Self drive software and half sized EVs

GreatApe

The future of transport is going to be self drive taxi fleets and with self drive the average 'car' can resemble the upper average usage of cars.

We will not need 5 seater tesla model 3s with 50-75 KWh battery packs

The future will be 2-3 seater self drive EVs that are say 85 cm wide (rather than the 185 cm of a model 3) these EVs will be more aerodynamic and will be able to get ~10 miles per KWh and only need 20 KWh battery packs. Such EVs at half the volume half the mass half the battery pack will cost half as much and require half the energy

This will not happen instantly, first wave will be standard self drive taxi EVs that look like todays cars. They will grow the market of robo taxi use and once the market is larger the auto manufacturers will realize why build a 5 person seat plus boot plus frunk for $40,000 when the car is driving just one passenger 90% of the time. Cut the car in half, half the manufacturing cost half the energy cost. Have 90% of your self drive taxi fleet like that and 10% more traditional 5-7 seat cars. A small percentage of the fleet can be very long range vehicles for the long range trips. Maybe 0.5% of the fleet can be 500 mile range EVs with 50KWh battery packs to cater for the few long distance trips people may want to do. London to Edinburgh in 7h non stop....just 40KWh of electricity £6 which could be shared by as many as 3 passengers in 'economy class' or 2 passenger in a more first class sleeper type.

GreatApe

Software also solves a lot of aviation.
Imagine these self drive EVs doing London to Edinburgh, or London to Paris or London to Frankfurt or London to anywhere under 600 miles

Less than 1kg CO2 per passenger (assuming charging on a 90% fossil fuel free grid which is not far off in the UK and already exists in places like France and Norway) vs ~150kg flying

The trip time is realistically similar. Grab the self drive taxi which will arrive in 2 mins or take a 3 hour trip to the airport (leave early, arrive early, check in, security, boarding, tickets, all sorts) you are half way to Edinburgh in the self drive long range half size EV by the time the flight takes off.

Plus you can leave any time you want rather than book in advanced to fly on a certain day at a certain time. This is a HUGE selling point! I think all flights under 500 miles will be robo EV and even most flights 500-1000 miles will be robo EV (set off at night and sleep 8 hours in the robo taxi and wake up 600 miles away)

These also kill the need for battery aircraft which are aimed at short haul. Totally unnecessary with robo EVs that do 10+ miles per kW

Reed_Richards

Or you could form these self-drive vehicles into a convoy of vehicles all heading for the same destination and fix the traffic lights and other road restrictions to let the convoy through with minimum delay - oh wait, I've invented a train - just like in the Virgin TV advert https://youtu.be/ysiLczMMxps

markin

Reed_Richards wrote: »

Or you could form these self-drive vehicles into a convoy of vehicles all heading for the same destination and fix the traffic lights and other road restrictions to let the convoy through with minimum delay - oh wait, I've invented a train - just like in the Virgin TV advert https://youtu.be/ysiLczMMxps

If only any of was true, they even say its so over crowded we have to build HS2 to fix it, not that anyone will be able to afford a ticket.

---

Hrs later i happened to come a cross this.
https://leftfootforward.org/2019/06/natalie-bennett-privatisation-of-our-trains-has-patently-failed-the-uk/

GreatApe

Reed_Richards wrote: »

Or you could form these self-drive vehicles into a convoy of vehicles all heading for the same destination and fix the traffic lights and other road restrictions to let the convoy through with minimum delay - oh wait, I've invented a train - just like in the Virgin TV advert https://youtu.be/ysiLczMMxps

These are nothing like trains
Trains are hub to hub and run infrequently on schedules
These are door to door and more or less instant and available all the time

They will be extremely energy efficient, more so than even trains, and in almost all door to door routes be faster than trains too

Software will make train subsidy in the UK (and most of the EU for that matter) not necessary
With self drive half sized EVs replacing trains (perhaps even directly via the train lines converted to roads) the EU will then have a lot of spare money to spend on green tech

70 billion euro a year not spent subbing trains is 70 billion euro a year that could go on wind farms or hiring more doctors increasing pensions

Self drive EVs really will allow everything else to fall into place
They also displace the most expensive fossil fuel
Sure its nice that 1 KWh of electricity displaces 2 kWh thermal of gas costing 2 cents but its a lot nicer if the same 1 KWh of electricity displaced 10 KWh of oil costing 40 cents and self drive software will allow that to happen

michaels

I can see how self drive appears to beat rail and short flight journeys on cost a and co2. What I am not sure of is whether there is road capacity to support this use case?

