Can 3 million EVs replace 30 million oil cars?

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

The 'taxi' starts off at a base location (A) and, when requested to do so, travels to location (B), delivers the passenger(s) to location (C) and then either moves to a 'waiting' location (D), which may or may not be the same as original (A), depending on how the service operator sets it's rules, time of day etc ...

HTH
Z

TBH I'm not sure about that bit. I'd assume the taxi simply waits at the closest parking location to the last drop off, before being directed (as the nearest vehicle) to the next pick up.

It would presumably head to 'a base' for recharging, but if these are suitably spread out, then it would do this simply when close to one and charging is needed.

Of course it will do a bit more mileage when dropping you home v's parking on your drive, but the opposite is probably true when taking you 'somewhere' as it won't need to drive to a parking space, just the location, before tootling off to the next job.

We may see large carparks replaced by small taxi parks, freeing up more commercial space.

Obviously I'm just theorizing here.

zeupater

Martyn1981 wrote: »

TBH I'm not sure about that bit. I'd assume the taxi simply waits at the closest parking location to the last drop off, before being directed (as the nearest vehicle) to the next pick up.

It would presumably head to 'a base' for recharging, but if these are suitably spread out, then it would do this simply when close to one and charging is needed.

Of course it will do a bit more mileage when dropping you home v's parking on your drive, but the opposite is probably true when taking you 'somewhere' as it won't need to drive to a parking space, just the location, before tootling off to the next job.

We may see large carparks replaced by small taxi parks, freeing up more commercial space.

Obviously I'm just theorizing here.

Hi

I know I've mentioned it elsewhere on the forum in the past, but around here most taxis operate from areas with a higher population density & it's likely that would remain the case if the taxi fleet was autonomous as that's where the majority of the business is.

Taking our example then, the nearest vehicle can't be guaranteed to be within approx 5-10 minutes away whenever it's required and what has been the most travelled journey for us over the past 25 years has been in the opposite direction to where a taxi would be despatched from & most likely return to, resulting in well over 4x the vehicle mileage as direct point-to-point journeys ... I doubt that any service operator would be content to have an autonomous vehicle sitting around for 3-4 hours waiting for a potential return journey, so that's got to mean 4x the road mileage for the return journey too!

The last time this was discussed in detail it was established that not everyone lives in population centres where public transport could already service many of the urban journeys that autonomy would be considered a solution to, yet for various reasons people still prefer to have a vehicle parked on the street outside their house and that it is this mindset & subset of the population that the solution is specifically aimed at, totally missing the position of anyone in lower population density areas where the nearest services could be multiple miles away! ....

HTH
Z

GreatApe

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

I know I've mentioned it elsewhere on the forum in the past, but around here most taxis operate from areas with a higher population density & it's likely that would remain the case if the taxi fleet was autonomous as that's where the majority of the business is.

Taking our example then, the nearest vehicle can't be guaranteed to be within approx 5-10 minutes away whenever it's required and what has been the most travelled journey for us over the past 25 years has been in the opposite direction to where a taxi would be despatched from & most likely return to, resulting in well over 4x the vehicle mileage as direct point-to-point journeys ... I doubt that any service operator would be content to have an autonomous vehicle sitting around for 3-4 hours waiting for a potential return journey, so that's got to mean 4x the road mileage for the return journey too!

The last time this was discussed in detail it was established that not everyone loves in population centres where public transport could already service many of the urban journeys that autonomy would be considered a solution to, yet for various reasons people still prefer to have a vehicle parked on the street outside their house and that it is this mindset & subset of the population that the solution is specifically aimed at, totally missing the position of anyone in lower population density areas where the nearest services could be multiple miles away! ....
L

85% of the population live in urban (dense) areas

If your a farmer tending your flock and there no one else around for 10 miles sure you'll need one for yourself and can go buy one for yourself.

These will be fine for many rural areas too. Any area where in a square KM there are 100+ households can benefit from these. That's most rural areas too

Why so gloomy the worse case is we don't go from 30m to 3m but maybe 30m to 10m still a factor of 3x improvement

onomatopoeia99

GreatApe wrote: »

If you've got the money buy a new nice £50,000 Audi to show off

If you truly believe people buy vehicles to show off then you have no idea what you are talking about.


I have a £50,000 Porsche, rather than an Audi. I do not care what other people think when they see me driving it, I didn't buy it for people to look at, I bought it for me to drive because it is simply the best balanced mass production road car you can buy and the flat six engine makes a fabulous noise when wound up. I did not buy it for other people to look at or for other people to see me driving it. If I want other people to notice me driving, I'll got out in the Hillman Imp that cost me £600. It gets way, way more attention than the Porsche, depsite the 39bhp it left the factory with vs the 251bhp the Porsche has, and needing a calendar to measure the 0-60mph time. Random people come up to me whenever I park it and start conversations.



