Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Is utilization over time important? If we assume that people will still travel the same number of miles[1], then while there will be fewer cars on the road at any given moment, they will wear out more quickly as they are utilized more heavily.

Another way of thinking of it is that there is demand for a certain number of vehicle-miles per year. In the aggregate over the long term, it is no different if we buy 5 cars, each of which lasts 5 years, or if we buy one car every year for 5 years as the old one wears out[2].

Higher utilization should make fleet replacement a smoother function over time (whereas now, you can see dips and spikes as people decide when to put capital in their cars based on factors like the overall health of the economy).

[1] It is not clear what the impact of driverless cars would be on mileage. It would eliminate some useless trips (e.g., doubled miles for dropping somebody off). But the convenience may mean that people simply use it more.

[2] I'm assuming that wear and replacement time are purely a function of miles traveled. This is not entirely true, as age is a factor, but I think mileage tends to dominate in the average car (i.e., one that is being used, not one having its belts dry-rot over many years of neglect). Companies that maintain car fleets probably have data on this.



It's an old chestnut that buying a salesman's car with lots of miles is a lot better than buying the same vehicle from a housewife that only used it to go shopping and shuttle the kids to school.

Besides, who says that the driverless car isn't more like industrial equipment instead of the current consumer crap, made to go on "forever" to justify its high price?


I think that is a very good point.

While designing cars to last longer would increase the weight of some components, for example allowing more metal around the cylinders so that they can be re-bored a number of times, this could be at least partially by having a much reduced burden of crash resistance.

Some things could be alleviated simply by avoiding the maintenance / cost cutting shortcuts used today. For example fitting grease nipples to ball joints and greasing them regularly makes them last a great deal longer than the sealed units which are riveted to swing arms today!


You are missing the obvious: the cars could just as easily go electric and the severe reduction of moving components will already increase their service life dramatically (sans battery replacements depending on how battery technology evolves).


It's easy to forget that durability is a trade off because nobody makes ultra-durable cars. But carmakers do plan for cars to last "only" a few hundred K miles before becoming prohibitively expensive to maintain. It's planned obsolescence, and it's not a conspiracy, just good economics and a consumer taste for new things.

But other vehicles are made to last much longer. why not cars? Also, computer drivers can be programmed to be much gentler on the engines and transmission.


It's possible the incremental cost of a driverless car trip from a shared pool (like zipcar in that respect) would be higher than the cost of driving your own car, due to the fact that when you're not using your personal car it's just sitting around in your driveway collecting rust. That would be an incentive to reduce the number of trips.


By the way, I'm assuming a taxi-like shared car fleet here, where you just get in some car that is available, it takes you where you want to go, and then goes to pick somebody else up afterwards. Without that, you would not have the reduction in number of cars on the road and need for parking.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: