In your book you also compare autonomous vehicle research to health research funded by tobacco companies in the 1950s. Are you suggesting that autonomous vehicle companies know that their products will damage society, but still insist on going forward?
Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Although to say that the autonomous vehicle companies “know it” might be a little unfair, because they really don’t care. They’re trying to get ahead in an intensely competitive environment, and the company that cares about reality is going to be the loser, because it will limit its deployment.
“Motordom is asking, ‘How do we make car dependency work?’ The real question is, ‘How can we free ourselves from car dependency?’”
Uber had to know it was taking indefensible chances with lives every day in Tempe [prior to its prototype autonomous vehicle fatally striking Elaine Herzberg in 2018]. But Uber was also smart, in that the company recognized that any company that doesn’t take a risk has no future in the autonomous vehicle business.
A DriveNow e a Ecooltra chegaram a ter car sharing funcional em Lisboa. Usei algumas vezes e era bastante útil. Pena não haver modelo semelhante atualmente.
Five years ago, Travis Kalanick was so confident that Uber Technologies Inc.’s rides would prompt people to leave their cars at home that he told a tech conference: “If every car in San Francisco was Ubered there would be no traffic.”
Today, a mounting collection of studies shows the opposite: Far from easing traffic, Uber and its main rival Lyft Inc. are adding to congestion in numerous U.S. downtowns.
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Rather than the apps becoming a model of algorithm-driven efficiency, drivers in major cities cruise for fares without passengers an estimated 40% of the time.
Multiple studies show that Uber and Lyft have pulled people away from buses, subways and walking, and that the apps add to the overall amount of driving in the U.S.
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In a paper presented last month to the Transportation Research Board, he estimated that for every mile of personal-car driving the companies remove from the road in large U.S. cities, they add 2.5 miles of driving to a ride-hailing vehicle.
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Mr. Schaller said in his paper that surveys in numerous cities found roughly 60% of riders in Ubers and Lyfts would have walked, biked, taken public transit or stayed home if a ride-hail car hadn’t been available.