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Comment by mymllnthaccount | Hacker News Reader

What do you think the regulatory timeline would be for this? If my startup had a working L5 car today, how long would it take regulators to approve so the general public could buy it? I'm guessing optimistically 3 years but probably 5+. But my opinion has no experience behind it.

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L5 is more useful for robotaxis than the general public owning the vehicles directly.

I’m not sure private ownership of L5 would ever even be necessary.

Why not? Apartments solve the housing problem, why would home ownership even be necessary?

If I live on the outskirts of a city I don’t want to wait an hour for a robo taxi that might smell like vomit to arrive and overcharge me because it’s “high demand time”.

You use your primary home 100% of the time either to live in or store your things in. It makes sense to own it outright. A vehicle is only necessary for short periods for the vast majority of people.

Of course if it is successful it won’t take an hour because there will be far more and I would expect different price points for different levels of service. I don’t check into a Marriott expecting it to smell like vomit but at Motel 6 it wouldn’t surprise me.

To be clear, I think this is one scenario of many possibilities.

If they are not too expensive, I can see families own them (to transfer kids to/from school), disabled or frail people, and people who like getting drunk often.

I imagine that regulatory approval for commercial usage would be even more stringent, but I'm just guessing here

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