Re:Will Electric Cars Slow the Adoption of Driverless Cars?
by dsfyu404ed on Saturday December 16, 2017 @02:46PM
(#15941533)
Whether costs are mileage or time based vary heavily on the environment.
They don't salt the roads in the winter in Silly-Valley so maintenance costs are primarily mileage based.
In somewhere like NY it's going to be more time based because the vehicle will corrode at a fairly steady rate and salt solutions will counteract lubricants in places that can't be cleaned out (e.g. wheel bearings and ball joints) at a fairly fixed rate.
Re:Will Electric Cars Slow the Adoption of Driverless Cars?
by jessriedel on Saturday December 16, 2017 @01:42PM
(#15941025)
Yea, I was trying to be extremely conservative with my 5% number, and I think it's much larger due to some of the effects you mention. But I'm a little skeptical time effects are actually larger than mileage ones in total. Do you know a good quantitative argument (even if approximate) for this?
Re:Will Electric Cars Slow the Adoption of Driverless Cars?
by ghaff on Saturday December 16, 2017 @02:20PM
(#15941319)
I'm arguing that mileage effects are much bigger unless you regularly flip cars when, say, a lease expires.
AAA publishes car ownership cost numbers. But the big challenge of quantifying this in general is that the relatively fixed component is a lot more for someone who gets a new leased vehicle every three years vs. someone who owns a car for 10-15 years and 150K miles.
Re:Will Electric Cars Slow the Adoption of Driverless Cars?
by jessriedel on Saturday December 16, 2017 @02:40PM
(#15941481)
Oh, sorry I misread your comment. Yes, I agree that mileage costs are probably larger than time costs.
- Insurance. Some policies have surcharges or discounts based on mileage but it's mostly an annual cost for a typical driver. (Plus excise tax and state inspection.)
- In northern states, corrosion due to salt in the winter happens even if you don't drive a car many miles. My Honda dealer is always amazed when I bring in my old '97 Del Sol with minimal rust; I've just garaged it in the winter for about the past decade.
- Some fluid, belt, etc. maintenance is time-based
- If you want to have a relatively late model car then of course that's a time-based cost. But, if you hold onto a car until it becomes unreliable/expensive to operate then you're back to auto costs being mostly a result of mileage.