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Comment by vecinu | Hacker News Reader

I keep hearing this rhetoric and one could say that this superficial thinking because it's very out of line with how people all over the world use their cars today.

I don't feel comfortable renting out my car to strangers while it's not being used. I'm afraid of it getting dirty, them not operating it properly and causing mechanical damage that won't be seen for weeks.

On the other hand, having an "on demand" car service as my only option would increase my transportation costs. My car is paid off, insurance is almost free and gas is dirt cheap in the US it might as well be free. If I had to Uber around with self driving cars my costs of getting around would skyrocket.

Are you suggesting having your own car as well? That's the only way I could see this working.

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> On the other hand, having an "on demand" car service as my only option would increase my transportation costs.

I've done some of the math on this; here are some very conservative figures.

- $50/mo for reasonable high deductible coverage.

- $100/mo gas

- $100/mo parking at the office

- $x /mo parking at home (not realized in my case)

- $80mo misc expenses (tires, wiper, diy synthetic oil change, taxes, car wash)

$330/mo pays for a lot of $5 uber pool trips.

And while our cars are paid of; The average American does not and is increasingly spending more. This adds an additional $300 to the amount I can spend on trips.

This says nothing of the current liability of driving a car. Where an accident with a > $50k car with over $100k of medical costs creates a gap in coverage for the average American.

I don't commute to work by car so for my occasional use of getting groceries, going out to eat, getting a haircut or doing the occasional shopping, I don't spend anywhere near that much.

- $40 for insurance

- $30 gas

- $5 (Maintenance)

$75/month on my end. If I were to UberPOOL everywhere, besides the fact that it would be inconvenient because it would take longer and I would have to share a ride, it would cost more.

You'll have to calculate how much it costs to buy the car and the loss of value when you estimate to sell into that as well to get a fair comparision.

If you don't drive much the fixed costs of buying the car factor in much more negatively compared to the variable costs. Every trip you make costs much more than someone who drives a lot.

This is no easy function as it depends on your fixed costs vs. variable costs and trip lengh.

Especially for people going shot distances on rare occasions a rented car might be the better option.

$5 in maintenance sounds low. $5 a month in maintenance is $600 over 10 years, a new set of tires would cost around $600 and you should replace your tires before 10 years no matter the tread depth(1). I believe you are probably doing more maintenance to your car than new tires every 10years.

You also can't just totally discount the initial cost of the vehicle like that as "free."

(1) https://www.edmunds.com/car-care/how-old-and-dangerous-are-y...

But at $40/month for insurance, you likely have liability insurance only and a gap in coverage if you hit a car > $50k or significant medical costs.

Most states have tax depreciation/deductions per mile that are considered by most to be much lower than accurate. In GA, it's $0.55/mile (real costs were estimated $1/mile at $4 gas); so, at $30/gas, you're being very "efficient" because it should be costing you at least $150/mo for that kind of mileage.

While autonomous cars will definitely deflate prices downward and make it more practical to not own a car, comparing to Uber pool is ridiculous for most people's personal car usage. I live in a relatively dense city for the US with a large Uber presence, and I've completely stopped taking Uber pools because they take twice as long as a direct Uber at a minimum. And then account for the fact that you now have special considerations for grocery shopping or any other type of hauling, children with car seats, out of town trips, etc.

Uber and public transportation has made it extremely easy for my family to get rid of one car, but not both. Maybe if I were a light-packing 20-something single person in SF I could get away with Uber pool all the time, but for most people it's a non-starter.

Even if the car is paid off, there is still the opportunity cost for the value of the car being invested.

$100/mo gas is ~1600 miles/month. That's 20,000 miles/year. Where are you commuting from? The moon?

I don't know what kind of car you drive, but my wipers cost $40, and don't get replaced every year, my oil change is ~$50, my tires cost me ~$400, but last for 60,000 miles.. At some point in my car's life, I will probably throw a few thousand dollars into repairs - but its cost of maintenance is not going to be ~1,000/year.

There's also various licensing and registration fees, which are, essentially, roadway and driving taxes. You're going to pay your share of them, regardless of who owns the vehicle you will be riding in.

