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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.
How Much Americans Could Save by Taking Public Transit
FTFY - If you live in city with a robust transit system, you can live without owning a car.
Goodbye, Slashdot!
Seems very optimistic to even have real safe autonomous cars on the road let alone have these features down to standard cars. The first cars with collision avoidance braking were available 15-years ago and its pretty much only in the last year where they have been standard on typical cars from some manufacturers.
Yeah, right. Increasing efficiency no longer gets passed on to employee incomes, it just gets captured as profit by the 1%.
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That's great when everything is going smoothly. What about when a hurricane comes and blows the town down? Ridesharing options will vanish, and no I don't want to be waiting for a bus out from a city eager to decimate its indigent population. I'll stick to having my own vehicle TYVM.
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Well, for you the calculation is quite simple. For others, it's not so simple. For instance, most of my usage is at peak commuting hours - an Uber currently costs me around $10-12 each way. 5 days a week 48 weeks per year this is around $8000. My van cost around $27000 and I'll get at least 10 years out of it, so my annualized capital cost is around $3000 (including interest payments). Annual maintenance averages around $1000 or less per year. Fuel costs are under $2000 per year. Insurance is another $1500. So for just my commute I'd be looking at almost break-even: $8000 vs around $7500.
BUT, I have kids. They need to be ferried to sports, before-school activities, certain friends' houses, etc. The kids blow the calculations out of the water. Kids are expensive. Then add in weekend travel and shopping/grocery trips and it isn't even close.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I spent on average 1/24h in a car, and for this I must pay more than 10$ a day + gas. If I could have a reliable and cost efficient driverless taxi service available, I'd certainly never own a car ever again. I live in a small rural town where public transportation is almost inexistant and taxi fares are expensive. I wish I could just use a car when I need to and let it go elsewhere when I don't need it. In my mind, fully autonomous cars will have a very big effect on car ownership for individuals. If a business were to own such cars for a taxi service, there would be no much maintenance costs, just the acquisition price and power (for electric cars, and where I live power is cheap), so I think they could come up with a price that is very competitive and have a good profit margin. They would have no taxi drivers to pay and I hope the taxi licencing would be adapted to this new reality and that governments won't try to slow this revolution with heavy taxation. They should instead have a contingency plan (buying back licences, facilitate career change, etc.) for these drivers that normal technological advancement pushes out of a job.
The reality is that there will be different classes of service. Want a newer, nicer, cleaned everyday by real people ride-share, expect to pay a premium. The question is will the premium price of such a vehicle used multiple times a day (i.e. to work, from work, shopping, etc.) really be less expensive then owning a personal car. Of course the alternative would be to get the cheapest available service, which might/would likely be less expensive, but one which might not be clean and pleasant to ride in...
This seemed pretty wacky, so I looked at the actual "study". It's a fluff piece with no grounding in reality.
The first major assumption is that a family pays $500/month to lease a car every month. Most sensible families have a $30k car paid off in 5 years and drive it another 5.
A second major assumption is that the cost of ride sharing currently covers the full purchase price, maintenance, and depreciation of the driver's vehicle. I do not know that this is the case.
So if you ignore the cost of owning the ride share car, and you inflate the cost of owning a car, it's cheaper to ride share!
Fucking genius!
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
You've got the money part covered but notice the headline includes saving time. This is the real comedy; waiting around for a ride share is supposed to save time somehow?
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.
If you live in NYC or Europe where there are buses, trams, trains, trolleys, Puppeteer teleport pads, and plenty of other public transportation mode, then ride-sharing makes sense. However, US cities refuse to do proper policing and rather blow their wad on new sports stadiums than basic protection (it is common for non emergency calls to take 8-12 hours before they are bothered with.) So, Americans are forced into the suburbs if they value the safety of their family, and so their kids don't step outside to see a wino passed out on their doorstep, or get impaled on a syringe from some crackheads the night before.
With everyone going to work at the same time, ride-sharing an autonomous car isn't really feasible. Especially with employers demanding everyone do the 8-5 junket daily.
Instead, what needs to be done is actual police protection in cities, incentive for work at home days, and getting employers to allow for earlier/later shifts.
It's a cyclical problem. Mass Transit sucks because few people take it (other than the poor). Few people use it because it sucks. To get people using mass transit you have to make it fast, reliable and safe- to justify doing that you have to get people to use it; but people won't use it because it isn't fast, reliable and safe in most places.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
How Much Americans Could Save by Ridesharing Driverless Cars Over Owning
In my particular case the answer is a good approximation of zero with a hell of a lot of added aggravation. I don't live in a dense urban area so pretty much any place that isn't a densely populated city doesn't make much sense for "ride sharing". I would need the vehicle at roughly the same time as everyone else (work commute) so using it when I need it most will be a competitive bidding situation and probably not save me a penny. Plus I have to schedule and/or wait for the ride to arrive.
Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to have access to driverless cars but it's going to be a good long while before they make any kind of practical sense.
The reality is that the first fully autonomous cars will be very pricey and beyond the reach of most Americans.
So what? That's true of every new technology. As production ramps up the costs will naturally fall. The rich get the fanciest toys first just like they always have.
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.
They think autonomous cars will be a widespread thing as soon as 2025? HAHAHAHAHA... cough, sniff... Ummm, no they won't. I have confidence they will become a thing eventually but it just isn't going to happen that fast. The legal framework and insurance alone is going to take longer than that even if the technology was ready today. And the technology is no where near ready for the General Public today. Best case I'd imagine you'll see rollout start at the earliest sometime in the 2030s with lots of testing and pilot programs over then next 10-15 years. Then it will take a few decades to really start gaining large amounts of market share presuming everything goes well up to that point and there are no showstopper technology or political problems.
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.
Maybe if you live near NYC where the cost of owning a car is prohibitive, travel distances are short, and where the infrastructure is set up already to support using vehicles you don't own. Basically if you live in a place where taxis are a routine thing it probably makes sense. Doesn't really work for the majority of the US and in places like Europe which already have decent public transportation there really isn't so much added value. As much as I'd like to have a driverless car (or decent public transit) to take the wheel for my morning commute I don't see it as a likely thing before I retire.
I am not interested in this model, because at its core is renter model. You don't own the car, as such you don't have any say in how it operates. So things like mandatory in-car advertising, sub-optimal routes to save fuel, or even whims of corporate policies and posturing (e.g. shuttle man last, because everything is a fault of patriarchy).
You are also foolish to think that costs will be lower in the long term. Once alternatives (i.e. personally owner car) are rare you will pay exactly as much as market can support for personal transportation. So you will still have monthly payments that are comparable to what you pay now.
I only need a car once or twice a year, so I just rent one. Seems pointless to own a car.
Well, for you the calculation is quite simple. For others, it's not so simple.
Exactly. The value of owning a car varies tremendously depending on where you live and what you do, and the value of owning a self-driving car will vary even more.
Having a car that can drive by itself will make it a lot more valuable in some locations. I would really find it valuable to have a car that can drop me off and then go park itself, and then come pick me up when I need it again.
So I'm not at all sure that people will buy fewer cars if the cars are autonomous. I'll say that the cars will be more valuable, at least to people who travel a lot to places where parking is hard to find, and hence a new segment of people who previous didn't want to own a car will now want one.
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I have made this exact point. People fail to project human behavior into a scenario. A self driving car won't take you just "to work". You will send it to pick up the kids from school, groceries from the store you've ordered, send it to the shop for oil changes/maintenance/repairs while you're at work, release it into the "uber pool" to generate revenue...what you will NOT do is leave it at work where tweekers can break in for coins, pay for monthly parking. Then it will return to bring you home
Essentially you're autonomous vehicle will make 2 trips daily rather than 1 which has the instant effect of doubling traffic.
Autonomous proponents say - "yes, but autonomous traffic is faster and more efficient!" - that is true ONLY if there are zero humans on the road. Which implies we'll need to legislate 100% autonomous car adoption OR build "autonomous only" roads. Neither of which have been thought about or would likely pass.
and when there an crash the eula says you are at fault and that log access starts at $250 per event.
As a European where the public transport is availabl to go to and from work fatsre than I could drive and that trip is paid 100% by the company, I do have car sharing.
They advertise that if your drive less than 15.000 KM per year, car sharing is cheaper. However you do need to have a car nearby available and it take some planning.
Most people will not be willing to walk 5 minutes and plan it in advance. And if you trive 14.550 KM per year, the gain is so small that it is not worth it.
So what it can be is a great alternative to a second car for many people. e.g. at leats one person goes to work with public transport and the other might as well. Just sometimes you will need a second car because reasons. Why have a car that is standing there costing money all the time.
Having a self driving car that comes to you would lower the treshhold of the 5 minute walk and make it even possible for those who would have to walk more, It would increase the availaility as well.
As extra information: I mainly use it to do shopping one per week. This months monthly bill was 75EUR and that inclused insurance, fuel, miles and the rent. That was abit on the high side as I normaly pay around 30 EUR per month. I also have paid 150EUR a month when I did a trip.
I save on average 250 EUR per month comparing of when I had a car.
And all this is in Europe where not having a car is not a real issue. I know many peope who do not have one. I also know people who have one, yet do not need it.
Before I sold my car, I tried it for two months to be absolutely sure that it was the right choce. http://www.cambio.be/ if you live in Belgium and want to get more info.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
Why do you think there will be fewer cars on the road once we have driverless cars? We could possibly remove freight traffic by moving it to operate at night. However, this will be offset by empty cars moving to pick up people.
