Re:Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
by rtx on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @06:24PM
(#13172263)
Why would ride sharing companies behave diffrently than human drivers. I don't think laws of economics will change.
Re:Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
by erikpukinskis on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @07:20PM
(#13172653)
It takes time to sign up human drivers and onboard them. Buying new cars can be done in bulk at scale.
Also, you can easily send a car from one city to another. A human driver needs to get home to their family. You can't just say "drive to Miami and work there for three weeks".
Also, simply decreasing the cost per mile by cutting labor costs makes further flung areas more accessible. You can't sell a $10 ride if it costs $10 just to pay someone to drive to the area and back. But if it costs $4 to send a car, that ride becomes financially viable.
When human drivers are not required you have neither of these problems. It will be significantly easier for ridesharing companies to provide availability in non-dense areas.
Hell, they'll be able to control where these vehicles go by algorithm, so it will simply be a matter of adding more vehicles to their fleet and the algorithm will take care of minimizing response time for everyone.