Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock

Re:Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock by abathur on Thursday July 05, 2018 @02:05PM (#17465392)

I don't disagree that some may be over-estimating how much cost can pragmatically be cut, but I also think you may be glossing over some of the costs and inefficiencies that come with operating a large heterogenous operation comprised of individuals and personal or rented vehicles.

A company deploying large mostly-homogenous autonomous fleets may be able to benefit from:

  - we probably don't need to tip AVs
  - economies of scale on obtaining vehicles, fuel, maintenance, and cleaning
  - tuning maintenance/cleaning schedules across a fleet towards keeping vehicles in service for longer
  - may be able to perform cleaning/maintenance during off-hours, vs owners who'll often have to trade 
    working hours to do these tasks
  - autonomous systems may drive (and be tuned towards) in ways that also help preserve long-term vehicle 
    value and minimize costs
  - lower insurance, legal, and PR costs if they outperform human drivers, don't molest/murder 
    passengers, etc.
  - minimizing costs around acquiring and managing a human workforce
  - there are probably many small ways to optimize the positioning and functioning of an AV fleet that
    just won't work with a large contractor fleet

That said, the potential for a lot of these savings depends on current prices actually reflecting these components. It may very well be more expensive to perform some of these activities, no matter how efficiently, than to exploitively externalize their costs on drivers and riders.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock by abathur on Thursday July 05, 2018 @02:40PM (#17465690)

I haven't looked for work on the price/demand relationship here, but it's also worth noting that price reductions may not just purely be a matter of cutting costs and passing those on at a static ridership and profit level. There are likely to be some price points that profoundly change user behavior

To give an example, my favorite coffee shop is about 7 minutes (+wait) from my apartment by car either way, and around 18-26 minutes (+wait) by bus (shorter there, longer back). Without a ride pass and with tip, it's probably around $7-8 to Uber this one way, vs. $1.25 for the bus.

At this price, I'll usually only Uber if heat or rain make getting to and from the bus miserable. I have a ride pass atm that knocks this down to around $6-7 with tip, which makes me marginally more likely to take Uber, but it isn't my default. I took the bus this past Sunday morning, planning to get some open source work done, but I'd forgotten my laptop wasn't in my bag. The time/sweat cost of the bus round trip and the money cost of the Uber round trip were high enough that I just sat and read a book instead.

I'm not sure exactly where, but somewhere between ~$2-5 total, I'd probably default to taking Uber both ways. Down at the low end of that range, I even would've gone back for the forgotten laptop.

[ Parent | on HN ]