I can see while there will be fewer cars total. This doesn't mean there will be fewer cars on the road, especially at peak commute hours. For example, in the morning there will be cars dropping people off at work (what we have now) and empty cars returning to pick up next wave of people (what we don't have now, as cars are parked outside of offices and are not on the road).
Ah, parking. Parking could be a huge time sink depending on your job and home locations. I've cruised around San Francisco looking for parking near my girlfriend's apartment for easily 45 minutes. The parking garages downtown in some cities can be a few blocks away and expensive as hell.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Exactly. More cars driving around with nobody in them. Also, people may not try as hard to avoid rush hour if they can sit and browse the internet or watch a movie.
Yes, basically a valet would be quite convenient. OTOH, everybody leaving the office waiting for their car to pick them up at the front door at the same time brings its own problems, as would all those cars driving back downtown at the same time to pick people up.
Not averages. $500/month for a car _lease_? WTF?
Not too many assumptions, bad assumptions.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Why does the cost of riding in a ride-share car go down over 25% between 2025 and 2030?
Why is the cost/mile to own so much higher than the cost/mile to hail? Don't the share companies need to make a profit?
Based on the IRS deduction the cost to operate a vehicle in 2018 is $.545/mile. This chart says by 2030 a rideshare company will be charging $.25/mile, so their expenses must be well below that
None of this makes sense to me.
For me, if I take Uber it means walking 5 miles from the guard gate to my office since Uber isn’t allowed in the secure area. Vs my car were I can just drive to empty parking spot directly.
Owning a car is cheaper.
I'm not sure having to log all my travel in with some large collective is a freedom enhancement. I suppose I'll be free to clean up the last user's trash if I like.
Oh yeah? I'll take two self driving cars, please. Who is selling them?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Actually Uber's profit will go up $5-6 per ride. They are ride sharing company not a profit sharing company :)
Except that Uber is currently highly subsidizing their service in an attempt to establish themselves as the predominant provider.
It is likely that they will have to reduce their subsidies in the long run, and most likely they will do that simply by moving more people to autonomous rides where (possibly) the existing fare structure could cover their cost of providing the service.
Of course, there will be bumps and ups and downs in pricing all along the way as other services jockey for market share (some of which will be well funded, e.g. Lyft.)
While that's true, it is also true that earning money requires giving up some degree of freedom of movement and association.
That said, the idea that car sharing is going to ever be preferred over personal ownership is not grounded in reality. We already have car sharing services like Hourcar - and it's a niche market. Automating the driving only adds a small amount of convenience, and that comes at a higher price. There's no reason at all to expect that it's nearly enough to alter the market to any notable degree.
In SF there's scooters on every corner just waiting to be used... and most aren't.
So in the driverless model, to make it so i'm not wasting time waiting for a car to take me to the store, and then another one to pick me up and take me home. Is someone going to foot the bill to have thousands of cars just sitting around waiting for someone to click "i need a ride" button on their phone?
Who cleans up the driverless car if the previous rider gets sick in it or spills their drink? If the car shows up and their a slurpee spilled on the seat, I now have to reject it and wait another X minutes for another car to show up. Not exactly something I'm willing to do if I need to get somewhere. Also, how do you budget your time when you need to take into account the variable availability of one of these cars?
I can't imagine trying to haul kids around in these things in the case when you've got a child seat. Or, you want to take your bike somewhere, and you've got to attach a bike rack to it.
This is part of the new progressive mentality - encourage complete dependence in every aspect of life. Rent an apartment. Ride share a car. No ambition. Once you don't own anything, it's only a small step to having everything you "need" issued by the state. Also, when you don't own, you don't need to feel connected to anything ... no country, no community. That'll make it easier to accept the idea that you're prohibited from defending anything, including yourself and your loved ones.
I need a car about 4 times a day. so I bought a used one.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Companies that dump products or services on the market at a loss to put competitors out of business break antitrust laws, Uber should be prosecuted.
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And if enough people start doing it then maybe your employer will be forced to start letting autonomous vehicles in. Or setup a secure path for them to follow. Or start running shuttles to the gate. Or, I don't know, start enticing new hires with free shuttle rides to and from work.
We'll work it out, since some people know how to actually solve problem.......
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
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.
not if Lyft is willing to accept a 3-4 dollar profit...
The sensors and software detected the pedestrian just fine, but had automatic braking disabled, since the human "driver" was expected to handle that.
No. One set of software and sensors (the ones installed by the manufacturer) detected the pedestrian just fine, but had automatic braking disabled because the OTHER set of software and sensors (the ones installed by Uber) were expected to handle that. The driver was just a backup for the Uber sensors/software.
There's no question that the driver was criminally negligent, but the Uber software/hardware failed as well.