I am puzzled by the amount of money being invested in autonomous cars. The advantages of electronic help are clear e.g. ABS braking, parking warning sensors, speed control, GPS navigation etc etc. But driverless trains, trams and all tracked vehicles are still not the norm even though these vehicles are much easier to automate. Humans are required to make decisions and often enjoy making those decisions. The advantages of driverless cars seem small to warrant the effort going into developing them.
You may like driving. More and more people donât.
Theyâd rather browse this site or the META unholy trifecta or TT or YTâŚ.
and thereâs money to be made in subscriptionsâŚ.
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I do not enjoy driving in cities, much prefer the bike or public transport or a taxi. It just puzzles me from the investment point of view. Seems like there is a lot of AI hype. I do not think that it is the level of automation that is going to determine which EVs are successful
It would seem that a lot of people seem to think they can drive their cars and scroll on their phones at the same time.
Phone driving is now more dangerous, and causes more accidents than alcohol.
These âassistantsâ will be made mandatory over time.
Just like recent cars give you a âdingâ if you go over the speed limitâŚor rather, if they think you did.
Well Iâm waiting for the day when I donât have to own a car, get it serviced once a year, change tires/tyres twice a year, fill/charge it up weekly/daily, pay insurance, limit my wine with dinner, park it somewhere for 20 out of 24 hours, etc.
Just book a car, have it show up, jump in, jump out. Pay your bill.
Particularly as I age and my reactions and eyesight deteriorate.
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Isnât that called a Taxi?
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Thatâs what it is called today. But my vision goes beyond that to driverless taxis replacing self driven vehicles.
What, and miss all that scintillating chat from the taxi driver?
I have a new Seat Ibiza. It dings at every change in speed limit and it canât be turned off. I actually donât mind it and it has helped me to stay the speed limit. When I go too fast, a noise like a far away calf bell goes off. Unfortunately, thereâs an issue with that as it only works half the time.
Anyway, as with everything you get used to, I no longer notice the dings but the dashboard notifications are still something I pay attention to.
Where I live you can call for taxis all day but none arrive, sometimes Uber takes the bait but then finds a better option.
Maybe automated solutions will be more reliable but no doubt, sooner or later, their AIs will also triage their customerâs requests
True. The delta has 41 million people.of which some 5 million are directly affected.
Oh and it very much is agricultural land. Or at least was before being poisoned by the oil.
The benefit of robotaxis is that they can be much cheaper and much more available. Right now it is a bit of a hassle to call and wait for a taxi and it is too expensive to just use without thinking.
If the robotaxi vision comes to fruition, they will be everywhere and available quickly and cheaply.
So mistakes shouldnât be repeatedâŚWestern Europe shouldnât repeat the mistakes theyâve done in their own countries and in Africa/South-America etc. etc. Plus weâre talking about Europe as our common house - Europa NostraâŚso much hypocrisy.
In Europa Nostra (latin for Our Europe) some are more equal than others.
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If I had to price robotaxis, the price would just be low enough to make human drivers quit. But, not that low to compete with public transport and increase car traffic. More congestion is detrimental to robotaxis. So, slighlty lower prices but never cheap.
Also, charge as high as customer is willing to pay. People that want to be the first pay above average prices. I wouldnât be surprised if robotaxis were more expensive than human drivers for some time just because irrational consumers.
We already saw with the Uber battles that the companies were willing to subsidize fares to gain market share. When robotaxis arrive, unless one is way ahead of the others, I think weâll see a similar market share grab.
Given that it is a scale/winner takes all business, I suspect weâll have a similar fight to the death for market share. Heck, some might even offer free rides and try to make money on adjacencies e.g. advertising, promotions etc.
Imagine you get in a cab and ask to be taken to mcdonalds. How much would a competitor be willing to pay to have the taxi say âhey, did you know Popeyes have this award winning chicken sandwich, would you like to go their instead? The fare will be free under this special promo. Yes? Great. Would you like to see the menu? You can order here and pay in cab and the food will be waiting for you on arrival - Iâve given the restaurant your ETA.â
Google made good money monetizing eyeballs, Iâm sure someone will try to do the same with footfall using robotaxis.
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See low-cost airplane companies, the profit comes from extras. Like jumping the queue.
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Taxi prices are often competitive with public transport firstly because taxis travel point to point whereas public transport is hub-based. Hence, one usually needs to take two or more legs to reach your destination and secondly, much quicker âtime is moneyâ.
Zuri Oberland to Zurich airport by train CHF 12.- By taxi from home CHF98.- Airport taxi home CHF134.-
I understand, so you suddenly decided to switch to EV because of your concern for Niger delta population? How noble.
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