Companies will clean them. Musk's pipe dream that people will buy cars and use them as taxis when they aren't using them is bullshit.

Companies will clean them? Nothing like turning employess into a faceless machine. Thanks for coming out and proving the point of the article.

People are pigs.

I would think the solution is that your ride gets recorded ie you get recorded every time and charged for any cleanup. The problem always is the collecting.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

It seems like it would be pretty easy to ban people that misbehave. I doubt it will be a cash business, which means that some type of electronic identifier will be required like a credit card.

This obviously means we can drink and drive again just like the old days? Would be probably hard to enforce the drinking/driving laws when people aren't actually doing the driving.

Meh.

Apple is already partnered with Hertz and Alphabet (Google) with Avis. Pretty obviously the rental car companies provide the expertise in fleet maintenance, and, yes, cleaning.

Somehow rental car companies have incorporated "pigs" into their business model successfully.

I don't see the big deal.

people as pigs will not stop this - and it's a good thing. having a car will be like a cell phone plan, you order one up when you need one, it picks you up and drops you off. No more looking for parking - or having city streets all filled with parked cars. Bikers may get some street back.

x2 on what LorenzoP said. Cars will be more of a subscription service than an ownership item. Hundreds of millions of cars worldwide that spend 99% of their time doing nothing is stupid.
I think it'll be several more decades to get there. Maybe no even in Musks' own lifetime. But it's inevitable. At one point cars were a bullshit pipe dream. Toys for the rich that were way, way more difficult to maintain and operate than a horse. And more expensive and slower.

Rental companies ditch the cars after about 10-15000 miles and usually haven't done any maintenance to them. I know for fact that most rental buy backs get their 1st oil changes at the dealership that's reselling them. That's well past the recommended service interval.

Am I a pig? I am confused by your post. If you are calling me a pig prefer swine because I always have a top hat and monocle on.

"Nothing like turning employess into a faceless machine. "


Sarcasm? See I am not reading you here. Aren't you familiar with capitalism?

No, I'm not calling you a pig. IME with people - if they think someone else is there to clean up their mess that is exactly what happens. Footwear covered in mud? No problem. Can't hit the toilet? No problem. Pissed out of their tree, can't hold the liquor? No problem. The last one in particular, or did everyone forget what most people use taxi's for in the evening?

If you pay with a credit card and they tape your trip, then very easy to charge you for the clean-up.

So, you guys are all in for self driving cars. Good. Just curious, if walking 2 or 3 blocks to the bus stop was too much on an inconvenience, how does a self driving taxi change that?

They do clean them regularly though. And there are plenty of examples of large-scale fleet maintenance. Police, military, etc. I don't see maintenance or cleaning as some really hard problem.

The taxi can come right to your door then deliver you wherever you want. Removes any walking on either end. Also you can go point-to-point instead of stopping at a ton of intermediate stops you have no interest in, cutting down transit time enormously. Like Uber, just without a driver. Also likely cheaper because no driver and people are expensive.

Bwahahahahahaha. You guys really believe that? Snicker. Mark my words, this service will be more expensive for "insurance" reasons.

I'll have to mark this thread. But, yeah, really believe it.

Look at almost any business and look up the primary expense. It's usually labor. People are expensive.

The primary reason we all have car insurance is because people. Just looking at the U.S. there are around half a million collisions per year, hundreds of thousands of injuries, and around 35,000 fatalities. Because people suck. Computers don't do stupid shit, and those numbers will go down. Insurance companies will love it. A lot of people will like it because it should free people to do better things with their time. And it should save money.

Sorting out the regulatory and insurance practices early on will be tricky. And people will die in self-driving cars (whether at-fault or not), there'll be a lot of discussion. But ultimately computers are just so much better suited to the task that it'll be safer and cheaper to just hand the keys over.

I am biased, because I'm in the business.

By the way, great job market in this business right now. If anyone wants to earn $300K/year plus stock options in a major company plus a free car as a signing bonus, become a self-driving car engineer. They're in brutally high demand. It's a full-on race to get to market first.

Who exactly, other than professional drivers, will have all this extra time you speak of? Wouldn't people using the service have otherwise been driving themselves? Sure the unemployed drivers will have more time, but no money to do anything.

