Ride-hailing companies will grow eightfold by 2030, dwarfing the taxi industry: Goldman Sachs

CNBC ^ | 24 May 2017 | Anita Balakrishnan

[Lorianne]

Ride-hailing will grow eightfold by then and could be five times the size of the taxi market, justifying the giant valuations, the report said. At $68 billion and $50 billion, respectively, Uber and Didi are the two most highly valued venture-backed companies, according to data firm CB Insights.

Central to the growth of this industry, according to Goldman Sachs, is the proliferation of self-driving cars.

[EVO X]

It is human drivers that cause gridlock due to drivers acting in their own selfish interest, constantly jockeying for advantage. With adequate spacing, constant speeds can be maintained, which allow much more volume on our highways.

Gridlock is caused by too many drivers on the road(rush hour), accidents, construction zones, and etc. I am skeptical self driving cars will help much in these scenarios.

[SamAdams76]

Problem is with the unexpected lane changes, last minute mergers and variable speeds of motorists jockeying for position. Traffic would flow much better when lane changes are minimal. When merging is done proactively and intelligently. And when adequate speeds and distances are maintained.

[EVO X]

It might help some, but at what cost? I’ve been to Chicago during rush hour. The problem is 60 year old interchanges that can’t handle the traffic flow. Self driving cars won’t solve that problem alone. They have to add more lanes and improve interchanges.

[gogeo]

Unicorns. You forget unicorns.

[FreedomPoster]

I think you’re spot on with that. There’s room to undercut the cabbies, but what we’re seeing seems to go beyond that. And people are bad at math.

[mewzilla]

Taxi medallions cost big bucks, though, don’t they? Does Uber have to buy a medallion in the areas it serves?

[bert]

The lesson learned is that Randy and his ilk are likely to get lost and are late in coming

[adorno]

Self-Driving Cars Were Just Around the Corner -- in 1960 I hear ya!

And flying cars would soon be on everybody's carport.

And, everybody would have their own super-computer in their hands. Oh, wait... that wasn't predicted, yet it happened.

Fact is that, technology in the 1960s wasn't comparable to technology of today, nor were cars as capable as today's with technology that makes those cars virtual supercomputers on wheels.

I get the resistance, but the technology does exist, and it's already being used, although not yet in the complete autonomous level-5 which is supposed ot eliminate drivers completely. Level-5 autonomy is what is coming in the next few years. The flying cars were not as practical as self-driving cars, and not affordable as cars are now.

I may not be around to see the fully autonomous vehicles take over the road, but, I would not resist something that could make our lives a lot easier and less costly.

[Alberta's Child]

I posted the link to the article about the 1960-vintage technology to make an important point: The technology is not the impediment to self-driving cars today.

The biggest impediment is pretty simple, and its a combination of economics and legal issues. The gap between a car that is 99% autonomous and a car that is 100% autonomous is enormous, but that last 1% is critical to realizing the practical benefits of the technology and to resolve the legal issues associated with it.

If a car is not 100% autonomous then it will never replace the driver entirely, and if the driver isn't removed from the operation entirely then the technology makes no economic sense for most potential customers. You might be able to convince someone to pay $50,000 for a fully autonomous car instead of $30,000 for a "regular" car. But if the $50,000 car is NOT fully autonomous and still has to be operated by someone who must sit at the wheel and pay attention to the road in front of him, then what exactly is the extra $20,000 getting for the driver except a whole bunch of sensors and warning indicators that tell him to do things that he then has to do himself anyway?

[Alberta's Child]

I would not resist something that could make our lives a lot easier and less costly.

Exactly. But I have yet to see an objective study that supports the notion that advanced automotive technology today actually makes our lives (1) a lot easier, and/or (2) less costly.

[adorno]

There cannot be any objective study “today” about how our lives can be made easier, and less costly.

No one can predict exactly how our lives can/will be changed, but, there is no doubt that removing drivers from behind the wheel, especially those that are hampered by drugs and alcohol and smartphones and other distractions, would make our lives a lot less dangerous.

bTW, our lives would be made a lot less expensive by making cars that can drive themselves, in countless ways. Not having to own and maintain a vehicle, and not having to pay for auto insurance, does drive down the cost of living, for everybody. And that’s just one basic example of the “savings”; and like I said, there are numerous other ways.

As long as the benefits outweigh the negatives, most, or all studies will support driverless vehicles.

[adorno]

You might be right about the “1%” impediment, but...

There has NEVER been any technology developed that provides 100% certainty of working as advertised or as desired. The 99% that works as desired or as advertised, would still provide huge improvements over current driving, and would provide for a lot less expensive “cost of living”. Heck, people spend a large part of their lives worrying about their personal transportation, and if we removed those worries, people could/would find a lot of other endeavors to spend their lives doing.

