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Comment by madamelic | Hacker News Reader

Robot Taxis will be competing on price. Whoever can release the lowest cost per mile and most reliable taxi will take lion's share simply because consumers are generally price conscious about transport. Very few will be analyzing the data if two are judged to be 'safe enough', it will come down to price.

Companies like BYD and Tesla are positioned well for that if they can get their AV functionality proven out as both are fully integrated car manufacturers.

Waymo doesn't have in-house manufacturing and is, to my knowledge, purely software so they have lots of vendors along with a relatively low output of vehicles. Their 2025 and 2026 plan is to build 2,500 new cars per year. Each Waymo car currently costs over $100k. Even if Tesla was pushing out Model Ys as their robotaxi platform, they could flood the market very easily in both scale and price per mile _if_ UFSD (unsupervised FSD) was proven.

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I did a basic napkin calculation in the other comment. The price of the car is not that relevant per km than you make it to be.

I think self driving will be a commodity in the long term and every car will be able to do it. If Tesla will solve it purly by cameras, every other car manufacturer will be able to add this too. Perhaps a few years later but they will be able to do it too.

So Tesla has to leverage the first mover advantage, and they are loosing this already.

And while Musk says robot taxis are fundamental to tesla, the taxi market is actually not that big. All the broad nice areas like small cities etc. will buy a small fleet of cars and i don't think the price point of a Tesla will that crazy much cheaper than whatever everyone else will have that it will be obvous for everyone to just buy the Tesla model.

I alone will not use Tesla alone for Musk. Despite that, people might want to pay a euro more to have a SVU to have space or higher entry point than choosing the cheapest Tesla model to drive with.

Tesla can't flood the market very easily. If they could, they would have done it. And its expected that Tesla will not suddenly find the solution to their problems. They are optimizing away the next 9 at the 9x% reliability. Every additional 9 will take the same amount as the previous 9. And the nines are quite relevant if you look how many km these cars will have to drive.

Fair point, but here's my counter: consumers won't analyze the data but insurance companies will.

If Americans were price conscious about transport they wouldn't be driving $60,000, 15mpg, oversized pickup trucks to go drop off their kids at daycare and commute to their office job, they'd be riding the bus.

Most Americans don't seem to consider the cost of their transportation in the slightest.

> If Americans were price conscious about transport they wouldn't be driving $60,000, 15mpg, oversized pickup trucks to go drop off their kids at daycare and commute to their office job, they'd be riding the bus.

> Most Americans don't seem to consider the cost of their transportation in the slightest.

Time is also an important cost. It would take us about 90 minutes from home to school to drop off my kid by bus (plus walking, since no bus stops near the school).

By car, it is 15 minutes worst case if I hit all red lights.

By car we leave home 8:15, kid is in school on time and I'm in my work meetings easily by 9:00.

By bus, we'd have to leave home at 6am and I might just barely make it in time for 9am meetings, or often be late.

So yes, people do consider the cost of transportation but it is not just dollars, also time.

The level of bus service is a societal choice. One could get bus service to be a lot more competitive in time. But I do agree, individuals do not have much control over bus schedules and people do what they can with what's currently available.

The context of the previous comments was clearly about monetary cost though, not other kinds of cost. There's also obviously environmental, health outcomes, etc, costs in question.

People who use ride share use more than one app because they can pick the one that is the cheapest. The people who use these will be price conscious.

Of course there will be other factors like amenities.

Personally, I think 'style' is going to be a non-insignificant factor to it as well. Few normies will want to get out of a 'nerd car' that has bulbous sensors all over it if they can pay a bit more to have a cooler looking ride, it's the Prius effect.

The style thing is just my opinion though but price will be the major one. People will tolerate an ugly robotaxi if it is significantly cheaper or more convenient.

With ride share you can take the cheap option 99 times out of 100, and then rent a limo for your hot date. And then rent a truck or movers when you need to move something. People buying vehicles usually buy something that covers all their needs, however rare.

