LinkBack URL
About LinkBacksOne of the problems with the car club idea is that demand is hardly uniform. In London it's very difficult to get car club cars at weekends compared to mid week.
One of the problems with the car club idea is that demand is hardly uniform. In London it's very difficult to get car club cars at weekends compared to mid week.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Don't drop anything nearby....Originally Posted by jimbouk
Thanks for the link, the arm is really quite creepy!
I've pondered not owning a car (or a modern car and just having a classic for fun) and mixing together either taxis, hire cars or a car club. Certainly wouldn't cost any more per year given that I commute with a bike / train, but car ownership is a 'thing' - a bit like house ownership in this country. Hard to get away from it, and there's always the 'what if' moments such as when I jumped in and drove from Bristol to Glasgow to see my gran in hospital.
Anyhow, thoroughly derailed thread! I'm not really a 'new car' person so an electric car is many years away for me. I am more a fan of smaller cars though. I did try and work out a 'cheap' new electric car but it just wasn't practical for the type of use I have. Certainly good to see the more expensive ones actually being usable and used.
What happened to the idea of installing wireless charging into new roads, so that cars charged as they drove?
Even if it was only installed in motorways it would reduce range issues markedly.
Cost I assume. Would be such low utilisation for 10 years that it can't be economical. Perhaps in a bus lane for busses and taxis?
If you redid the slow lane of motorways with inductive charging you could substantially lighten trucks. There's got to be a sizeable proportion of the haulage fleet that spends their working life cruising from one business park by a motorway junction to another destination right by a motorway, and a truck that was only a few dozen miles worth of batteries and electric motors might be a lot easier to push down the road than the usual kind. Depends on how many trucks have that use case, and whether the inefficiencies of the inductive charging work out on the right side of the usual diesel efficiency of course.
It's not the best use for electric, as emissions from motorways aren't a huge health hazard (compared to an equal amount of N2O in the centre of a city, for example), but it might be worth looking into
ETA: This is the kind of use that would be best served with a train, if there was any spare room on the rail network. The similarity with an electric locomotive using overhead wires or a third rail is really an outcome of the requirement
My morning commute on the train works out at about 50p per mile, so I'm guessing being electric isn't helping costs much there. I do wonder if self driving electric taxis are more likely to kill off trains than private cars. 50p per mile is a lot to be crammed into a vehicle that doesn't quite go where you want to go or at the time you want to go there. But at least you get the opportunity to get stuff stolen off your bike from the bike sheds
Tesla already have this in the pipeline. The idea being you drive to work in your car, but once there, you car is made available to others as a transport service. You get some revenue for your car not sitting in a car park for the whole day. Then, it will ensure it's back at the car park for you to drive (or be driven) home.
The model exists, although of course, isn't being put into application right now, but it shows that Tesla are forward thinking and would like to offer this up for those who wish to partake in it.
My Model S is on AP1 / HW1 so whilst I have Autopilot for main roads, it doesn't have the hardware for fully autonomous driving.
Order an AP2 car however, and they list it as an option.
I can't see that working, for Tesla, at least on current models.
I'd question how many people that can afford £70k to £160k cars are so desperate for "revenue" from them that they're willing to risk getting some unknown oik use it as a taxi, at anything remotely resembling the kind of rate people will pay for a taxi.
Personally, there's exactly no chance I'd do that. If I needed the revenue that badly, I couldn't afford the Tesla in the first place. I'd rather slum it, spend 'only' £50k or so on a Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar, etc, and forego the "revenue".
And that's if the car were fully automated. If the "unknown oik" was actually driving, the circumstances don't exist where I'd be willing to rent out a performance or luxury car unless I had an ironclad guarantee that "you break it (or even scratch it), you bought it).
