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How Robotaxis Might Mitigate Electric Car Depreciation (robohub.org)
Hallie Siegel writes: Autonomous car expert Brad Templeton argues that we're in for a period of about 5 years in electric cars where each year's new model is a lot better, and that could be a problem for people trying to sell them. Further exacerbating Moore's Law for cars is that autonomous features (like traffic jam assist) rely heavily on computers. Unfortunately cars cost a lot more than computers or cell phones, so throwing them away before the end of their lifespan is a bit of a problem. How do get over the depreciation problem while autonomous cars and electric cars are going through this period of rapid development? Templeton suggests that a taxi model could be the answer, since use is so much more intense that with a private ownership model, that the cars are likely to wear out before they become worthless from a resale perspective.
Good idea but autonomous cars is about 40 years away from being realistic. I am sure people will protest "but Google has a car that works now!". No. They really don't. They have a car that can navigate through heavily pre-mapped city streets. If they turn that car loose in the middle of Chicago it won't work. But the idea of using electric cars for human-driven taxis is a good one. In fact that is one of the reasons why so many taxis are hybrids already. Another reason is that hybrids can use the HOV in some areas.
If I buy a car from the dealership for $50,000 and then try to sell it 10 minutes later it's now worth $25,000 at most.
If I buy a used vehicle from someone for $15,000 and try to sell it 10 minutes later it's still worth about $15,000.
Why take the hit?
Also a car that is worn out still has a pretty poor resale value even if it is just a year old.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
If a computer were too expensive, I would replace components until it made financial sense to purchase a full system.
Something similar could happen with automobiles. The manufacturer could provide a refit program at least once during the typical life of the vehicle (perhaps 3 or 4 years in). It would bring in much of the latest technology for a much lower cost than purchasing a new vehicle, keeping customers happy and less likely to look at a competitor's latest model.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
OK, so lease an electric car. Do not buy an electric car. Gotcha.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
When computers were obsolete the minute you bought it, that was not bad for the people who sold them. Now that computers are "good enough" for half a decade or more, the industry seems to be in much more trouble.
Fleet vehicle usage is almost always going to be higher than personally owned vehicle usage (regardless of whether the driver is a robot or a human) because in one case, the car is a return producing asset that makes no money when it's not working, and in the other case, it's more of a convenience item. That said, the taxi model works significantly better in cities (high population density) than it does in flyover country, so I fail to see how this is a "solution" to the "problem."
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
So, a taxi driver is supposed to drive around for about four or five hours, and then sit around for a few hours to recharge? Yeah, there goes his income. Or, we could have TWICE as many of them so that the driver can swap out cars after four hours. That is economical!
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Tesla, has the battery tech has improved has offered upgrades. If the cars are designed with modular electronic components there is no reason the computers, sensors, and batteries couldn't be kept current to extend the life of the vehicle and shore up the resale value.
the manufacturers make running changes all the time, that's why when you go in to buy a part, and they look it up, it crosses to a new number. which may cross to another one.
so why can't they change the labelling to, say, "mode 3 autosteer processor, required plug G-C-F-T-L depending on make." that's pretty much how the carmakers are buying the train loads of those modules from Continental or Adelphi. government testing will have to change, also, to a modular approach.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
If your electric robotaxi needs to charge while you're in it, do you get charged for the 9 hours your waiting? If it runs out of charge at your home, are you obligated to charge it? Do you get refunded for the cost of electricity if you do? I must have answers!!!
Bingo. Something as common as a water pump or an air filter can have thousands of different styles for all the makes/models out there. It would be nice to have some standards, even if it just one model of car. The closest to this is probably a Jeep, here in the US.
It would be interesting to have one standards-compliant model. It may not look as good as the others or have the latest bells/whistles... but like a LTS release of software, it will still be kicking 10-20 years from now.
Nope. They'll become worthless before they wear out.
Who writes this drivel? His name is suspiciously like Bennet Haselton.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I am sure people will protest "but Google has a car that works now!". No. They really don't. They have a car that can navigate through heavily pre-mapped city streets.
Well, not exactly. If you pay attention to Google latest TED talks:
- that used to be the case at beginning.
- but even heavily pre-maped city streets aren't perfect: new construction works that haven't been mapped, new pot hole, etc.
- thus this ultra-high detail maps would need to be constantly update with very tiny details (which would have been a very fastidious and expensive work if actually done).
- one could better automatically crowd-source the updates: cars automatically submits them as they encounter them.
- this requires automatic interpretation of the data (to avoid overloading the human curator with constant influx of data) and also requires a bunch of very high detail sensors on each car.
- if you have the sensors and the automatic processing power, you might as well decide to directly feed the gathered data to car's autonomous driving system, instead of having to wait for a whole rountrip to the mother ship and the data coming back a map update.
