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A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

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Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#131

Post by dillonmckay »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #126
spc476 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So here's a hypothetical scenario. Car drives kids to school (in my experience, school tends to start before work). Drives back empty to pick up parent to drive to work. In the afternoon, car drives (empty) to pick up kids and drive them home, then drives (empty) back to work to pick up the parent. Half the time it's empty.

In your scenario the number of trips is the same but the car is more often empty because the parent doesn't have to chauffeur the kids around.

Yes, that was the point.

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#132

Post by bsder »

viburnum wrote: post #9
kjksf wrote: post #3

Here's what this research tells me: demand for transportation is much higher than the current use of transportation. Current use is limited by cost and convenience. Self-driving car is likely to fix both so it'll lead to more use of transportation. This is a good thing. We're currently deprived and if things go well, we'll get more of what we want. The congestion problem is mostly overblown. First, maybe with rare ex…

So much transporting is just to mitigate land use failures. More transportation is solving the wrong problem.

Um, you could solve most congestion simply by staggering working hours.

The problem is that even the Bay Area can't seem to pull this off.

Single people are generally fine. But the moment you have kids, you are now on regimented schedules that force you into some semblance of 9-5 ... and now you're part of the problem.

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#133

Post by tooop »

akadruid1 wrote: post #91
dmitriid wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify's central office in Stockholm has ~1000 employees. So, at 6pm a thousand people call up the efficient fast driverless cars to go home.... And that's just one office out of a dozen on that street.

Those 1000 people don't have to be served by 1000 privately owned single occupancy vehicles. When they are inputting their destination before departure, a robo taxi can deliver 6-8 people with similar destinations door-to-door for a fraction of the cost of a private vehicle, the same comfort level, but occupy hardly more road space then 70-80 seat transit buses.

No ride share is the same comfort level as private vehicle and it never will be.

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#134

Post by jcranmer »

kjksf wrote: post #57
Someone wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”The cars would no longer be an expression of personality and a status symbol” You’re not the only one claiming that, but I don’t think it automatically follows. People can currently afford to buy cars for themselves, so unless self-driving cars will be (much) more expensive, people still would be able to afford them. So, in this case, the question is what else, if anything, people would want to use their money on in…

When you use X and then a substitute Y arrives that is 10x cheaper and more convenient, you'll switch to it. Using robotaxi network will be much cheaper than total cost of owning a car, mostly because cars are dramatically underutilized. On average a car is used 1-2 hrs a day out of 12-16 hrs it could be used as a robotaxi. To start off we have 5-7x price difference. Then most use is not shared. Assuming robotaxis wi…

> It'll be a no-brainer to pay $200-$300 per month for (effectively) unlimited robotaxi service than $400 per month for a lease + $100 month for insurance + fuel + cost and inconvenience of refueling.

It's already possible: a monthly transit pass is often in the $100-150 range. The fact that people have been choosing to forego viable transit options in favor of a much more expensive personal vehicle option for a long time is strongly suggestive of the fact that people really don't want to give up their cars.

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#135

Post by kamakazizuru »

The study has a major flaw in that it ignores the grouping effect that makes self-driving cars & fleets completely different from chauffers. Shared usage will: - most definitely happen in the case of "errand" like rides. The request to "pick up my shopping from Target" will be clubbed with 5-10 other similar requests and delivered at the same time. - lead to single rides being a rarity, and at best a perk like "first / business class" - bigger cars on the road with more seats, driving autonomously vs the nightmare equivalent of everyone having a chauffeur

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#136

Post by Supermancho »

spc476 wrote: post #123
Supermancho wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, and in the AV future the majority of cars on the road will have zero occupants Where do you get that idea from? or maybe, how did you come to that conclusion? It's not evident that would be the case. Traffic mirrors demand. Demand goes both ways, unevenly. Prior to the end-of-the-work-day, you would see an increase in empty vehicles consolidating for the imminent exodus of a city, but that would hardly be the…

So here's a hypothetical scenario. Car drives kids to school (in my experience, school tends to start before work). Drives back empty to pick up parent to drive to work. In the afternoon, car drives (empty) to pick up kids and drive them home, then drives (empty) back to work to pick up the parent. Half the time it's empty.

