"The new, maintenance-free iCar! So reliable, we welded the hood shut!"
Add a better copywriter, and an actual product, and I think a lot of people would buy that. Same with car-as-service. A lot of people don't actually want to own a car, they just want the transport capabilities and convenience.
Sure why not? When do most people open the hood on their car? To top up fluids and, occasionally, to jump start the battery. Both of those things could be done without opening the hood with a slight redesign. Modern cars are both so reliable and so complex that there is hardly anything under the hood that most people either can or have to do, and this is only getting more true for electric cars.
And a switch to a transport-as-a-service model can make the advantages of the train much more apparent. Open Google Maps and ask for directions: Do you want to take a single 1 hour drive, or a 30min train ride with 5min connections at each end that costs less?
And then when people in the office hear about how your commute is 20mins shorter thanks to the new train line, maybe they want one too...
Why then, is there no similar service with human drivers right now?
And I think Google Maps starting to integrate things like Uber is a sign of a more integrated market for transport. If you can say "directions to work" and get a one button option to book the whole 3 part journey, alongside the other options, it suddenly becomes a lot more practical.
Why do you think removing human drivers will make enough of a difference? From the numbers I have seen (I can look them up when I'm not on my phone) the driver is only about half of the non-tip cost of a hired car. Do you think cutting the cost in half is sufficient?
If you charge close to linear pricing over short distances, I think it could be very affordable.
And another advantage is that the service doesn't have to be immediately popular to be cost effective, since you don't need to pay drivers to sit around to provide availability.
The issue of profitability again is orthogonal to drivers. How do you pay for vehicles and maintenance of your service is not profitable?
In any case, to answer your original question: Yes, I think halving the cost of taxis will make a significant difference to their viability in many use cases. I think costs may also fall further than that, as regulations have been limiting competition in taxi markets. (And just intuitively, one would expect that sharing a car should be cheaper than owning one.)
Moreover, I think taxi markets were stagnant for a long time, so the lack of such a service in the past doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't have been viable, and the new players may simply not have explored this kind of service yet.
>How do you pay for vehicles and maintenance of your service is not profitable?
The point is that without a driver, your ongoing costs (i.e. fuel and maintenance) are more proportional to usage. A driver sitting doing nothing is costing you money, but a car sitting doing nothing barely does.
Think it is too obvious to miss...
>The point is that without a driver, your ongoing costs (i.e. fuel and maintenance) are more proportional to usage.
isnt it the same with a driver too?
You make some good points, as does this article. In the article though, I think at least some of these points will just involve more visual indicators on cars themselves that people will need to get use to (and yes, I do realize that won't solve many of the other class issues the author raises).
I have my own concerns. So much money, even tax money, is being poured into this tech that I don't see as viable for at least 7 ~ 10 more years. We could be building automated trains, which do exist, are viable and can operate even on late night runs without drivers or strikes. All of Singapore's lines are automated and several of London's are; both which have trains arriving on platforms at less than two minute intervals at peak hours.
Self driving cars also will not solve the capacity problem at all:
http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol...
You'd have to have self-driving car only motoways to even being to approach the theoretical maximums of car capacity, and it still pails in comparison to train capacity, or even bus capacity for that matter.
The other thing I don't think people realize is that we (most likely) won't be owning self driving vehicles. I feel like if States get their acts together, we're going to need FAA style regulations. Cars need to be inspected at regular intervals to ensure all the sensors are functioning. Software updates need to be audited, and safety algorithms will need to be shared. I mean, do you want to live in a world where Audi claims their driving algorithms are safer than Nissan's, or Honda charging extra for more comprehensive sensor packages?
I don't think we can have a self driving where people own vehicles, which goes well against the OSS creed of "Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?"