Re:The Uber Bombshell About to Drop
by Ajedi32 on Tuesday March 14, 2017 @11:09AM
(#13868066)
> I said when they become the norm, as in, when they're no more expensive as other cars.
My point is that self-driving cars will become the norm long before they're "no more expensive as other cars" precisely because of transportation-as-a-service companies like Uber. By the time we start getting anywhere near the point where self-driving cars are "no more expensive as other cars", car ownership will already have been largely supplanted by transportation-as-a-service.
> If I could buy a 1/6th share in a car for $100/mo. and be able to use it in short stints with little contention that's going to be cheaper than Uber if I use it more than a handful of times.
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here. It sounds like you're describing transportation-as-a-service, but with the additional restriction of you only being able to use one particular car that you "own" 1/6th of instead of any car that happens to be nearby at the time when you request it.
That sounds like a needless restriction, and negates many of the advantages of transportation-as-a-service (no need to refuel, repair, or otherwise maintain your vehicle, the flexibility to obtain as many cars as you want at any particular moment, the ability to use a pickup truck one day and a minivan the next, etc).
Also, why would that be cheaper than Uber? I think a service like Uber is likely to be far more efficient with the usage of their self-driving fleet than you could ever be with any one, individual car, even if that car _is_ shared between multiple people.
My point is that self-driving cars will become the norm long before they're "no more expensive as other cars" precisely because of transportation-as-a-service companies like Uber. By the time we start getting anywhere near the point where self-driving cars are "no more expensive as other cars", car ownership will already have been largely supplanted by transportation-as-a-service.
> If I could buy a 1/6th share in a car for $100/mo. and be able to use it in short stints with little contention that's going to be cheaper than Uber if I use it more than a handful of times.
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here. It sounds like you're describing transportation-as-a-service, but with the additional restriction of you only being able to use one particular car that you "own" 1/6th of instead of any car that happens to be nearby at the time when you request it.
That sounds like a needless restriction, and negates many of the advantages of transportation-as-a-service (no need to refuel, repair, or otherwise maintain your vehicle, the flexibility to obtain as many cars as you want at any particular moment, the ability to use a pickup truck one day and a minivan the next, etc).
Also, why would that be cheaper than Uber? I think a service like Uber is likely to be far more efficient with the usage of their self-driving fleet than you could ever be with any one, individual car, even if that car _is_ shared between multiple people.