> Drives back empty to pick up parent to drive to work.

This implies there are no other people for which a rideshare would be suitable in either direction at any given time. This seems, like an unreasonable way to predict how mass AV would work. Again, demand is asymmetrical, which means there are opportunities for aggregation and overlap, when talking about mass adoption to the point that "the majority of cars on the road will have zero occupants".

There's the issue with demand for AV availability (ie traffic), which can never be reduced to zero. This would incentivize better judgement than "I'll stagger the school and work times"

Logically, why would AVs be 1-4 occupant vehicles? Once you have AV, you have AV vans and buses, similar to airport shuttling.

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#137

Post by Thriptic »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #94
CydeWeys wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The congestion problem is mostly overblown. It's really not. Congestion is a huge problem already, and increasing the current road utilization by 83% will bring entire cities to a standstill for the entirety of waking hours. > I just eyeballed but ~80% cars were single person. Yes, and in the AV future the majority of cars on the road will have zero occupants, so things will get much, much worse as far as how many…

The number of people who need to commute during rush hour can't increase 83%. Maybe some transit commuters will switch to cars, but maybe some car commuters will finally be able to switch to transit if these make the first and last mile feasible. And 83% was the first and only week. Maybe the number doesn't stay that high once indulging in the novelty wears off.

It probably could increase quite a lot because more people might be willing to live far away and enjoy cheaper / more housing if it means that commuting won't be dead time. With self driving cars you could actually work during your commute. As you point out, a number of existing commuters might also transfer from train to car travel.

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#138

Post by Zenbit_UX »

kamakazizuru wrote: post #135

The study has a major flaw in that it ignores the grouping effect that makes self-driving cars & fleets completely different from chauffers. Shared usage will: - most definitely happen in the case of "errand" like rides. The request to "pick up my shopping from Target" will be clubbed with 5-10 other similar requests and delivered at the same time. - lead to single rides being a rarity, and at best a perk like "first…

A well reasoned rebuttal but it only works if people renting or timesharing vehicles for just single jobs. If things remain in their current ownership model (I buy a car and keep it in my driveway when not in use) their study holds merit.

The fleet prediction is indeed a game changer and should be prioritized over single ownership in order to curb VMT but it would be a large paradigm shift and those don't always go as planned.

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#139

Post by em-bee »

kamakazizuru wrote: post #135

The study has a major flaw in that it ignores the grouping effect that makes self-driving cars & fleets completely different from chauffers. Shared usage will: - most definitely happen in the case of "errand" like rides. The request to "pick up my shopping from Target" will be clubbed with 5-10 other similar requests and delivered at the same time. - lead to single rides being a rarity, and at best a perk like "first…

that sounds like wishful thinking to me. coordinating with other people is hard. and if the ride is free, why bother. also people want to stay independent and not have to share.

the option to share an uber or equivalent for example is already there. every time i used it the trip took longer than had i not shared. missed a train because of it once too.

so i doubt that sharing will happen as much as you think

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#140

Post by throwitawayfam »

kjksf wrote: post #57
Someone wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”The cars would no longer be an expression of personality and a status symbol” You’re not the only one claiming that, but I don’t think it automatically follows. People can currently afford to buy cars for themselves, so unless self-driving cars will be (much) more expensive, people still would be able to afford them. So, in this case, the question is what else, if anything, people would want to use their money on in…

When you use X and then a substitute Y arrives that is 10x cheaper and more convenient, you'll switch to it. Using robotaxi network will be much cheaper than total cost of owning a car, mostly because cars are dramatically underutilized. On average a car is used 1-2 hrs a day out of 12-16 hrs it could be used as a robotaxi. To start off we have 5-7x price difference. Then most use is not shared. Assuming robotaxis wi…

People could send their idle vehicle to work for them, while they work, while they sleep.
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