Elon Musk is Hunting Unicorns

[Daniel Nenni]

As I said:

The threat was buried at the bottom of Elon Musk’s July 20 update to his “Master Plan,” three short paragraphs in a section unassumingly titled, “Sharing.”


“You will also be able to add your car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app and have it generate income for you while you’re at work or on vacation,” Musk wrote, explaining how Tesla’s vehicles could be used by their owners and lessees once the autonomous era truly arrives. “This dramatically lowers the true cost of ownership to the point where almost anyone could own a Tesla.”

Tesla's master plan: Elon Musk is coming for Uber, along with everyone else (TSLA) — Quartz

 

[count]

I could imagine a future where very few people actually own cars, with most vehicles being fleet owned by ride sharing companies. One of the big regulatory hurdles to self driving cars will be insurance, but fleet owners can self insure their fleets.

 

[Tom Simon]

Think about it. We own these expensive assets and they sit idle 95% of the time. Or worse you pay to park it somewhere when you are not using it. New technology like level 4 self driving vehicles will be very disruptive. But it might be for the best.

 

[mcmanus]

No one seems to mention the biggest problem with car sharing. There's a reason the roads are empty at 3am, but at 7am (or 5pm) there is grid lock. Sure you can get access to a shared car at 3am, but when everyone wants/needs simultaneous access at 7am, how's that going to work out?

 

[Daniel Nenni]

No one seems to mention the biggest problem with car sharing. There's a reason the roads are empty at 3am, but at 7am (or 5pm) there is grid lock. Sure you can get access to a shared car at 3am, but when everyone wants/needs simultaneous access at 7am, how's that going to work out?

Absolutely true. I am in no way interested in sharing my car, nor will I ever be. I don't even like car pooling and I don't pick up hitch hikers. And I don't use Uber. Not very green of me I know but I like my personal space and hectic schedule. But I do walk instead of drive or ride my bike whenever possible. My kids are the same way. They all have cars and I don't see them giving them up ever.

 

[mbello]

Absolutely true. I am in no way interested in sharing my car, nor will I ever be. I don't even like car pooling and I don't pick up hitch hikers. And I don't use Uber. Not very green of me I know but I like my personal space and hectic schedule. But I do walk instead of drive or ride my bike whenever possible. My kids are the same way. They all have cars and I don't see them giving them up ever.

True, but today you probably have no other option than to own a car and then if you must own a car your own personal space and everything else you mentioned comes standard in the package. In the future, if you could get a very cheap ride to wherever you want to go, hop off at the doorstep of the place you are going, never have to worry about maintenance, insurance, washing your car, parking, etc... then owning a car would be only for the purpose of getting your personal space at which point you may realize that it will be too expensive if it is only for that.

At some point in the future, owning a car will be like smoking is today. You know, in the past if you were a smoker you could count on most places having provisions to accomodate the needs of smokers. Nowadays in many places if you ask where is the smoking area people will frown at you. Same thing may happen in the future when you will ask where is the parking lot.

Regarding the issue with the peak times, I think it will be easily solved. The beauty of the self driving technology will not be about cars, but about mini buses that will radically change the cost and the time people spend commuting.

Let's wait and see.

 

[OneBraveSoul]

Everyone affecting everyone else...

Absolutely true. I am in no way interested in sharing my car, nor will I ever be. I don't even like car pooling and I don't pick up hitch hikers. And I don't use Uber. Not very green of me I know but I like my personal space and hectic schedule. But I do walk instead of drive or ride my bike whenever possible. My kids are the same way. They all have cars and I don't see them giving them up ever.

I think the hardest hurdle will be the required backward compatibility.

My 70 year old aunt owns a rotary dial phone. She's comfortable with it. She's not moving to cellphones.
So landlines stick around. The flip phone and the newest smartphone work in the same working space. The people choosing to use the older technology do not get in the way of a person riding the current newest wave.

However, in the world of cars, Jay Leno can have a current show , with no prior automotive expertise, about the ageless cars of the early 20th century.
These cars will be on the road. Every version from then until now will need to work seamlessly with the new arriving self-driving car.


And as Daniel pointed out, the independence of controlling the drive to get somewhere will keep a large number of people from joining the race to automation, regardless the cost.



Good luck mapping new construction in poor neighborhoods to autonomous cars.
As of July 29th, 2016, all sets of map apps--Google, Apple, Waze, etc. get the directions wrong enough to get delivery drivers to the wrong destination.



Cheers.