Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Are Near: Meet a Teen Who Rides One Every Day

Re:Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Are Near: Meet a Teen Who Rides... by QML on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @07:49PM (#17658367)

I wonder how low these self driving cars have to go price per mile to compete with fully mature public transportation systems.

For example, since I live in the Bay Area, the cost of going from Berkeley to Walnut Creek via Bart is around $4 for 16 miles. This would correspond to $0.25 per mile to the $0.35 estimate in the article.

Maybe I’m doing the wrong comparison: cars like these won’t be competing with rail lines but with last mile types like public buses. That would make more sense as I pay around $3 to go 2 miles in my city.

Another thought: the city official, mentioned in the article, seemed enthusiastic in using cars for public transportation. It kind of reminds me of advent of cars when cities focused on building roads and highways instead of investing in public transportation systems. Perhaps the self driving aspect can be transferred to be used on busses? I don’t know whether cost of busses result mainly from labor, like cars, or some other factor.

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Re:Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Are Near: Meet a Teen Who Rides... by redwood on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @08:06PM (#17658470)

Complimentary. Mobility at destination. You can't easily walk to much of Walnut Creek from Bart. Nor Berkeley's hills. Take a ride to the station and everyone wins

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Re:Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Are Near: Meet a Teen Who Rides... by throwaway76543 on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @07:59PM (#17658429)

Don't forget to take ride sharing into account. I'd be happy to be in a vanpool picking up a half dozen people as it drives into SF. Six people per vehicle makes even $1.70/mile cost competitive with BART.

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Re:Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Are Near: Meet a Teen Who Rides... by ghaff on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @11:45PM (#17659481)

So why isn't that happening today? I suppose it sort of is with Line and Pool but surely $10-ish per hour for a driver can't make a huge difference for this sort of service--which is quite widely-used in other countries.

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Re:Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Are Near: Meet a Teen Who Rides... by throwaway76543 on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @01:01PM (#17664410)

It is happening today. We've always had some vanpool-ish type companies, though they haven't always been easy to work with. There are some startups trying to change that, like https://www.chariot.com/ -- I've been keeping an eye on them and when they start operating along my commute line I will likely switch away from BART.

The big problem with vanpools is scheduling. Everyone wants flexibility and smarter scheduling systems in a manner very similar to what uber has provided for individual rides.

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Re:Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Are Near: Meet a Teen Who Rides... by sien on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @10:50PM (#17659266)

Where I live the busses cost about 400K in capital costs and last about a decade. I don't know the maintenance and fuel costs but a reasonable guess would be 30K / year. The drivers cost about 100K in total compensation.

So driver labour is a huge component of bus cost. Self driving systems should have a capital cost of about the same as a driver for one year.

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Re:Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Are Near: Meet a Teen Who Rides... by UncleEntity on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @10:32PM (#17659191)

> ...the cost of going from Berkeley to Walnut Creek via Bart is around $4 for 16 miles.

That's just what they charge the customer and does not in any way reflect the true cost of the ride.

Plus, you can stuff 6 people in a robocar @ $0.35/mile vs 6 * $4 to take bart.

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