In both cases someone else is driving for the customer. With a human driver (plus driver assist breaking and collision warnings) you have the most flexible, sophisticated intelligence on Earth driving. With a robotaxi you have something inferior. But maybe it's a lot cheaper, right? The robotaxi can only compete on price because that's apparently the only advantage.
The idea of a robotaxi seems popular among people who don't like being around other people... a population perhaps over-represented here on Hacker News. Personally I don't see the point and I know I'm not alone in wondering.
If you own a car (e.g., a Tesla) that drives itself, that's a different story. Everybody can see the value proposition.
For non-us markets it’s also integrity. No more shenanigans like calling rider and asking to cancel the ride bc the driver didn’t like it
If there is sufficient surge coverage that I can get an autonomous vehicle within 10 minutes of hailing one 90% of the time and 15 minutes 100% of the time for example, and the fares are reasonably based off of amortizing across 24x7 operational hours. Then the financials flip for a lot of people who either do not want or cannot afford the capex much less opex of owning and operating their own private vehicle.
Furthermore, if the AV companies work with municipalities to share ride data in the form of urban public transit planning data in exchange for a small passive income slice of the parts of the data turned into actual implemented public transit routes, it is a win for everyone. The AV company gets to expand territory with a more efficient capital stream to replace old territory mostly ceded to public transit without burdensome capex, and everyone else gets empirically-tested public transit routes with little of the usual route planning risks.
With software-driven coordination, I really hope to see vehicles as just the leading edge of a trend to amortize the capex of expensive items across more people, leading to more Buy It For Life/Generations quality of those items, and less environmental impact of a throwaway items per individual orientation in the current market.
I'm serious.
I think that automated taxis will be a boon to women who want to go somewhere at night but don't want to go there by means of an unscrupulous stranger.
A driverless car has no time to be racist! Also for women this will be a brilliant option!
