> According to the NHTSA, 19% of motor vehicle fatalities involved drivers with invalid licenses. Furthermore, drivers with invalid licenses comprise 13% of all drivers in fatal crashes.
I'm all for more rigorous driving standards. However, the USA is car centric and people need jobs.
To really do what you're suggesting, the USA would need to regulate car companies to validate driving licenses while the car was in use. AND THEN, the USA would need to figure out what to do with all of these upset newly unemployed and aggressive people.
It's much worse in SF. When the SFPD runs (ran, really, because they no longer do traffic ops at all) crosswalk stings, the majority of drivers who violate the crossing pedestrian's right of way are unlicensed. Losing your license in California has virtually no influence on whether you continue to drive.
Lyft just quoted me: $20 for 3.5 miles, in 15mins. That is a reasonable daily commute. 2 * $20 = $40 per day round trip. $40 * 5 = $200 per week. $200 * 50 = $10,000 per year.
For a 45 min commute: that is $30k per year.
Clearly should buy a vehicle.
However, with 10x cheaper Lyfts: at 1-3k per year; that is the cost of maintenance, registration, and insurance. Then the car payments on top of that... Owning a car would be inordinately expensive.
This doesn't even include the benefit of getting 45-90 mins back to learn or play while commuting.
I don't think Lyfts get 10x cheaper with robocars. It's not like 90% of your fare goes to driver net profit. Maybe a factor of 2, but I'm not even sure that will be true (robocars will generally be more expensive, and require additional remote monitoring).
https://irle.berkeley.edu/files/2020/07/Parrott-Reich-Seattl... suggests that net driver pay is less than half of gross pay, which doesn't account for the portion that Lyft takes. Taking that at face value, maybe it gets 40% cheaper? Driving is expensive!
There are some economies of scale in maintenance/procurement (but at the same time, you need all-new, likely more expensive vehicles than the mean Lyft driver), and for infrequent users who pay for parking then that can make a big difference, but unless the robocar operator makes no profit, it's hard to imagine robocars being significantly cheaper than owning a car if you are using it regularly.
Couldn’t we just take taxi prices in the developing world as a proxy for Robo-taxi costs? The cars are more expensive (higher taxes), gas is more costly, but driver salaries and maintenance costs are cheaper. Then say an 80-100 RMB one way commute cost sounds more reasonable for Robo taxis (so let’s say 200 RMB/day = $28). These costs are conservative, in 2016 I was only spending 100 RMB a day on taxis in Beijing, which would have been my parking costs if I drove instead.
>https://irle.berkeley.edu/files/2020/07/Parrott-Reich-Seattl... suggests that net driver pay is less than half of gross pay, which doesn't account for the portion that Lyft takes. Taking that at face value, maybe it gets 40% cheaper? Driving is expensive!
I'm not sure what expenses goes into calculating "net driver pay", but based on a quick skim there are some questionable items in there. "Exhibit 28 Total Seattle TNC driver expenses" lists stuff like "health insurance costs" and "independent contractor taxes", which obviously wouldn't be needed for robotaxis. If we drill down into "vehicle operating costs", there are also some questionable items, like $1560/year expense for "cellphone". I agree that robotaxis being 90% cheaper is unlikely, but 66%-75% cheaper (ie. a quarter to a third of the price) seems to be within the realm of possibility.
> I don't think Lyfts get 10x cheaper with robocars. It's not like 90% of your fare goes to driver net profit.
Ok let’s do this one more time:
Lyft currently takes 25% of the fare. The driver and the car take the other 75%.
Lyft’s 25% includes R&D for building the platform, support issues, and solving the chicken and egg problem in new launch regions. ie Lyft operates at a loss in a new city to attract drivers so riders can start using the app. This loss is roughly made up for by profitable cities like LA. 1. There is no chicken and egg problem with robotaxis. It’s just a matter of capital cost and ROI time horizons. 2. The robotaxi will be more consistent and as reduced support costs. 3. The platform will have been built, and limited R&D for KTLO. 4. Competition in the space between large robotaxi fleets will push down margins, reducing overall profits.
It’s very easy to see Lyft only requiring 5% rather than 25% to continue being profitable and competitive.
Meanwhile, regarding the driver and car: Robotaxis require roughly $10-20k more in car manufacturing, but can also be used 24/7 so better capital utilization on the initial investment for the car (it really is hard to imagine the worth of a car that is used 99% of the time rather than parked 95% of the time). Maintenance costs reduce with scale (+in house mechanics to improve margins). Maintenance costs reduce with electric drive trains. Maintenance costs reduce with better initial manufacturing (to optimize overall car costs rather than optimizing for initial sale costs to sell to individuals).
