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A more realistic route to autonomous driving

economist.com

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Re: A more realistic route to autonomous driving

#51

Post by vonmoltke »

zamfi wrote: post #43
ghaff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be an implicit assumption that autonomous driving would somehow make the cost of effectively renting cars by the mile (and have them come to your door) almost too cheap to meter. Whereas, especially for transportation options that involve multiple people in a vehicle, the cost of a driver isn't really all that much relative to the overall cost of operating a vehicle. For any imagined scenario involving…

> Whereas, especially for transportation options that involve multiple people in a vehicle, the cost of a driver isn't really all that much relative to the overall cost of operating a vehicle. Do you have a source on this? It’s my understanding that most mass transit systems in the US spend a huge amount on operator compensation. BART, the one I’m most familiar with, spends $500m of its $691m operating budget on sala…

First off, you cannot ignore the $876mm capital portion of the budget; that money needs to come from somewhere.

Second, that $500mm covers every employee of BART. The administrators, maintenance personnel, police, and other non-operator functions do not go away. Without knowing what portion of that line item goes to operators one cannot make a judgement on how much cheaper the system would be without them.

Re: A more realistic route to autonomous driving

#52

Post by mcguire »

zamfi wrote: post #43
ghaff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be an implicit assumption that autonomous driving would somehow make the cost of effectively renting cars by the mile (and have them come to your door) almost too cheap to meter. Whereas, especially for transportation options that involve multiple people in a vehicle, the cost of a driver isn't really all that much relative to the overall cost of operating a vehicle. For any imagined scenario involving…

> Whereas, especially for transportation options that involve multiple people in a vehicle, the cost of a driver isn't really all that much relative to the overall cost of operating a vehicle. Do you have a source on this? It’s my understanding that most mass transit systems in the US spend a huge amount on operator compensation. BART, the one I’m most familiar with, spends $500m of its $691m operating budget on sala…

How much of the Labor & Wages go to drivers rather than maintenance, security, etc.? The latter are needed even if you don't have drivers.

I couldn't find a breakdown in the paper.

Re: A more realistic route to autonomous driving

#53

Post by mcguire »

bumholio wrote: post #40
vonmoltke wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially among people who really want to get out of car ownership I have brought this up before and I still do not understand how or why this idea is so tightly coupled to fully autonomous vehicles. I don't see how removing a human driver from a car service is going to change the dynamics enough to drive legions of people who own cars to get rid of them if they haven't done so already. The only friction a human d…

If the technology becomes commoditized, the cost reduction would be massive. A $30000 vehicle can drive 200K miles for the price of fuel and occasional cleaning. That's in the 30 - 50 cent/mile area, almost a full order of magnitude. Insurance premiums will depend on how safe they are - so they will be very low if self driving cars are to be allowed in any way on the road.

"A $30000 vehicle can drive 200K miles for the price of fuel and occasional cleaning."

Modern vehicles are incredibly more reliable than they used to be, but this seems to be overstating the case.

Re: A more realistic route to autonomous driving

#54

Post by vonmoltke »

bumholio wrote: post #40
vonmoltke wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially among people who really want to get out of car ownership I have brought this up before and I still do not understand how or why this idea is so tightly coupled to fully autonomous vehicles. I don't see how removing a human driver from a car service is going to change the dynamics enough to drive legions of people who own cars to get rid of them if they haven't done so already. The only friction a human d…

If the technology becomes commoditized, the cost reduction would be massive. A $30000 vehicle can drive 200K miles for the price of fuel and occasional cleaning. That's in the 30 - 50 cent/mile area, almost a full order of magnitude. Insurance premiums will depend on how safe they are - so they will be very low if self driving cars are to be allowed in any way on the road.

> A $30000 vehicle can drive 200K miles for the price of fuel and occasional cleaning.

