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

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

#81
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.

Giving that Waymo video about a couple of weeks ago, that seems to be a very poor experience right now (even with the drivers close by).

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

#82
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.

Driving along the freeway at 100mph and suddenly "sorry afk bro need to go to the toilet"

Easier solved than with a real driver, just flip a switch and transfer control to another drone pilot. Solves more issues: boring long trip, flip drivers every 30 minutes. One moment you're driving a car in texas, next moment you're driving a car in new york, and 30 minutes later you're driving the Hana Highway on Maui.

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

#83
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say, $8.50/hour autonomous Uber sounds amazing. $50 to get from the bay area to Mt. Shasta. But if you have to own the car, fuck that. If you own it you should own access to all features that the hardware is capable of.

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.

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

#84
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.

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 the cars "self driving". And the last % I'm almost certain will never be cheap enough for autonomy.

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

#85

> In a swipe at Tesla, he said that by charging hourly fees, VW would make autonomous driving more accessible than “a car with a five-digit surcharge.” This is completely disingenuous at best, and malicious at worst. This is a perfect example of the boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness [1]. This is just taking advantage of the poor-middle class' inability to pay a larger upfront cost, to extort them for more over…

I agree with you. But this system is called capitalism for a reason. If you do not have capital you loose...

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

#86

> In a swipe at Tesla, he said that by charging hourly fees, VW would make autonomous driving more accessible than “a car with a five-digit surcharge.” This is completely disingenuous at best, and malicious at worst. This is a perfect example of the boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness [1]. This is just taking advantage of the poor-middle class' inability to pay a larger upfront cost, to extort them for more over…

And you've just described a modern SaaS service

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

#87

> In a swipe at Tesla, he said that by charging hourly fees, VW would make autonomous driving more accessible than “a car with a five-digit surcharge.” This is completely disingenuous at best, and malicious at worst. This is a perfect example of the boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness [1]. This is just taking advantage of the poor-middle class' inability to pay a larger upfront cost, to extort them for more over…

Well said, and I think the idea that in the future people will own less and rent more is discussed quite often. In the tech space this has been true for some time, hell, I still remember buying a version of Adobe Master Suite and later lamenting at the switch to subscription model.

I used to be quite negative about of going further down this path, but the way I see it now, what choice do we have in the future? The world population is growing, resources are limited. Is it it feasible that we can all own houses, multiple cars, gadgets etc?

I don't know anymore what the 'right' approach is here. Do we allow people to own and consume as much as they want forever or will the future be radically different in this sense where no one owns anything (car, property or gadgets)? The model that works now may not work forever.

Curious to hear from someone more well versed in this kind of topic on their thoughts?

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

#88
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

latency might be an issue though

You can play high res FPS games on remote GPUs now, so I expect that part could be managed, if not now then in the very near future.

Presumably those remote gpus are not halfway around the world. Speed of light sets an inherent floor on the latency.

The issue is not the idea of remote control per se, though connection drops etc. would be a risk, but the notion yoga can outsource it to somewhere with far cheaper labour.

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

#89

Having finally had a chance to test-"drive" an advanced autopilot Tesla last weekend, I can confidently say at the current level of that tech I would pay less than nothing. At best (cruising down a well-marked highway) it was only slightly worse than useless, taking a different line in the lane than I considered optimal, leaving me feeling a background level of apprehension. From there it ranged through frustrating,…

So much this. I hope I don't stand on too many toes here. Actually I don't care.

My father has a self driving enabled Tesla Model S which he paid a hell of a lot of money for that he doesn't have as he's in his 70s, living entirely off the remains of the house he just sold. He's convinced it'll be any day now that he gets full self driving and that it'll change the world. He tells me he loves the car and phones me daily to tell me about it. But at the end of the day there are a bunch of complaints hiding in his words. This covers everything from poor fitting, paint issues, weird bugs, massive safety and computer issues, lots of hidden costs and general battery life issues. He's hiding the true picture which is not the real experience.

Between Tesla marketing and the echo chamber Tesla forums, he's traded his entire cash pile and attention for what I can only describe as a prototype that is a ball and chain which limps between bouts of charging CPR and he can't tell anyone because it might damage his conspicuous virtuous electric car identity.

But Tesla will be introducing self driving any day now he tells me. All the time. For the last 3 years...

I'm not really a proponent or opponent of electric cars. I don't really care about the things as they don't factor into my life past the utility of a screwdriver. I myself drive a third-hand Citroen with a tuk tuk engine in it which was cheap to buy and run and takes me to the shops and for the odd weekend out. But from my vantage point, I can't see the return of investment that such complex technology can add to a simple problem. All it does is make it more complicated, less safe and less reliable while milking people for cash for promises which may never materialise. If there's anything I've worked out over the last couple of decades in the software industry is that this model really doesn't work - it's the marketing and development model that Microsoft uses.

Edit: he literally just phoned me to tell me how wonderful it is again. But it cost him 5% of the battery capacity to cool it down enough that it’s not going to burn his ass off (has sunroof) which means his next journey is going to have to end with a 10 mile detour to sit in a supercharger bay (which where he lives will be busy and he’ll have to wait) and thus probably cost a coffee at the same time.

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

#90
post #80
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

latency might be an issue though

How is this solved for military drone pilots that do precision bombings in far away countries?

With multiple pilots that manage different aspects of the mission. Also, up in the air at cruising altitude the latency is not as critical.
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