Tesla mobility idea - Subway autonomous cars

[Jurogo]

Today I saw an article about a Tesla mobility service:

Elon Musk teases a new autonomous ‘Tesla Mobility’ service


I have an idea about a mobility service in the cities (New York, London, Madrid, ..) using the existing subway infrastructure, and I think it is within Tesla capabilities.

The idea is to substitute the trains with small autonomous vehicles with a “googleCar” configuration.

The vehicles would be waiting for the occupants in each station and would take them directly to their destination station, eliminating the three main disadvantages of the subway:

• Need to wait for the train
• Have to stop in each station
• Not too comfortable

I would also eliminate the disadvantages of a car sharing service:

• Autonomous vehicles in the streets are more difficult
• Traffic jams in the surface

The vehicles would be electric and charge themselves in the stations.

The vehicles would be autonomous in a controlled environment. Autonomous driving in roads in tunnels would be very similar to current Tesla Autopilot. Vehicles would drive themselves to:

• Occupants destinations stations
• Redistribute automatically to stations with lower level of occupancy

I would like to know what do you think about this idea, and if you can help me to let Elon know it. I know sometimes he read forum members twitts.

 

[Saghost]

Today I saw an article about a Tesla mobility service:

Elon Musk teases a new autonomous ‘Tesla Mobility’ service


I have an idea about a mobility service in the cities (New York, London, Madrid, ..) using the existing subway infrastructure, and I think it is within Tesla capabilities.

The idea is to substitute the trains with small autonomous vehicles with a “googleCar” configuration.

The vehicles would be waiting for the occupants in each station and would take them directly to their destination station, eliminating the three main disadvantages of the subway:

• Need to wait for the train
• Have to stop in each station
• Not too comfortable

I would also eliminate the disadvantages of a car sharing service:

• Autonomous vehicles in the streets are more difficult
• Traffic jams in the surface

The vehicles would be electric and charge themselves in the stations.

The vehicles would be autonomous in a controlled environment. Autonomous driving in roads in tunnels would be very similar to current Tesla Autopilot. Vehicles would drive themselves to:

• Occupants destinations stations
• Redistribute automatically to stations with lower level of occupancy

I would like to know what do you think about this idea, and if you can help me to let Elon know it. I know sometimes he read forum members twitts.

Are these vehicles running on the existing rails? If so, you need a way for them to bypass the group waiting at the station. If not, you need to repave the tunnels, which may or may not be a simple task.

Your proposal is doable, but it will cost a lot more money than a subway system for a volume of people served and may have capacity limitations.

As a related thought, many subway stations have long escalators for street access. What if you allow automated electric cars access down a ramp/escalator into the system as well/instead?

You could potentially take your car or one of the subway's directly to your final destination, not just to the nearest station...

 

[Jurogo]

The vehicles would run in normal roads. So yes, it would require to repave the tunnels.

In the following posts I will analyce the viability of the idea (costs, capacity required, advantages, disadvantages). Any comment will be highly appreciated.

This service will be far better than the subway, so it must be compared with all means of transport (taxi/uber, cars, bus, ...). A higher cost than the subway may be justified, for example people are willing to pay more for taxi/uber.

The CAPEX (infraestructure costs) pre-analysis::

• Pavement of the tunnels & ilumniation: TBD
• Manufacter a fleet of small shared electric cars: 20k cars * $10K = $200M (aprox?)
• Accondicionating stations (space for the autonomous cars to park and charge): TBD
• Building additional small tunnels to connect subway lines: TBD
• Software to controll everything

The OPEX (operating cost) pre-analysis::

• Maintenance cars, stations, roads
• Very few workers (no drivers. Only security, software, ...)

Capacity pre-analysis:

• 100 cars per train station ?
• 2 Lines per rail ?
• Several levels if line is too crowded ?
• No crosswalk, traffic lights, etc..
• Speed: 45 mph ?

I don´t really see other cars driving into the subway (very big cars, only electric & autonomous), but it could make sense in some situations..

 

[Jurogo]

Means of transport. User point of view

Bicycle (shared)

• Advantages
  
  
  • Fast
    
    
  • Low price
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • Not valid for all people (old people, …)
    
    
  • Dangerous
    
    
  • No trunk

Car

• Advantages
  
  
  • Fast
    
    
  • Comfortable
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • Slow in rush hour
    
    
  • Parking

Taxi/Uber

• Advantages
  
  
  • Fast
    
    
  • Comfortable
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • High price
    
    
  • Slow in rush hour

Bus

• Advantages
  
  
  • Low price
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • Wait in the station for the bus
    
    
  • Stop in each bus-station
    
    
  • Transfer between lines
    
    
  • Not too comfortable

Subway

• Advantages
  
  
  • Low price
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • Wait in the station for the train
    
    
  • Stop in each train-station
    
    
  • Transfer between lines
    
    
  • Not too comfortable

Subway autonomous cars

• Advantages
  
  
  • Fast
    
    
  • Comfortable
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • ¿?
    

 

[Jurogo]

City means of transport - Society point of view

Bicycle (shared)

• Advantages
  
  
  • No pollution
    
    
  • No noise
    
    
  • No traffic jams
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • ¿?

Car

• Advantages
  
  
  • ¿?
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • Pollution
    
    
  • Noise
    
    
  • Traffic jams
    
    
  • Needs parking space

Taxi/Uber

• Advantages
  
  
  • ¿?
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • Pollution
    
    
  • Noise
    
    
  • Traffic jams

Bus

• Advantages
  
  
  • No traffic jams
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • Pollution
    
    
  • Noise

Subway

• Advantages
  
  
  • No traffic jams
    
    
  • No noise
    
    
  • No pollution
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • High investment?

Subway autonomous cars

• Advantages
  
  
  • No traffic jams
    
    
  • No noise
    
    
  • No pollution
    
• Disadvantages
  
  
  • ¿?

 

[voyager]

Of course, Musk is looking into the gigantic market of service-oriented transportation, as opposed to Tesla's primarily product-oriented strategy so far. It is hard to imagine Tesla owners sharing their costly, posh, full-size saloon cars with anyone else. What's even more of a problem, Teslas are too big and heavy to be considered flexible and maneuverable transport modes in modern day traffic, particularly in cities. May be Musk's boldest move, taking Tesla passed the competition.

 

[ecarfan]

The CAPEX (infraestructure costs) pre-analysis::

• Pavement of the tunnels & ilumniation: TBD
• Manufacter a fleet of small shared electric cars: 20k cars * $10K = $200M (aprox?)
• Accondicionating stations (space for the autonomous cars to park and charge): TBD
• Building additional small tunnels to connect subway lines: TBD
• Software to controll everything

Your ideas are interesting, but you are neglecting a huge cost which makes such a concept impractical: the cost of building the tunnels. Only few cities have an existing network of tunnels and they are completely occupied by the existing fixed rail mass transit systems. You can't use them. Your idea requires an all new network of tunnels. Tunnels are extraordinarily expensive to build.

 

[bxr140]

So, basically, Walt Disney's people mover concept?

 

[Ludus]

There was a People Mover built in Detroit in the 70's that's still operating. Concrete elevated rack, rubber wheels, linear induction motors, computer control. They pretty much had to build an isolated, dedicated track walled off from other traffic or pedestrians to do automation. The big deal about autonomous vehicles now is precisely that they don't need that dedicated infrastructure like subway tunnels that make things vastly more expensive. They can use regular roads and mingle with pedestrians and other vehicles.