Reed_Richards

As with a taxi today, you will have to "call" to get one and wait for the next available car to arrive so these EVs will not be "instant". They are bound to use statistical multiplexing so there won't be enough for everyone to travel at once which means you may well have to wait some time at periods of peak demand.

A car that transports 4 people from (say) London to Edinburgh will use a little more fuel than the same car transporting 1 person but a lot less than 4 cars each transporting 1 person. So it makes very good economic sense to consolidate journeys at some sort of hub. This will add time to the overall time of the journey but if the cost of the journey reflect the cost of the fuel used then it would be economically attractive. It's very like taking a taxi to the railway station, then a train to another railway station, then a taxi to your destination, rather than the expensive option of taking a taxi door-to-door. So these fuel economy hubs will be much like the railway stations of today.

Once you arrive at the fuel economy hub an app on you phone will direct you to the first available vehicle where you will meet your fellow passengers and depart rapidly. But for reasons of fuel economy your speed will be limited to around 60 mph so longer journeys will take a lot longer than the high speed trains of today. For example, the fastest train from London to Edinburgh takes 4 hours and 20 minutes whilst the same journey in your 60 mph EV will take approaching 7 hours. Okay, you have to wait for the train to depart, which adds time, but a 7 hour car journey will require additional time for "comfort" breaks for the passengers and recharging stops for the vehicle which also add time.

So we have now replaced high speed trains with something slower and less comfortable. I don't buy it.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

I can see how self drive appears to beat rail and short flight journeys on cost a and co2. What I am not sure of is whether there is road capacity to support this use case?

These half sized robo EVs could allow a 3 line motorway to be a 5 line motorway

Plus cars are already most miles done, about 80% market share. So if all trains and buses and most planes were done in robo half sized EVs we would have no road capacity problems. In fact the opposite is likely to happen. These will operate intercity with likely 3 cutomers offsetting 3 cars with 1 driver each

3 people doing a 125 mile trip from London to Birmingham in 3 cars will be replaced by one half sized 3 passenger self drive EV. 400 KWh of oil replaced by 12.5 kWh of electricity.
That is a 97% reduction in energy costs vs oil cars thanks to software
It is a 85% reduction in energy costs vs even if the human drivers are using a tesla model 3

Self drive software is key to so much
It is the next big massive boost in productivity in the same way 1940-1980 was a massive boom thanks to mass use to electricity. Electricity is an enabler a multiplier and so will self drive software be

Another difference is logistics.

For instance imagine these half sized EVs 85cm wide 4.6 meters long 1.4 meters high (basically a model 3 cut in half). We can see how this reduces vehicle costs (about half the price to manufacture) and half the energy per mile. But the same platform can also do logistics and transport. There is no need for a tesla semi if self drive software existed

Currently distribution and logistics is based on and around 30 ton HGVs and 30 ton HGVs exist because human drivers are expensive so you want big trucks to minimise per ton human driver pay. The same half sized model 3 platform can be used to transport 3 pallets of upto 1 ton each and make the whole system so much more productive

You would no longer need for instance coca cola to manufacture in Enfield, ship to a distribution center in Birmingham, ship to tesco distribution center, tesco to ship to individual stores. This is necessary because human drivers are expensive. With these half sized model 3s the coca cola factory can ship directly to the end retailers supermarket by the pallet or two cutting out a lot of miles for transport and cutting out warehousing and distribution all together

The same platform can also make things so much more efficient for smaller retailers too
Say you have a little shop. Currently you buy from costco or wherever. imagine all the steps that can of coke took from the coca cola factory in enfield and all the steps and additional costs and margins necessary. Well coca cola can load up 2 tons of coca cola cans in one of these half sized EVs and any retailer who needed coca cola can use an app to order directly from the factory. This EV goes around say a dozen shops and each one takes what it needs and is charged for it before the EV goes back to the factory to reload and do another set of deliveries the next day. Think a bit like the milkman doing his rounds. Collecting direct from the factory and delivering directly to end retailers so cutting out the middle infrastructure of distribution and warehousing

Factories should also be regulated so they have to sell to anyone at the same price.
They can still offer bulk discounts but anyone should be able to buy at the same price given the same quantity of purchasing. So no special deal for tesco such that tesco can sell at a price below what a small retailer can buy for in a wholesaler!!

