Fully automated vehicles - 'not in our lifetime'?

AnotherJoe

GreatApe wrote: »

Because the one thing we know to be true about technology is that it never gets any better or improves

When you look at the promises being made for it, it needs to get one hell of a lot better than it is.

When it can drive down a devon country lane and negotiate a milk tanker coming the other way, or a tractor with a hedge cutter, then I'll believe its close to prime time.

AnotherJoe

GreatApe wrote: »

There would only be millions if they displaced private cars there wouldn't be millions if they just took over the current stock of uber taxi rides

But already uber is causing traffic congestion as it disrupts public transport and you are telling us that it will be 1/10 price of uber so it will displace more public transport.

westernpromise

I think to assume self-driving cars will replace cars is utopian. People own cars because they don't want to faff about waiting for a taxi to turn up that might not do so and that might or might not be suitable for the intended journey. It's not because owning a car is cheaper.

It's obvious that people use Ubers because their alternative is not a car, it's a bus or - in London - an extortionate black cab.

GreatApe

westernpromise wrote: »

I think to assume self-driving cars will replace cars is utopian. People own cars because they don't want to faff about waiting for a taxi to turn up that might not do so and that might or might not be suitable for the intended journey. It's not because owning a car is cheaper.

It's obvious that people use Ubers because their alternative is not a car, it's a bus or - in London - an extortionate black cab.

You would be able to hire these fleets cars for as long as you want
A single trip, a day a week a year or even more

The closest to today model would be the manufacturers all make self drive vehicles and if you want to 'own it' you can rent it from them for 3 years. It drives to you and stays with you for three years to use as you please then it drives back to the manufacturer. The manufacturer could sort out the maintenance and insurance and upkeep while you own it for 3 years

So sure there will be some who would be happy to hire on 3 year terms like today but there would be many others who would be happy to hire on other terms be it weekly or daily or just for individual trips used like taxis

I think the most likely outcome, especially in a city like London is that most will opt for self drive taxis and there will be about a million of them on Londons streets which would mean you would always be within seconds of one. No need to worry about parking or charging or maintenance or buying insurance or spending time buying or selling cars just use cheap robo taxis. To ease traffic in dense cities like London they could be regulated to make trips at higher average densities thus lower numbers of cars needed.

GreatApe

AnotherJoe wrote: »

When you look at the promises being made for it, it needs to get one hell of a lot better than it is.

When it can drive down a devon country lane and negotiate a milk tanker coming the other way, or a tractor with a hedge cutter, then I'll believe its close to prime time.

Before ~2015 you would probably have been correct but post ~2015 a whole new type of computer 'programming' learning has come to being. AI will do all that and more.

We just need the cars to work badly once on the road the data expands exponentially
If there are cases where the car doesn't understand a remote human operator can log on drive past that bit and then let the car continue. Over time AI will learn more and more and there will be nothing it doesn't know because each year it will experience a billion years of driving anything you can think of it will see many many times over and learn what to do better than you and I could over ten lifetimes

Technology is going to surpass humans within our lifetimes driving is going to be nothing compared to what will arrive. We will witness the birth of super intelligence.

There are only really two possibility, one is that we are special and have some sort of supernatural creator giving us our agency and ability to think. The other is that there is no supernatural and evolution has not by chance installed humans with the maximum capacity of all intelligence and that we will be superseded by this intelligence.

Herzlos

GreatApe wrote: »

5 seconds would be the goal and yes there would be millions of them in the UK probably around 10 million



You would have an option for any and all that. Probably an option to hire the taxi for a day if you wanted. All of it will be cheaper than owning your own car because when you own your own car you have lots of downtime and overheads

Also how is cleaning handled if everyone is using these things round the clock?/QUOTE]

They will go to a central point to charge and be cleaned and maintained. The first lot will be used almost 24 hours a day but as the fleet approaches 10 million robo taxis they will on average be used perhaps 5 hours a day and be idle 19 hours a day.



An option for all of that



They would most likely park exactly where human cars park today but since there would be roughly 1/3rd as many cars on the road they wont take up as much space.

In fact if you use a robo taxi most mornings at say 7am its likely the night before one of the taxis will stop outside your house and be ready to go for you at 7am

For a taxi to turn up in 5 seconds you'd need one every 25m and hope no-one else needs one - total gridlock.

A car turning up at 7am is fine but you still can't load it the night before.

