With self-driving cars on the horizon, will people even be owning their own cars for much longer? Centralization of car ownership would change how your scenario plays out.
"On the horizon" to me implies a timespan that's a lot shorter than my own view on when self-driving cars will be commonplace. I think we're decades away at least. Though in terms of the scope of the modernization of the electrical grid that would be required to make this workable, decades is probably the best case scenario anyway.
As much as I like the idea of this, I don't see it playing out that way. We currently have a form of self driving car - taxis, and yet the majority of people prefer to own their car. Golf clubs in the trunk, child seats in the back, favorite music in the glove box, etc. and the sense of "mine" seems to be enough to drive this preference for most.
While true self-driving cars should be cheaper than taxis and also allow for longer distances, I don't think this will be sufficient to change the dynamic significantly.
The problem with contemporary taxies is that a large chunk of the money you pay goes towards paying the driver.
Think about it; You need to pay a driver something like $40k each year; While the car itself may cost $40k to purchase and will last for 5-10 years.
Having human drivers also modifies the way you deploy your taxies. The driver must return home at the end of each day, so intercity trips don't happen. The driver needs to be paid even if the taxi is just sitting waiting for a passenger, so you want to closely match the number of active taxies to the number passengers. This also means electric taxies are unattractive for for manned taxies because your taxi shouldn't be stopped for long enough to charge between rides.
But if you move to self driving electric taxies you get rid of idle costs. It costs almost nothing to have a taxi which doesn't have passengers, so you can overstock the taxies and give time for them to charge between rides. Since you have extra taxies, you can also afford to leave them in remote areas where you know you will have return passengers in the future.
Basically, a self driving taxi doesn't have the same cost model, so it is reasonable to expect a change in the usage patterns.
An even larger cost to running a taxi is the cost of the License plate which because of severe restrictions of supply amount in some cities to hundreds of thousands of dollars
“At the moment it costs taxi operators more than $30,000 a year to lease a licence, or more than $400,000 to buy one. As a result, about $4 of every $20 fare goes towards funding that licence.”
While true self-driving cars should be cheaper than taxis [...]
Different costs can lead to radically different consequences. Just imagine how smart phones or tablets would play out without, say, cheap touch screens. People wouldn't care much for them.
Or imagine if power was much cheaper, then we could run eg desalination for almost free, and no coastal area or island would ever have any problems getting fresh water.
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With self-driving cars on the horizon, will people even be owning their own cars for much longer? Centralization of car ownership would change how your scenario plays out.
"On the horizon" to me implies a timespan that's a lot shorter than my own view on when self-driving cars will be commonplace. I think we're decades away at least. Though in terms of the scope of the modernization of the electrical grid that would be required to make this workable, decades is probably the best case scenario anyway.
I agree on your timespan. But not because of technology, but because of law.
As much as I like the idea of this, I don't see it playing out that way. We currently have a form of self driving car - taxis, and yet the majority of people prefer to own their car. Golf clubs in the trunk, child seats in the back, favorite music in the glove box, etc. and the sense of "mine" seems to be enough to drive this preference for most.
While true self-driving cars should be cheaper than taxis and also allow for longer distances, I don't think this will be sufficient to change the dynamic significantly.
The problem with contemporary taxies is that a large chunk of the money you pay goes towards paying the driver.
Think about it; You need to pay a driver something like $40k each year; While the car itself may cost $40k to purchase and will last for 5-10 years.
Having human drivers also modifies the way you deploy your taxies. The driver must return home at the end of each day, so intercity trips don't happen. The driver needs to be paid even if the taxi is just sitting waiting for a passenger, so you want to closely match the number of active taxies to the number passengers. This also means electric taxies are unattractive for for manned taxies because your taxi shouldn't be stopped for long enough to charge between rides.
But if you move to self driving electric taxies you get rid of idle costs. It costs almost nothing to have a taxi which doesn't have passengers, so you can overstock the taxies and give time for them to charge between rides. Since you have extra taxies, you can also afford to leave them in remote areas where you know you will have return passengers in the future.
Basically, a self driving taxi doesn't have the same cost model, so it is reasonable to expect a change in the usage patterns.
An even larger cost to running a taxi is the cost of the License plate which because of severe restrictions of supply amount in some cities to hundreds of thousands of dollars “At the moment it costs taxi operators more than $30,000 a year to lease a licence, or more than $400,000 to buy one. As a result, about $4 of every $20 fare goes towards funding that licence.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/more-taxi-licences-needed-to-lower...
Different costs can lead to radically different consequences. Just imagine how smart phones or tablets would play out without, say, cheap touch screens. People wouldn't care much for them.
Or imagine if power was much cheaper, then we could run eg desalination for almost free, and no coastal area or island would ever have any problems getting fresh water.
One reason people use taxis less isn't so much cost as it is the time delays in the system.
A well-planned system of autonomous cars can anticipate your needs to a high degree of accuracy, either as an individual or as a group.