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

arstechnica.com

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

#571

Post by munk-a »

mothsonasloth wrote: post #202
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #164

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…

Reluctantly he coughed up the $8.50. The car then said, "I'm sorry Dave, Seatbelt yearly subscription is also expired. Please pay VW $200 to re-enable, or press the cancel button to drive without a seatbelt. Dave pressed the cancel button with furious determination. The VW Bug sped off from his modest suburban house. It's high G wheels speeding up and zooming past Burb beaters and Bimbo wagons. Unbeknownst to him a c…

After fiddling with a few wires to override the seatbelt check the car announced - "Congratulations a new version of iOS has been released that will improve your car's performance 20% - unfortunately this version of iOS is incompatible with your quite old car and our car software, for security reasons, requires the latest version of the operating system to execute. Please purchase a new car, now available in Rose Gold! from the Apple Store at your convenience."

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

#572

Post by avereveard »

owl57 wrote: post #291
qayxc wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iron is cheap nowadays. It's the upkeep that kills you. This "1 server" is equivalent to at least two part-time admins to ensure smooth operations. No biggie if said server just hosts a static website, big deal if runs mission critical processes. That's the part too many "self-hosting" advocates conveniently leave out. A correct TCO calculation must include this cost (and proper risk assessment) and only then can a c…

And, if instead of a dedicated server you rent some combination of AWS services, you suddenly don't need admin or need a cheaper one?

a RDS instance is way less labor intensive that properly roll your own backed up, automatically updating server that can be snapshotted at your will and can be upgraded and restored with no downtime, I've spent about six day in five years of continuous operations to keep it running, and that'd probably be two dozen postgres upgrades I'd had to roll and test manually if I went the unmanaged route

Now it isn't cheap, but the five year ownership cost difference compared to iron doesn't cover a month of my salary, so.

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

#573

Post by munk-a »

hyperhopper wrote: post #38
imposterr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, artificial artificial intelligence.

Ask yes, exploited human intelligence. Though also, at the same time the liability questions would quickly become... Complicated.... With that model

"Beetle - why did you just ram us into a wall?"

'I'm sorry! Hit a lag spike, blame Telus.'

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

#574

Post by pbuzbee »

As a cheapskate, an hourly charge is exactly what would prevent me from using this for extended periods of time.

Dense stop-and-go traffic is probably where I want autonomous driving the most. It's one of the most frustrating driving experiences for me. But it will be hard for me to switch on autonomous driving: Not only am I going to waste my time in traffic and my gas from idling, now I'm going to waste money per minute to let the car inch forward.

I suppose there are situations where I would enable autonomous driving, like in an unfamiliar city or if I had been drinking at all (assuming it's safe and legal). This would probably add up to something like 10 hours per year, which seems like a huge waste of a big technological advancement.

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

#577

Post by DSingularity »

jaywalk wrote: post #524
DSingularity wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will get sued for this one day.

For what? Putting better stuff in newer models? That's how basically every product works.

For not being transparent with consumers. What will happen when one day you turn on your Tesla and it relays a message to you that FSD is disabled because you are missing hardware required by the new version?

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

#578

Post by aqme28 »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #483
aqme28 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you overestimate the extent to which our economy is planned. Companies sprouted up because people wanted to create them, not because society decided they were efficient.

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

#579

Post by ericmay »

I'll never understand why we're hell-bent on making sure people are driving around in cars. Instead of solving the problem of commuting by not having cars and by building better, we're just making commuting better and more optimized. It's so stupid. We should be making it so that you don't have to commute, not that you can do more work while you commute or w/e.

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

#580

Post by balls187 »

bagacrap wrote: post #451
balls187 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 8.50/hr, that gives you about ~53,000 miles of autonomous range for the same price as Tesla's add-on price for "full self driving ($10k surcharge). To me, an upfront $10,000 surcharge seems less scammy than what VW is offering, despite it likely being cheaper over the lifetime of the vehicle.

it would take me quite a few years to rack up 53000 miles so I'll take that 10k and invest it, thank you, and probably will still be ahead after 10 years

Why not avoid a car all together, and invest the ~$50,000 then?

Even though VW's solution may be cheaper for many, the way it's being portrayed feels more scammy.

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