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To: discostu
The primary market for self-driving vehicles is with users who can realize a major cost reduction by eliminating a paid driver from the business model.

That's not what we're dealing with here in the broader "self-driving car" market. I've said for years that one of the biggest flaws in the market is that there simply aren't enough customers out there who are willing to pay a premium for a car that drives itself. It's really a narrow market of people who are incapable of driving (elderly, disabled, etc.) and those who regularly commute very long distances.

As these vehicles get more advanced and interconnected (i.e., they "talk" to each other instead of just detecting and avoiding each other), they start to look and function more and more like mass transit systems.

135 posted on 03/20/2018 11:37:05 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.")
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To: Alberta's Child

There are plenty of customers willing to pay a premium for cars that drive themselves. Don’t knock that old people market, with 15% and growing of our population over 65 the old people market is good juice. And keep in mind you don’t really need that big a market to do well. What percentage of the vehicle market are motorcycles? They’re doing fine, and a lot of them are really expensive too, especially when you factor in no passengers, no storage and no AC.

They’ll have one serious beat on mass transit: door to door on your schedule. That’s why people don’t like mass transit.


139 posted on 03/20/2018 12:51:07 PM PDT by discostu (It's been so long, welcome back my friend, to the show, that never ends.)
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