You can't believe that report. << Uberized auto cars is still a long ways off, if you can believe this report.>>
It's typical of the response almost always made in response to anything new. "This how things are, see the mistakes the new thing makes and the bad things it will cause [such as driver unemployment], humans are kind of amazing Gods and we like it just as it is thanks very much. Newfangled stuff will spoil our happy idyll. "
Yes, uberized autocars are in their infancy. If you judged the prospects for cars from the first cars produced in the first 10 years of engines being installed on 4 wheels with some seats and steering handle, you might think it wouldn't amount to much. But like then, there's a stupendously vast economic impetus behind the idea of uberizing autocars.
<< And finally, what makes these revelations all the more interesting is the continued ambivalence that consumers profess towards the prospect of the future’s autonomous automobiles. Study after study (the most recent by Deloitte indicating that fully three-quarters of Americans “believe fully autonomous vehicles will not be safe”) reveal a populace still strikingly uncomfortable with the prospect of a computer assuming complete control of its car.
Makes you kind of wonder what the motivation behind all this automation really is. >>
Fully three-quarters of people are as clueless as frogs, with limited ability to conceive of such things, and have negligible understanding of the physics and technological prospects. Their Cyberphones are essentially magic to them.
Those 3/4 of people will pretty soon be voting that other people are not allowed to drive because they are incompetent primate apes prone to getting drunk, falling asleep, getting bored or being distracted by text messages, or hot women walking nearby, or naked in the car. Computerized autocars have millisecond reaction times and don't behave like primates. They don't need to spend 8 hours in bed either, with three people hired to cover a 24 hour shift.
After houses, cars are the next biggest expenditure for most people. If the cost of cars can be reduced by 90%, then that's a fantastic gain for people. The cost of insurance will go from $1000 a year to $10. The capital cost of owning a car will go from $1000 a year to $10 [their share of the uber one]. The cost and hassle of parking will go from $1000 a year to zero. For many it would be $10,000 a year to zero. Head on collision and other death crash cost would go from $500 a year [averaged over everyone] to zero. 30,000 people per year x $2 million = $60 billion over 200 million people [100 million do few km per year] more or less = your mileage will vary. Add the opportunity cost of sitting in traffic jams while having to drive instead of getting on the net to rave on Silicon Investor = 1 hour a day x $20 an hour x 5 days a week x 50 weeks a year [plus other problems like getting taxis after boozing] = $5,000 a year.
Something like $10,000 motoring cost for regular people is big money. If that goes to $1000 they'll grab it with both hands. The companies that enable it will own the future of motoring. Those who don't will get jobs more suited to their talents. 90% of car companies will close because 90% of cars won't be needed.
When there's that much money to be made, a LOT of people go chasing it. Especially when they are already in that business.
In the early 1970s, I was amused at the idea that computers would never beat people at chess. That seemed unrealistic to me. Sure enough, it was last century that Garry Kasparov was left perplexed and waving his arms after being defeated by Deep Blue. Now a computers can beat anyone at chess. And Go. And poker.
Driving should be quite easy for computers with all the sensors and memory that can be created. They can see infrared, use radar in many frequencies, get heaps of data from cars that go ahead of them, receive data from road infrastructure. Humans can't receive or send such information. Computers do it with milliseconds of response time. Humans operate in seconds. When milliseconds matter, humans are just seconds away. Humans can't even get their cars moving when a light goes green. Autocars could all start moving instantly, driving 0.5 metres apart.
Fuel/energy cost would be halved by reducing drag by having vehicles closely follow each other.
If a billion cars are replaced with 200 million uberized autocars, that's a $2 trillion pile of money just in purchase price. Lots of people will do a lot of smart work to get $2 trillion. Toyota, Ford, Volkswagen etc will do what they can to get their piece of the action. Google, Tesla, Mercedes, BMW, Amazon and lots of others also fancy a bit of it.
It's not easy but there's nothing I see that makes it unlikely.
Mqurice |
