[jandrewrogers]

When I was working for the automotive industry their models and projections suggested that ubiquitous self-driving cars would reduce the total market for cars to ~15% of its current size. As in, sales would drop by 85%. The addressable market for automotive OEMs is set to undergo a dramatic reduction in size.

Few automotive companies have a coherent plan for how they were going to survive that existential risk.

[bryanlarsen]

People will still be doing about the same number of miles per year, and cars will still last a similar number of miles. So if a ride share car does 10x as many miles per year we need 1/10 the cars, but they also last 1/10 as long, so it evens out.

Sure they'll get slightly more miles out of a ride share car, but the number of miles will also go up do to dead heading and because cheaper/better transportation causes prior to use more of it.

[spwa4]

Sorry, but at the current price of Waymo rides that just can't happen. They become more expensive than leasing a car at something like 8 rides per month (as in, get into a Waymo, expect to pay $60 per ride)

Oh and this price was going up, not down.

[mekdoonggi]

Current price no, but future price maybe. There's already a market for it, and a lot of pent up demand.

This justifies wholesale fleet purchases of EVs. A competitor could come in with a cheaper model. There will be a lot of players who want a piece.

[spwa4]

Isn't this the same as saying that if cars drop in price 2x the opposite will happen?

[xnx]

> They become more expensive than leasing a car at something like 8 rides per month

Does this include fuel, insurance, repair, parking, registration, maintenance, etc.?