The biggest demand so far has been from large municipalities. Government funding of research on automated vehicles is significant. I expect that at some point only automated vehicles will be permitted within many large urban centers. Or to drive a normal car within those boundaries will require a permit that includes a hefty fee.
The demand behind this is to reduce need for parking, increase safety, reduce traffic congestion, etc.
The question isn’t “do you tolerate driving?” Sure, almost everyone does, to one degree or another.
The question is, “do you prefer driving over all other things you could be doing?” As in, for those six-seven hours you spend commuting each week, is there really nothing that you could do – even as simple as just staring out the window and totally zoning out – that would be preferable to driving?
For my commute, no, I don’t think so.
Like I said, I find it relaxing.
“Help, the nerds are taking away our manhood! Take back control and make genitalia great again!”
We can approximate the proportions by looking at the number of people who have a manual vs automatic personal car since it’s influenced by the same kind of machismo marketing. It must be about 10-to-1 in the general population and at least 20-to-1 for new drivers.
The young men who would normally have rejoined their Harley-Davidson-driving, NFL-watching elders will largely play VR Grand Theft Auto instead. It’s much safer and quieter for the rest of us that way.
It depends on how good the cars are. If they are of Autopilot quality, or a bit better, the fact that car services can afford the cars better than most people would be outweighed by not trusting Joe Shmoe to take over in an emergency, less of a problem if it is your own car. Plus, for some of the scenarios the car must be trusted to drive itself. That’s fine in controlled environments like office parks, not sure about general use.
Definitely. When we were ready to leave New York to go back to Connecticut, we got a Lyft car in 30 seconds. Way faster than walking to a garage even if we had been crazy enough to drive in. (Connecticut to New York took all of five minutes.)
However just as Uber and Lyft have passenger ratings now, maybe they’ll have autonomous vehicle passenger ratings, so you could get a cheaper driver-less car if you demonstrate willingness to sit at the wheel just in case.
By definition most commuters commute on crowded city or suburban roads. If you find that relaxing, you’d probably nod off while skydiving. My 10 mile commute in New Jersey involved 3 stop signs and one traffic light and went past farms and nice country roads. My commute in the Bay Area wasn’t quite so relaxing. And there were a lot more people doing that one than the NJ one.
Anyhow, the number of people on phones or doing weird things like their makeup while driving shows they would love to multitask, and I’d suspect would be willing to pay a bit more to do it safely.
I was answering Ravenmans ad hock survey. Yes this is me. Yes my commute is nice. Sure many would pay to not have to drive. As I said, it would be a bonus for long trips.
Elderly people, (a huge cohort), the disabled, people who drink and EVERYBODY who will not get off their cells! Could also alter the face of public transit, which faces skyrocketing costs, and years to construct.
Answering a rhetorical question isn’t very useful. A few people saying “actually I do prefer to drive to work” doesn’t disprove the overall point that many people would prefer to sit and stare at a flat thing.
My comments related to this were more related to the Google Glass product mentioned earlier. Google Glasses wasn’t a failure for Google. In my opinion, Google Glass was never intended for mass market. Google brought forth a lot of technology in a “wearable” to a limited market with a lot of PR but the point was to validate concepts, see how people respond to wearable technology, and gather data today for a technology that would not be mass market viable until some time into the future. It was never a play for the mass market being ready for wearables, it was a proof of concept and to raise awareness of the possibilities of technology. Google now knows more about wearables than any other technology company out there and will be very prepared in the future to begin introducing it again in the mass market based upon those learnings. I see self-driving cars in much the same way. This is mostly proof of concept of the technology and introducing the idea to the mainstream. We’re not a couple years away from the wholesale selling of autonomous vehicles to John, Dick, and Mary. There may be current market applications such as taxi/livery but the real pay off is many years down the road. What Google (and others) are establishing and learning now is a much longer term play.
Roads also face skyrocketing costs, and take years to construct.
If anything, self-driving cars will make public transit more useful. It solves the “last mile” problem of public transit, i.e. what to do if your home or your ultimate destination is too far to walk from the nearest train station.
