What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour • Hacker News Board

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

#581

Post by balls187 » Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #83

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.

I consider Tesla's $10,000 surcharge (that may reset when you sell the used car) to be quite scammy as well. I doubt I'll ever own a self-driving car, because I will never pay that kind of premium for full self driving. Either on an hourly basis or up front. Frankly, it seems cheaper just not have a car and to hail a cab/uber/lyft whenever I need one.

I can see that view point.

I don't share it, as custom ECM tunes that increase performance (with the same "hardware") have been around for a very long time.

Also things like OnStar, and SirisXM

Along a similar vein--Nvidia artificially limiting hashrates on some of it's consumer GPU's.

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

#582

Post by Jemm » Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

Never in a million years am I going to pay a subscription to use my own vehicle.

Sad thing is that people will and it will become mainstream leaving those like me driving our old clunkers.

Already kind of happening now, most people happy to buy cars with no dip stick for the oil, no spare tire and mostly unrepairable except by the dealer. The rest of us are out in our old Toyotas and Hondas that we are keeping alive as long as possible.

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

#583

Post by Jemm » Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

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.

Frankly I am amazed we don't already have remotely piloted vehicles.

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

#584

Post by moftz » Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

mikehollinger wrote: post #570

mothsonasloth wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This possibly sensationalist article [1] on Vice discusses a motorcycle airbag vest that requires a subscription to work. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/93yyyd/this-motorcycle-airba...

Last I checked, airbags are not required by any government nor are they a standard option on motorcycles. If you wish to wear one, either spend the $400 upfront or pay for the subscription for the months you do ride. The monthly subscription sounds just right for someone who can't afford $400 but can afford $12 to wear an airbag vest on their daily commute on a motorcycle. It's much cheaper than ending up in the ICU. Vice is trying to start some shit but the interviewee from In&motion sounds perfectly reasonable.

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

#585

Post by lp0_on_fire » Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

SamBam wrote: post #379

dmitriid wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least, with VW system, you pay when you use it. Doesn't work in your area, you don't pay. "AWS has billed us tens of thousands of dollars because we forgot to turn something off/confusing billing" hasn't taught anyone anything? There's nothing honest about VW's approach. They won't have self-driving either, it will be at best the same as Tesla's. And yet, they want to charge you, and charge you significantly mor…

You're inventing hypotheticals to say why they're going to charge you more, without evidence. Pay-per-minute autonomous driving is far more like old pay-per-minute phone plans than it is mystery-AWS-data-charges. You know when it's driving and when it's not. There's no unforeseeable per-lambda charges about it.

I think it's reasonable to worry that WV or another company might start charging a variable rate for different "types" of autonomous driving. Pay-per-minute phone plans could be just as mysterious when you factored in long distance and peak usage hours.

It's not a huge logical leap to think that a subscription based service like this could lead to things such as:

You want to travel between point A and B several miles apart in rural Kansas on a straight road with a road density of 2 vehicles per mile? "Sure, that's 8.50 an hour."

Oh, you want to travel between Newark and Manhattan in the middle of a snowstorm? "That will be 15 an hour because we have to cover the costs for the real-time feed of data from our weather and control center"

Oh, you have a camper, too? "That's an additional 2 bucks an hour for our towing package"

Oh, you're traveling across state lines and the state over imposes an additional tax on autonomous driving. "we need to charge you 8.75 to cover the tax and our costs but only in that state."

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

#586

Post by sofixa » Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

perryizgr8 wrote: post #397

sofixa wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> We're talking about a new type of car feature, one that needs constant work and updates. Why would it need constant updates? They should release and sell the feature when it is done.

Because we're talking about an extremely complex algorithm that will need tweaking with time.

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

#587

Post by moftz » Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

gimmeThaBeet wrote: post #549

_fat_santa wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

Not everyone buys an old 4x4 to go up and down muddy hills. Some people just want to be able to get to work in inclement weather but don't want to buy new or need to spend a lot on parts. If an old 4runner was the only thing in my price range for a 4x4 daily driver, I'd probably be a little disappointed too.

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

#588

Post by johndubchak » Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

throwawayzRUU6f wrote: post #105

alkonaut wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If cars driving themselves will asymptotically approach say 90%, 95% or 99% or situations it can handle, then the car that also handles the last few situations will be very attractive. That's the car that can drive me home from the bar, or that a blind person can own. The 90-99% cars are still for able bodied people with licenses. At some price point, it will always be a lot cheaper to add humans than it is to make t…

There's a large and perhaps unsolvable problem of the state of the art solutions that doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should - even if the car can safely handle 99% or 99.9% of the situations, the algorithms are not really able to detect if they're in the last 0.1%. The car will slam into stationary trucks, suddenly brake for no reason, consider the tollbooth to be a bus - all with utmost confidence it's d…

That "brake for no reason" is a big one. I have a 2015 GMC SUV that has "adaptive cruise control" which I (used to) love.

Since my last service, it seems they've updated it and it's far more sensitive than it used to and seems to break in many situations where it previously did not. What sucks about that is the vehicles behind me are caught off-guard with no obvious signs of the need to break and then the jackass in the GMC SUV slams on his breaks.

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

#589

Post by doggosphere » Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #579

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.

People enjoy going to concerts, restaurants, seeing their family, etc.

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

#590

Post by kuratkull » Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #579

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.

Driving is faster, your car is available virtually 24/7, you own(many animals like owning things) your car, you can personalize your car - in short, cars are personal, commuting is public. Also time is money.