Self drive software is worth so much to humanity people really have no idea
It is as big as the invention of electricity itself
We are going to see a massive boom in productivity

This is before even considering that these half sized model 3s for $20,000 reduce the biggest cost of vehicles by a factor of 10 again this is all thanks to software. A $20,000 human driven ford might do 100,000 miles in its life = 20 cents a mile. A $20,000 software driven half sized model 3 might do 1 million miles in its life = 2 cents a mile. Plus if average occupancy is twice as high as human driven cars then its actually 1 cent a mile

Whole new businesses cases also open up for almost every aspect of business and life

GreatApe

Reed_Richards wrote: »

As with a taxi today, you will have to "call" to get one and wait for the next available car to arrive so these EVs will not be "instant".

How long does it take to get an uber
I dont think I have ever waited more than 10 mins and mostly about 5 mins
These will be two orders of magnitude more common so the wait time will be even lower
Certainly less time than it takes me to walk to the local train station
Plus my guess is there will be about 10 million of these EVs servicing the UK
This will mean many will have predictive algos so if you very often take a robo EV at 7.45 in the morning its already waiting for you outside before you even summon it

They are bound to use statistical multiplexing so there won't be enough for everyone to travel at once which means you may well have to wait some time at periods of peak demand.

They will be so cheap to manufacture and run (probably in the region of 10 cents a mile) that they will meet more or less peak demand. Variable pricing will also be avilible so if you dont mind when you leave you can get cheaper pricing. That will mean those who need it will have it

You can also purchase one to be yours 24/7 for a higher price (but still lower than today) if you want/need that

A car that transports 4 people from (say) London to Edinburgh will use a little more fuel than the same car transporting 1 person but a lot less than 4 cars each transporting 1 person. So it makes very good economic sense to consolidate journeys at some sort of hub.

You only need a hub when the vehicle is large, a 1,000 seat train, or a 300 seat plane or a 100 seat coach. You do not need a hub when the vehicle is a 3 seater. Smart software plus small seat vehicles means it will be able to collect people en route so 90% plus of the route is done at full capacity

This will add time to the overall time of the journey but if the cost of the journey reflect the cost of the fuel used then it would be economically attractive. It's very like taking a taxi to the railway station, then a train to another railway station, then a taxi to your destination, rather than the expensive option of taking a taxi door-to-door. So these fuel economy hubs will be much like the railway stations of today.

No they wont, you dont need a hub when the vehicle size is 3 seats. You need a hub when it is 300 seats, not when it is 3 seats

Plus the cost of these are so low that even using it at 1 person per vehicle is more attractive than using trains with their slow hub to hub system. But it wont be necessary, smart software plus small vehicles solves the hub problem. Plus if any hubs are to form it will likely be at service stations. And unlike trains that might depart 2 an hour these will be pretty much instant

Once you arrive at the fuel economy hub an app on you phone will direct you to the first available vehicle where you will meet your fellow passengers and depart rapidly. But for reasons of fuel economy your speed will be limited to around 60 mph so longer journeys will take a lot longer than the high speed trains of today.

Why do you need to worry about fuel economy when the power is from an offshore wind farm and costs about 0.4 penny a mile?
Plus you are imagining cars of today. Think half a tesla model 3 with aero maximized. You are probably looking at 10 miles per kWh at 80mph maybe even 10 miles per kWh at 90mph (have reduced the width 55% can reduce the height 35% get rid of mirrors and make it even more aerodynamic I can see a path to 20 miles per kWh at 65mph but 10 miles per kWh at 90mph would be perfectly acceptable and affordable)

More importantly there is no dead time with these self drive EVs
If I want to go from Luton to Birmingham I call one and set off in a min or two and I will be at my destination in less than 90 mins. The 3 seater vehicle will probably also pick up others in Luton wanting to go to Birmingham or want to go to say MK. If necessary it can smartly tell passangers to get off at service stations for a very short change onto another 3 seat EV

By comparison if I wanted to do the same trip via trains first id have to go 30 miles in the exact opposite direction into central London, then 130 miles north west to birmingham. Sure the train might have a higher top speed but its average speed is much slower. I woul dbe looking at 180 mins to do that trip rather than 90 mins via car/robo-ev

For example, the fastest train from London to Edinburgh takes 4 hours and 20 minutes whilst the same journey in your 60 mph EV will take approaching 7 hours. Okay, you have to wait for the train to depart, which adds time, but a 7 hour car journey will require additional time for "comfort" breaks for the passengers and recharging stops for the vehicle which also add time.

