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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

#481

Post by gambiting »

cwilkes wrote: post #433
gambiting wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But the hardware and software that shipped from factory should work in perpetuity, period. There’s a cost to VW to keep that system running. They have to staff SWEs that can write security patches, have to maintain outdated methods to update the software, etc. And this isn’t really optional for VW to do it as if there’s a problem on a 2000 pound vehicle moving at 60 miles per hour things can get deadly quickly. For…

But that's a legislative problem. I imagine at some point we'll get to a future where you can't enable autonomous self driving unless you have an approved patch 1.7X to your autonomous driving suite. Anything earlier than that is not allowed on public roads in autonomous mode. We're nowhere near that future though yet.

Like, going back to my maps example - if I never pay VW for a map upgrade, my 10 year old satnav system will absolutely mislead me and try to direct me in places which could be potentially dangerous. And like....so what? The system that was installed from the factory still works, that's the point.

These current systems that we have are all just glorified cruise control systems - and whatever you have in your latest Merc/BMW/Audi/Volvo/whatever will continue to work until the car itself falls apart. As far as I can see VW isn't proposing anything different - other than the payment scheme for it.

Also, as for hacking risk - this is a massive risk on nearly all new vehicles on the road today and very little is being done to address it. VW charging for autonomous driving capability has little to do with that.

And to add another example - there's a famous case where a woman's car has caused $180M worth of damage, as it has caught fire while being transported inside a cargo ship. Turns out there was an outstanding recall on that vehicle due to....fire risk. So initially insurers wanted to put all blame on her, since she didn't have the vehicle fixed despite the recall. But they all got nowhere, because there isn't currently any law that says you have to get your vehicle fixed when a recall is issued. Similarily, the manufacturer isn't obliged by law to make sure any recall is followed, so they were off the hook as well.

What I mean to say is that these hypothetical situations are interesting to talk about, but with the current state of tech and law none of it is an actual concern.

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

#482

Post by varjag »

SamBam wrote: post #381
varjag wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes seriously this is A level BS. I in fact own an ID.4 Max, and while it's a swell car you hardly save much buying this over a same class Tesla 3/Y where I live. It's clear that the autonomous driving has to execute locally on the car, so there is no physical basis to any "cost saving" other than sales mechanism optimization. Boo.

At the same time it's clear that autonomous driving is something that's going to need to be continually improved with over-the-air updates. This isn't a subscription for heated seats, it's something that you want them continually developing, month-in and month-out, and continually updating maps and stuff.

I'm fine with buying their software outright at the cost ammortized over multi-million car fleets. We're talking single-digit thousands of dollars worst case.

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

#483

Post by kwhitefoot »

aqme28 wrote: post #454
squiggleblaz wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And of course it is to extract more money from consumers, that's the goal of every company. No it isn't. We don't have companies so that they can extract money from consumers. We have companies to help efficiently distribute wealth through the community to maximise the probability of social needs being filled. If the goal was to extract money from consumers and give it to those with spare capital, there are vastly…

Not to be curt, but this is one of the most naive things I've read on this website. 90% of the time, people start companies to make money, not to "efficiently distribute wealth through the community."

He or she said:

> We have companies to help efficiently distribute wealth through the community to maximise the probability of social needs being filled.

We here presumably means society in general. We set rules and give privileges to people to run companies in order to better society. In a capitalist system this is done through the medium of 'enlightened self interest' so yes, one starts a company to make money but that is not the reason we have companies.

You are arguing against a point he didn't make.

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

#484

Post by iso1210 »

ghaff wrote: post #349
Danieru wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, so they would refund the full price of the car if people are no longer happy with it? Or would the 20K+ car just serve as strong vendor lock to be exploited in subscriptions?

That assumes that the subscription is for the entire car. But that's pretty much what a lease is. And that's what a lot of people do. They pay a premium for a new car that they're only locked into for 3 years or so.

And its a great model for people who want a known payment of $x and don't want to take on the risk/reward of deprecation, maintenance, resale, etc.

Unlike with say housing, which sits on land which appreciates in value at a rate and has a high cost of moving (monetary and personal), a typical car for the majority of people is a means to an end which just sits their and deprecates. The cost of changing to a new car is a few minutes reprogramming the radio and seats.

Ultimately what most people want is transportation which costs a reliable x¢ per mile at a given level of convienience, reliability and comfort.

Cars are hardly a winner takes all business or one with little competition - there's at least a dozen major manufacturers.

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

#485

Post by iso1210 »

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #480
jtbayly wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very different because you didn’t buy a server. If you were talking about a leased car instead of a purchased car it would be a bit more comparable, but still wouldn’t work. Because with a lease you have the option to buy it in the end. Even a rental car doesn’t quite match, since you are in a particular car.

