The driverless road ahead
economist.com
The driverless road ahead
1–10 of 82 posts
Re: The driverless road ahead
#2>Just imagine. [Driverless cars] could, for a start, save the motor industry from stagnation...; and since [cars] would be able to drop off their passengers and drive away, the lack of parking spaces in town might not matter so much.
Strange that the Economist would catch the diminished need for parking spaces, but miss the real economic impact of driverless cars: many fewer cars would be needed as utilization rates rise far above the current ~4-7%[1]. This would cause a total collapse of the car industry, not save it as suggested by the article.
[1] 7500-15000 miles at an average of 25MPH is 300-600 hours a year or or about 4-7% utilization.
Re: The driverless road ahead
#3>Just imagine. [Driverless cars] could, for a start, save the motor industry from stagnation...; and since [cars] would be able to drop off their passengers and drive away, the lack of parking spaces in town might not matter so much. Strange that the Economist would catch the diminished need for parking spaces, but miss the real economic impact of driverless cars: many fewer cars would be needed as utilization rates…
Agreed. The car industry would surely know this too. I wonder how the future will unfold; maybe the automakers will end up resisting the self driving car.
Re: The driverless road ahead
#4>Just imagine. [Driverless cars] could, for a start, save the motor industry from stagnation...; and since [cars] would be able to drop off their passengers and drive away, the lack of parking spaces in town might not matter so much. Strange that the Economist would catch the diminished need for parking spaces, but miss the real economic impact of driverless cars: many fewer cars would be needed as utilization rates…
Agreed. The car industry would surely know this too. I wonder how the future will unfold; maybe the automakers will end up resisting the self driving car.
I currently see Google taking the lead in the development of driverless cars, so I suppose car makers will be left with no choice.
Re: The driverless road ahead
#5>Just imagine. [Driverless cars] could, for a start, save the motor industry from stagnation...; and since [cars] would be able to drop off their passengers and drive away, the lack of parking spaces in town might not matter so much. Strange that the Economist would catch the diminished need for parking spaces, but miss the real economic impact of driverless cars: many fewer cars would be needed as utilization rates…
Agreed. The car industry would surely know this too. I wonder how the future will unfold; maybe the automakers will end up resisting the self driving car.
They are already building their self destruction with more automatic driving features. The only question is which carmaker wants to pull the trigger first and come home walking with the prize.
Re: The driverless road ahead
#6>Just imagine. [Driverless cars] could, for a start, save the motor industry from stagnation...; and since [cars] would be able to drop off their passengers and drive away, the lack of parking spaces in town might not matter so much. Strange that the Economist would catch the diminished need for parking spaces, but miss the real economic impact of driverless cars: many fewer cars would be needed as utilization rates…
What would be the exact reason that less cars would be needed?
Are you referring to multiple cars in one household becoming superfluous? This would, of course, only be the case if driverless driving would be permitted entirely — I can very well imagine a prolonged transition phase where a human being needs to be able to intervene at all times.
Or are there already plans for automatic car sharing? This could be easily opposed by promoting the opinion that having an own car that is customized to your personal needs and where you can leave your belongings bears an advantage big enough to buy one.
Of course, ecologically, it would be great if both of this would be permitted, but my point is, autonomous cars could be introduced without car manufacturers incurring any immediate losses.
Re: The driverless road ahead
#7>Just imagine. [Driverless cars] could, for a start, save the motor industry from stagnation...; and since [cars] would be able to drop off their passengers and drive away, the lack of parking spaces in town might not matter so much. Strange that the Economist would catch the diminished need for parking spaces, but miss the real economic impact of driverless cars: many fewer cars would be needed as utilization rates…
We already have cars that don't need you to drive them: taxis. Where I live the various different competing taxi companies compete to give a pretty high level of service - I can order a cab via an iPhone app or through an IVR system that only requires me to press a single key if I want a taxi there and then - payment is to account (work) or chip-n-pin.
Even with a pretty decent taxi service I still own a car, as do most people I know.
So I suspect that even when cars become completely self-driving we will still generally end up buying the things for possibly less than completely rational reasons.
Re: The driverless road ahead
#8>Just imagine. [Driverless cars] could, for a start, save the motor industry from stagnation...; and since [cars] would be able to drop off their passengers and drive away, the lack of parking spaces in town might not matter so much. Strange that the Economist would catch the diminished need for parking spaces, but miss the real economic impact of driverless cars: many fewer cars would be needed as utilization rates…
You are assuming that driverless cars will be just as inexpensive as the typical American car today. That's certainly not true today. For example the Google car has $150K in equipment costs. Sure that might go down in time due to more demand but I doubt it will become literally negligible cost wise. Besides that, there is the added cost of software development, and maintenance. And besides that there is money to be made in selling software for these new cars. Software like up to date datasets or more accurate traffic avoidance heuristics.
Re: The driverless road ahead
#9I love reading the articles on driverless cars. Every single one conveniently forgets that, at this point, we're no where near solving the fueling issue for any car.
Teens aren't getting cars because they are too lazy to take the drivers test. It's because the cost, fuel, and maintenance just aren't worth it to them. Even if it drives itself.
Re: The driverless road ahead
#10>Just imagine. [Driverless cars] could, for a start, save the motor industry from stagnation...; and since [cars] would be able to drop off their passengers and drive away, the lack of parking spaces in town might not matter so much. Strange that the Economist would catch the diminished need for parking spaces, but miss the real economic impact of driverless cars: many fewer cars would be needed as utilization rates…
Is utilization over time important? If we assume that people will still travel the same number of miles[1], then while there will be fewer cars on the road at any given moment, they will wear out more quickly as they are utilized more heavily.
Another way of thinking of it is that there is demand for a certain number of vehicle-miles per year. In the aggregate over the long term, it is no different if we buy 5 cars, each of which lasts 5 years, or if we buy one car every year for 5 years as the old one wears out[2].
Higher utilization should make fleet replacement a smoother function over time (whereas now, you can see dips and spikes as people decide when to put capital in their cars based on factors like the overall health of the economy).
[1] It is not clear what the impact of driverless cars would be on mileage. It would eliminate some useless trips (e.g., doubled miles for dropping somebody off). But the convenience may mean that people simply use it more.
[2] I'm assuming that wear and replacement time are purely a function of miles traveled. This is not entirely true, as age is a factor, but I think mileage tends to dominate in the average car (i.e., one that is being used, not one having its belts dry-rot over many years of neglect). Companies that maintain car fleets probably have data on this.