So, when you are travelling with multiple family members in the car, are you fighting over who gets to be driver, or do you have one person who sticks their hand up straight away, and one with ‘hey yeah, you drive, I’ll be here if you need me’?
Those second group? They’re the market.
The one model that you’re referring to, where no one owns a car & they just come pick you up when you need a ride & then go on their way to pickup/deliver the next person & then have a (probably) different car take you back home has one huge drawback in that I, along with many other people use my car for short-term storage which goes away if I’m always getting in a different vehicle.
[ul]
[li]Dirty clothes to be dropped off at the dry cleaners on the way home.[/li][li]Clothes to go to the gym/softball game after work in your car.[/li][li]You’re headed out of town (business trip or weekend) after work so your suitcase is in the car.[/li][li]You have ___ to be returned to the store during lunchtime errand.[/li][li]You buy ___ while making that return.[/li][li]Snacks for the kids to eat in the car between the end of school & ___ after-school activity.[/li][/ul]
Most people don’t want to carry that stuff in & out constantly, nor to many people have a place at work to store that stuff.
Also, in theory, traffic lights will be a thing of the past as all of those interconnected cars are able to safely weave together at intersections. Think how much time is lost in the yellow/red cycle to clear the intersection before the other direction turns green. It’s easily 20% of a light cycle, probably more. Think how much faster your commute would be?
The scary thing is that cyclists & pedestrians will now need to wear some transponder to not be invisible to the cars. What happens if I forget to put it in my pocket or the battery dies? What about deer, moose, cows, & other wildlife that don’t wear one but are large enough to be a danger to the vehicle? When you crest a hill & they’re there in the middle of the road or the deer is stationary at roadside but gets spooked as you come by & darts into the street?
Why does an individual’s desire to maintain physical control over a piece of machinery have to be inherently tied to his cock? Would you say that a guy who would rather ride a bicycle than drive a car was just motivated by machismo marketing? Maybe some of them do it because they can’t afford a car or believe it’s better for the environment, but most of them do it because they enjoy the feeling of cycling. They enjoy being in control of the motion, they enjoy being in control of the gears, etc.
The same is true for manual cars and there doesn’t need to be some kind of outlandish Freudian motivation for it.
I had a rental Suburban that did the same thing. It wasn’t in any way self driving, but a safety feature, “Hey wakup! You’re drifting.” On a long, straight stretch of road it would oscillate between the lines a few times, and then sound a warning buzzer and shake the seat until I took over and stopped the oscillations.
On the Tesla it is what you suggest. It will hold a straight path between the lane lines, and in the few months I’ve had the car has even become better at keeping a straight path when one of the lines disappears at a highway entrance, for example.
Since the OP did ask for market research:
“The global self‑driving/autonomous cars and trucks market size is anticipated to reach 4,223 thousand units by 2030” - Grand View Research
"The global self-driving car market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 36.2%, leading to global revenue of USD 173.15 Bn by 2023. " - HTF Market Intelligence
“The global autonomous vehicle market is expected to be valued at $54.23 billion in 2019, and is projected to reach $556.67 billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 39.47% from 2019 to 2026.” - Allied Market Research
Nobody is talking about taking your car away from you, or not allowing people to buy cars. What may happen with autonomous vehicles is that many people – whatever that means, maybe 20%, or 50%, or 90% – will find using a car sharing service to be a better use of money than buying a car that they don’t use all the time. Relax.
This is an imaginary problem. Nobody is talking about tagging all living creatures with transponders. Mobility companies are trying to make cars that will deal with all that, which is exactly why real autonomy isn’t going to be here soon.
Actually avoiding obstacles is the easy part. There are many cars on the market that would detect pedestrians and brake automatically. No transponders necessary, of course.
I agree that it’s not inherent although it is common, for example:
(Emphasis mine)
Symbol, status, power.
I feel nervous about trusting a computer when your in a vehicle hurling 70 mph down the road.