Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 709 posts

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

#271

Post by malozite »

mattlondon wrote: post #106

I can certainly see the value for those long boring trips we do just one/two/three times a year. Those long 4-6 hour drives we do only a few times a year for vacations or whatever. Totally worth it IMHO if it is 100% hands-off. I usually prefer to own my stuff than rent, but I don't think paying 10k upfront for something I only use sporadically is worthwhile so this seems great to me.

I honestly don't understand this. I enjoy driving, especially long distance. The benefit of being able to read a book or look at my phone rather than listen to music or an audio book is not worth anything like $8.50 an hour to me.

The general inconveniences of long distance drives like planning food and toilet stops, or delays due to traffic, weather or accidents would still be present.

I would pay a lot to be instantly transported to my holiday destination, but almost nothing to get there in the same time with someone else driving me.

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

#272

Post by ako »

lawl wrote: post #40
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.

latency might be an issue though

How big is the different between simracing with iracing for example, and what would be required for real remote driving?

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

#274

Post by pjc50 »

hughrr wrote: post #94
ec109685 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously you know your father best, but it at least seems from your words it makes him happy. As someone with similar car, you get to know it’s quirks and use it when it adds value.

It makes him tell everyone he's happy but that's where it ends. He's got too much pride to tell the truth. And those aren't quirks; they are big stinking problems. Never write down a problem as something that isn't one. I owned a Merc 190E once that was a bag of problems. My life got better and I got happier the day I acknowledged them and got rid of it.

> It makes him tell everyone he's happy but that's where it ends. He's got too much pride to tell the truth.

This seems to be a very 21st century phenomenon; product marketing gets replaced by cult membership. You don't buy a Tesla to experience a great car, you buy Tesla to tell everyone how great the experience is.

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

#275

Post by heisenbit »

I don‘t think autonomous driving can be bought today and in the near future. This is a moving target where there is continuous development happening. You may buy sensors, processors and actuators but software and other content is the more important. Also the backend server infrastructure is a continuous expenditure.

If competition works the price and cost structure can‘t be much divorced and that would indicate a fixed price plus a regular service fee. To further adoption it makes sense to drop the former and carry the investment risk by the side that best can afford it.

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

#276

Post by sokoloff »

Nullabillity wrote: post #232
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don't bring up minority use cases There are a lot of minority use cases with cars. I suspect there are more, in aggregate, minority uses than there are cases in the mode. In any event, there is a massive non-extortive beachhead for this model, as deminstrared by Uber and Zipcar et al .

Uber is a great example of how this model ends up awful for both drivers (who get awful working conditions and usually end up making a lot less net than promised) and customers (who get an awful experience, end up paying a lot more than they would otherwise, and still aren't making progress towards getting rid of that extra expense).

As a consumer, Uber has been a massive win for me. We own two “daily” drivers, but going downtown or to the airport in an Uber is convenient and cheaper than parking downtown or at the airport. On trips to other cities, Uber is often way cheaper than cabs.

I’ve never found Uber worse than cabs and maybe 1 in a 100 Ubers is dirty or smelly, reminding me of how awful cabs used to be about half the time. Many drivers seem about as happy as random workers in other industries but some seem quite a bit happier with their arrangement with Uber than most service workers seem to be.

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

#279

Post by bryanrasmussen »

manquer wrote: post #247
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…

calling a software driven car Bug is probably not the best idea !

but it might be the most truthful.
Post reply on HN