> If Americans were price conscious about transport ... they'd be riding the bus.

Have you considered that Americans might value their time differently than you? That might change your equation.

So in other words, they value other things much higher than cost? Gee, sure sounds like exactly what I stated. People care more about other things than the cost, like how cool they look or how much departure angle they can achieve while they drive around in a parking garage. Overall TCO rarely figures into it.

I think other people might be smarter than you give them credit for and (for example) may chose a 30 minute car commute (plus associated dollar costs) over a much longer and multi-step public transportation trip.

It depends on if they have a desk in their truck. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45806903)

Do other people not receive the same psychic damage from driving, especially during rush hour? Hopefully you're not texting during that 30 minutes that you're driving, but regardless, it's really draining to drive. Advanced lane guidance that actually works is amazing tho.

That 1 hour train commute's a nice way to unwind while doing something much more relaxing; reading a book, writing poems, making jewelry, knitting, writing letters to friends, etc

That's not to say every train commute's automatically better, 2 trains, a bus, and a tram over 1 hour would be annoying timed. I'm just saying wall clock time isn't the end all, be all metric.

Everything else held constant and I actually do have the time in my schedule, I'd generally prefer a 1 hour train ride to a half hour drive. I can spend that time doing lots of things I'd much rather do than force myself to stay focused on boring and at the same time stressful situations. I'm far more relaxed when I arrive. I'm probably getting dropped off closer than the parking garage. I'm not worried about my car getting vandalized/broken into/hit by other cars. I don't have to worry about finding a place to park or pay for parking. And its a considerably safer trip in the end.

> So in other words, they value other things much higher than cost?

This is what PP said:

> > Have you considered that Americans might value their time differently than you?

Not random other things, specifically time

Time is a lot more valuable than the other things. If I'm billing $250/hr and the bus round trip takes 3 hours, that's $750 per day lost. That completely dwarfs any of the other costs like car payment (which you don't need - buy a used car) and maintenance/insurance.

What you might not be considering is that time is also a cost.

What you might not be considering is they didn't need a $60k+ oversized truck to go commute to their office job or a massive $70k 3-row SUV just because they have one kid now. That's the other side of my comment.

Not only do people tend to ignore (or even actively vote against) cheaper options they tend to then massively overbuy their more expensive form of transportation, at least if what they cared about was cost.

But it's not about cost. It's about comfort, style, lifestyle image projection, personal enjoyment, and more. Cost barely figures into it for so many.

If I were to ask the people I know "how much do you spend on transportation monthly on average", most probably wouldn't come close to having an answer. Many might be able to say their car payment. I doubt many would come close to factor in all the rest of their costs. It's crazy to me to see people balk at a $3 train fare to go into the city, "that's expensive!". Then when we calculate the cost for them to drive their oversized truck into town and back it's more expensive.

The premise you established is a false dichotomy. Original text:

In reality, those are not the only two choices.

Riding the bus is extremely expensive unless your time is free, so that needs to be taken into account.

One can get a cheap efficient car and have all the time-saving benefits of a car and all the cost-saving benefits of a cheap one.

> One can get a cheap efficient car and have all the time-saving benefits of a car and all the cost-saving benefits of a cheap one.

They could, but they often don't.

The top selling passenger vehicles in the US are a pickup truck, a pickup truck, a small SUV, a pickup truck, a mid-sized SUV, a mid-sized SUV, a pickup truck, then finally a full-sized sedan, then a pick up truck, and then a compact car. I guess we're just all farmers and off-roaders here in the US. Maybe one day we'll get paved roads to commute to our office-based farming jobs, 'till then I guess we really need all that ground clearance.

You think all these people are basing these purchasing decisions of buying those pickup trucks entirely because its the more cost effective option to go get groceries and go to their office job?

Unfortunately, larger cars are safer for their passengers.

They do, but they price it in cost per month.

Finacialization is what made $65,000 cars "cheap".

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