but a choice you (and sometimes your family) make.
What is it that notorious car-drivers hate about public transport, so that they end up spending like 5-10 times more money than what public transport would have cost them?
That is the question that you need to answer before you can make predictions like in the slashdot summary.
Public transport has "quantization noise". If you leave for work 3 minutes later, you'll miss the bus, and end up at work 15 minutes later. Sure you can prevent that. Just be at the bus stop 5 minutes before the bus. This means you invest 5 minutes every day to prevent a 15 minute occasional delay.
Second: when you use public transport, you don't have "your own space". This means that if you leave your wallet, ipad or whatever lying around when you step out of the vehicle, barring exceptions, it is gone. If you have your own "transport space", you can also stock it with stuff you might need while travelling (e.g. my brother has mints in his car), of that you might end up needing at the destination (e.g. umbrella).
Third there is a cost issue. If you see the cost to you every time you move, that makes you consider it more. People ignore the: "the car needs xx petrol to drive this far, so it costs me at the least yy to make this trip". They see the filing up and paying whatever that takes as something that must be done, and then they pretend driving the car is free.
Those are the things the car-drivers will need to have satisfied before they can be converted. And if you don't convert the car-drivers you will not have the economy of scale to have "leaving out the steering column" make a difference.
The current topic will "solve" the quantization noise. You hit a button in your house a few minutes before you leave, and the system will get a self-drving-car on your driveway before you close the door. It does not solve the other problem. You cannot leave the umbrella in the car "in case it rains when I get there". You forget your stuff and the next occupant might take it. (or at least "where is my presentation" is not solved with a run to the car park).
The "self driving" and "semi-public-transport" ideas will only work if everybody gets to keep their private module. Those could be powered with say a small 1kW motor and have a 40km/h (25mph) speed limit. Then when they end up at the freeway, a bunch of them group together with a "power-unit" and they can travel on the freeway at high speed. (Pay more and the "maximum grouping delay" goes down).
the problem of being unable to drive is a "first world problem"
And since the first world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World is comprised of a large number of countries with prodigious intellectual and industrial production capability it should hardly come as a surprise that the first world is applying those capabilities to solving first world problems such as this. What would be surprising and sad would be if the industrial machine that won World War 2 were no longer capable of applying resources to the resolution of its own problems.
If you are unable to drive and live in a place where there is no public transportation, then you should sell your nice cozy house, leave your nice cozy town and move to a city where there is adequate public transportation. Becoming dependent upon your family is nothing but a choice you (and sometimes your family) make.
Ah yes, a brilliant suggestion. Just what anyone who has suffered a debilitating illness, accident or age related loss of physical and mental capacity should do: move away from everything and everyone they know so that they can start fresh as a mentally and/or physically disabled newbie in an unfamiliar place with no family or friends to turn to for help.