Taxis in general don't fully turk the concept, at least not in areas without reliable taxi volume. It's reasonable as long as you can rely on the taxi to show up within a decent amount of time of requesting it or expect to see one in passing in a short amount of time.
Uber et al. have done a lot to help with this in my experience, but I've had many times where I'm in a location that taxis aren't typically in the immediate vicinity. Calling the cab company has often led to lots of waiting, not knowing when the car will get there, with cars sometimes never showing up at all. Knowing that the car is definitely coming to you (whether it's a self driving car, Uber, or any other service that tracks the vehicle's location) help remove that uncertainty and definitely makes it an acceptable option in more areas.
That reliability and knowledge justify the extra cost for taking Uber (or requesting a self driving car some day) to me, more than the comfort or style of a town car compared to a cab.
Agreed on all parts - for me, I live in DC, in a neighborhood with good cab density, and Uber is in the cab business as well as the swanky car business. I'll launch the app, hail a cab, and by the time I ride down the elevator of my building, there's a cab parked out front waiting for me. It's a reasonable approximation of the future.
Taxis are a lot more expensive than self-driving cars. The driver takes something like 60% of the fare you pay for a taxi; I'm sure insurance eats up another sizeable chunk, and if self-driving cars are ever allowed on the streets, they will have to be safer than human drivers, and thus will have lower insurance costs. Furthermore, eliminating the driver means that you could use even smaller, cheaper cars, or fit more people or belongings per car, making self-driving cars more efficient.
Taxis drivers also really frustrating to deal with (the majority in my city, at least); I can't count the number of taxi drivers who haven't been able to find my house, so I've had to play phone tag with dispatch while waiting 45 minutes for a cab that should have been there in 10, then finally hike down the hill, get in, and had them start the meter while they drove up it to pick up my belongings.
>Taxis are a lot more expensive than self-driving cars.
But they have the advantage of actually existing. Whatever relatively near-term possibilities there may be for cars to operate on "autopilot" on certain highways, an urban environment where taxis are most common is probably one of the last places you'll see self-driving cars.
Sure. I'm just pointing out how these hypothetical self driving taxis/car shares would be a substantial improvement over actual taxis, enough so that they would be able to displace more than just the niche that taxis currently occupy but also car sharing programs like Zipcar and probably a substantial portion of car ownership.
I think that I'll see them in my lifetime; I don't know if it'll be in 5 years (though I think that would be pushing it), 10 years, or 30 years, but I'm pretty sure they will come about, and will be a huge improvement over our current system of letting distracted, impatient people try to pilot cars through chaotic conditions.
True; although one major problem is that for n taxis, you have to pay for n cars and n human salaries, and human salaries end up being the biggest proportion in the final price.
How much will the cost be reduced when we don't have to pay for human drivers anymore? Will we see 50$ a month (2013 dollars) plans for 50 hours of "chauffeuring"? (a quick google search shows that the average american spends ~40h driving a year)
According to [this resarch](http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/taxifb.pdf), 57% of the fare (including tip) goes to the driver, 24% to vehicle and gas, 15% to the owner, and 4% to other expenses.
So, the driver is a pretty substantial portion of that. Taking the driver out of the equation would substantially reduce the costs. If you increased medallion availability as well, and the owners were able to work with lower margins (or they were cooperatively owned), you could get the cost down even further, to maybe 1/3 of what taxis currently cost. That would be a huge difference in affordability for everyday use.
Zipcar is great - I love it. But as far as a "self-driving car network" goes, one of the big advantages is that you don't need to worry about parking on either end. A higher percentage of cars are in the process of getting someone from point A to point B rather than taking up space somewhere.
