[37ef_ced3]

From a customer's perspective, it isn't clear that a hardware/software taxi driver is in any way better than a human taxi driver, particularly with (human) driver assist preventing collisions and all the other warnings provided by a modern car.

In both cases someone else is driving for the customer. With a human driver (plus driver assist braking and collision warnings) you have the most flexible, sophisticated intelligence on Earth driving. With a robotaxi you have something inferior. But maybe it's a lot cheaper, right?

The robotaxi can only compete on price because that's its only advantage. If you own a car that drives itself, that's a different story. Everybody can see the value proposition.

But is the robotaxi actually cheaper at all? We would have to look at the cost of the hardware (how often do lidars fail and how much do they cost to replace?) and the cost of the software development and the cost of the fallback human remote operators (fleet monitoring and teleoperation) and the years of huge R&D investment (billions of dollars) to evaluate whether a robotaxi fleet is indeed cheaper. So how much cheaper is it, exactly? 5%? 10%? 15%?

As a customer, would you pay a little more to have the most flexible, sophisticated intelligence on Earth (human brain + driver assist) or would you want to save a few dollars and risk having some dumb piece of software strand you in the middle of the road somewhere?

We all use Google Maps or Apple Maps when driving and most of us have seen these systems do boneheaded things. Just imagine the dumb things a robotaxi could do. It's hard for a normal person to be excited about this. I don't know a single person who is excited by robotaxis.

[AlotOfReading]

There's a couple misunderstandings here.

> The robotaxi can only compete on price because that's its only advantage.

That's one advantage. Another is that that it's a third option to the traditional dichotomy of driving yourself or be driven by a stranger.

It's worth taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. Robotaxis aren't the end-all-be-all for anyone. It's just a bounded problem domain with some promise of commercial profitability on the road to "full autonomy". A baby step, in other words. Yeah, the autonomous vehicles on the road today aren't clearly and obviously better than the best human drivers, but how are they going to get to that point without going through all the intermediate steps to get there?

[ars]

People seem to completely forget how valuable having a secure place to store your things is.

If you travel to the White House using public transportation with a baby carriage - well, you can't. There is no place to leave it, and they won't let it in. (Same for your purse, or a backpack, or even a water bottle.)

If you take a car you can leave all that in your car. Of course it's not easy finding a place to put your car near the White House. What I did is drive almost all the way, to a parking lot, then take a train for the last couple miles.

[bdonlan]

Japan has a good solution for this - most of the larger train stations (and many of the medium-sized ones as well) have "coin lockers" (which, despite the name, these days often take transit IC cards instead of coins) you can rent to store your stuff until you're ready to head home. In larger tourist hubs like Akihabara there'll also be a ton of lockers in the vicinity of the station run by third parties as well.

[marcosdumay]

Yes, the robotaxy will be much cheaper. Maybe not the first generation, but once it matures any little bit, it will be cheaper.

They will also be available at 3AM at a medium sized city.

And yeah, that's basically their benefit. That's enough to displace all the human competition, anyway.

[ROTMetro]

Don't forget hygiene. Robot taxis are going to be much grosser because you won't have a human watching to make sure the person in the back seat isn't spilling coffee/having sex (with self or others)/throwing up/hawking luggies (sorry I'm from the 80s, what's the right term?). Though I am sure we will all also at some point grab one whose previous occupant didn't quite make it to the hospital in time for the childbirth :)

[forgotloginonp4]

Do they not have passenger monitoring aicctv?

[hansword]

I think your 'only advantage' is a bit premature.

3 seconds thought: Robotaxis can't get covid (or warthog-flu or whatever new pandemic the next years will bring), which might be an advantage to some customers.

Having said that, I don't drive nor use taxis, so I don't care much.

[SheinhardtWigCo]

Have you been in an AV? In my experience (around 50 rides) overall it's a more relaxed and smooth ride; strikingly so, even at this early stage in the game. There are occasional uncomfortable and/or confusing moments, but they're already becoming much less frequent. Lyft/Uber already feels less comfortable, and even less safe. It's horse vs car; elevator operator vs buttons; Blackberry vs iPhone all over again.