Will Electric Cars Slow the Adoption of Driverless Cars?

Re:Will Electric Cars Slow the Adoption of Driverless Cars? by DennisP on Saturday December 16, 2017 @12:49PM (#15940635)

So electric cars cost more up front but less per mile, and you're maybe going to keep them longer.

There's an opposing dynamic: a taxi drives a lot more miles per year than a personal vehicle, so taxis (driverless or not) are likely to be the biggest early adopters of electric cars.

Maybe if autonomy develops slowly relative to electric cars, we'll mostly end up driving our own electrics, but if autonony develops relatively quickly, we'll have a more sudden transition to autonomous ride-sharing and hardly anyone will drive.

Here's an interesting article from this perspective: https://perspicacity.xyz/2017/05/24/this-is-how-big-oil-will...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Will Electric Cars Slow the Adoption of Driverless Cars? by pjc50 on Saturday December 16, 2017 @02:04PM (#15941199)

Absolutely. High-milage fleets turn over every three years. The Toyota Prius became popular with taxi drivers very rapidly. As soon as the economic advantage is real and large enough, the switchover will be quick.

There will then be a long tail of lower-milage users swapping over gradually, and a small chunk of resisters and nostalgists driving manual petrol vehicles because they like it or have the same "beater" for 20 years and don't want to change.

[ Parent | on HN ]