Hacker News Reader

Presumably their wages is meant.

Labor, not just by drivers but also mechanics and other staff, is a substantial part of transit costs. Cutting fuel cost makes wages a bigger fraction. Reduced maintenance load of an electric fleet could be important.

View on HN

But that is more the cost of other stuff. I bet the difference in costs between driver and self-driving vehicles that are as reliably and safe as bus drivers is not that much. Mechanics etc... would still need to exist for driverless vehicles just as much. I think creating electric busses is much needed, without dumping lots of money into making them autonomous at the start.

Well, electric busses have already been created. We need a lot of them, for sure, but an extra half percent on the budget isn't going to replace fleets. I'm happy for that money, all paid for by random investors, to go into further-flung research.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com