A, cars here in the U.S. are already pretty damn strictly regulated compared to cars in countries like India, Brazil, etc. Higher impact standards. Higher emissions standards. So on and so forth. B, the faster mass transit is adopted, the faster the economies of scale will pencil out. Per vehicle, yes. Per person? Probably not. The vehicles might be bigger and need more material, but if they hold more people, you get more for your resources. In a very simple way, a miata that gets thirty miles per gallon and seats two people is effectively less efficient than an SUV that can seat six people and gets fifteen miles per gallon. There comes a point in the resource scale where bigger is better. Cities are not static. They're built by stone, but they're not etched in stone. Part of the whole process of infrastructure upkeep is that when it comes time to repair roads, intersections, etc., cities look at whether or not the roads to be updated to accommodate for changes. Sidewalks are added or removed, drains are rerouted, roads are widened or narrowed, and on and on. It's a normal thing. It's so normal, these kinds of projects are constantly talked about in my local newspapers. Hell, I can think of four projects that have happened near where I lived in the past decade. Furthermore, most cities already have buses and bus routes. To service a lot of the new demand, it's as simple as adding more buses. Shit, it seems like the hardest part about expanding bus routes has nothing to do with infrastructure or finances, but politics. Buses are seen as a sign of poverty and if a bus route is coming to your neighborhood, there goes the neighborhood. I've literally seen people fight back against bus route expansions just because they don't want poor people in their neighborhood. Which is the argument, that before you even made I thought of, that made me say to veen that chances are autonomous transportation is gonna be tiered just like regular transportation is tiered today. And all of that shit will become more expensive and no one but the rich and leisurely will own them. See "supply and demand." See also "horseback riding." The rich.Regulation is far more lax when you have two people in a vehicle. So if you are building a prototype AV network, you build small ones, and only get to the bigger vehicles later when the economies of scale pencil out.
There are also practical concerns... it takes less metal, ABS, wiring, and physical space to build a 2-seater than a 20-seater.
Finally, large vehicles can only drive on specific roads, and through specific intersections.
Response to Exhibit C
By the time I am 70 (20 years), we will laugh about how we used to own utility vehicles. The only vehicles people will own will be motorcycles, RVs, and sports cars, because they WANT a toy to play with.
The only ones driving will be the ones driving for fun.
Man, I love ya, but your lack of intellectual precision in your arguments is just exhausting to have to rebut every single time, and these diversions do nothing to move our conversation forward. How can you, with any intellectual honesty, conflate those two completely different resource streams into one measure of value?! The manufacturer pays for the metal, plastic, wiring, FMCSA testing, and designs the vehicle to meet the regulations appropriate to the vehicle in question. They sell the vehicle, and recoup their expenditures, plus profit. The buyer pays for fuel, oil, maintenance, expendables, all the other operating expenses, and the depreciation in value of the vehicle itself as it gets used. And yet, you devise a completely fictional "resource scale" that takes ALL of the expenditures by the company AND the owner - while still ignoring the environmental cost of the vehicle and its use - and try to measure the vehicle's value against this "resource scale". That doesn't exist. That drives neither the manufacturer or the owner, and never enters into their thinking or balance sheets. Am I supposed to read this, walk-back my previous post, and say, "Oh! Yes, rd95! You are right! This completely arbitrarily-sized yardstick proves that my experience in the fleet vehicle industry, that I work in every single day, and have to know inside-out is entirely wrong! My day job is in the telematics industry, dealing specifically with how to maintain and track the value of fleets of vehicles. I know the industry inside and out. And no, there is never a point where a large vehicle is less expensive than a small one. It may SEEM like it pencils out, but it doesn't. However, I get where you are going with your thinking. It's called the "triple bottom line", and we tried to get companies to adopt these principles back in the 1980's. It failed. Companies only look at raw material costs. They do not measure the cost of mitigating the shit that comes out of their smokestacks, or they they pour into streams. This is just wrong. This is not how buses, schedules, or routes work. At all. Is there a stigma against buses? Maybe there still is. But that's only because promotion of that viewpoint is funded by those who would lose from transportation infrastructure improvements. Public transit works. Period. Europe. South America. Asia. Parts of Africa. England. Everywhere you go outside of America, public transit works, and is used heavily by people of every class and social standing. Americans are not genetically different, so it can work here, too. The problem we face that is fairly unique to us, is SPACE. We are really widely spread out. Lack of density over the majority of the US makes it REALLY HARD for any public transportation infrastructure to get funding from the Government. It needs to be funded using local funds. And once you build public transit? Well you now have less money coming in from the government for roads and highways. So yeah. What WILL happen, and is already happening, and has happened thousands of times before with any new technology, is that the rich will get it first. Then it will expand to accommodate more and more people. My dad had a phone in his car in the 1970's. My friend's 9-year old now has more power in the iPhone in her pocket, than all of NASA possessed throughout the organization when they sent men to walk on the Moon. That's 40 years. You REALLY think we won't be making most of our utility trips in automated vehicles in under 20 years? "...The vehicles might be bigger and need more material, but if they hold more people, you get more for your resources. In a very simple way, a miata that gets thirty miles per gallon and seats two people is effectively less efficient than an SUV that can seat six people and gets fifteen miles per gallon. There comes a point in the resource scale where bigger is better..."
