Slashdot Mirror
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!
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.
The real path to male liberation
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.
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.
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.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
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.
Yeah, right. Increasing efficiency no longer gets passed on to employee incomes, it just gets captured as profit by the 1%.
I suspect what they meant to say was that once the household no longer had to pay to purchase/insure/maintain/refuel one or more automobiles, that household's net savings would be equivalent to receiving a 5% increase in income.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
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.
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.
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.