Increased scale can mean reduced margins i.e. Amazon. Vertical integration also yields better efficiency: When robotaxis have been real for a decade, car manufacturers will build and run robotaxi fleets. Unlike today, vertical integration of manufacturing, maintenance, recycling and operating the fleet of cars creates a lot of consistent demand and can bring significant economic advantages. Even the car manufacturers goals change. Rather than optimizing to sell cars (have them degrade and sell more), cars will be optimized for durability, maximum materials reuse, lowest variable cost per ride, ergonomic rides. A professional driver can put on 25k-50k miles per year[1]. Compared to 10k-15k miles per year on average[2]. Meaning professional drivers hit the car’s mileage limit, 200k-300k in 6-8 years. Already it would be better for them to have cars that are optimized for cleaning, maintainability, and longer lifespans. And this doesn’t even talk about lifespans of wheels or the expedited cost of maintenance.
Taking this math further: This is targeting 40 hour work weeks for professional drivers. If we targeted 75% (a lower bound) of the total hours in a week 168, we see robotaxis will drive 3-4x the miles of today’s Uber drivers. Setting lifespans of 2-4 years per taxi.
Large robotaxi fleet operators will likely become manufacturers but regardless they will change the mental model of how car manufacturing currently operates.
Robotaxis will not only absorb the profits of the taxi industry but also the profits from the car manufacturing industry, car maintenance industry, car rental industry, last-mile delivery (including food delivery) industry, rental housing industry, and more. Fleet operators will also optimize the cars for most recycling ability.
Just look at the trend with a manufacturing company like Apple. Metal frames not only look good but also recycle better and are better for business as a whole.
Apple has an iPhone tradein program because recycling materials can be cost effective for them. The scale will eventually be unimaginable, allowing the margins to be astonishingly low.
Utilization levels will be driven by peak demand, as the usage patterns are highly nonuniform so I don't think they'll be that different. Also remember that even during peak hours, cars will be traveling between fares, potentially half the time (since demand is often mismatched during peak hours). Because most of the costs scale per mile, I don't think the immense cost savings will materialize.
Now robobuses is an idea I can get behind, since labor costs do dominate there.
If we had 10x cheaper Lyfts (and that's a big if) then they will likely cause more fatalities than humans even if somewhat safer, on account of a lot more private vehicle urban miles
About a month ago a human driver ran into me while I was riding a bike and sped away (luckily I was unharmed, aside from a scrape or two). How exactly would stricter driving tests or revocation of licenses have prevented that?
If a Waymo had done that, on the other hand, it'd have stopped and I'd be getting a nice big check from Google.
traffic enforcement cameras (e.g. automatic tickets for speeding, running red lights, hitting cyclists etc.) would probably help, but for some reason motorists are against that.
I guess the nice thing about robocars is that they can be effectively regulated not to drive at unsafe speeds (though probably people would be mad about that too...).
When they were common here in Phoenix, most people would just throw the ticket directly in the garbage. Law enforcement knew they were pretty unenforceable but if they got a small percentage of suckers I guess it was worth it.
Rear end crashes are much more survivable than t-bones though, and this study doesn't consider pedestrian injuries. To me it sounds like the cameras should also be fining people who are stopping too quickly, as it implies they were going at an unsafe speed for the condition.
Anyway, relatively few people run red lights. Speed cameras would likely have a much higher safety return.
Unless you move them around drivers will just slow down at the camera and then commence speeding. What works is strategically placed cameras that measure average speed over a distance. We have these a few places in Norway and most people stick to the speed limit or a bit below between the cameras.
Reading your first sentence, I immediately thought "this is easy to deal with using checkpointed cameras." And then I read the next part. Curious how well that works out, all told.
it would also be relatively straightforward to require cars to self-report speeding (keep a speed/position log, have it be read out at annual inspection). There are some issues around tunnels and poor GPS geolocation in urban areas, but it would work great for things like highways...
I had that exact thought as I was typing my post! :D
That said, I can see many reasons that is not liked. Amusingly, as you add more and more detection systems to cars for stuff like this, you are backing into autonomous vehicles.
Detecting out of spec driving is a much simpler (and cheaper to solve) problem than autonomous driving, and may have higher safety benefits? Yes there are privacy concerns but the same concerns exist with autonomous driving.
This is literally within the boundaries of the city of San Francisco, where having a car is only a prerequisite for success if your job is “driving”.
If you’re going to lament the car-focused society we have created, I understand and sympathize emotionally — but you should really take care to relent in those places that are most like the world you would prefer.