That is significantly underestimating the operating costs of a vehicle, especially a vehicle that is used heavily. There is a lot of periodic maintenance required, and the frequency increases as usage gets more stressful. Then there is non-periodic maintenance, be it from accidents, vandalism, or just flawed parts.

It's true that most of these costs come in even if you own, but putting 200k miles on a car over eight years costs less (both per-mile and per-unit-time) than putting 200k on in two years.

Re: A more realistic route to autonomous driving

#56

Post by jnurmine »

Everyone is talking about autonomous cars but what about autonomous trains?

The problematics of autonomous trains are vastly simpler than autonomous cars.

Trains move in restricted paths (tracks), trains should stop only at specific places, trains meet other trains in such a few possible places, and so on.

Re: A more realistic route to autonomous driving

#57

Post by bumholio »

vonmoltke wrote: post #54
bumholio wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the technology becomes commoditized, the cost reduction would be massive. A $30000 vehicle can drive 200K miles for the price of fuel and occasional cleaning. That's in the 30 - 50 cent/mile area, almost a full order of magnitude. Insurance premiums will depend on how safe they are - so they will be very low if self driving cars are to be allowed in any way on the road.

> A $30000 vehicle can drive 200K miles for the price of fuel and occasional cleaning. That is significantly underestimating the operating costs of a vehicle, especially a vehicle that is used heavily. There is a lot of periodic maintenance required, and the frequency increases as usage gets more stressful. Then there is non-periodic maintenance, be it from accidents, vandalism, or just flawed parts. It's true that m…

> putting 200k miles on a car over eight years costs less (both per-mile and per-unit-time) than putting 200k on in two years

The per mile part sounds like a personal speculation. (Per unit of time is obvious and irrelevant here)

Quite the contrary, it's most efficient to put the load in a short span to minimize time-limited consumables like belts and seals, fixed costs like insurance and regulatory charges per vehicle, interest, depreciation of things like paint and esthetic appeal etc. The battery has an age induced wear also, the tech is moving fast and more efficient vehicles are always appearing and so on.

Re: A more realistic route to autonomous driving

#58

Post by paulsutter »

allannienhuis wrote: post #28
konschubert wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean Subways?

except you get to park the subway car in your driveway.

Tunnels will initially be shared pods[1]. Much better than existing subways because of higher speed, door to door travel[2], and closer stations (they'll be much cheaper). You could pay extra for a private pod to minimize transit time.

You'd only want to bring a surface car for trips with rural or suburban legs on BOTH ends. Which seems relatively rare.

[1] https://www.boringcompany.com/

[2] dynamic routing means no waiting around to change trains

Re: A more realistic route to autonomous driving

#59

Post by ghaff »

bumholio wrote: post #57
vonmoltke wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A $30000 vehicle can drive 200K miles for the price of fuel and occasional cleaning. That is significantly underestimating the operating costs of a vehicle, especially a vehicle that is used heavily. There is a lot of periodic maintenance required, and the frequency increases as usage gets more stressful. Then there is non-periodic maintenance, be it from accidents, vandalism, or just flawed parts. It's true that m…

> putting 200k miles on a car over eight years costs less (both per-mile and per-unit-time) than putting 200k on in two years The per mile part sounds like a personal speculation. (Per unit of time is obvious and irrelevant here) Quite the contrary, it's most efficient to put the load in a short span to minimize time-limited consumables like belts and seals, fixed costs like insurance and regulatory charges per vehic…

The IRS allows a 50 something cents per mile business expense deduction. And if you run some numbers that’s a pretty good ballpark for the cost of operating a car.

Re: A more realistic route to autonomous driving

#60

Post by bgorman »

jnurmine wrote: post #56

Everyone is talking about autonomous cars but what about autonomous trains? The problematics of autonomous trains are vastly simpler than autonomous cars. Trains move in restricted paths (tracks), trains should stop only at specific places, trains meet other trains in such a few possible places, and so on.

Almost all trains have unions. Unions will fight tooth and nail to keep their jobs
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