A rental car would at least make sense though. You're already paying a cost for temporary access to the car, adding on extra features doesn't seem outrageous. It could improve availability of those features because a rental company could order a fleet with those features on all cars in their fleet and then customers who want it would be able to pay the surcharge, instead of being constrained by the portion of the fle…

Why don't they increase those rental prices anyway?

A company will aim to charge the most it can to its customers.

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

#486

Post by kwhitefoot »

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #478
gambiting wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BMW is selling this as a great solution to fleet cars - say your company buys 100 cars for your employees - this way everyone gets a "base" spec car at a low cost to the company, but if an employee wants a sport mode or adaptive cruise control they can just pay to unlock it from their own pocket. Like, it makes sense to a lot of people. BMW loves this, corporate fleets love this. But as it slowly becomes standard we…

Paying a one time unlock fee and paying a subscription on a hardware feature are vastly different things. You might still disagree with both, but they are different. Heated seats are a pretty standard upgrade that people will pay for, so I'm not sure that it makes much difference whether it's a physical upgrade or a software unlock, and there are valid reasons Tesla might choose a software unlock. But charging a subs…

It's not necessarily as different as it seems. When you buy a second hand Tesla from Tesla it can happen that a feature that the previous owner had has been disabled. Tesla has in fact been accused of disabling features of cars that were not sold through them.

Does the 1000 USD upgrade buy the feature or merely enable it for the time that the owner owns the car?

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

#487

Post by ashtonkem »

kortex wrote: post #456
ashtonkem wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t be so confident. I think you’re drastically underrating how much convenience will drive changes in behavior and social expectation. If self driving works (big if, I’m dubious about this), then the vast majority of us will switch over to using it for regular trips very quickly. As that happens, the perception about what is safe and socially acceptable will change quickly, as will the types of vehicles consu…

I wouldn't be so confident 100% ("steering-wheel-less") L5 self-driving is possible. Long tail is a thing. There will for a long time be a need for manual override, for things like tricky parking or slow-speed maneuvering, bad weather, weird lightning conditions, etc. That rules out de facto driving ban. That leaves driving ban by fiat. Also never gonna happen in this century, unless it carves out an exception for "c…

> I wouldn't be so confident 100% ("steering-wheel-less") L5 self-driving is possible.

I’m not, you didn’t read what I wrote. I specifically predicated my theory on if it was possible, and indicated my reservations there.

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

#488

Post by geonic »

gambiting wrote: post #259
alexanderchr wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the fact that you paid for the heated seats upfront increases the value of the car when you resell it. Likely by more than what you saved by renting? …or maybe that was your point?

Indeed. BMW's argument to this is that all cars will have all equipment built in - it will all be unlockable by subscription. Want adaptive cruise control? $200 a year. Heated seats? $100 a year. Sport modes for the engine/transmission? $400 a year. etc etc etc. It annoys me to no end because it means you are paying(in the cost of the car) to have all of this advanced tech in the car, but you can't use it without sub…

It's an interesting question. I bought the car. Ownership transferred to me. What if I decide to rewire some of the electronics and unlock heated seats or some other paid extra?

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

#489

Post by roelschroeven »

agilob wrote: post #221
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.

But the article is not about renting cars. It's about buying a car, and then paying extra per hour for the autonomous driving feature.

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

#490

Post by StrictDabbler »

gambiting wrote: post #470
StrictDabbler wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see two futures here. Future 1: I'm working for a company and I buy the heated seats upgrade. Eight months later I'm looking at moving to another company and I'll lose that value. Maybe that affects my decision. So I'm paying for my own employer-lock-in loyalty perks? Am I a moron? No, so I negotiate away part of my salary, or my healthcare, to have the nicer car. Future 2: You get heated seats on certain luxury ca…

I mean, it will be like everything else - companies which really want to spoil their employees and who buy BMWs as fleet cars, will order them with every subscription option covered and just eat the cost. So the CEO doesn't have to worry about his 7-series not having heated seats. But I can also totally see situations where if the choice is between say....a Ford Mondeo or a BMW 3-series, the company can go "you can g…

Agreed about C-level execs, of course.

Another poster said it's a $300 one-time payment. So you're losing that when you leave. Figure on a bunch of options and it's a lot of money.

I'd want it tied to me, not the vehicle. I paid for heated seats on my last BMW. You're charging me again? For DLC?

If I could pay for heated seats forever I could see it. It's just software, you're putting the same seats in every car, now we have a value.

So of course that will never happen.

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