Quote:
Originally Posted by soundman98
i posted about it before a little, but i would call it more of a 'cascade failure' of the automotive industry.
if autonomy rules, the OEM's essentially become taxi companies. and if the OEM's are taxi companies, there is no reason for individual ownership. and if there's no reason for individual ownership, there's less need for as many vehicles, which will directly effect the profitability of the OEM's in their current leadership plans-- no company has announced intentions to get away from the vehicle sales model to focus on a usage-fee model.
of course, then there's also the trolley problem, the one that mercedes ironically tried getting ahead of, only for it to run them over. when they announced that their flavor of autonomy would prioritize their occupants lives over the outside world, to which the outside world had many things to say...
that blowing up in mercedes face has likely also cautioned other OEM's to be careful on their approach of the pit of snakes.
all i'm saying is that while we definitely have the hardware and technology to get autonomous cars on the road today, there's a whole lot of legal, regulatory, and impressional framework that needs to be in place first, and that is likely going to take decades, if not longer, to work out to the OEM's favor-- and their shareholders advantage--as it must, for them to proceed further with it.
we all know safety is, and always has been, 2nd fiddle to shareholder profits...
|
Seems like manufactures will go to where the technology and demand takes them. Anyone resisting change will just be left behind. Car companies have other ways of making money. If you have an hour commute, and you are in a car not driving, then that could mean you are watching TV, movie, internet, shopping, playing video games, whatever. Want to buy something from the mini fridge? There are more ways to make money than with volume.
Frankly, it would be nice to clean up the streets by having less cars just sitting around all the time. It's ugly. Ride sharing in pods would be better too, so people don't have to ride share, but there is less vehicles on the road. Ever look around and just think about where the hell did all these people come from. People everywhere. Ehhh.