Self-driving cars MAY have higher labor costs than regular cars, even without drivers

https://www.ft.com/content/125e4ef4-fc6f-11e8-b03f-bc62050f3c4e

The article looks at Waymo and their current team -- Waymo currently has standby drivers for safety precautions, who will eventually be removed, but also a hazard team (software engineers) to deal with operational issues.

With self-driving cars, drivers are no longer available to troubleshoot road problems (jams, fallen trees on roads, etc.) in person, and so this low-cost additional "service" now has to be separately provided by either AI or support staff. It seems clear that the support staff (inclusive of tech support) will be more expensive on a per person basis for now, however self-driving eliminates the baseline of driver labor cost, such that eventual advances in driving and support AIs will reduce marginal cost.

FT provided no support in the article for how it will be more expensive overall.

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Submitted January 07, 2019 at 06:03AM by messymazda http://bit.ly/2Vv8G3z via TikTokTikk