Self-driving won't take over by just being available in the new cars people are buying anyway.
It'll take over when people find it cheaper to ride robotaxis than to own a vehicle at all. That's potentially a much quicker transition, requiring significantly fewer new vehicles.
Nobody is going to sit and wait for a robo uber in the suburbs for ten minutes to go to the grocery store ten miles down the road. This is the main problem, America has suburbanised itself to hell and no amount of robo taxis will create the world you are suggesting. And elsewhere in the world there’s no need because most places have adequate public transit which solves the problem way more efficiently than robo taxis ever will.
People wait for things all the time and if it can take away the hassle or driving your kids somewhere, maintaining multiple vehicles for multiple family members etc. I'd bet that it does take off. Public transport doesn't solve groceries or other types of shopping though even in highly connected cities, especially for people with health problems or just aging ones.
Imagine a parent today driving to work and dropping off their two kids at school on the way. Instead of one car making three stops, you're suggesting three robo taxis would accomplish the same thing. What do you think already clogged roads would look like in this future? The only scalable solution is public transit, walking, and cycling.
I used to live in Germany, which had lots of excellent public transit, walking, and cycling. There was still quite a bit of car traffic. If even Germany's public transport isn't enough to eliminate cars, then we should put some effort into improving car transport, in addition to whatever we do with buses and bike lanes.
To that end, I'm not convinced automation will make things worse.
If the kid's school is near the parent's route to work, there's nothing stopping the parent from saving money by taking the kid in the same taxi.
If the kid's school is in the opposite direction, then a separate robotaxi can be more efficient. What matters is total system mileage. If a robotaxi takes the kid, then picks up a commuter starting near the school, then we save the parent's trip from the school back to their starting point.
Nobody is going to sit and wait for a robo uber in the suburbs for ten minutes to go to the grocery store ten miles down the road.
I absolutely would do that. Sometimes I already do wait that kind of time for a taxi or bus. Having the robo taxi turn up in ten minutes from when I decided I wanted to go to the shop would be fantastic.
Public transport doesn't compare to robotaxis. If robotaxis become a reality I expect a significant drop in car ownership and public transport use. The price will be competitive with the price of public transport, at least for single fare prices.
I can catch a bus every five minutes a one minute walk from my house in Utrecht. Those buses go anywhere. In Oslo I could ride the T-bane to the forest or to downtown. In Tokyo it was obvious public transit is the only way to go. All the places I lived outside the USA I would never take a taxi much less a robot one in lieu of Public transit.
That's what I'm saying. When price goes down, robotaxis become a more viable option due to convenience and speed. You're shopping? Just put it in the trunk. Have fun with 4 grocery bags on public transport.
Public transport can be faster for going from A to B, but most people live a couple of kms from A and they're not going to exactly B but somewhere in the vicinity. The "last mile" will more likely be by robotaxi.
Note that some parts of that car park are 300m from some of the shops in that building. (There are choices of shops and parking spaces larger than that, but it looks like I can easily justify 300m without resorting to maxima).
Note that within 300m of that address — i.e. the bounds of the example American shopping mall car park — there are 6 [super]markets, a pharmacy, at least five cafe/bakeries, two cinemas, several takeaways, at least two restaurants, a dentist, a car repair shop, a car dealership, a pet-goods shop, a kitchenware shop, a newsagent/post office, two sets of tram stops, four sets of bus stops, and I'm not counting any corner shops ("Späti" in the local language).
Carrying a few bags of groceries around inside well-planned cities is pretty trivial. Anything connected to that area by a single mode of transport is no harder to take shopping through than the transit systems within a mall — escalator, elevator, travelator — and that means one of the main commercial areas of the city (Alexanderplatz) and the road to it (which itself is basically a 3km long half-density strip mall with a tram the whole length and a railway crossing it in the middle and another at the south end) are both trivial to reach even with shopping — I've even seen someone taking an actual, literal, kitchen sink on one of Berlin's trams.
Even in my current place, still in Berlin but close to the outskirts without the advantages of density, a mere four grocery bags is easier to get through public transport than it is from one end of an American car park to the other.
> Lower prices don't make things more convenient or fast.
You are replying to a straw man, I never said anything like that. It makes for dull discussions.
> Even in my current place, still in Berlin but close to the outskirts without the advantages of density, a mere four grocery bags is easier to get through public transport than it is from one end of an American car park to the other.
It's unclear to me why you compare it to a geographically unrelated area. You should compare the public transport with a robotaxi alternative. At similar pricing, how is convenience and speed impacted.
Not the op.
If you reread what he wrote I think he’s trying to say the price going down changes the viability of the option—not the convenience and speed which he treats as inherent to the car.
Said another way:
When price goes down, robotaxis (which are convenient and speedy) become a more viable option.
Not sure what you think is my public transport. My ideal computerized public transport combines vehicles of all sizes and types, and an uber-like app let's me choose what I prefer based on cost and other attributes.
The optimal route means picking up multiple people on the same route, and dropping them off elsewhere on the route, and then making the vehicle large enough so that they can do this comfortably, i.e. a bus.
It ends up being another form of public transport — perhaps one with no predictable timetable, or perhaps timetables are themselves a useful Schelling point, I wouldn't want to guess.
But as fixed bus routes make it possible to plan things like bus shelters, I think I'd prefer a bus over the logical progression of self-driving "taxis" that constantly move rather than finding parking spots.
That's optimal for the vehicles, but less optimal for the people, who have to walk to stops. I used to live in Germany which had fantastic public transport, but walking a mile to the nearest stop was something we took in stride. That's great for health, but didn't prevent Germans from being quite fond of their personal automobiles, and there didn't seem to be noticeably less traffic than in the US.
Meanwhile I think plenty of people find Uber perfectly convenient, just a bit expensive.
As far as physical efficiency goes, Tesla's plan is more efficient than their competitors'. Their dedicated robotaxis are either small two-seaters, or decent-size buses.
Assuming we get to your level of value prop. It will still only be a choice for new first time buyers
If I already own a car, for which am paying an emi and no hope of selling for good value (because market is dropping as newest buyers disappear) it won’t make economic sense for me till I generate LTV from the car to switch over .
Either way it till take 1-2 decades after ubiquitous L5 availability, even if that was possible at all and soon
there are already cheaper ways to ride from point A to point B without owning a car (especially in urban areas) and yet car ownership has never been higher… ideal robotaxis will take at least one full generation to actually materialize.
just as a silly personal example, I took a car to the shop and got Uber credits. my wife was heading into the city for an event (had to deal with both traffic and parking) and I was like “take a free Uber” and she was like “no way, driving my own car…” my daughter on the other hand…
It'll take over when people find it cheaper to ride robotaxis than to own a vehicle at all. That's potentially a much quicker transition, requiring significantly fewer new vehicles.