Baidu’s supercheap robotaxis should scare the hell out of the US
Baidu’s supercheap robotaxis should scare the hell out of the US
The vehicle costs less than $30,000 to manufacture.
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It's not just the automotive industry that would be worried, that's incredibly short-sighted. The transport sector, however, should be terrified. The amount of chauffeurs required in a few decades time will be just a few percentage of today's amount.
And that, in turn, will have major ramifications for the social securities (UBI, anyone?)
But sure, let's start with the American car makers, so they can lobby against this inevitable progress in safety.
I'm not entirely sure if services like robotaxi are ultimately good or bad. I think it greatly depends on how they are deployed and regulated.
If they governments don't force company's to ensure they make constant improvements and innovation as well as making them cheaper then I think there could be a serious problem when non driverless vehicles are outlawed, making robotaxis the only viable way to get around in car dependant places, companies like waymo will enshitify the hell out of robotaxis making them way too expensive and just barely safer than normal cars in order to rake in the profits as much as possible. I feel like this is a concern in the US especially due to there idea of a "free market" with very little regulation.
On the other hand if companies are forced by regulation to constantly make cars safer and not cost too much then I guess robotaxis could be improve road safety, congestion and a few other problems but by no means fix them.
Cars as a service? That might be debatable.
But taking the human factor out of driving cars and trucks is going to save millions of lives worldwide. That's the inevitable safety progress I was talking about in my comment.
What do you mean that's debatable? Robotaxis are a service just like normal taxis and ubers and everything else you rent.