Can 3 million EVs replace 30 million oil cars?

Tammykitty

Piddles wrote: »

They will on the grounds of cost and convenience. It's a massively disruptive technology and getting everyone's head around it is going to be challenging.

At 10% of the cost of the average individually owned internal combustion engined car, it's going to be a very strong pull.

There will be the collapse in used car prices. So for people in rural areas there will the benefit of owning the car of your dreams ....for nothing probably. Though the places you'll be able to drive it will shrink.

Uber is a useful service for people to try out the principle. I'm no expert, but I believe one of the surprises was how well Uber can work in rural area as drivers register as a part time (sometimes second) job. Maybe it has yet to develop in your area.

AVs will start in cities as a segregated public transport disruptor, then with intercity connections and freight services, then radiate out from there. It'll be demand led. No one is going to force you. But price and convenience will probably get you eventually as the network grows and matures.

Maybe - but I doubt it - I worked out the cost my car per mile all in it 14p a mile (excluding depreciation)
Including the actual cost of the car - 24p a mile (assuming I keep car for 5 years and no residual value).


Uber is a good practice for it - but it hasn't caught on here yet - and I it takes uber this long to catch on, who knows how long for AV!


Price might convince me eventually - not convenience. I don't see what could be more convenient than getting in my car whenever it suits me and driving to wherever I want whenever I want, with whatever stuff I want.

GreatApe

Piddles wrote: »

That video is now two years old and it's quite interesting checking the claims made then by some manufacturers to what they've actually delivered.

One was Elon Musk's claim to have level 5 autonomy in 2019. Tony Seba did say "..even if he misses it by a bit", so he was obviously somewhat sceptical.

Another was $250 solid state short range LIDAR, that hasn't materialised either. Waymo have recently released their short range LIDAR (front and rear or all four corners) for sale to non autonomous car applications for something around $2,000 to $4,000. The long range one (big one on the top) is supposed to be around the 5 figure mark.

For autonomy, it's about "degrees of confidence" in the surroundings, where you are and how fast you are going. The more the sensors agree, the faster you can go. It's the same for the human driver when you think about it; when it's raining you can't see so well, you know the tyres have less grip, etc. so you slow down.

The extra tier of "vision" from LIDAR (not always available to the other sensors - or human eyes for that matter) mean the vehicle can go faster and be safer. It's more than just "vision". The processing can work out position relative to its mapping data and speed according how the shapes of fixed objects it passes change (think of how the cube of a house changes shape as you approach it). All this gets compared to what the other sensors are saying, hence the "degrees of confidence".

LIDAR was never an option for Tesla on both cost or aesthestics grounds, so Musk has been obliged to diss the technology on a "the ends justifies the means" basis. You can bet that the software has been written in way that LIDAR can be just dropped in when pertinent. The end game is the technology and the massive amounts of data that all the ever growing Tesla car fleet provide. Tesla cars themselves are just a short lived stepping stone for him.

It's a race between lidar and computer vision
With lidar you don't need as advanced computer vision
With advanced computer vision you don't need lidar

Personally I think musk is correct in the long term you won't need lidar for self drive because we will some day have computer vision as advanced if not magnitudes better than human vision
However in the short term lidar might allow robo EVs for a few years before computer vision catches up and makes lidar redundant

Remember these don't have to be fail safe they just need to be better than humans by 2x or more

Computer vision is probably more important than lidar
If a plastic bag blows into the road the computer vision can say it's ok don't worry while the lidar alone probably can't figure out if this object is a danger or it's ok

GreatApe

tim_p wrote: »

So suddenly the NHS doesn’t need ambulances? Carers don’t need to get to ‘clients’ Doctors don’t need to visit patients? People in villages don’t need to get to hospital appointments, don’t need to bother to visit relatives in hospital. Pharmacies don’t need to deliver medicines.
How do people living in rural areas get around? Don't tell me, they hop on one of your magic ‘3 in 30 million’ vehicles.
Remind me where the 30 Million is coming from.

No one cares if you will use these robo taxes or not, bury your head in the sand your business is not required nor will the lack of Tim using the service make the difference between this working or not

For a start we know there are roughly 0.3 million taxis in the UK and scale up to 100x to get world demand and that is at least demand for 30 million self drive EVs

If you could make the cost of taxis go from £1 a mile to 30p a mile the demand for said taxis will boom probably 10 fold

The market is there and companies are spending billions to create this technology.
That you think you won't use these is not going to stop this tech being developed

Seriously some of you think the world revolves around you and your needs
I'm sure there are lots of goods and services you'd never buy doesn't mean those industries don't exist or won't exist

GreatApe

Tammykitty wrote: »

Maybe - but I doubt it - I worked out the cost my car per mile all in it 14p a mile (excluding depreciation)
Including the actual cost of the car - 24p a mile (assuming I keep car for 5 years and no residual value).

Uber is a good practice for it - but it hasn't caught on here yet - and I it takes uber this long to catch on, who knows how long for AV!