So, tell me, how safe are people-driven vehicles now? The biggest problem with current vehicles is not the vehicles themselves, it’s the people behind the wheels of those vehicles. I would say that, the “error rate” for people-driven vehicles is many times the 1% that you mentioned.

[Alberta's Child]

You’re right about the benefits of technology improving our lives, but go back to the example I cited. Loading up a car with $20,000 of extra technology and then telling me that I basically have to drive it myself anyway is not an improvement in any way. It’s not a driverless car, and the $20,000 in expensive gizmos just ain’t worth it until it IS a driverless car.

[Alberta's Child]

There has NEVER been any technology developed that provides 100% certainty of working as advertised or as desired. The 99% that works as desired or as advertised, would still provide huge improvements over current driving, and would provide for a lot less expensive "cost of living."

I'm citing this from memory so my numbers may not be exact, but they do a good job of painting a picture accurately.

I read somewhere that the average American who obtained a driver's license at the age of 16-17 and drove a car regularly for 60+ years has depressed a brake pedal something like 3 million times. During that time, this average American driver has been involved in 2 or 3 crashes that would have been avoided if they had applied the brakes correctly. That represents a "failure rate" of 0.000067% to 0.0001%. You find me one mass-produced consumer product that has a failure rate this low -- and keep in mind that an auto manufacturer must IMPROVE on it in order to make an objective case that the self-driving vehicle is better than a conventional one.

[Alberta's Child]

The 1% I mentioned isn't a failure rate -- it's a hypothetical case of a vehicle that is almost fully autonomous, but isn't.

Eliminating 99% of a driver's functions doesn't necessarily make a car any safer. In fact, it might even make the car LESS safe if it encourages drivers to stop paying attention to the road. I use that case last year in Florida where the Tesla driver was killed when his car crashed into a truck while operating in "auto-pilot" mode. If Tesla still hasn't figured out how to detect a tractor-trailer in the roadway in front of its car, then I'd say they have a long way to go to make the technology anything remotely close to an improvement over a conventional vehicle.

[Persevero]

Uber subsidizes by charging far less than it actually costs. Except when it’s surging.

You might say, in a way, that drivers subsidize because they are usually earning less than minimum wage.

[Persevero]

Yes taxi medallions cost big bucks. Here in SF they are $250,000 although no one is buying...

A big reason the taxi industry is hurting. They have to pay for medallions, drivers pay yearly MTA fees, they have to comply with regulations )some of which do make sense like drug screening and 24/7 cameras and so forth) plus are limited to how many taxis are allowed in the city and they are forbidden to surge... the playing field is so grotesquely uneven it is not even a playing field.

[EVO X]

The 1% I mentioned isn't a failure rate -- it's a hypothetical case of a vehicle that is almost fully autonomous, but isn't.

I am skeptical programmers can program all driving scenarios. Just the other day I drove through a construction zone that was down to one lane. A storm blew over a bunch of construction zone markers and turned the single lane into an obstacle course. Navigating the obstacle course required crossing the white line on numerous occasions. I suspect a self driving car would just come to a dead stop and do nothing.

[adorno]

The Tesla crash that produced one dead, was not with a fully autonomous vehicle. In fact, that Tesla was equipped with more or less level-3 "autonomy", meaning that, it really wasn't worthy of being used for any kind of autonomy, since it required the driver to keep his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel; IOW, it was mostly gimmicky, and meant to get people excited about Tesla being on the edge of technology. The driver was actually very careless, since he wasn't supposed to assume that the car could handle any condition on the road. Tesla did correct for that kind of situation.

Fully autonomous means that, a person could go to sleep in the car while the car takes him from point A to point B, with no expectation of the rider being involved at all. Point A and B could be any points on a map, at any distance and in very difficult driving conditions, like heavy city traffic like you'd find in NY City or L.A. In fact, there was a test where a fully autonomous vehicle drove from California to NYC, with no driver intervention at all, other than monitoring and data gathering.

https://qz.com/363350/americas-longest-autonomous-drive-from-california-to-new-york-starts-this-weekend/

A completely autonomous vehicle like you describe, may never be possible, just like there will never be a perfect human. If humans

[Alberta's Child]

One item in that article caught my eye:

The car will only drive itself on highways; an engineer will take over on smaller roads.

In other words, the car will only drive itself under the most ideal conditions.

I didn't see any follow-up articles indicating whether the test was successful. I'd be interested to see what they learned.

In my line of work, it's becoming more clear that automated vehicle technology is going to be caught between two conflicting challenges for the foreseeable future. Most people will tend to either trust the technology too much (like the Tesla driver who didn't pay any attention to the road), or too little (in which case they won't be willing to pay a premium for the technology).