No one is going to hire a taxi for a full day because they have too much stuff to carry. Maybe they'll get a better deal to send it back to the depot to be replaced by another one.

It still doesn't sound very convenient tbough

GreatApe

Herzlos wrote: »

A car turning up at 7am is fine but you still can't load it the night before.

Sure you can, you can book it for a single trip or a day or a week or a month or a year or even longer.

All of those time frames will be cheaper than owning your own car is today. You could also lease second hand cars off the manufacturers for cheaper than today where you can lease new for 3 years.

Cars will also be designed to last much longer and be much more easily repaired. A new car today is really only designed to last 5 years and 100,000 miles because the manufacturers know that most new car buyers will have sold it on before that point. When the manufacturers are fleet owners they will design their vehicles to last 1 million miles and have things like electric engines that are as easy to swap and replace as a hard drive in a PC is or seats that could be replaced annually etc

If you really want to own your own self drive car you can or you can rent it for any time frame.

Plenty of people will opt for robo taxis and perhaps the odd daily/weekly/monthly rental.

Who really likes the buying process of a car currently?
Who likes spending hours comparing insurance
Who likes the forms
Who likes getting maintenance and repairs done?
Which kid enjoys spending money on driving lessons?
All of that is fixed with self drive robo cars and taxis

GreatApe

Herzlos wrote: »

For a taxi to turn up in 5 seconds you'd need one every 25m and hope no-one else needs one - total gridlock.

You haven't thought this though

We currently have 32 million cars in the UK so we need 32 million cars to have them turn up in 0 seconds. So how many cars do you reckon are used at the very peak hour of the peak day? Maybe 10 million? Most likely much much less but lets say 10 million.

Thus with 10 million robo taxis you will have near instant access but lets call it 10 seconds rather than instant.

These 10 million wont be patrolling the streets looking for customers. They will mostly be parked waiting for customers. So for instance if I look out onto my street right now there are maybe 60 cars parked up in drives and on the street. In my imagined world the total stock of cars are roughly 1/3rd of now and the majority of them are self drive cars. So in the future my road will have right this instant 20 self drive taxis parked up waiting for customers (rather than the 60 human cars of today). The wait time is thus me walking out of the door and getting into one of these 20 self drive taxis parked up on my street. Most streets will have parked taxis just waiting for customers just as today most streets have human cars just parked waiting

Does that make more sense?

Obviously the figures are just guesses but for sure the total stock of cars will go down to much less than the current 32 million by how much is the question. My guess is something like 5 million privately owned self drive cars and 5 million fleet owned self drive taxis/rentals

GreatApe

westernpromise wrote: »

I think to assume self-driving cars will replace cars is utopian. People own cars because they don't want to faff about waiting for a taxi to turn up that might not do so and that might or might not be suitable for the intended journey. It's not because owning a car is cheaper.

It's obvious that people use Ubers because their alternative is not a car, it's a bus or - in London - an extortionate black cab.

You are all thinking too small scale

Every street will have multiple cars just waiting for a customer.
You might say that sound inefficient and sure it is less efficient than a robo taxi working 23 hours a day but it is still much more efficient than a human car systems we currently have.

The average uk car does about 10,000 miles a year. A robo taxi fleet maybe 30,000 miles a year. So productivity increases 3 x but that still means in the region of 10-15 million total stock of cars and it means you wont have to wait you just walk outside and get into an already waiting taxi.

When you walk or drive past a street look at the stationary cars and just imagine half of them were not there but that the other half are self drive taxis just sitting there waiting for someone to get into them.

The average size of cars will likely go toward smart car size. People buy cars for peak usage today 5 seater plus luggage. Fleet operators can operate cars to actual usage eg most can be 1-2 seater and very few actually need to seat 5 adults and luggage because cars are seldom used in that way. The smaller cars are also more efficient and have lower capital/finance costs and take up less parking space

Herzlos

Just because we have 32 million cars now doesn't mean 32 million robo cars will get one to anyone in seconds. It's unnecessary anyway as ordering it and walking outside will take longer that that. Like I said, 5 minutes is fine if you can rely on it.

You seem to be talking of everyone having their own private car but leasing it instead of using a robo taxi. So maybe we're talking at cross purposes. Whoever owns the cars isn't going to want them sitting idle unless they are charging and having them sitting waiting for fares unless they know they are about to be summoned. Especially if there are different options regarding seats and luggage.