Price might convince me eventually - not convenience. I don't see what could be more convenient than getting in my car whenever it suits me and driving to wherever I want whenever I want, with whatever stuff I want.

Great you keep doing that

But what of the 100 million kids becoming adults yearly?
It costs them £5-10k to start driving
How many of them will pay up £5-10k upfront for a used banger?
When they can pay 30p (or whatever) per mile to be in a 1 year old robo EV?

There is no market for robo EVs cos Tammy doesn't like them.....

Tammykitty

GreatApe wrote: »

Great you keep doing that

But what of the 100 million kids becoming adults yearly?
It costs them £5-10k to start driving
How many of them will pay up £5-10k upfront for a used banger?
When they can pay 30p (or whatever) per mile to be in a 1 year old robo EV?

There is no market for robo EVs cos Tammy doesn't like them.....

I never said there was no market - there is but its more limited than being suggested - and I don't see robo EV's being seen a good alternative for kids outside of the cities for a very long time!

Piddles

Tammykitty wrote: »

Price might convince me eventually - not convenience.

The time spent driving your 18,000 miles is now available to do other things. Maybe you could work, catch up on some sleep, do your social media, get your hair washed, nails done, do some shopping.... whatever works for your circumstances and your imagination. Does that sound even a little bit convenient?

zeupater

Piddles wrote: »

The time spent driving your 18,000 miles is now available to do other things. Maybe you could work, catch up on some sleep, do your social media, get your hair washed, nails done, do some shopping.... whatever works for your circumstances and your imagination. Does that sound even a little bit convenient?

Hi

Probably the same viewpoint here ... if for some reason there is an imperative that means we need to go now then it's not just a matter of convenience, it could be essential that the nearest available vehicle is already at hand as opposed to being even a few minutes away ...

Think of someone on call or having responsibility for elderly relatives etc in a situation where an unexpected phone call in the middle of the night necessitates an immediate response .... An IT emergency, a doctor, a maintenance engineer, emergency services employees called in with no notice ... even what seems to be a remote possibility such as an escaped wild animal from a safari park would cause more than a little concern for the park operators if unnecessary delay in responding was to be introduced ...

... sorry sir, would you prefer that I called a taxi or could you hire a helicopter again? ...

HTH
Z

Tammykitty

Piddles wrote: »

The time spent driving your 18,000 miles is now available to do other things. Maybe you could work, catch up on some sleep, do your social media, get your hair washed, nails done, do some shopping.... whatever works for your circumstances and your imagination. Does that sound even a little bit convenient?

Nope - I would prefer to be driving than a passenger.
Being a passenger is much more tiring and boring. (obviously depending on the company)
How could I get my hair done or nails done in a moving vehicle?


Sleeping does sound nice though - but I can never sleep in public transport or as a passenger in a private car - don't see that changing!


I can understand that many people's lifestyles may suit a robotic EV - but I don't see mine being so.


I drive from home to work on Fridays, then on the visit friends for lunch, shopping, walking etc, and then on the stay with family for the weekend - if I didn't have my own car I would be carrying all my weekend stuff with me all day (and sometimes this includes my bike in the boot!). It's 90 mile one way - occasionally I do it by public transport - and it's a pain not having half my stuff!

Piddles

Tammykitty wrote: »

How could I get my hair done or nails done in a moving vehicle?

These kind of services could be run from an AV, saving you time. A beautician service on the way to a night out. If you're a Next customer, they have data on what you've bought and could send you an AV auto prestocked with your taste and your size of clothes every Friday on the way back fro work. Take a sleeper AV and arrive in Paris for breakfast. I'm just thinking out loud, but maybe there's an angle for whatever you do for living?

Over to you and your imagination.

Tammykitty wrote: »

it's a pain not having half my stuff!

I don't have a ready answer for that one, but delivery AVs will definitely be a thing. If the High St still exists by then, it'll become normal for your shopping to follow you home, so there may be an angle there.

GreatApe

Tammykitty wrote: »

Nope - I would prefer to be driving than a passenger.
Being a passenger is much more tiring and boring. (obviously depending on the company)
How could I get my hair done or nails done in a moving vehicle?

Sleeping does sound nice though - but I can never sleep in public transport or as a passenger in a private car - don't see that changing!

I can understand that many people's lifestyles may suit a robotic EV - but I don't see mine being so.

I drive from home to work on Fridays, then on the visit friends for lunch, shopping, walking etc, and then on the stay with family for the weekend - if I didn't have my own car I would be carrying all my weekend stuff with me all day (and sometimes this includes my bike in the boot!). It's 90 mile one way - occasionally I do it by public transport - and it's a pain not having half my stuff!

That you will or will not use robo taxis doesn't at all change the timeframe of them coming into existence so why does it matter at all to this conversation if you will or will not use them?

All cars will become autonomous because of safety regulations

The market will change from ~99.5% owned ~0.5% taxis, towards ~20% owned ~80% taxis

Even if that is wrong and the figures are 50:50 that is still a 100 X increase in taxi useage which will enable greater economies for those who opt for sharing