[nindalf]

Great comment.

Let me take a stab at it as well, because I think it could be simpler.

Let's assume the driver drives the exact same model as the autonomous one, except he saves $10k upfront on the sensors. So his costs are 12k/year. A decent alternate job would pay $10/hour, and a person could probably work 9 hours a day * 6 days a week * 50 weeks, which comes to $27k. So for the taxi driving gig to be worthwhile, the driver needs to make somewhere in the region of $35-40k ($27k + $12k).

As mentioned earlier, the costs of the self-driving car is $14k/year. So that's a difference of 2.5x-3x. Still significant enough that the a taxi company that offers rides at 30-40% of the cost of its competitors will just win.

[spikels]

I have gone through a few different versions of these calculations and got similar results. Even if the driverless tech costs more it is still around half the costs of a human driven car.

On factor I have not seen fully addressed is the ability of driverless cars to run near 24/7. Given than demand is variable and human drivers could share cars like taxis what is the worth in practice?

[nindalf]

I think having access to rides at all hours is helpful. You might not take many rides at 2am, but when you do, its something pretty important. Having a safe option that's available at any time of day or night will make self-driving equal to or better than actually owning a car and far superior to conventional taxi rides.