In other ways:
- efforts and technological challenge to keep ultra the insane-level-of-detail maps as up-to-date as possible ~= efforts and techonological challenge to have the car aware of its environment and properly react on changes like a new construction work.
So in fact, this can work with high quality maps similar to high-range GPS devices (the kind that can make distinction between lanes, and knows which lanes (are supposed) to lead where), combined with a fuckton of sensors and a skynet-worth of signal processing and interpretation.
In lay terms: you don't actually need a map of all the pot-holes, when you need a technology able to autonomously detect them to update pot-hole map and keep it as close to the reality as possible. You can as well skip the middle step and directly use your pot-hole detecting equipement to avoid the pot-holes, "map free".
So ...
They have a car that can navigate through heavily pre-mapped city streets.
To be more correct: Google has car that *used to* rely on heavily pre-mapped city street maps. Google has now a car that might not get and manage to react to unexpected situation, in the small subset of all things that the cars has seen up until now and was programmed to handle.
That means that the car already can react in some really weird and unexpected situation, some times bordering on surrealism:
- The TED presentation showed the car correctly detecting a cyclist coming out of simingly no where and cycle completely across a road crossing, passing in front of cars, right just when the traffic lights turn green. The google car stayed and waited the cycling to pass along his erratic part. That wasn't the case of the meat-controlled cars nearby (luckily none ran over the cyclist).
- The TED presentation showed the car correctly reacting to a lady on a motorized wheelchair, chasing a duck in circles in the middle of a street. (again both the grand ma and duck end up safe).
That also means that the car has NOT being tested and will probably fail (not gracefully) on tons of other situations which weren't accounted for and designed-in yet.
- snow is often given as an exemple. Google Cars are currently being tested in California, and have clocked KMs of experience in situation where the street markings are not visible (e.g.: due to weather).
That's also the argument behind Mercedes Benz current research in autonomous cars: they are trying to test their cars in a as many different conditions as possible accross whole Europe.
In short: Google Cars aren't ready yet. But it's not because we need more detailled map of all potholes, but because the cars are only able to see and detect the potholes by themselves, they might be completely oblivious to snowmen as far as we know, and we still need to test (and develop) to that.
But the idea of using electric cars for human-driven taxis is a good one. In fact that is one of the reasons why so many taxis are hybrids already.
Same here around.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Demand is primarily need-driven, if you buy an electric car today because it works for your commute now it'll still work for people "like you" in five years. It's not like the car 5 years from now will drive the same commute significantly better or faster, maybe it can drive longer but that's for a different market. And the quasi-autonomous driving still requires an alert licensed driver in the seat 100% of the time, until that changes it's just bling. Oh and imagine the regulatory hurdles of getting a car model approved for autonomous driving, it'll be that specific sensor package on this particular model and the chances of anything being "backported" is slim to none.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
That is because of dealer markup.
Not quite. The dealer don't have actually that high margins on new cars.
It's really the market price falling with the perception of the cars being in pristine conditions or not.
(It's the same kind of consideration as that to a fan or a collector, it's REALLY important if a good was unboxed / if the packaging has already been cut open or not.)
On the other hand: you can count the dealers to milk your wallet as much as they can get with it. Specially for periodic controls. But also at the slightest warning light going orange / the slightest warning message on the dashboard. Or even for simple firmware update. Or even if the offered services don't make any sense (e.g.: car dealer selling care packages including a few oil changes. On an electric vehicle. (which has a sealed electric motor and thus no possibility to touch the oil).
That's why car dealers are pissed by dealership-free cars companies like Tesla Motors (With automatic OTA update that don't require a "technician" and are offered for free instead of being charged. And with fewer parts requiring actual service)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
People buying Tesla don't give a damn about depreciation.
People buying smaller electric cars (Nissan Leaf etc.) clearly don't care too much about value for money either.
Electric cars (pure, not hybrid) could be a great solution for polluted city centres, but unless the Renault-touted replaceable battery pack concept takes off, (it has not so far), I don't see that a cab driver is going to tolerate cutting earnings in half every day while they wait for the car to charge...
Finally, pure elec cars have much fewer, and simpler mechanical components, so in theory they should be economically viable to repair for much longer.
A more compelling argument would have been:
"Have an open Systems architecture that makes hardware and software upgrades trivial."
Tesla manages to push software upgrades that add significant function without breaking stuff so it's clearly possible...
Also, make the only truly expensive bit of hardware that definitely does wear out - the battery pack - easy to replace.
The manufacturer could provide a refit program at least once during the typical life of the vehicle (perhaps 3 or 4 years in).
Tesla motor for example has tried to retrofit a couple of technologies into previous models that didn't have the option.
(As much software as possible, Armor sheilding the battery, etc.)
The "Autopilot" was notorious for being the first technology where Tesla did need to explicitely state that they can't retrofit it on older models.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I read the headline and got scared.
Video cameras, computers, batteries, radars, etc. Interesting stuff for thieves.
