I think Musk should be more bold in his vision here. What if instead of a cybercab that seats just two people, we could come up with an even bigger one that seats many people at once? And then maybe we could have it drive on a predictable, efficient route that covers multiple popular destinations, instead of just going from point A to point B. Has anyone considered building something like this?
Driving labor is a significant cost for running a taxi fleet, so automating it allows taxis to become much cheaper to operate. Taxis can charge higher fares than buses because people overwhelmingly prefer “going from point A to point B” over walking to, waiting for, and riding on buses.
Buses are already cheap and removing the cost of the driver would offer only a marginal reduction in cost.
They literally did this in the announcement for the cybercab. Look up the “Tesla Robovan”. It was clearly a proof of concept, but in theory it’s a good idea. Claimed to be able to seat 20 people.