That 4h 20 mins by train is if you are a hobo and live in a cardboard box next to the train line and want to go to Edinburgh train station and stay in the station. Take a more realistic trip say I want to go from my home in E4 to central London that will take me 1 hour to get to the train station. Say I want to go from Edinburgh train station to somewhere on the edge of Edinburgh again its going to take me say 1 hour to get there. I also dont want to be late so I leave 30 mins early to make sure I do not miss the train. Your 4h 20m train trip is thus actually closer to 7 hours

Which is the same 7h as if I drive
I am happy to do a 20 mins coffee stop mid way while the robo EV supercharges
Or I can just jump into the next EV which is already just supercharged there

Also importantly with each compartment of this 3 seater segregated I can sleep for 7h which I can not do on the train. I could literially decide at midnight Id like to visit Edinburgh for a day. The EV arrives at 12.05 in the morning. I get on and fall asleep and wake up at 8am in Edinborough. Sped a day there looking at the funny kilts and set off at 11pm to arrive at home the next day at 7am. You can not do anything like that with trains at anywhere near that comfort

Plus if you like have your own self drive half sized EV or even full sized EV
Dont share if you dont want to share
Your cost per mile is higher but still cheaper than trains especially when you take into account the £5B or so a year the gov pays to sub trains

So we have now replaced high speed trains with something slower and less comfortable. I don't buy it.

It is not slower it is significantly faster average speeds for most people
The one exception is if you happen to live on top of a station and want to do something at the other end in that station. For more realistic trips where you have to get to and from a station at both ends, then the self drive EV works out faster better cheaper

Plus you are talking London to Edinburgh the most distant places. What about say London to Birmingham. The robo EV wins big time. Or Luton to Birmingham. The robo EV is at least twice as fast in that route.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

I can see how self drive appears to beat rail and short flight journeys on cost a and co2. What I am not sure of is whether there is road capacity to support this use case?

Yes the capacity is definitely there simply by the fact a 3 line motorway can become a 5 line motorway if vehicles go from 1.85m wide to 0.85m wide but that wont be required instead most likely a lot of 1 person per car on motoways will be replaced by 2-3 persons per car in robo EVs. The advantage in cities would be you can turn normal roads into roads plus dedicated cycle/scoot lines since cars need 1m less width that 1m can be given to cycles/scoots

Another alternative is to convert the train lines into high speed roads perhaps 120mph limit (or whatever is safe/economic for these half sized EVs)

The tracks can be converted into two 2-line motorways.
A fast line at 100mph and a slower side at say 65mph to allow the vehicles to merge on/off the tracks

Another interesting possibility of these half sized robo EVs is tunneling

A model 3 is 185 cm wide by 144cm tall
A half sized robo EV at 85 cm wide by say 125cm tall is 40% the frontal area so should get ~11.25 miles per KWh before additonal aero advancements (like no wing mirrors) so with a 20KWh bat it could get 220 miles range and cost about half of a model 3. The car can go charge itself up when it runs low in the most optimum ways. So for example keeping at 20%-80% almost all the time.

Such a car could even do okay with as little as 10KWh batts. It would get 110 mile range or say 66 mile useable but it would be fine for a robo fleet in say London where the average distance done is probably less than 6.6 miles. So it can do 10 trips then supercharge at 30KW for 12 mins before it goes and does another 10 trips. That is roughly 4h driving to 12 mins charge an acceptable ratio

That's all great but what is also interesting is that a single tunnel like the one tesla showcased recently can accommodate two or even three lanes one going north one south and one for spare/peak. So you cut the cost of a tunnel in half or even 1/3rd with half sized robo EVs. This greatly increases the potential future economics of robo EVs in tunnels since you need half or even 1/3rd as many tunnels. So urban congestion can possibly be cut considerably and the distances and energy reduced further. For example Enfield to croyden is 31 miles in traffic through London or 53 miles in 1h 20m on the M25 but would be 19 miles via a tunnel that would take 20 mins at even a modest 60mph. More or less 1/3rd the energy cost and 1/5th the time taken.

