When will Autonomous Vehicles be Prevalent?

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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This future is based on the assumption that private EV ownership is passe. Just utilize a cellphone app to call an autonomous EV to your location.

For the road trip aficionado, East of the Mississippi an autonomous EV would be like a private bus/train to motor from city to city. When the battery pack was near empty; one exits and call for a new replacement vehicle and continue on to the destination or the next EV autonomous vehicle. The next ride is always on call.

  • 5 years in most big cities
  • 10 years in most big cities
  • 15 years in most big cities
  • I don’t care. I’ll be dead and buried.
0 voters
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TJ has just voted.
20 characters

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ImAGolfer just voted. (*&^%$#@!0)

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LOL
Why 20 characters

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I guess cuz the other dude (tjscott0) had them and I figured he got screwed up by the Fool’s ridiculous new rules so I ‘figured’ I get around the requirement. I guess that’s what I get for figuring.

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Interesting point. Sort of assumes you are not travelling with any significant amount of luggage. Imagine having to drive 250 miles and then get off the highway and wait for a replacement vehicle and then move 4 or 5 suitcases/bags and my golf clubs to another vehicle and doing this every 250 to 500 miles. This is not happening.

JimA

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In next five years, autonomous taxis should be common in major US cities.

Waymo should be in at least 10 US cities offering public rides in 2026.

Private ownership of autonomous vehicles in the US is farther out. No one has even done a small but meaningful deployment (100-1000 in one city) of consumer-owned autonomous vehicles for general use on public roads.

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Once one goes from private human driven to public or private club shared autonomous vehicles, the advantages of creating “high density, high speed, communicating and cooperating autonomous vehicles only” routes, some charging a toll, then there are enormous cost/benefit incentives to redesign transportation and its location in public spaces.

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Unfortunately, the NOVA program “Look Who’s Driving Now” isn’t available anymore. I was a big proponent of autonomous vehicles until I saw that. We humans make driving look easy, but it’s actually enormously complicated. Our brains are able to handle most of it in the background so you don’t even really think about it. The computer and sensors aren’t very good at that. I won’t say they will never be. But it’s not nearly as close as I expected. Their system couldn’t identify a guy carrying a pizza as a person. And it had other issues.

Plus, you need good weather (which is why Waymo is here in Phoenix…no snow days, few heavy rain days. Much easier for the sensors to “see” what’s going on.

It was really a fascinating program. I don’t expect any significant autonomous vehicles within my lifetime (which is maybe another 20 years). It’s amazing what they can do, but not as amazing as us.

Oooh! I found it. I though I was going to get the Wiki, but someone put it on YouTube:

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That’s a good point. Here in the upper Midwest I lose cruise control ability several times a winter.

DB2

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I’m not sure how to vote. I think any potential complete switchover to mostly ride hailing for long distance travel will take at least 15 years, probably more like 2 or 3 decades. As far as within dense cities, we can see that the switchover is taking place right before our eyes, however, that’s still with a driver, not autonomous. But autonomous for short trips is coming (there are a few places that have a small number of autonomous services, but those are still tiny compared to overall travel miles). But it’s coming slowly and will take a while to proliferate across all large cities. Then it’ll slowly proliferate into medium sized and smaller cities. But for rural areas? That’ll take a LOT longer, mainly because there’s no business case for it.

This would be a HUGE pain in the bu11 for most people. Most of us have “stuff” with us. And some of us have kids, with more “stuff”. For some, it would take half an hour or even an hour to switch vehicles! Think car seats, etc. Now imagine it’s cold out, and you have complaining kids, crying babies, etc. Forget it.

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I am, but there wasn’t an option for “more than 50 years.”

There will be driverless taxis, for sure, but people giving up their car? Not bloody likely. Ever tried to hail a cab in the rain? Ever stood around for 30 minutes waiting for a bus/train/cab to appear?

Everybody thinks “Oh, this will be great in urban areas” and maybe that’s true. And if I ask one of the search engines what percent of people live in urban areas, I get 80% as the answer.

But wait. Most “urban areas” aren’t New York. I live in Knoxville, part of that 80%. Yet when I ask what percent live in the dense downtown area, it’s a mere 1%. Same with Nashville. Same with Memphis. The rest of us “urbans” have houses. With garages. Maybe kids. Driveways. Suburban developments. And we’re 30 minutes from the city.

Nobody really needs a washing machine in the house, what with a Laundromat nearby, yet everybody has one (exceptions noted.) That’s because we are rich enough to have larger homes and appliances that we could “share” but don’t.

That’s cars. I acknowledge that there will be some, living on the edge of poverty (young people, urban poor, etc.) who will have to make use of taxis all the time because they don’t have the resources to own, but I am just as sure that when they do, they will. Ex: the kid just out of high school, working in the back room of a McDonald’s, and trying to afford an apartment? Yes. A family of four traveling across a couple states to visit Grandma? Please.

