Uber: the drivers own the cars, the drivers maintain the cars, the drivers clean the cars, the drivers store the cars when not in use.

Driverless: the company needs an operation, real estate, and staff comparable to a big auto rental company to do all that. Plus the engineering and technical staff required for autonomy.

Even with startups doing autonomous shuttle buses, which works at low speed, nobody is making money in that space. It's all demos.

> Uber: the drivers own the cars, the drivers maintain the cars

One additional factor seems to be that Uber drivers tend to underestimate the depreciation of their cars, so they effectively subsidize what otherwise would be Uber's capital cost.

And THAT's something you can't get a robot to do.

Add to that the fact that you are never going to get 100% fleet utilisation, will need to pay for qualified tele-operators, maintain/repair vehicle along with sensors...

I recently listened to a podcast episode of the Autonocast[1], where they interviewed a Harvard Researcher who claimed the economics of Robotaxis just don't work. Very interesting listen.

[1] http://www.autonocast.com/blog/2020/3/11/177-ashley-nunes-on...

All transportation businesses are utilization businesses. Empty hours/miles are never recovered.

Early robotaxis will have tight geofences. Makes them particularly bad competitors to poorly paid people who are willing to drive wherever.

I think it will probably work at some point in the future( 20-40 years). Today the reality is that the jobs we reward the least are the ones that turn out to be the most difficult to automate. Someone with 10 min training can do better job with a thread and a needle than the most advanced robot painfully trying to stich two pieces of garmet together.If these can be overcome,then it may work.

And the important part of your observation on the thread and needle is that there are people who will do that for about 1 penny currency relative- and about 100 more willing to take the job if the first one quits. Hard for a capital intensive robot and a team of Bay Area salaries to step into that even if good at it.

Was going to ask the same question and scrolled through the comments to happily find yours. The answers basically seem to explain why there's no robotaxi business model NOW though... I still don't buy the argument that there wouldn't be one with suitable (relatively low marginal cost, eg Tesla system) self driving tech. Yes, uber drivers work for less than min wage, but that's still expensive compared to cost of capital for a (speculative commercial) self drive unit as an add on.

Great point by the other responder.

High level - Uber and Lyft have done a terrific job getting people to work for less than minimum wage. I've met quite a number of uberdrivers who work in Robotaxi-Ready cities (think Chandler, Tampa, etc) who work 12-16 hours/day, 6-7 days a week, and make $20k/yr after depreciation.

While sensors are getting cheaper, most teams respond by throwing more sensors on the vehicle. It seems unlikely there will be a <$20k robotaxi anytime soon.

TL;DR: Humans are cheaper than robots.

Yes, this is essentially the same reason why you don't see robots flipping burgers. The automated equipment would have to get very cheap to be cost effective.

My current thesis is that robots (have to sense the world, make decisions, move freely, and respond to stimuli) only make sense in markets with labor shortages.

AKA - if people are willing to do it for cheap, it probably won't make sense to get a robot involved.

Why we need to shrink the labor pool. Better to think UBI enables automation than it saves us from automation.

I haven't heard that thought before, but it's an interesting one.

Probably won't help with any of those folks opposed to UBI because "people get meaning from work." Proponents of that view must know a hidden trove of self-actualized retail workers.

It's best to assume that as a rule, people don't get meaning from work that can easily (if not inexpensively) be done by a robot.