FSD at least a decade away (Morgan Stanley)

[sjg98]

Robotaxi strikes me as a bridge to nowhere.
Uber/Lyft burn cash operating a capital-light model of pushing the car ownership & liability down to "independent consultants".. taking a % fee off the top.

Further many of the drivers are working for peanuts, and quite often below minimum wage if they actually did the math on their hours vs all the direct&indirect costs they take on for the miles they put on their car.

Lastly has anyone thought about the bad behavior of passengers & much highest incidence of bad/dangerous/damaging behavior in the backseat knowing theres no driver in the car with them to tell them no.

I stopped using Zipcar in the city because people just totally trash vehicles when they know theres no human they need to look in the eye when they return the vehicle to the lot, compared to a Hertz/etc rental that gets inspected on each return.

 

[EVNow]

I stopped using Zipcar in the city because people just totally trash vehicles when they know theres no human they need to look in the eye when they return the vehicle to the lot, compared to a Hertz/etc rental that gets inspected on each return.

Interior camera.

Even Hertz etc you just park and walk.

When people get hit with bills and credit collection starts calling / gets reflected in credit score, get banned by robotaxis .... they will stop doing it.

 

[zigmeister]

Think 10yrs is very optimistic. There is ZERO chance the current hardware and camera setup will ever achieve self driving under most circumstances without intervention constantly as it does now.

Just a few things that stop it to work...The SUN! Ok, now that the Sun causes problems and shuts the system down and makes it unusable...how are they solving that? Sunshades over the cameras?

Rain...wow, another weather related issue...this is embarrassing...heavy rain, can't see where it is going, it is vision just like humans. Not even going into Fog, snow and the likes...

So, there you have it...good luck with all of those tiny issues that need to be overcome, not even going to start talking about all the things people do to cause problems while driving 5-6ft from you down the road at 70mph....

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Robotaxi strikes me as a bridge to nowhere.
Uber/Lyft burn cash operating a capital-light model of pushing the car ownership & liability down to "independent consultants".. taking a % fee off the top.

Further many of the drivers are working for peanuts, and quite often below minimum wage if they actually did the math on their hours vs all the direct&indirect costs they take on for the miles they put on their car.

Lastly has anyone thought about the bad behavior of passengers & much highest incidence of bad/dangerous/damaging behavior in the backseat knowing theres no driver in the car with them to tell them no.

I stopped using Zipcar in the city because people just totally trash vehicles when they know theres no human they need to look in the eye when they return the vehicle to the lot, compared to a Hertz/etc rental that gets inspected on each return.

I think its indisputable that we don't have enough truck drivers, and the demand for delivery drivers is high.

So at least in terms of cargo there is viable market.

When it comes to transporting people it depends on the region, and demographics.

To me it seems like the majority of the demographics on TMC are home owners with families so we don't see the massive numbers of young single people who either don't have their license or who are too addicted to something (cell phones or drugs) to drive. They also don't have any money left over from paying ridiculous amounts of money on rent. They can't afford the $200 a month for a parking spot in the city (a rough estimate of a reserved parking spot in an apartment in Portland).

So they'll rely on a mix of public transportation, ride share, and any robotaxi that might be available in the region.

In 10 years I expect robotaxi's in large metro areas to be pretty common place. I don't expect them to displace human workers, but they'll make up for a gap in not having enough human workers for driving tasks.

As to backseat behavior I expect a combination of AI plus a control center having enough control that they can curtain any behavior by kicking out the bad apples. Now sure they probably won't be allowed to reduce the air supply into the vehicle, but they can ban the riders from ever using the service again.

If they operate like Venmo they don't even have to tell them why they got booted. All they have to say is "we think you MIGHT be guilty of breaking the terms of agreement".

To me Robotaxi's are a normal progression of what's already been happening where corporations are replacing humans with algorithms. That it will come with good things, and bad things.

One they start to scale they will do so rapidly, but it likely won't be for another 5 years before we see much traction on scaling. There is a lot of work to be done on consumer acceptance, standards regarding safety expectations, etc.

Even if it doesn't happen in 5-10 years in the US it will happen elsewhere like parts of Europe or China. I think people constantly underestimate China when it comes to autonomous vehicles.