Lyft Self-Driving

The NYC subway accounts for 5 million trips each day, taking millions of cars off the road because they don’t need to exist in the first place.

Traveling with kids? Something people do with public transit and walking every day.

Promoting walking encourages healthy lifestyles; promoting driving (or just sitting in a car and not doing anything) encourages the opposite.

Elderly or disabled people take public transit all the time.

Short on time or carrying a bunch of groceries? Live out in the far suburbs? Then public transit isn’t for you. But it takes passengers who aren’t short on time off the roads, making your trip faster.

Edit: Cities with bad weather have adapted the cities to support public transit and walking (think covered, elevated walkways in Asia).

It’s not a zero sum game. Self driving cars will be great. Public transit is great (and can be great in more places 0if cities made more investment). Both can and should exist.

This production bottleneck is a very temporary thing. They had the same problem with the original Roadster, the Model S, and the Model X. All eventually resolved. I see no reason they won't eventually resolve it for the Model 3, as well.

It may (read: will and has) take longer than they wished, but they aren't in anywhere near the danger of going under as they were with, say, the original Roadster, so this is just a matter of time, in my opinion.

The danger comes in the fact that electric cars are ultimately fairly simple to make (although Tesla does a particularly good job at it), and if their competitors just got their act together, Tesla would have a tough time. But in my opinion, as long as they're the only ones with a really good charging network (the others are both much smaller and much slower... and the few stations that aren't slow require an upgraded car), they have a significant head start on their competitors.

Production bottleneck will eventually clear. But having demand exceed supply is really, REALLY good for Tesla's business as it gives them access to interest-free capital (from reservations) and the reservations also show the existence of sufficient demand to justify financing continued expansion. So, Tesla keeps coming out with new products even before the previous bottlenecks have been cleared in order to maintain the state of having demand greatly exceed supply.

And these new products usually share a technology core, i.e. battery modules and electronics, thus allowing them to traverse as far down the learning curve as is possible, which is a multiplicative effect that improves every other product. Using larger batteries than you might think strictly necessary only amplifies this effect while giving them a quality and performance advantage over their competitors.

Tesla will also have an advantage in their charging network of having cheaper electricity with faster charging than anyone else. The Semi product offers 7 cents per kWh, which is lower than residential rates just about anywhere AND is ultra fast-charging. So assuming they can meet that rate, Tesla will have a large advantage in logistics costs even compared to other electric self-driving providers.

Maybe you really do need a vehicle, but improving public transit and walkability would get a lot of other people out of your way.

This whole thing reminds of Buffett, Charlie Munger and the textile mill machinery story. I need to find the exact link for it though. Here's what I can remember from top of my head:

They were offered more "efficient" machinery, which could manufacture more textiles than the old machines. "It will pay for itself" was the pitch. But they refused as more efficient machines meant they had to pass on the savings to the customers. With lower prices, machinery was not exactly going to pay for itself.

I guess that will be the case for Uber and Lyft too. Any efficiency with low enough barrier will mean no one is reaping profits rather passing it on to the customers and hence making less money.

Edit:

Found the link:

https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/a-lesson-on-worldly-wisdom/

Won't accept which - that computers only have to beat human fatality rates to be preferable, or that the ratio will be 10:1 (or better) in favour of computer-driven cars in terms of fatalities?

I'd agree that if we aren't seeing better fatality numbers, people won't accept it -- but there's little to suggest that humans are a difficult target to beat. Especially in the US, where car-related fatalities are so numerous and much of the research and trials are being done.

Working out accountability for fatalities is already a hugely complicated process, involving an unhealthy number of law enforcement and legal personnel. The problem of identifying responsible party for a - as you put it - failed algorithm doesn't seem intractable, and certainly isn't a show-stopper.

Haven't voted either way on this thread, but I suspect your re-hashing of regular topics already resolved is the problem.