[renewiltord]

Well, universality is not necessarily a useful end goal. Lyft is a successful company that doesn't operate even in Canada. A solution that works only in coastal California may well be sufficient.

Lots of things come to the Bay Area and Los Angeles before anywhere else. Partly that's because coastal California is an innovation hotbed. Partly because it's a single large rich market. Since one of these that succeeds entirely in the safe parts of California would be an incredible game-changer on its own (door-to-door small-group spikable public transit!), it's still amazingly exciting.

And while lots of Americans view many things as unchangeable, that's not the case in many other places. In China, if you were to talk to public planners about how autonomous vehicles will handle detours, they'll just say, "Oh, we'll use transmitters to tell you. We can sign the transmitters so you know they're trustworthy." Everything about the universe is mutable.

Yep, no ice road truckers will be autonomous in the next year, and that's okay.

[loufe]

Not to take away from your point but Lyft does operate in Canada, now.

[wutbrodo]

> door-to-door small-group spikable public transit!),

What does spikable mean here?

[renewiltord]

Sorry, couldn't think of a good word. Rapid increase in supply to meet demand. Because the units are smaller they are more fluid. Because they are autonomous storage doesn't have to be centralized and they aren't subject to human scheduling constraints.

[wutbrodo]

Ah gotcha, thanks for clarifying.