If you look as a car as nothing more than something to get you from A to B, rather than something to enjoy, then you will have no idea what I'm talking about. However if you are such a person then you fail to see that your arguments have a fundamental flaw, life is more than the simply utilitarian, or we'd all live in standard houses in standard habitazione zones which were all designed for maximum efficiency.


We don't. Ask yourself why.

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

I know I've mentioned it elsewhere on the forum in the past, but around here most taxis operate from areas with a higher population density & it's likely that would remain the case if the taxi fleet was autonomous as that's where the majority of the business is.

Taking our example then, the nearest vehicle can't be guaranteed to be within approx 5-10 minutes away whenever it's required and what has been the most travelled journey for us over the past 25 years has been in the opposite direction to where a taxi would be despatched from & most likely return to, resulting in well over 4x the vehicle mileage as direct point-to-point journeys ... I doubt that any service operator would be content to have an autonomous vehicle sitting around for 3-4 hours waiting for a potential return journey, so that's got to mean 4x the road mileage for the return journey too!

The last time this was discussed in detail it was established that not everyone lives in population centres where public transport could already service many of the urban journeys that autonomy would be considered a solution to, yet for various reasons people still prefer to have a vehicle parked on the street outside their house and that it is this mindset & subset of the population that the solution is specifically aimed at, totally missing the position of anyone in lower population density areas where the nearest services could be multiple miles away! ....

HTH
Z

Yes, I was thinking busy urban areas. Not sure when, how, or in what form, this would eventually expand into rural areas, but it would most likely carry a cost penalty, sorry!

Perhaps some owned community pool cars?

tim_p

Quick thought... who maintains, insures, cleans, charges, checks these millions of vehicles? Who buys them in the first place? How does a tiny 3 person pod cope with 3 people going shopping? How would a dog owner manage? A smoker or vaper? Disabled person?
Gonna be some issues come Sat night / Sunday morning, what with chaos left behind by drunk passengers.
Gonna be fights over the setting of the aircon (source: my wife)
Gonna be fights over the choice of music / radio channel.
Gonna be fights over unwashed fellow ‘podders’ (ooh! coined a phrase!)

I know I’m being completely negative here but I’m imagining a time when us plebs are trundling about the place like animals while the rich swan around in their luxury cars, probably in priority lanes too.

GreatApe

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

If you truly believe people buy vehicles to show off then you have no idea what you are talking about.


I have a £50,000 Porsche, rather than an Audi. I do not care what other people think when they see me driving it, I didn't buy it for people to look at, I bought it for me to drive because it is simply the best balanced mass production road car you can buy and the flat six engine makes a fabulous noise when wound up. I did not buy it for other people to look at or for other people to see me driving it. If I want other people to notice me driving, I'll got out in the Hillman Imp that cost me £600. It gets way, way more attention than the Porsche, depsite the 39bhp it left the factory with vs the 251bhp the Porsche has, and needing a calendar to measure the 0-60mph time. Random people come up to me whenever I park it and start conversations.



If you look as a car as nothing more than something to get you from A to B, rather than something to enjoy, then you will have no idea what I'm talking about. However if you are such a person then you fail to see that your arguments have a fundamental flaw, life is more than the simply utilitarian, or we'd all live in standard houses in standard habitazione zones which were all designed for maximum efficiency.


We don't. Ask yourself why.

I don't know or care about you or why you have what you have

Advertising works people buy !!!! to show off even though they won't admit it

There are literally hundreds of billion dollar industries fully geared to selling lifestyles and premium goods that are mostly brands

Even housing is the same
I have a big expensive house
If society didn't exist and I was the only one on the planet id probably find a small flat somewhere and make that home. But as it stands, like every other functioning human in a society, I acquire nice !!!! to show off and maintain status even though, like you, I lie to myself sometimes and pretend that has nothing to do with it

GreatApe

tim_p wrote: »

Quick thought... who maintains, insures, cleans, charges, checks these millions of vehicles? Who buys them in the first place? How does a tiny 3 person pod cope with 3 people going shopping? How would a dog owner manage? A smoker or vaper? Disabled person?
Gonna be some issues come Sat night / Sunday morning, what with chaos left behind by drunk passengers.
Gonna be fights over the setting of the aircon (source: my wife)
Gonna be fights over the choice of music / radio channel.
Gonna be fights over unwashed fellow ‘podders’ (ooh! coined a phrase!)

I know I’m being completely negative here but I’m imagining a time when us plebs are trundling about the place like animals while the rich swan around in their luxury cars, probably in priority lanes too.

The fleets hire companies or people to do the cleaning maintenance insurance etc

I'd imagine you'd be physically separated from the other two seats. Your own temp settings. Probably no loud music but perhaps entertainment in the form of a tablet plus use your Bluetooth headset

Just imagine a taxi there are 300,000 taxis already in the UK
Now make the cost £1 a go rather than £5-10 and demand will sky rocket
So much so that we will have about 3 million self drive taxis

Those who don't want to share can buy a vehicle for their sole use just as now
Likewise those who use cars for branding themselves can keep buying expensive versions
But for 70-80% of people they will use shared fleets

silverwhistle

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

If you truly believe people buy vehicles to show off then you have no idea what you are talking about.

