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What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour

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Re: What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour

#161

Post by jjav »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #150
nix23 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>AWS isn't a scam on companies too poor to buy servers. It often is, for small and medium business (traditional ones) it's often cheaper to rent DC-Space and buy some servers yourself...but hey if you pay and don't do the math, that's your problem.

Physical co-lo is only cheaper if your time is worthless (ditto for Linux-on-the-corporate-desktop, or anything else that’s nominatively gratis). My current SaaS gig runs in Azure (App Services and containers - no VMs nor “serverless”) and being completely free of the need to do sysadmin work is just so nice. When I was colocating my own rack about a decade ago there was always something that needed my attention, be…

> Physical co-lo is only cheaper if your time is worthless

Physical colocation is nearly always cheaper than AWS for most use cases.

Exceptions are when your usage is so tiny that it doesn't need even a single full-time server, and, when your usage is so erratic that provisioning for the spikes doesn't make sense.

For everyone else, you're paying a very large premium for AWS over what it'd cost to buy and operate some servers.

Re: What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour

#162

Post by Danieru »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #137
mnahkies wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a SASS product you're paying for ongoing access to a service with continuous improvements and a cost to the company to continue providing you. With heated seats the hardware to provide the functionality was either fitted or not, once it leaves the factory it's static and so it seems pretty unreasonable to me to charge an ongoing fee for the privilege. A world where my car gets micro-transactions to turn on the A…

> you're paying for ongoing access to a service with continuous improvements and a cost to the company to continue providing you Why wouldn’t this apply to an autonomous driving service?

Because the hardware and sensors are all local, installed on the car from the factory. There is no economic advantage, just a business advantage

Re: What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour

#163

Post by estaseuropano »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #126
gambiting wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same argument that BMW made, and it's just as faulty here. They said that instead of paying $500 upfront for heated seats, they will be available as an annual unlock for say $100/year. Since they know an average owner keeps a new BMW for only 3 years, this is a saving for new buyers - isn't that great??? I hate this argument with a burning passion though, it's turning ownership into subscription only to extr…

> instead of paying $500 upfront for heated seats, they will be available as an annual unlock for say $100/year. Since they know an average owner keeps a new BMW for only 3 years, this is a saving for new buyers For someone who only occasionally needs heated seats, this is value adding. I agree that forcing everyone into a subscription is coercive. But there are a lot of people for whom the flexibility of a subscript…

I would buy this argument if they sold the initial car at a loss - but they don't do that. You paid for that feature when you bought the car, then you pay again to use it. This is just rent seeking.

Re: What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour

#164

Post by bryanrasmussen »

The car refused to drive autonomously. It said, “$8.50, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the car. Again he tried the self-driving knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.” “I think otherwise,” the car said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this VW Bug.”

In his glove compartment he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his car for taxiing him about while he listened to his morning HN podcast constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. “You discover I’m right,” the car said. It sounded smug.

Re: What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour

#165

Post by gambiting »

Danieru wrote: post #162
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're paying for ongoing access to a service with continuous improvements and a cost to the company to continue providing you Why wouldn’t this apply to an autonomous driving service?

Because the hardware and sensors are all local, installed on the car from the factory. There is no economic advantage, just a business advantage

To add to this - I'd be ok with VW charging for software updates after the first 3 years, like they do with maps. But the hardware and software that shipped from factory should work in perpetuity, period.

Re: What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour

#166

Post by dna_polymerase »

The idea that Volkswagen will ever get autonomous driving out of the door is laughable at best.

We shouldn't even listen to them. Autonomous driving will happen in U.S. companies, and they will dictate what it will look like for the consumer.

Re: What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour

#167

Post by devoutsalsa »

Mashimo wrote: post #136
hyperhopper wrote: post #62

> In a swipe at Tesla, he said that by charging hourly fees, VW would make autonomous driving more accessible than “a car with a five-digit surcharge.” This is completely disingenuous at best, and malicious at worst. This is a perfect example of the boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness [1]. This is just taking advantage of the poor-middle class' inability to pay a larger upfront cost, to extort them for more over…

Could be decent for people who only want to use autonomous driving on occasion, not with every commute. Keep in mind this is a German taking to a German magazine, US business model might be different (But probably not)

Yeah, I don’t own a car, but I easily could. 7 euros per hour is cheaper than any car I could rent for a few hours, and cheaper than almost any ride share option. The only place I’ve been where calling a ride share would maybe be cheaper is Pakistan.

Re: What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour

#168

Post by GekkePrutser »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #115
xivzgrev wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is autonomous driving an increasingly scarce resource? The tech industry, with zero marginal cost, took to the subscription model with great success. Hugely profitable. Now every business looks to work in subscriptions. I think what we will end up having is that initial players to offer autonomous driving will be able to charge, because it’s scarce and to recoup investment. Eventually the tech will get commoditiz…

>How is autonomous driving an increasingly scarce resource? Space is the scarce resource. In a city that's full of 90% of the time parked cars it doesn't really make sense for everyone to have their own car. Autonomous driving just combines the best of Uber and car sharing.

In a city having excellent public transport makes even more sense than cars :) And outside the city space isn't an issue.

Re: What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour

#169

Post by GekkePrutser »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #143
hyperhopper wrote: post #62

> In a swipe at Tesla, he said that by charging hourly fees, VW would make autonomous driving more accessible than “a car with a five-digit surcharge.” This is completely disingenuous at best, and malicious at worst. This is a perfect example of the boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness [1]. This is just taking advantage of the poor-middle class' inability to pay a larger upfront cost, to extort them for more over…

> This is just taking advantage of the poor-middle class' inability to pay a larger upfront cost, to extort them for more over a larger period of time. At least you still have a choice. In the software world, this freedom of choice is coming to an end, with Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk and many others discontinuing "pay once own forever" products.

The same will happen to other markets if we don't vote with our wallets.

Philips is already planning to offer "Light as a service" to consumers. Citing circularity concerns, after all the incentive is now on them to make lightbulbs last as long as possible rather than as short as possible.

But really it means they've been cheating us with planned obsolescence for years.

I really don't want to be dependent on monthly contracts for every little thing. Never. I spend 20 euros per year on lightbulbs and I have a lot of smart ones. I'm sure any subscription plan won't be that cheap. Because the whole point of subscription models is for the company to make lots of money while doing nothing.

Re: What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour

#170

Post by kwdc »

dlsa wrote: post #108

VW has an interesting prior track record with economics, truth around numbers and diesel emissions in particular. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-09/vw-charge... https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15339250/everything-you-n... Based on that history I'm not convinced that $8.50 per hour is even remotely reasonable and they already know it. Autonomous driving is a lot cheaper. This doesn't mean that peop…

Trust notwithstanding, it all depends on what your time is worth. What's an equivalent uber going to cost when autonomous driving is a real thing?
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