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A comment on California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B. Parent comment

Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by erikpukinskis on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @09:27PM (#16174143)
Almost no one will buy autonomous cars. You will just hail one for less than the cost of gas.

Only rich people and people in and out of a car all day (full time parents, car-based workers, etc) will buy them.

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Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by dx034 on Thursday January 18, 2018 @03:36AM (#16175585)
And every family and anyone who likes having a car. I'd expect not more than 10-20% to stop buying cars. Having your own car is about more than just access to transportation.
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Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by ubernostrum on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @09:37PM (#16174193)
You will just hail one for less than the cost of gas.

If the cost of the ride is less than the cost of gas, how is the operator making a profit? Especially since they have to cover more than just the cost of gas.

(an Uber-style "use VC money to subsidize below-cost services" model is not sustainable in the long term, by the way)

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Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by sah2ed on Thursday January 18, 2018 @12:47AM (#16174982)
In addition to closeparen's point that such autonomous cars will be electric, they will also have much lower mantenance costs due to the lower internal complexity of doing away with the ICE.
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Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by CPLX on Thursday January 18, 2018 @07:57AM (#16176706)
This is self evidently true because incredibly complex software implementations that interact with the real world have no maintainance requirements.
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Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by abritinthebay on Thursday January 18, 2018 @07:00PM (#16182828)
... hoping sarcasm. But you never know on here...
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Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by closeparen on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @10:08PM (#16174350)
I think the point is that they’ll be electric.
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