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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

#541

Post by dragonwriter »

nojokes wrote: post #539
awillen wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"so yes, one starts a company to make money but that is not the reason we have companies." I don't understand this at all. The reason people create companies is the reason that companies exist. They're by definition the same thing - companies don't exist without people creating them. So if people start companies to make money, the reason companies exist is to make the people who start them money.

You can't just create a company - you need a legal framework for a company to exists.

> You can't just create a company - you need a legal framework for a company to exists.

Not really, because “company” is a generic term for any organization of people with a common business purpose independent of whether it has a distinct recognized legal recognition, existence, or treatment separate from the constituent individuals.

A corporation, LLC, or other legally recognized business entity requires a legal framework.

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

#543

Post by oh_sigh »

wil421 wrote: post #382
tails4e wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you leave the self driving aside, the model s is an amazing car. Compared with a high end bmw/merc/audi you get more features as standard - though I do admit the finish/build quality on those cars is superior. I have a 4 year old MS, and genuinely like it and love the acceleration/nimbleness and have experienced very few issues. I'd consider tesla again for my next car, but FSD would not be a factor either way.

The interior of any Tesla is light years behind a BMW/Merc/Audi. My wife recently got an x7 and even my Grand Cherokee seems nicer in some ways than a Tesla. For the price of a Tesla you should be getting so much more inside especially at the S/X price level. Compared to the Mercs and BMWs I looked at a Tesla was more comparable to a nice Honda.

You need to compare like to like. Yes, the finish in Mercs and BMWs is better, but you're also comparing an ICE to an EV.

Look at what BMW offers for an EV. The i3, at $44k base. The i3 is basically a midlevel compact sedan. The Model 3, which you can get for $4k cheaper, is a way better deal IMHO.

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

#544

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#545

Post by jjav »

ForHackernews wrote: post #329
jjav wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 som…

Again, you're completely discounting the ops time involved in "operate some servers" - how many devops/SRE folks do you need to employ to do that? And 24/7 on-call?

I need the exact same devops team I have today. No big difference to them where the boxes sit and who owns them. It's the CFO who sees the bigger difference.

I do save the few staff hours needed on physical maintenance of racking, cabling and replacing hardware. But at typical startup scale that's not much work. In the past I've done it myself on the side. As the company gets larger it takes dedicated staff, but at that point the comparable AWS bill is so large I could pay their full year salary on a single month of AWS bills.

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

#547

Post by rsj_hn »

hef19898 wrote: post #253
rsj_hn wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For someone who only occasionally needs heated seats, this is value adding. No, for someone who only has a 3 year lease on a BMW, this may be value adding (or value subtracting). The money you save by not paying for heated seats when you buy the BMW does not go into your pocket when you sell the BMW without heated seats, as whoever buys the BMW from you will pay less for a BMW in which heated seats are free than on…

As most new cars are leased, at least Europe for premium brands, anyway, I think that won't be an issue. BMW will sell your on, not you.

> BMW will sell your on, not you.

It does not matter who sells the car. What matters is whether:

(the price of used car with heated seats that must be paid for) - (the money already made from renting out heated seats) > (price of a used car with heated seats that are free)

The identity of the seller does not alter this equation at all, nor can it flip a loss to a gain.

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

#548

Post by [deleted] »

hughrr wrote: post #89
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,…

So much this. I hope I don't stand on too many toes here. Actually I don't care. My father has a self driving enabled Tesla Model S which he paid a hell of a lot of money for that he doesn't have as he's in his 70s, living entirely off the remains of the house he just sold. He's convinced it'll be any day now that he gets full self driving and that it'll change the world. He tells me he loves the car and phones me da…

[deleted]

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

#549

Post by gimmeThaBeet »

_fat_santa wrote: post #442
Communitivity wrote: post #418

What galls me the most I think is that minimum wage in 20 states within the U.S. is still at $7.25/Hour. Driving does not require a huge amount of skill, and it's something many us already know. Why not hire a person to do this? Well, perhaps an argument can be made for safety, reliability. Then again, perhaps the same argument can be made that a good human hire is safer than the machine, which can be hacked (any mac…

I recently purchased an old 4Runner from the mid 2000's, I though I would hate it, but it's become my favorite car (that I've owned) of all time. The biggest reason is seeing articles like these, more and more cars are closed off, requiring you to "subscribe" to get all the features of the vehicle. My car doesn't play those games, it's a simple car, no infotainment system, no self driving or autopilot features, no su…

A bit off topic, and pardon my asking, I'm genuinely a bit fascinated to know how you came to buy what seems to be quite a specific vehicle, with the expectation that you would hate it?

If it was just cost and utility (i.e. "yeah it sucks, but I can do x,y,z.. with it") I suppose that makes sense, and I'm glad it turns out you enjoy it. It just seems like 4Runners specifically have quite an enthusiastic following, I'm quite interested to know why someone would seek out an old one who specifically was not stoked about it.

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

#550

Post by mlyle »

gitanovic wrote: post #113
mlyle wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, to me it looks pretty good. And there's reason to believe it'd be better on freeways. I'd definitely pay a few bucks per hour for my car to drive me to Southern California while I read a book.

What I don't understand is: why don't you take a train instead? I have never been to US, but whenever I hear about self driving cars I think: why don't people just use public transport if they don't want to drive?

The US is spread out to an extent that people in Europe have a difficult time imagining. This tends to make people car dependent, which in turn impedes public transit even where it'd work well.

The US has good train infrastructure for freight (far better than Europe), but rail service is not great. There's no good train route from the SF Bay Area to Southern California. But even if there were, getting around in the LA area practically requires a car, so you'll be renting one at the end of a train journey anyways.

So, the options to get my family down there look like:

* $100 roundtrip flight * 5 of us = $500 plus the cost of renting a car. Annoying airport logistics and luggage, and a few hours of time saved

* ~$300 of wear on vehicle and gas round trip, plus having to drive for 6 hours.

A good train would be something inbetween-- perhaps $30-40/person, but still needing to rent a car. Somewhat easier logistics, but still annoying luggage, etc. Time between that of a flight, etc.

But a self-driving car would take the worst suck out of the driving trip.

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