Such tunnels might even be economic on long distance routes.
London to Birmingham would be 100 miles via tunnel rather than 130 miles by road
Or more importantly London to Paris 210 miles and 2h 20m at 90mph
Rather than 300 miles and 6.5h by the current road network and ferry
Quicker than even flying

Or London to dublin, a very popular flight route
280 mile tunnel for 3 hours vs
370 mile and 8.5h via the current road network and ferry
Or flying which is only 1h 10m but that does not include the significant dead time of flying which will add at least 2hours

Telecommunication and interconnectors could also be built at the same time lowering costs.

Comparing a 3.6m diameter tunnel that can do 2-3 line small EVs
Vs the 7.6 meter diameter tunnel for channel tunnel per direction
You get a cross section area about 1/10th as much so 1/10th the cost per mile
Would be ~£30m a mile if the costs were about the same per cubic meter as the channel tunnel but probably a good deal less as you do not need electrification or train tracks so say ~£20m a mile
Very costly, £2 billion London to Birmingham but still 1/10th the cost of HS2

Probably better for a London underground motorway network
Crossrail is 6.2m diameter tunnel one each way = 19.2-pie sqm
Self drive robo EV tunnel at 3.5m dismeter for twin direction = 3-pie sqm
In theory just 15-16% of the cost per mile as you are only digging and moving 15-16% of the dirt
Probably less. No rail tracks or electrification needed just tarmac


As I keep saying, self drive software is a huge enabler it makes so much more possible
This is just one example. Cheap high capacity tunnels possible as robo EVs can work in tunnels 15% the volume of train tunnels. Underground transport becomes 15% of the cost of a traditional tube network

Piddles

Go GreatApe! You are talking a lot of sense. Autonomous Vehicles are on the periphery of my professional interests, and in environmental terms is right at the top my list of what the government can do to achieve its 2050 carbon neutral target, by providing a suitable regulatory framework and placing an immediate moratorium on all road, rail and aviation capital projects.

Sorry if this is a bit lazy, but here's a short extract from a piece I wrote for some customers (AV: Autonomous Vehicles, IO: Individually Owned, ICE: Internal Combustion Engine):

AVs ​WON’T ​(but should) be driven by the following

1. Safety. ​2,000 deaths on UK roads per year. Tens of thousands of lives blighted by serious injuries or the deaths of loved ones.
2. Inclusion.​ The disabled finally get independent mobility. As do the ever expanding elderly segment of society(who vote). As do those on lower incomes who would have affordable transport to a far greater range of employment opportunities.
3. Environment. ​Centralised ownership and shorter vehicle lifespan allows government to mandate much higher environmental standards as soon as the technology is developed, with carbon-neutral land transport a real possibility within a decade, saving tens of thousand premature deaths per year. Expect the environment to shoot up the priory list.
4. Competitiveness​. Transport is a significant element of a country’s competitiveness. AVs will largely eliminate congestion and delays with far higher utilisation rates on commercial vehicles, and with passenger’s time in the vehicle put to more productive use, improving efficiency and productivity. The workforce can be much more mobile with better matching of demand and supply. Reductions in road and rail building costs and savings to the NHS and state from fewer accidents. Provide energy security, with storage highly localised todemand.
5. Solving the housing crisis​. Look at an urban area with Google Earth and you’ll see that between a quarter and a third of urban real estate is given over to car parking and related infrastructure that will no longer be required. Much of that land will belong to councils providing much needed income.

AVs ​WILL ​be driven by demand once the cost becomes significantly less than car ownership, with critical mass taking the cost down to as little 10% of the IO ICE vehicle, or less for shared journeys. We’re that selfish.

Conceptually, GreatApe has hit the nail on the head. For intra-urban travel, his half width pods for road capacity. For inter-urban travel, platooning road trains made up of minibus sized pods that add themselves/peel off as required, with no artificial upper speed limit.

For the context of this forum, the additional green element is that we'll only have to make less than 20% of the vehicles that we do now, and they get re-built (note, not replaced) every three years due to the much higher mileage and ever advancing technology. The central ownership (there is some doubt whether the tech companies can be trusted not abuse such a monopolistic position) allows the government to mandate the introduction of the latest environmental technology as it becomes available, not the current 14 year cycle.

Money saving... we'd be spending 10% or less of the current individually owned fossil fuel car (future generations are going to look back and think we were nuts. And they'd be right.)

Ethically... Well, one of the really exciting aspects is that it squares the problem of the Carbon Prices disproportionately disadvantaging the poor. Quite the contrary, it democratises land transport.