If you open the link SMPLC is actually Zipcar’s NGO and basically every mobility startup signed this proposal. Full list of signatories: “BlaBla Car, CityMapper, Didi, Cityway, Jetty, Keolis, LimeBike, Lyft, Mobike, Motivate, Ofo, Ola, Scoot, Transit, Uber, Via and ZipCar”
Uber Wants to Make It Illegal to Operate Your Own Self-Driving Car in Cities
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Re: Uber Wants to Make It Illegal to Operate Your Own Self-Driving Car in Cities
#12There needs to be a planned phase-out of human-driven vehicles. Supporting legacy incumbents can hugely hamstring automated technology.[1] It's a double-whammy: (1) enormous investment must go into designing around human drives in the first place, and (2) the existence of human-driven vehicles dramatically reduces the traffic mitigation advantages of self-driving vehicles (reducing the incentive to make the investment in (1) and adopt self-driving vehicles).[2]
[1] I spent the beginning of my career working on radios that dynamically share spectrum among themselves, instead of relying on FCC central planning. The need to support incumbents like television stations has probably set the technology back a decade or two, not to mention cost millions upon millions of dollars.
[2] E.g. https://readwrite.com/2017/06/06/hyperlane-self-driving-tl4/
Re: Uber Wants to Make It Illegal to Operate Your Own Self-Driving Car in Cities
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's a bit overly alarmist, there could certainly be competition in this space. _But_ this is an absolutely despicable move on Uber's part that would slow the adoption of self-driving vehicles to prop up their own (at that point failing) business model.
"there could certainly be competition in this space" I was assuming governments forcing all fleets to share data. Probably via some "safety / think of the children / OMG terrorists" bill.
I think for safety you might get benefit out of cars communicating intent to neighbors. Pervasive tracking and reporting would be unnecessary - but that is the logic, of course various governments could require all sorts of stuff in the name of anything. So yea, good point.
Re: Uber Wants to Make It Illegal to Operate Your Own Self-Driving Car in Cities
#14The sidebar suggested I read another CEI article entitled "stop forcing unions on your workers".
Uh huh. This article sure seems like it represents facts in an unbiased way..
Re: Uber Wants to Make It Illegal to Operate Your Own Self-Driving Car in Cities
#15Oldest trick in the crony-cap playbook. Convince the gov that a special licence is required because think of the children, bribe and lobby your way to being the only one who can practically get one. Profi... Rent-seek.
Re: Uber Wants to Make It Illegal to Operate Your Own Self-Driving Car in Cities
#16If you open the link SMPLC is actually Zipcar’s NGO and basically every mobility startup signed this proposal. Full list of signatories: “BlaBla Car, CityMapper, Didi, Cityway, Jetty, Keolis, LimeBike, Lyft, Mobike, Motivate, Ofo, Ola, Scoot, Transit, Uber, Via and ZipCar”
So every mobility startup wants to ban consumers from owning what the mobility companies want to try to get people to rent.
Surprise, surprise.
Re: Uber Wants to Make It Illegal to Operate Your Own Self-Driving Car in Cities
#17i want to say something along the lines of, “Oh how quickly the disruptor becomes the regulator,” but really isn’t it a bit early in the autonomous vehicle game to pull the proverbial ladder up behind you? Besides, given the likely cost of such vehicles, even when they really exist, they’re not going to be in most households. Killing competition that doesn’t exist in a tech space that may be decades away from bearing…
Agreed, wouldn't it match their business model to just demand interoperability, and maybe subsidies to get autonomous vehicles into the hands of people who'd take the risk of buying and insuring them to ferry Uber fares around?
> Agreed, wouldn't it match their business model
I think you've confused “cultivated PR image” with “business model”.
Re: Uber Wants to Make It Illegal to Operate Your Own Self-Driving Car in Cities
#18Why was Uber mostly singled out in this article? If anyone reads the article, it makes it seem like there is some agenda behind it, especially when seeing the full list of signatories for the initiative [1].
The article also reads with some bias as the initiative itself seems to make some sense, based on my cursory review.
Re: Uber Wants to Make It Illegal to Operate Your Own Self-Driving Car in Cities
#19There needs to be a planned phase-out of human-driven vehicles. Supporting legacy incumbents can hugely hamstring automated technology.[1] It's a double-whammy: (1) enormous investment must go into designing around human drives in the first place, and (2) the existence of human-driven vehicles dramatically reduces the traffic mitigation advantages of self-driving vehicles (reducing the incentive to make the investmen…
You can pry my human-driven gas-burning vehicle out of my cold dead hands.
Re: Uber Wants to Make It Illegal to Operate Your Own Self-Driving Car in Cities
#20There needs to be a planned phase-out of human-driven vehicles. Supporting legacy incumbents can hugely hamstring automated technology.[1] It's a double-whammy: (1) enormous investment must go into designing around human drives in the first place, and (2) the existence of human-driven vehicles dramatically reduces the traffic mitigation advantages of self-driving vehicles (reducing the incentive to make the investmen…
Just to be clear, you’re worrying about the arrival of a technology which, hype aside, shows no sign of appearing anytime soon. The downsides of your plan on people who are already disadvantaged is enormous, in favor of benefits which simply don’t exist outside of the minds of some engineers.
I’m not saying that I can’t see the benefits of completely autonomous vehicles. If the technology were impending rather than in early R&D this conversation could even make sense. As it is however, it’s fighting over slices of a pie which may appear in a decade, or five decades, or more. A lot of harm can be done in the name of an imagined automated utopia, but the worst could be done when it’s still only a dream.