"...most cities already have buses and bus routes. To service a lot of the new demand, it's as simple as adding more buses..."
Deep down, you know you love it. ;) Nowhere in our entire conversation have I contested that we won't. In fact, we've been talking as if it's a given. We're just arguing over whether it's gonna be small personalized vehicles or mass transit and the merits of both. The manufacturer pays for the metal, plastic, wiring, FMCSA testing, and designs the vehicle to meet the regulations appropriate to the vehicle in question. They sell the vehicle, and recoup their expenditures, plus profit. The buyer pays for fuel, oil, maintenance, expendables, all the other operating expenses, and the depreciation in value of the vehicle itself as it gets used. And yet, you devise a completely fictional "resource scale" that takes ALL of the expenditures by the company AND the owner - while still ignoring the environmental cost of the vehicle and its use - and try to measure the vehicle's value against this "resource scale". That doesn't exist. That drives neither the manufacturer or the owner, and never enters into their thinking or balance sheets. I was trying to oversimplify using MPG as an example. What I'm trying to say is that if we look at mass transit vehicles like buses, in all seriousness, to the best of my understanding per person less metal, rubber, etc. will be needed to produce and maintain the vehicles. I mean, at this point, since you stated it twice, I'll take your word for it. There's totally a stigma against buses. In your own words . . . The dirty, crazy, impoverished bus riding customer is like a fucking trope at this point and it's kind of crazy to me that that's a thing since I see tons of business people and college kids at bus stops all the time. Totally does. That's why I keep bringing it up. Mass transit. In the city. Where we're gonna see automation. You already agree with me. Once again, in your own words . . . Which means, you and I are both talking about cities. Cities. Cities. Where there are already bus routes. That can be expanded by adding more buses, more bus stops, designated bus lanes, altering traffic lights to accommodate for traffic, and so on and so forth. This is a regular fucking debate for our county because we need to expand our bus lines and I've read the arguments about how it's very doable and won't cost much but people are against it. Here's where it gets crazy, not because of cost, but heaven forbid bus lines go to the suburbs, cause poor people. Which, we're in agreement, in a way, because I'd argue that cities are probably more willing and able to pay for automated vehicles than individuals. The computers and technology and testing is gonna make them hella fucking expensive at first, which is why Tesla's first three vehicles were all in the premium car price range. A city is probably more likely to spend $600,000 on an automated bus than an individual is willing to spend $150,000 for an automated car (both prices pulled out of my ass but I know regular buses are about $450,000 already). There's a buying efficiency there.Man, I love ya, but your lack of intellectual precision in your arguments is just exhausting to have to rebut every single time, and these diversions do nothing to move our conversation forward.
You REALLY think we won't be making most of our utility trips in automated vehicles in under 20 years?
How can you, with any intellectual honesty, conflate those two completely different resource streams into one measure of value?!
My day job is in the telematics industry, dealing specifically with how to maintain and track the value of fleets of vehicles. I know the industry inside and out. And no, there is never a point where a large vehicle is less expensive than a small one. It may SEEM like it pencils out, but it doesn't.
Is there a stigma against buses? Maybe there still is. But that's only because promotion of that viewpoint is funded by those who would lose from transportation infrastructure improvements.
And I don't know about you, but I'm not walking 5 blocks with bags of groceries, to ride in an overheated vehicle with non-opening windows, to sit next to insane/smelly/wonderful/tired/happy/unhappy people.
Public transit works.
Will AVs be prominent in rural areas? No.
So yeah. What WILL happen, and is already happening, and has happened thousands of times before with any new technology, is that the rich will get it first. Then it will expand to accommodate more and more people.