Ok, robotaxis would either be driving to the next customer or safe at base.
But would anyone buy/lease a personal autonomous car and leave it parked in the street ?
It is a bad idea. Oh, taxis might be a decent idea in large filthy urban areas, but if they were the taxi companies could figure that out, but so far they realize that the inflated price of electric vehicles (and eventual replacement of very expensive battery packs) makes the choice of non-electric vehicles much better economically. And that will remain true with the foreseeable future of the oil market. But most of the country is far less concentrated than the cancer of our urban areas. In more spread out areas expecting people to use taxis is not economically feasible.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
2) That most robotic cars will not be thrown away every 2 years. Many well off people buy a new car every 2 years. At least in the beginning, that's where the market will be. As time goes on (40 years from now), upgraded computers won't be as necessary.
Yes, taxis - and other non-personal vehicles, such as busses, garbage trucks, police cars, etc. - will probably be early users of computerized vehicles. But so will the wealthier upscale luxury market. Eventually it will trickle down to the lower scale markets and being out-dated won't be a serious issue by then.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I've seen reference to this before, that the used market for the Leaf is a buyer's market, because they depreciate much faster than their gasoline-powered brethren; at least that's one way to look at it. I guess the tech-advancement from year-to-year at least partly explains the high depreciation -- but for someone that may be in the market (in the next few years) for a used Leaf, it looks like a boon for me, at least if the current trend holds. As a second car that gets used for a 15 mile (third shift, i.e. the car sits in the driveway all day when the sun is shining) daily commute and occasional shopping trips, combined with a (soon to be installed) on-site solar PV system, a used leaf is looking very attractive, even if it only has a 50-60 mile range, as we also have a gas-powered car for longer trips.
I wonder if other people who work 2nd or 3rd shift have had similar thoughts?
Do they fight the Robotallies?
Excuse me, "open source Andriod tablet"? Perhaps you need to check the definition of "open source". And in any case, the comparison we're looking for is jelly bean vs. honeycomb (or whatever the versions were being named), If you buy something that works on one version of an iPad or Android, it's quite likely to work on another. This despite the fact that neither of them are open source.
OTOH, where open source would actually come in was if you wanted to port an application from an iPod to an Android. If it were open source, it's quite plausible that someone would have already done it, so you wouldn't need to, but you could (in principle) do it yourself. In fact you could port it to run on MSWind or BSD or Linux. Some of them would require a lot more effort, however, and often a phone app had no value on a desktop, so it's quite likely that nobody else would have bothered to do so.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I just noticed a point of possible confusion (as it was confused in the post to which I am replying, so let me rephrase:
to
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It's all still conjecture. It seems as though there's a new article every day trying to find additional reasons to stay hyped about self-driving automobiles. Self-driving autos will come, eventually, but we all need to accept that, when they do come, it's not going to happen en masse. And the critical mass for autonomous cars is still a decade out. At least.
No one's willing to fully insure a purely automated vehicle and remove any humans onboard of all liability yet. There are still massive legal restrictions against them. Why? Because they don't work yet. They kinda work. They work on all roads for very small values of "all".
So enough with the theoretical uses of a tech that is still really quite theoretical.
Not to worry, the electronic components in any device always fail before the mechanical devices, so the electronics will fail and the car will be bricked long before the vehicle is fully depreciated.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Here's one of 75 electric taxis that operated in London in the late 1800s. They're worth considerably more now than when they were first sold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ...and, electric taxis? Modern and innovative? Seriously?
Comparing those taxis to modern electric vehicles is ridiculous. Yes, they both are "electric", have wheels, and carry people for money, but that's pretty much where the similarity ends. Your feigned indignation is very transparent.
so the cars are in an early alpha test, to use a software analogy?
Yes, and this alpha-car softrware analofy works MARVELOUSLY well, FULLY AUTOMATICALLY, requiring absolutely ZERO USER INTERVENTION / OPERATOR SUPERVISION...
...on the small test dataset.
Which is exactly a 1mb sized file.
But we're sure that one day we'll be able to plug this software analogy into the data center to service gigabytes of data per second.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Give them to IBM Sales Reps that way you cut out the only section of their working life where they are required to think. Also the car will be thrashed in six months (As long as the autonomous car can emulate a sales rep's driving technique)
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Comparing those taxis to modern electric vehicles is ridiculous. Yes, they both are "electric", have wheels, and carry people for money, but that's pretty much where the similarity ends. Your feigned indignation is very transparent.
Your lack of sense of irony and humour is also very transparent.
Also, until recently, the UK had fleets of milk-floats; almost silent electric vehicles that delivered milk to everyone's doorstep every morning; and how long have we had electric trains and trams?
Antique taxis aside, the point is, electric vehicles are nothing new. We're just being sold the idea that they're something modern and innovative by Tesla, Google, Nissan, et al.