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Lyft Self-Driving

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Re: Lyft Self-Driving

#61

Post by nradov »

alasdair_ wrote: post #48
tlb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The airline industry is unprofitable mainly because the pilots capture most of the money. Their union gives them nearly unlimited pricing power. It's possibly that self-driving cars won't be profitable, but it certainly won't be for the same reason. There's reason to believe it'll be a winner-take-all market, because more data leads to lower crash rate which (in a world of rational consumers) will make them more popu…

>The airline industry is unprofitable mainly because the pilots capture most of the money. Their union gives them nearly unlimited pricing power. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average salary of a Commercial Pilot is $73,490 per year. This seems low given the sheer number of hours of training involved.

The average is meaningless. New regional airline co-pilots barely earn enough to eat. Senior captains for major airlines are paid very, very well.

Re: Lyft Self-Driving

#62

Post by kbos87 »

Today, the competitive advantage in this market goes to whoever has the largest network of drivers and can summon a vehicle quickly and at a low cost to a waiting passenger. The tech is marginally better or worse from Lyft to Uber to competitor X, and the ride quality is similar enough.

When self driving cars become a reality, I don’t see the technology or the data becoming a real sustainable competitive advantage for any one player. Once the last technical hurdles have been overcome and society has adapted in whatever way it needs to, it just won’t be that difficult for every auto manufacturer to figure out how to get in on the game.

Fragmentation across local markets also has to come into play at some point. It’s only a matter of time before cities and towns get their acts together and figure out how to extract revenue to at the very least cover the real but indirect costs they are incurring as a result of ridesharing. They could pretty easily make it next to impossible for their non preferred vendor partners to operate in a city.

Re: Lyft Self-Driving

#63

Post by rocky1138 »

labster wrote: post #50
rocky1138 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He or she is definitely right about the second point. For more detail on the thought behind the second point, read up on the Jevons Paradox if you're not already familiar with it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox I'm not convinced about the first idea, though. I think we shouldn't get confused with equating not covering all trips with lack of success. Even if driverless only works for commutes in one or…

Yes, increasing availability of cars through self-driving will result in more trips, probably from underage or elderly people. But add in a service like Lyft, and the facts change. Taxi services reduce the total amount of miles driven. When I first heard that it sounded crazy, but think of this scenario: you live near your friends, but go to work at different places. You all agree to meet up for a beer after work. If…

I'm not sure you grasp just how fundamental a change in our lifestyles a switch to driverless cars could be, especially ones sold on a subscription basis with unlimited usage. It's the difference between first world countries with socialized medicine and those without.

Before, driving was a job that everyone had and took up valuable cycles away from living your life. You had to consider each trip, e.g., "How much gas do I have? What's the traffic like? My car isn't working, I have to skip going out tonight."

After, no matter what you want to do, you just call a car and get in. You don't even have to think about it. It's going to liberate so many people that undoubtedly frivolous trips are going to stack, similar to how people in countries with socialized medicine tend to visit the emergency room for less and less serious medical problems.

Since Uber has come to town I catch myself calling it for things I could have easily skipped or taken the bus to or suffered on my motorcycle for (rain, etc.). I might haven taken, on average, less than one taxi per year but now take at least 15 Uber trips during that same time period. I think this sort of liberating convenience will only increase once driverless cars become popular.

Re: Lyft Self-Driving

#64

Post by perennate »

rocky1138 wrote: post #21
elchief wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love me that hacker ethos...

He or she is definitely right about the second point. For more detail on the thought behind the second point, read up on the Jevons Paradox if you're not already familiar with it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox I'm not convinced about the first idea, though. I think we shouldn't get confused with equating not covering all trips with lack of success. Even if driverless only works for commutes in one or…

I am skeptical of claims that autonomous vehicles would decrease congestion even without taking into account this paradox (i.e., even if the density of cars on the road remained the same). All the claims seem to reference the same study [1], but per the abstract they are just simulating one circular lane of traffic. No "lane changes, bottlenecks, merges, or changes in grade". Intuitively, it seems like once you add all these other factors in, autonomous vehicles won't help much unless deployed on a wide scale; for example, it doesn't seem like one driver can do much to speed up the merging of cars ahead of it.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.01693

Re: Lyft Self-Driving

#65

Post by pokstad »

mherdeg wrote: post #47

If there's a 90% reduction in accidents, who will be providing the donor organs? What will happen to the average lifespan of people with certain chronic illnesses?

We will be forced to invent a new popular fad that kills people as cleanly as possible: jumbo size brain piercings

Re: Lyft Self-Driving

#66

Post by zanedb »

mcny wrote: post #51
CPLX wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of those two sentences is the one that's going to create seven million cars out of thin air and then maintain, manage, and insure them?

What do we do when someone pukes in the driverless uber?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Lyft Self-Driving

#67

Post by twelve40 »

melvinmt wrote: post #17
ukulele wrote: post #3

This really is the endgame for both Uber and Lyft. IIRC, Uber did $16B last year in revenue and paid something like $13B to drivers. Self driving vehicles will turn their current breakeven/loser business models into massive cash cows.

> This really is the endgame for both Uber and Lyft. I believe so too, but from a slightly different angle: I believe self-driving vehicles will literally mean the end for both Uber & Lyft (and they only accelerate their fate by investing into it). To understand why: their inherent value is their ability to match human drivers with customers. They both do such a good job at it, that the switching costs between the 2…

Uber owns their maps.

Re: Lyft Self-Driving

#68

Post by bennettfeely »

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #53
skywhopper wrote: post #10

To the extent this works anytime soon it will be so slow and inconsistent that it won’t be economically successful. Any driving service that works worse at night, in bad weather, or outside small well-mapped neighborhoods will not be comprehensive or reliable enough to be economically viable. Also the idea that self driving cars will end traffic is a dangerous lie to tell. Self driving cars will do nothing to reduce…

I think self driving cars will increase safety, and decrease accidents. I've read that accidents contribute for 25% of traffic congestion that exists today, so self driving cars could have a noticeable impact on decreasing drive times.

The only noticable impact will be as you watch fellow human drivers speed past you on the road.

Self-driving cars must follow the speed limit at all times.

How can a company program a car to break the law?

Re: Lyft Self-Driving

#69

Post by shiftpgdn »

mcny wrote: post #51
CPLX wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of those two sentences is the one that's going to create seven million cars out of thin air and then maintain, manage, and insure them?

What do we do when someone pukes in the driverless uber?

Open app, report problem with the vehicle and request something different. Problem vehicle will be taken out of service for review.

Re: Lyft Self-Driving

#70

Post by rspeer »

alasdair_ wrote: post #48
tlb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The airline industry is unprofitable mainly because the pilots capture most of the money. Their union gives them nearly unlimited pricing power. It's possibly that self-driving cars won't be profitable, but it certainly won't be for the same reason. There's reason to believe it'll be a winner-take-all market, because more data leads to lower crash rate which (in a world of rational consumers) will make them more popu…

>The airline industry is unprofitable mainly because the pilots capture most of the money. Their union gives them nearly unlimited pricing power. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average salary of a Commercial Pilot is $73,490 per year. This seems low given the sheer number of hours of training involved.

Not to mention that they're frequently away from home.
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