Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
The cost spilt depends on whether the maintenance costs of a car are driven by per km or per day. In my opinion most costs are driven by a per km affect. Therefore 9 people using 1 car will not be dramatically more expensive than just owning your own self driving car. The capital cost would be the main difference.
The other break down in this model is rush hour. Everyone needs a car in rush hour so for this model to work you'd need enough cars to service peak demand therefore 80% of the cars on unused for 20Hrs per day.
So your back to this service only working for those who are using transit or bikes to work or working from home.
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There's a reason there's so much argument about future tech, because no one really knows what's going to happen. I see your points, but:
1) The costs are driven mostly by capital costs (purchase price) and maintenance. A large corporation has a giant purchasing power advantage over you and likely own their own maintenance service which is also a large financial advantage to owning your own. The mileage costs are going to be energy, which again the purchasing power of the service trumps an individual owner. This is all before the scale effect (more person-miles/day in a service car than individual ownership) which will likely be huge.
This leads to:
2) Money. Individual preferences matter a whole or less than money. We can talk about preferring your own car, and hating using someone else's car, etc. But if it saves you $400 a month, people will switch. Then service will improve
The rush hour conundrum is not agreed upon by anyone in the prediction industry. Some economists suggest that more ridership leads to more congested roads. Some argue that because upwards of 90 of downtown traffic is people looking for parking this could be ameliorated. Also, most traffic congestion is due to human issues: