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How Much Americans Could Save by Ridesharing Driverless Cars Over Owning
An anonymous reader shares a study: Self-driving cars promise safer roads, less traffic and increased mobility. Some autonomous vehicle proponents also maintain they will save time and money. But will they really save Americans time and money? And even if they do, are Americans ready to give up driving? Online insurer Esurance surveyed consumers, analyzed trends, and spoke to experts to find out. "Like with most new technology, we'll see consumer perceptions evolve and adoption accelerate as the promised benefits of self-driving cars are realized," said Haden Kirkpatrick, head of strategy and innovation at Esurance.
The reality is that the first fully autonomous cars will be very pricey and beyond the reach of most Americans. Manufacturers expect the early buyers will be businesses and the very wealthy. One developer says prices won't start coming down enough for most families and individuals to buy them until 2025 or beyond. Until the price of ownership of self-driving vehicles comes down, most people will experience driverless vehicles through ridesharing, according to researchers. According to Esurance research, in the best-case scenario, a family that gives up its car in favor of driverless ridesharing could save $4,100 in annual transportation costs. Other research confirms that a 20 percent improvement in efficiencies of the personal transportation system, would generate a five percent increase in household incomes.
The reality is that the first fully autonomous cars will be very pricey and beyond the reach of most Americans. Manufacturers expect the early buyers will be businesses and the very wealthy. One developer says prices won't start coming down enough for most families and individuals to buy them until 2025 or beyond. Until the price of ownership of self-driving vehicles comes down, most people will experience driverless vehicles through ridesharing, according to researchers. According to Esurance research, in the best-case scenario, a family that gives up its car in favor of driverless ridesharing could save $4,100 in annual transportation costs. Other research confirms that a 20 percent improvement in efficiencies of the personal transportation system, would generate a five percent increase in household incomes.
It's like sharing lawn tools with the neighbor - it never works out. He keeps them too long, returns them dirty, uses up all the gas, doesn't check the oil... If you're going to get cranky over a $300 lawn mower, you're going to go ballistic over a $100K "shared" vehicle.
I live in Silicon Valley. My commute is two local buses and an express bus to go one hour each way from San Jose to Palo Alto (36 miles). If I was to do that by car, morning commute would be 30 to 60 minutes and afternoon commute would be 45 to 90 minutes. Many of my coworkers take Caltrain from San Francisco or San Jose and a local bus, or the Dumbarton Express bus from from BART station in Union City (across the bay). You have to be nuts to drive a car through Palo Alto during commute hours.
Goodbye, Slashdot!
Here in the good old US of A there are a few cities that have a public transit system that is good enough to get by without having a car. New York city comes to mind. If you live close to the BART line in San Francisco it works well for the daily commute. Maybe Chicago. The T-line in Boston is pretty good.
After that it is a very steep drop off. Public transit really only works if you live and work right downtown of a major city. If you are in the suburbs then forget it. Rightly or wrongly, having a car is seen by some as a symbol of success. In America there is a stigma attached to taking the bus. Most people would prefer the freedom of having their own car and setting their own schedule.
Where I work there is a ride share program but almost nobody uses it. Why? Because I don't want to be sitting in front of someones house waiting for them to get their shit together while my car idles away. Or standing in the hot sun waiting for my ride to show up. Yes, I would probably save some money but for me the freedom is worth more than the few dollars I might save.
While holding on to a paid-off car is sensible, I don't think your numbers are quite right. IHS states average is 79.3 month (~7 years), and this is data coming out of recession.
My 2015 Subaru Crosstrek has the Eyesight system, which I absolutely love and is amazing. It provides adaptive cruise control, automatic braking, and lane drift notification. Two weeks after I got the car a baby deer ran down off a mountain right in front of the car while I was on a sharp curve. At 35-40 MPH I had no time to react. The Eyesight system didn't see it as it was just barely over the hood, and the baby deer literally exploded in the collision.
Now, Eyesight is not a complete sensor suite. It's optical-only and sees straight ahead in a limited cone, a full suite with RADAR/LIDAR etc. should have seen the deer coming down the hillside. It's an unusual environment and I'm curious if it would have reacted correctly in an environment where a mountain slope is almost touching the road.
THIS is one of the reasons why I'd like to see autonomous vehicles tested up here! Sooner or later someone is going to buy an AV when they go for sale in the general market, and they're going to be brought up here by vacationers, and they probably won't work well because they weren't tested up here extensively.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.