Slashdot Mirror
Lyft Says Robots Will Drive Most Of Its Cars in Five Years (recode.net)
A week after its rival Uber began rolling out self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, Lyft has said it also expects to roll out its self-driving by next year. Its president John Zimmer outlined a "three-phase" plan for the company, noting that self-driving cars will be made available to Lyft users in the first phase. But in this phase, it only plans to roll out self-driving cars that can "drive along fixed routes" and that the "technology is guaranteed to be able to navigate." Recode adds: In the second phase, the self-driving cars in the fleet will navigate more than just the fixed routes, but will only drive up to 25 miles per hour. As the technology matures and the software encounters more complex environments, Zimmer wrote, cars will get faster. The third phase, expected to happen sometime in 2021 or 2022, will be when all Lyft rides will be completed by a fully autonomous car. Shortly after that phase begins, car ownership will see a steep drop-off, according to Zimmer. Zimmer, who has long been a vocal proponent of ending car ownership, set a date for the death of the personally owned car in major U.S. cities: 2025.
Eliminating the driver also eliminates the person most likely to complain loudly about life-threatening deferred maintenance.
Almost all traffic accidents are because of human error or inattention. The second biggest reason is road conditions. Poor maintenance and mechanical failure account for about 3% of all accidents, but less than 1% of fatal or injury causing accidents.
An accident, or even a mechanical breakdown on the road, is much more expensive than routine maintenance. So a profit-maximizing company would ensure that routine maintenance is done. This is no different than rental car companies today.