This will be a business, for sure. Maybe a really big business. It’s not going to change the desire to “own your own”, and perhaps there is some small slice in the middle that could go either way (a change from today), but those thinking “this is going to be universal” are seriously deluded. It ain’t happening. Not in my lifetime, not in your lifetime, not in your kids’ lifetime, maybe never.

It’s as dumb as “there are going to be a million people on Mars by 2050.” And that’s seriously dumb.

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For the poor, the bus will always be a cheaper alternative. In my burg it is “FREE”. Yeah local, state and federal taxes subsidize the service.

For long distance travel; I expect battery range will continue to improve. Solid state battery predictions are 500 to 750 miles of range[1]. How much further will be the range 10 or 15 years from today? So never say never on vehicle ownership becoming passe and/or long distance travel via a corporate owned autonomous EV.

I initially thought the EV was a nonstarter with 100 mile Nissan Leaf.
2018 Car and Driver EV range test. Only 200 miles.

Text, Line, Font, Parallel, Number, Screenshot,
Text, Line, Font, Parallel, Number, Screenshot,624×623 48 KB

But the technological change in EV battery range changed my mind. In fact I, early 2024, invested a few pennies in BYD & Xpeng that I still hold.

[1]Solid-State Batteries: 2025’s EV Tech Breakthrough Is Finally Here
Solid-state EV battery maker is going public after a 745+ mile test

PS: What about improved charging?Chinese EV giant announces 5-minute charging tech is expanding to new region: 'Good news for EV drivers everywhere'
Chinese EV giant announces 5-minute charging tech is expanding to new region: ‘Good news for EV drivers everywhere’

Eventually you won’t have to swap EVs. Just pull over for a 5 or 10 minute charge and off you go again.

Now about car ownership. 1)Pay $40 or $50K for a depreciating asset. 2)Or just pay when needed and invest the balance. I would think option #2 is the smarter option YMMV

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That is already true in a lot of America, particularly in the wealthier states.. The number of EV charging outlets is now greater than the number of gas nozzles at filling stations.

Now that may not be perfectly true in every area; I’m sure California is well above average and Kentucky well below, but it’s getting there.

(I took an EV trip through 9 states two years ago and had no trouble charging when needed. States included Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, NY, Connecticut, Massachusetts and more. I have been to rural Georgia but still survived :wink:

Probably financially smarter to take the bus and never own a car, but that’s not how most of the world sees it. Indeed, as soon as they become rich enough, “car ownership” is among the first things people strive for: China, India, Eastern Europe, South America. It’s pretty much universal. There’s a reason, and it’s not all just “making out in the back seat.”

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But currently it is a 20 minute stop to charge 80%. Once the 5 minute charging stop is available. Katy bar the door! EV will increase; I believe dramatically.

That could change as boomers die off. Youngsters are more flexible about transportation access vs ownership.
https://www.statista.com/chart/33097/importance-of-owning-a-car-for-us-residents-by-generation/
54 percent of Gen Z participants polled for Statista’s Consumer Insights survey in the U.S. between July 2023 and June 2024 claim that owning a car is important to them, compared to 69 percent of baby boomers.
the share for the same group stood at 62 percent for millennials

This suggests that the perceived necessity of car ownership is not only influenced by the availability and quality of public transit or Uber & Lyft but also by generation. The younger the generation the less importance of car ownership is.

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This is why it’s important to look behind the numbers rather than accept the at face value. (See: New Coke debacle, among others.)

Gen Z participants are from 13 to 26 in 2025, a cohort typically low in “vehicle” wont, one which is more urban centered, and one largely without families or children or needing shuttles to Little League, Girl Scouts, or similar.

I happen to have nieces and nephews who are Millenials or later, and they were the same way. A couple didn’t even get licenses because 1) too expensive to own a car and 2) why bother? Oops, flash forward 10 years, they ALL have a car. Most have kids.

Life changes. People have different needs. Not surprising that 13 year olds (or even 26 year olds) aren’t thinking about cars yet. It will happen. It has since the beginning of the industry.

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Yes it does. As do options for transportation. As Tesla and Waymore expand and more competition enters the market an autonomous ride will decline in price. Better to save tens of thousands of dollars or interest on a loan and invest the difference into investment assets methinks.
Car ownership will go the way of vinyl records.

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This assumes that there is someone else out there willing to buy the car for $40-50k and eat the depreciation while letting you use it for a small fee whenever you please. Uber did that for 10-15 years, and the people that used the service loved it. I always reminded people to thank the Uber investors that were subsidizing most of their trips during those years. Today there is very little subsidizing going on at Uber. That’s why the cost of their service is MUCH higher now than it used to be.

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I believe the mass of autonomous vehicles will be much more utilitarian & less expensive. Sure there will be luxury options but who needs that if one just head to the dentist.

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The supermarket next to my place has four charging stations. Shopping probably takes 15 to 20 minutes. The ecosystem needs to develop to meet the new realities.

The Captain

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