I love that you want to make the Tesla a fully autonomous vehicle. Being in my mid 50’s I’ve seen what happens to our parents when they can, or no longer should drive, but hold on much longer than they should, to their cars and their licenses.

I also live in Arizona near one of the largest Senior Communities in the State. The accidents aren’t pretty and happen far to often, many times with devastating results.

This is the probably one of the best reasons I see for advancing the autonomous vehicle. For people who for whatever reason can no longer or never were able to drive (blindness).

But I hear you talk about how I’m going to send my car out to work when I’m not using it. I have also heard you talk about how those who drive for a living are going to lose their jobs to autonomy.  That might be true. But, I can tell you have probably never driven a taxi or given an Uber ride. If you had, you’d know how crazy it sounds. I have a hard enough time parking in a public lot, where scratches and dents are a fairly normal occurrence, and no one claims responsibility. Once in a while something like this happens:

 

And I’m not talking about that she has passed out and isn’t getting out of the car without calling the police.

In the old days when Taxi Drivers and Owners could make a living, GM and Ford made Taxicab versions of their cars. While many of the options will not be needed by an Electric car, like bigger brakes and larger cooling systems to sit long periods in heavy traffic, I can think of a few that will be very necessary.

The biggest need, very heave duty upholstery, where when someone vomits or leaves any other bodily fluid it is easily cleaned. No leather, no carpet, something you can easily hose out. And without a driver, how will we know when the car needs a good cleaning before it gets to the next passenger? Who enforces the no smoking rule?

 

I also am guessing that you aren’t accounting for the passenger that opens the door into traffic. So far only the back doors on the X are vertical opening. On the cheaper S and 3, having a door get hit without a system to prevent it, like a human, I see it happening far more often and it does happen more often than you might think. And those doors and seats are going to have a lot of cycles on them. Something very few passenger cars are built to handle. It’s not uncommon for hinges to crack like a kid flexing an aluminum can till it cracks.

Then you have passengers that want to get in or out right in front of their origin/destination. Can your car do that, yet? Stop in a lane of traffic and open the doors?

You say that you can set your car so only family, friends or 5 star passengers can use it. Whose going to give the passenger the stars, HAL? Can it smell body odor? Remember the Seinfeld episode with the valet?

If the car gets hit who’s going to call the police and fill out the police report?

Whose going to help put luggage or groceries in the trunk?

There is one other thing I hear you talk about. That the cost of a car (I assume you mean cost per mile) is going to be so cheap that it won’t make sense to ride the bus.

I’m not sure how you figure that but lets give it a try. Right now in Phoenix Uber pays 70 cents a mile and 7 cents per minute. Now we all know the car is only being paid with a passenger in it. If you are lucky that half the time and half of the miles driven. In the end the driver gets 35 cents a mile and 3 cents per minute. Actually less because Uber gets 20-25%. How much are you going to keep?

If a car drives an average of 30mph and is driving with a fair half the time thats $2 in time and $10.50 per hour. Or a total of $12.50 per hour. Then Uber gets there piece, $3.13 or $9.37 an hour. That equates to 31 cents per mile.

Right now based on that number Uber drivers are working pretty much for free as there are almost no cars out there that cost less than 31 cents per mile when you add up all the costs to operate.

If a Model 3 costs $50k and you can get 500k miles out of it depreciation alone is 13 cents per mile. Add about 6 cents per mile in electricity and we have 19 cents a mile so far. Thats about 5 years of driving in a cab in a major city and most new cabs barely last 4 years but were going to give your car every opportunity.

That will probably take 10 sets of tires or $7k, 7 sets of brakes at $300 or $2100 and 5 years of insurance at $3k or $15k. Lets add $2k a year for incidentals which is also probably low. About another $5k a year. So total $25k more divided by 500k is another 5 cent per mile.

So we are now at .25 cents per mile. If we look at the cost of an Uber with a driver there is 6 cents per mile profit.

If your car can meet my assumptions that’s a $6k a year return on a $50k investment or 12%. That’s pretty good and even better if you can double your paid miles.

But, odds are better that you’ll only get 300k miles out of the car, not 500k. If that happens the returns are negative.

And there is one other catch. And we can thank Uber for this one. There is no longer a barrier to entry. Anybody can put on one car or one hundred cars. The reason Uber fares are so cheap is because there are more Uber drivers than cockroaches. Uber drivers don’t do the math so they work for next to nothing. I’m not sure a person would let another person they don’t know in their cars unsupervised. Although it pretty obvious they will give people rides for close to free. If I lived in New York, San Francisco or San Diego I’m not that sure I would even own a car anymore.

I spent a week in DC last month and had a rental for just one day. Between Uber and Public Transportation we spent less than $100 for the week. Who needs a car.

I will buy a Tesla that is fully autonomous when that price hits $50k or less but I’m sure as hell not letting anybody but family ride in it.

The only way I’d buy more than one and operate it like a taxicab is if it made financial sense. The only way to do that is limit the number of cars out there. But, I think that cat is already had it’s nine lives.

One last problem with self driving cars and ride sharing. Ride sharing only works because people see giving rides as a way to get others to pay for their car. The fewer people with cars the fewer people willing to share for cheap.  Does that solve the problem of getting more per mile? Maybe.