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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

#221

Post by agilob »

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…

Bill Gates says people shouldn't own land, should always rent. That another company from US (forgot name) that buys houses for 50% higher asking price, now this. These days we rent books, games, flats, soon we'll rent homes and cars. No need to own anything when you can pay more money to rent it.

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

#222

Post by terryf »

berkes wrote: post #214
tempestn wrote: post #49

Having finally had a chance to test-"drive" an advanced autopilot Tesla last weekend, I can confidently say at the current level of that tech I would pay less than nothing. At best (cruising down a well-marked highway) it was only slightly worse than useless, taking a different line in the lane than I considered optimal, leaving me feeling a background level of apprehension. From there it ranged through frustrating,…

I'm no expert on any of the selfdriving features (I still self-drive my 1984 Volkswagen with tlc) but from what I hear and see, Tesla is amongst the worst when it comes to selfdriving and e.g. Volvo or Volkwagen is way ahead. Their marketing, however, is top notch, so whenever Tesla fails to deliver, people conclude that 'all selfdriving must be crap'. Is there something called 'Law of inhibiting leadership'? In whic…

As an owner of a Volvo V90 that has pilot assist or whatever they call it - it's great for highway driving!

It has it's quirks but they are easy to get used to and after a few years, I know pretty much exactly where it is extremely reliable and where it will get it wrong.

The behaviour is extremely boringly reliable - which is exactly what it should be and doing a few hundrer km on a good highway is now much much more relaxing than before.

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

#223

Post by incompatible »

pappyo wrote: post #217
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…

You're not capturing all the expenses to car ownership: Insurance Fuel/charging Excise tax Parking Maintenance Cleaning And most importantly, the hassel to deal with the above.

If I understand it correctly, that would be the fee for the self-driving feature, not the entire car. I suppose $8.50 per hour would be a reasonable rate for a car rental, although daily rates should be less.

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

#224

Post by Mashimo »

rho4 wrote: post #209
Mashimo wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still have to buy the car. So you have to factor that into the $8.50/h. (Unless you also got a car now)

Yes, only interesting if this is for an Uber like service without ownership. Didn't read that part.

Would love that too. Rent a car the few times per year I need one. And it waits for you in front of your house.

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

#225

Post by GuB-42 »

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…

Tesla charges $10k for not really self driving, with the promise that it will improve, and you should buy it now, because the price will increase in the future. I.e. they make you pay for something you don't have, with no guarantee that you will have it later. If it isn't a money grab, I don't know what is. And of course you can take a loan on that, so it isn't an upfront cost either.

At least, with VW system, you pay when you use it. Doesn't work in your area, you don't pay. And if you realize that you can't pay, you can simply drive, your car won't turn into a brick.

And of course it is to extract more money from consumers, that's the goal of every company. But personally I find VW approach more honest than Tesla's. The best would be to offer working self driving out of the box, with no promises and no recurring fees, but the reality is that we don't have the tech yet.

Note that I don't have anything against the $10k package from Tesla except for the way it is advertised. If they just sold you an advanced supercruise, there would be no problem. But they also sell you the idea that your car will fully drive itself in the future and that you are making an investment. Kind of like a Kickstarter, except it is a trillion dollar company, not a bunch of people in a basement.

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

#226

Post by globular-toast »

ryndbfsrw wrote: post #12

You will own nothing and love it

Ownership is overrated. It's not a universally good thing. In many cases it's a huge liability. The things you own end up owning you.

Would you want to own the stretch of road outside your house? What benefit would you get from it? You'd now be responsible for maintaining it and presumably you'd take out an insurance policy in case of freak events damaging it. You'd pray for a mild winter and hope your neighbours don't buy heavy vehicles that will start tearing it up. Much better to let the government own it, I think.

What benefit do you get from car ownership? Do you modify your car? Do you enjoy doing your own maintenance? For many people, the answer to both is a resounding no. For almost everyone, doing maintenance and repairs is totally impractical even if they were inclined to do so. Do you really own something if you are forced to take to the dealers regularly for maintenance and when things go wrong?

So what does the ownership get you? The sole responsibility if something goes wrong. The sole responsibility of keeping it maintained and roadworthy or disposing of it if you decide to write it off. And remember you can't really just write it off because you need it to get to work every day, plus it's a huge asset that you can't afford to replace outright.

For a very large number of people, "car ownership" really means the car owns them.

Ownership is great for many things, but each thing needs to be considered on its own merits. For most people, car ownership really doesn't make much sense.

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

#227

Post by gspr »

bsder wrote: post #189
ako wrote: post #26

With that pricepoint, maybe you don't need to implement actual autonomous driving, but instead it could be implemented by employing millions of dronepilots in some far away country that drive your car for you.

I still don't understand why the "autonomous driving" people aren't concentrating on freeway driving--possibly with special roadway markings--over local driving. I don't really mind driving the 10 minutes to the store. I mind driving 90 minutes between San Diego and LA. I mind driving 90 minutes between San Jose and San Francisco. I mind driving 7 hours between LA and SF. I mind driving driving 24 hours (two 12 hour…

If we could have true autonomous local driving, cities would change forever. All cars would live outside the city, and cover (pooled!) demand with incredible efficiency.

Cars in cities today are incredibly stupid compared to public transit. Full autonomy could change that.

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

#228

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

gspr wrote: post #215
CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transport is not the answer to everything. What if you want to visit your relatives outside the city/move some heavy things/...

For visiting outside the city, you temporarily rent a vehicle outside the city, where space isn't a problem. For moving heavy things: come on, how big of an impact on city traffic is this really?

Or, you accept there is nothing wrong with a few cars in the city and have taxis/car sharing/autonomous cars inside the city for when you need them.

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

#229

Post by Firadeoclus »

gspr wrote: post #212
GekkePrutser wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean 250 hours a year, not a week. But 31 minutes commuting per day is super low, that's 15 minutes each way. I doubt that is really the average to be honest. Of course with the pandemic commuting is not a big time sink anymore but I wonder how permanent this will be.

Yeah. I usually think that Americans have an insane tolerance for commuting, but 31 minutes per day is nothing! 15 minutes door-to-door to work is pretty fantastic — so fantastic that I too doubt that it's the average in the US northeast. Does this average perhaps count people who aren't working as having zero commute?

There is no indication that 31 minutes is per day, so I'd assume it's one way.

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

#230

Post by sofixa »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #58

I would pay zero per hour/day/month/year. I would be open to paying a flat upfront price though. Like we have always done for car features. If this subscription trend continues, cars will become like iphones. For an Iphone you pay $800, get only 64GB SSD with about 50GB usable which will run out in a matter of months. Then you pay Apple $3 every month until eternity just to be able to use your phone, otherwise it wil…

We're talking about a new type of car feature, one that needs constant work and updates. It's not unreasonable to have to pay-per-use for it.
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