I can believe you, although in the circumstances it would probably have been better not to then mention how much your car cost..

But the point is, some people do like that new car on the drive, hence the popularity of PCP. I couldn't give a wotsit about cars, I didn't bother learning to drive until I was 28 but am still delighted to be able to jump in it and that still gives me pleasure - last week for example when I learnt that my GF was going to do her helicopter navigation solo that day. People talking about the extras in their cars, "poverty spec" and all that just leaves me cold.

Then we have people arguing up thread that they've never been in those new-fangled contraptions, a train or was it a tube?

But what these individual points miss is that transport is a multitude of means and methods and motivations. Multi-stranded like the cable on a ski lift; all the same principle whether a two seater chair or the cable car to Plateau Rosa, just varying in the number of strands. They're alsod co-dependent as you can't practically get to the latter unless you walk uphill or use other lifts.

All these methods interact in some way and taking cars of the road in whatever way makes traffic run more smoothly. It's school holidays soon and that should help some of you on the morning run!

Nor is any individual necessarily wedded to one form of transport at all times. I drive, pop to the nearest town by bike sometimes if I'm not carrying a load, generally go to the nearest city by train (Southern Railways permitting).

Small changes or disruptions can have major impacts on transport, as we all know! I used to drive on the M25 when I lived abroad and came back for visits via Dover, timed to avoid the rush hour periods. It was noticeably after the 2008 crash that traffic flowed much better and, to my mind slower, for a number of years.

Mobility can mean different things depending on the need, the individual and the budget. It's a complicated business, that's for sure.

Piddles

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Technical observation ... and what happens until autonomy reaches the 100% saturation point? ... that's all vehicles, on all roads, including delivery vehicles, refuse collection, tractors, classic cars, motorcycles, bicycles etc - even the odd horse&rider or towed caravan in some areas ... it only takes one, so there's plenty of scope for something simple to throw a massive spanner into the works & completely upset the basic theory!

Real world solutions often don't mirror original theory, this almost universally being due to poorly applied logic & poor contingency recognition within the planning & development stages ...

HTH
Z

Let's start with Artificial Intelligence. A lot of guff is talked about AI by vested interests and marketing people trying to jump on the bandwagon by dressing up regular algorithms as AI. The anywhere-to-anywhere autonomous vehicle service that most people seem to imagine is a phenomenally difficult task that will require AI way, way more advanced than we have now. That level of AI is probably at least ten years away, quite possibly a fair bit more.

There's been around $100 billion (yes, billion) invested in autonomous vehicles, so it's difficult to imagine those investments not leading anywhere (another investment today). Here in Cambridge we are blessed with not one but two AI autonomous vehicle software businesses five.ai and wayve.ai. They are minnows in comparison to the Waymos of this world (five.ai has received $37.7 million in funding). Their pitch seems to be that European streets are very different to the wide, uncongested, mild-weathered roads of the current Phoenix testing grounds, and are just waiting for the big tech companies to come over and buy them up. The apparent lack of ambition seems a shame.

What we also have in Cambridge are the guided busways. These are disused railways re-purposed as segregated bus routes. There's a £4 billion embryonic plan to grow this into a trackless autonomous tram or smaller autonomous vehicle system including tunnelled lines under the city. The government has provided a £3.2 million grant for autonomous vehicle trails that are due to start on the existing guided busway this year.

The point about these busways are their segregated nature, so you don't need the full AI stack and can work with existing technology. They can then gradually break out into geo-fenced areas in the science parks, hospital campus and the city centre, then villages and towns on the routes as the technology is proved and improved. We have seen individually owned internal combustion engined vehicles being gradually squeezed out of city centres over many, many years and into Park & Rides, etc. This is likely to accelerate as the health effects of high pollution level in the city centres are better understood and become more politically unacceptable. So these autonomous vehicles will gradually fill that void.

One of the disused railways goes onto Oxford (where there's a third AI AV company called Oxbotica), so again that is likely to re-purposed for autonomous vehicles, breaking out into the villages and towns en route. And so it goes on.

From the other side, the pure AI AV companies like the above (or those big US tech companies by then) will later be producing autonomous trucks geo-fenced to motorways and trunk roads, which are likely to be the first AVs you'll see on public roads, not least due the growing shortage of truck drivers (the average age is now 59). As technology and acceptance evolves new vehicle types will gradually make the transition and gradually overlap with urban AVs.

So, in short it's going to be a very gradual, almost imperceptible change, like so many technological advances, as AVs gradually out competes the individually owned vehicle on cost and convenience.

History has a likely parallel. The transition from horse and cart to internal combustion engine took around ten years, with the horse and cart getting banned from many cities in the US on grounds of......pollution. And to put it bluntly, getting in the way.