It's a paradigm shift really. Regardless of the financial value of the car, a lot of people (myslef included) would have some reservations to doing it. It's all about changing the way see cars as personal vehicles and making them less personal and more as a service. You wouldn't have to enrol if you didn't like the look of it, and to be fair, we're still a few years away from perhaps the tech and certainly legislation permitting it.
Also, what's to say the oik would actually drive it? It could potentially be just an autonomous service. The guy just informs where he wants to go and sit in the back, just like a JohnnyCab in Total Recall
I hear you, but even if the oik isn't driving, you don't know what else he/the/they are doing in your car .... especially if they're not having to drive it. I mean, for example, said oik has had 15 pints and a curry, and proceeds to upchuck the lot all over the Connolly leather and Wilton-carpetted interior of your pride and joy.It's a paradigm shift really. Regardless of the financial value of the car, a lot of people (myslef included) would have some reservations to doing it. It's all about changing the way see cars as personal vehicles and making them less personal and more as a service. You wouldn't have to enrol if you didn't like the look of it, and to be fair, we're still a few years away from perhaps the tech and certainly legislation permitting it.
Also, what's to say the oik would actually drive it? It could potentially be just an autonomous service. The guy just informs where he wants to go and sit in the back, just like a JohnnyCab in Total Recall
Unfortunately, there's a proportion of the population, and it may be a minority but I'd suggest it's a sizeable one, that has little or no respect for other people's property, as many landlords renting out houses have discovered to their considerable cost.
Personally ... and obviously I can only speak personally, I would be prepared to use such a service as an "oik", but no way, no way in hell, am I buying a car and then letting it be used as a taxi.
Again, personally speaking, a very large part of why I buy a car is for personal transport. A very large part of that is having there when I want it, unplanned abd at a moment's notice. Another part is having my knick-knacks in it, be it my spare coat, or a personal music selection for my expensive car sound system, my choice of sweets or an emergrncy dose of medication.
If all I wanted was a car on call, then I can do that now with a choice of personal hire car services, calling a cab, booking an uber or renting a car. bring prepared to suffer depreciation, pay insurance, servicing costs etc, is all about having personal transport, at my beck and call, on a whim. Why buy a car if it's no longer 'personal'. I just don't see it, I'm afraid.
If you need the revenue, sell the Tesla and buy a Toyota UBER.... I mean, Camry....
Why buy a house when you already have one? I think this is the car version of buy-to-let, *if* the car can turn a profit if just permanently turned loose then it becomes a simple return on investment calculation. If Tesla take a slice of the money as part of the service, then they get to make money from other people putting up the capital.
But "buy to let" cars isn't what's under discussion. It's renting out your car for short-term "taxi" use by utter unknowns.
As for houses, buy-to-let is one thing but I can think of NO circumstances, short of utter desperation, where I'd rent a room in my home out, let alone to a complete unknown, by the hour. And for much the same "it's personal" reason. In my home, I'm the King of my castle and, subject only the the joint rule of my Queen, could not relax with strangers wandering on and out of rented rooms. I want to ge able go wander around in the buff if I want, or play music or watch TV with the sound up, or Hoover at stupid-o'clock, if it suits me, without inconveniencing others, or being inconvenienced by others doing the same
A buy-to-let property is an investment, not a home. A buy-to-taxi car is a business decision and that, after due diligence, I might do, but rent out my own car, especially if it's a Tesla-priced car, oh hell, no. Not a hope in hell. You will see me renting my car out on some kind of time-share shortly after you see the King of Hell dancing the fandango in a pink tutu, while singing Abba's Dancing Queen.
And if you do see that, I expect video proof.
I think that in situations where rooms are rented out by the hour, walking round in the buff wouldn't be an issue at all!!!
Seen me in the buff? I wouldn't say there's no issue .... unless I was renting rooms by the 10 seconds. And bolted the exit.I think that in situations where rooms are rented out by the hour, walking round in the buff wouldn't be an issue at all!!!
And we do seem to have gone quite a long way off-topic.
opel80uk (19-06-2017)
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