These are not conservative figures, unless you're driving an M1 Abrams, or, like my partner, a 20-year-old junker...

And, of course, if you're driving 100 miles/work day, I doubt those uber trips are going to cost you $5.

> some very conservative figures.

> $100/mo gas is ~1600 miles/month. That's 20,000 miles/year. Where are you commuting from? The moon?

UK example here. During the course of my work career I have driven 700,000 miles, which is to the moon, back to the Earth, and most of the way back to the moon again. Or about 28 laps of the equator.

I live in a semi-rural village 65 miles from my place of work (a town about an hour away from central London) and visit clients scattered around the south west of England. Several of my colleagues live 30 to 40 miles from our main site, but far enough from me that we can't car-pool. This pattern of commuting is quite common in the UK for people living outside major cities with approx 3.7m workers having a commute of two hours [1] (including trains as well as cars).

By the way, I am really bored with the M3 motorway.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/nov/09/million-people...

My current commute is about $90/month. I eat about two galleons round trip, every work day so around 20 days, gas is ~2.30 from the right place, but it's been rising. Excludes commute for social activities though so it ends up higher.

I guess it beats $25 Uber rides though

- Gas is $2.50 A gallon (in Atlanta, the average commute is 33 miles in traffic, so a weekly fill up in relatively ordinary, this is not a uber compatible number)

- Synthetic Oil parts cost $26 for 6 quarts + $10 for a premium filter.

- A Car Wash Once a month is $20

(I didn't list any surprises, alternator, cooling system, ac, blower, emissions, brakes, suspension, oil leaks, wheels, etc - and I can assure you that plenty of people spend over $1000 on many of those when they go to designer car shops or dealers.

I definitely forgot that I was talking within the context of trips that are your typical uber trips.

>On the other hand, having an "on demand" car service as my only option would increase my transportation costs.

I don't think anyone is suggesting it would be your only option, simply that most people would prefer it because it will be cheaper (since you're amortising the overheads of car ownership over many users).

And while owning a car might feel prudent, if taxis become cheap enough, it might not be the best investment for your money anymore.

The fact that your car is paid off does not mean it will last forever.

The on demand service will have well maintained cars, where the biggest costs (depreciation and insurance) are shared between a large number of people. There's just no way¹ private cars will be cheaper.

1 - Ok, there's government intervention and monopolies. Given a competitive market, there's no way.

> I'm afraid of it getting dirty, them not operating it properly and causing mechanical damage that won't be seen for weeks.

With level 5; this doesn't happen.

Level 5 doesn't mean the driver can't take over - just that they should never have to. The driver will always have the ability to take manual control; something that won't change within our lifetimes. Even if a company manages to legally release a "level 5" car in the next 50 years, it will really only be "level 4.5" - 100% automation under all conditions isn't in the cards for the very near future.

It astounds me how naive and over-optimistic we are seeing enthusiasts of self-driving cars behave. The industry is in its infancy, but people talk about it like our roads have been exclusively filled with them for decades, and all challenges and bugs have been conquered. Surely every person who talks about these cars like it's a solved domain can't all be prospecting, bandwagon investors.

Can you speak more to why you're so confident that this won't change within our lifetimes? I don't know how old you are, but my remaining lifetime is a pretty long time. It would have been impossible to predict the technological and legal conditions of today an equivalent number of years in the past. And I doubt we've gotten much better at predicting future advances.

> and bugs have been conquered

I can't get a bug free desktop OS after 40 years of development, what chance a fully automated vehicle?

So level 5 is supposed to magically stop people from barfing in the back seat, getting things accidentally wedged in door and trunk hinges, smearing dog poo on the carpets or scratching up seats with paws, opening car doors into traffic, or lighting up a massive doobie while riding?

Level 5 is a fantasy world as it is, let's not pretend it can do even more than is described.

Yes. It means that people who do those things often get their account suspended. If an Automated Uber arrives in an unsatisfactory condition, you could just reject it and send it back for maintenance/cleaning, and a new one will be on its way.

You can do all of that today in non-magical normal Ubers, and yet it still happens.

Or they get charged significantly extra for it.

I was focusing on "operating it properly"

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