Environmentally it might be good because it will remove a large number of cars from the roads. But again, less cars has a flow on effect, right back to people working in resources who lose their jobs due to a downturn in iron ore demand.

For every person that is set to benefit from all this wonderful, modern automation, there's probably 2 people who will pay a heavy price.

I mean that while in the car, you can be doing other productive things other than driving. Reading. Talking to people giving them your full attention. Analyzing your cycling watts. Posting here. Playing Angry Birds. There's a ton of time that a lot of people spend zombie-like cars doing nothing particularly productive. It can easily be 2 hours per day. That's a lot of someone's life.

To be fair, sometimes manual driving is very enjoyable. But commutes, generally not as much.


Age-old economic conundrum. Did the plow force all the gatherers into unemployment? Textile factories the weavers, etc? Yes, but economies adapt. Always have. And usually for the better, though it can be hard on some people during the transition. Also for professional drivers it doesn't necessarily mean they're out of a job. Say a long-haul trucker still needs to oversee operations, sign off on things, inspect deliveries, etc. Maybe manually drive through very complex loading areas. But with an automated truck he can go nearly 24-hours, nearly doubling his throughput. During waking hours his cab can be an office, and he can be organizing business operations and planning loads. Running side-businesses. Taking online courses.

(as a caveat, I think it'll be at least 20 years before self-driving trucks can do the above, as someone in the business)

Disagree there. I think it'll make the world better Efficiencies can be hard. But they usually improve the world in the end. The trucks above will reduce the price of consumer goods because all those goods get to market faster as they're not often sitting at truck stops doing nothing while the driver gets his mandatory stop hours logged, etc. And I could tick off another dozen efficiencies.

I'm sure that's what all the horse buggy drivers said too back in the day.

It's obvious most people posting here have not had the pleasure of driving rideshare.
Without a driver, do you know who will find the puke? The next passenger, that's who.
It may come as a surprise, but when someone blows chow, they do there best to play off like nothing happened.

Open window, gurgle gurgle, belch arrgh. "I didn't get any on your car!!" Bullshit asshole.

I was taking a couple home from a night of apparent binge drinking. They live in an expensive part of town. I knew the guy was trouble before he or his wife did.

He suddenly yells at his wife, " Purse!! Purse!!" I had the puke bag back there before she even realized why he wanted her purse.

Some entitled assholes like to treat cars as trash cans. Without someone there, I can only imagine this will escalate. And then there are the sick fucks who want action in the back seat while I am sitting just a couple feet in front of them. I can put a stop to that.
No driver, guess what, bodily fluids in the backseat.

As for it being cheaper to have autonomous cars versus private cars driven by independent contractors, I have one question.
Who is now footing the bill for the cars?

Ok I agree with your extra time clarification.

I don't agree with the trucker keeping his job. I see the end goal being trucks with no real cab. If the human labour is the most expensive part then keeping him in the cab is not saving money. Think how much more can be saved without designing for creature comforts and safety for cab occupants. If the loading dock area requires human piloting (which I'm sure they'll also design out) they can always switch out the prime at the facility (just like airport 'tug' vehicles).

No disrespect to truck drivers intended, but I think there are more qualified people, most likely other computers by this stage, to crunch numbers. The truck driver will have served his purpose.

Regarding the 1 vs 2 statement I'm talking broadly and not just freight haulage. Yes historically people have retrained but many haven't. We are talking about occupations that arguably require less education. These are the first to go. It takes a long time to gain an education. It is beyond the financial and intellectual capacity of many. There are more people and an ever dwindling supply of available jobs. The rich are very keen to design out humans wherever possible. Those fortunate enough to have extensive portfolios share this sentiment.

It's very easy for many here to scoff at the notion because most of us are fortunate enough to be in industries that are somewhat secure (for now). But there's a huge part of the populace who are not. Automation is simply increasing the rich poor gap. The lives of the upper end will of course be better off. I'm talking about the majority of people who you're not likely to find on ST.

Not having a go at you, but I would not expect someone at the coal face with this technology, on "300k + car", to acknowledge the downside to all this. It's all win for you. I see this like flood waters rising on a pyramid with people scrambling up to avoid drowning. There's not enough room higher up. Its great for the few at the top. For now. Automation is the floodwaters that will continue to rise.

Shit I sound like such a pessimist!