K. Heineke,
Jan 2022,
"Robo-taxis
promise
affordable
mobility. But
with widely
varying
service costs
across use
cases and
geography,
providers must
address
operational
and service
issues to
realize that
promise.... "
Read more Hmmmm... You are welcome to read
more; however,
this report
contains
little more
than well know
facts of life
as is
reflected by
the report's
first
sentence.
Every mode of transport from moving sidewalks to
supersonic
transports
have ..."widely varying service costs
across use
cases and
geography"...
McKinsey,
please tell us
something
new.
What is more disconcerting is the "cost" in that phrase
is the "cost"
of delivering
the service,
yet their
first Exhibit
presents "End
customer
cost",usually
termed "Price
of service",
of the various
alternatives
in the use
cases and
geographies
that they've
evolved to
serve.
"Public Transit" enjoys substantial public subsidies and
offer very
limited
mobility
services in
just a few
geographies in
order to to be
priced as is
indicated. In
order for it
to offer
mobility
comparable to
that offered
by
ride-sharing,
taxi or the
personal
automobile,
its costs to
deliver that
service would
be
astronomical
in all but a
very few
geographies.
That's why it
ends up
serving
roughly 2% of
daily person
trips in the
US with most
of its
ridership
being those
who can't
afford the
price of the
any of the
alternatives.
Modes such as Ride sharing also enjoy subsidies
provided by
investors and
gig workers
willing to
work for less
than a living
wage to
deliver a
service at a
price that is
also
substantially
lower that the
cost to
deliver that
service should
it be
delivered by a
financially
stable entity
that paid its
drivers a
living wage.
Consequently, the modes listed each have their own sweet
spot of "use
cases and
geography" yet
this report is
silent as to
how these
modes and
autonomousTaxis
would compare
in each of the
various
geography-use
case pair.
Private cars
don't cost
well in trying
to serve the
major mobility
needs of folks
that live in
Manhattan, yet
Public transit
does and vise
versa in
Princeton.
Outside of
Manhattan and
a very few
other places
in the US,
public transit
serves only
those that
can't drive a
car and serves
then very
poorly, if at
all. For
most
geographies
and use cases
the private
car is king.
What is most astonishing is that this report doesn't
seem to
recognize that
the only real
economic
reason for
autonomousTaxis
is its
potential to
forgo the cost
of a human
driver while
having the
opportunity to
deliver a
level of
service that
is almost
equivalent to
a personal
car, and
essentially,
if not better,
than taxi, and
ride-hailing,
Also important
is that in its
infancy, it
has minimal
infrastructure
needs. The
infrastructure
that makes
conventional
cars safer and
better such as
good paint and
smooth
surfaces are
all it needs.
Thus it can
simply use the
existing
infrastructure.
That was the
obvious
revelation of
the DARPA
Challenges.
Prior to 2005,
Automated
Highway
Systems,
not only need
an automated
cars but also
a dedicated
roadway on
which to
operate.
Systems such
as the
Morgantown PRT
system that
has such a
dedicated
roadway has
operated
safely and
effectively
for almost 50
years.
Unfortunately,
its
"geography"
never got
bigger, never
scaled.
Why?...
because of its
infrastructure
cost.
A fundamental beauty of autonomousTaxis is that their
infrastructure
costs are
essentially
zero. I'd
argue that a
major reason
why Tesla and
EVs have been
able to get to
where they are
is because
they also
haven't been
burdened by
infrastructure
cost in their
formative
years. They
use the same
roads as ICEs
and they don't
even pay a gas
tax to help
maintain those
roads.
Moreover, Elon
was ingenious
enough to pick
up the tab for
the
infrastructure
cost
associated
with rapidly
charging
Teslas.
Brilliant! and
one major
reason why
Tesla
continues to
knock it out
of the park (see
below).
Yet this
McKinsey
report is
silent about
any of these
fundamentals.
So in the end, McKinsey, for all of its supposedly high
quality
insights,
contributes
little more
than
click-bait and
what everyone
already knows
with this
report. Very
disappointing. Alain
[log in to unmask]" _mf_state="1" title="null" src="cid:[log in to unmask]" class="" width="44" height="44" border="0"> The SmartDrivingCars eLetter, Pod-Casts, Zoom-Casts and Zoom-inars are made possible in part by support from the Smart Transportation and Technology ETF, symbol MOTO. For more information: www.motoetf.com. Most funding is supplied by Princeton University's Department of Operations Research & Financial Engineering and Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) research laboratory as part of its research dissemination initiative