When the autonomous driving sharing plan is realized, will taxis still have a place?

The black taxis on the streets of London and the yellow taxis in New York are one of the important symbols of the city. However, with the rise of shared car rental services such as Uber, Lyft, and Didi, the jobs of taxi drivers have been greatly threatened.

According to a study by online travel agency Certify, Uber was the most popular ride-hailing service for American business travelers in the second quarter of 2016. In fact, taxi business has dropped by 51% since 2014. "Shared mobility" seems to be subtly changing the pattern of urban transportation, and Musk, who sees the potential of this market, also has a plan for an autonomous driving fleet. Once realized, the streets of the city will likely be filled with Teslas.

Musk's Rhapsody

Shared fleets may be the future direction of development of self-driving cars, which will greatly change urban transportation.

The Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, USA, believes that self-driving cars will soon enter the private market and change the landscape of the private market. According to a report published in September, self-driving car services will be cheaper than taxis. It will optimize road space and be faster. In addition, carpooling with strangers may be a key factor in preventing a surge in traffic. According to research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), under a good public transportation system, shared self-driving cars may reduce rush-hour commuting time by about two-thirds.

In fact, Musk first expressed his idea of ​​"shared fleet" at the opening ceremony of the Gigafactory in August this year. Musk revealed that Tesla may become an Uber in the future. Car owners can increase their income by "sharing" their cars, and you decide who uses your Tesla car - five-star car owners or family users. "When you don't use the car, you can open the Tesla app on your phone, choose to join or leave the 'shared fleet', and choose who can use it. Whenever you want to take back the car, you just need to open the app again and click it, and it will automatically return to you." This method can maximize the effectiveness of the car and reduce the cost of car maintenance. At the same time, it is entirely up to you to decide when to use the car.

Musk hopes to turn Teslas with autonomous driving systems into a popular fleet, allowing everyone to ride in Tesla cars through an Uber-style sharing plan. Once achieved, this will change the relationship between car owners, taxi drivers and cars.

Complaints from taxi drivers

London taxi drivers protest against Uber

Musk's dream seems beautiful, but it will threaten London's taxi system that has survived for more than 150 years.

London's black cab drivers have always prided themselves on their knowledge of the entire city. When you get in a taxi, a driver who is very familiar with the road conditions can quickly take you to your destination, but the autonomous driving system will not be so professional and skilled. Taxi supporters say that the driver's familiarity with the road conditions is much more useful than GPS positioning because it allows the driver to infer based on the passenger's description. For example, when you get in the car, you don't know where the destination is, you may tell the driver what landmarks are near it, and then the driver will make a judgment based on what you said. Tesla's autonomous driving navigation software may not find the place you describe as accurately as a thinking driver.

In addition, the worker system is also a reason why taxi supporters oppose the "sharing plan." Sofian Zemmour has been a taxi driver in London for 7 years. He said that "rental services like Uber violate the country's labor laws. Drivers have to work 14 or 15 hours a day like slaves to make money."

In addition, fully autonomous shared fleets will make passengers lose the fun of communicating with drivers. Imagine that when you have to stay in the car for a long time, you may want to find someone to chat with to relieve your depressed mood. At this time, the driver may tell you about interesting things that happened recently, but the autonomous fleet will not do this. I am afraid that you can only play with your mobile phone in the car to kill time.

Tesla's future

It is worth noting that when Musk described his autonomous driving shared fleet plan, he mentioned a key word "Tesla Network". This means that if car owners want to make money through a shared fleet with fully autonomous driving functions, they must go through Tesla's proprietary system, Tesla Network. This means that Musk actually wants to create a vehicle sharing platform exclusively for Tesla. More details of the plan will be announced next year. Once Musk's idea is implemented as scheduled, Tesla will become a powerful rival to Uber in the future.

Imagine if the roads in the future are full of Tesla self-driving cars, and as a car owner, you are restricted to car sharing through this platform, and cannot use Uber or other platforms. In this case, the car owner's control over the car is taken away - how you use the car depends on how the car manufacturer lets you use it. Isn't this a bit scary? Once popularized, car rental applications such as Uber will face huge challenges - they can only build driverless cars themselves or cooperate with car manufacturers and companies that own driverless cars, otherwise they will face elimination.

Why does Musk have the confidence to do this?

Business Insider believes that Tesla has a strong brand advantage, and some of its users are very loyal, just like Apple fans. You know, before seeing the Model 3 in person, more than 115,000 people have already placed orders. Moreover, many people want to try Tesla's shared cars because it will give them a chance to sit in a Tesla that they can't afford.

In addition, another advantage of Tesla is that its autonomous driving technology is in a leading position. Not long ago, Tesla announced that all its cars will be equipped with a fully autonomous driving system. The new hardware can enable the car to drive automatically on crowded roads, automatically identify lane changes, and enter or exit highways without inputting instructions. Moreover, Tesla's autonomous driving system is cheaper than Uber's because it is not equipped with expensive lidar sensors like Uber's autonomous driving cars.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.