Key points: a range of autonomous delivery vehicles will reduce the number of trips that families make, especially those in more built-up areas.
Sidewalk bots that weigh 50 lb and move at 4 mph (already in operation); bike lane bots that weigh 100-150 lb and move at 12 - 15 mph (ditto); golf cart bots that weigh a few hundred lb and move at 25 mph (being trialed); large trucks on freeways, and eventually vans.
Also, aerial taxis for slightly longer trips: 6-10 seat short range electric planes that can use small local airfields to fly point to point, up to 200 mi or so.
The shrinking role is more about reducing annual mileage on the Camry in the garage from 12,000 mi to 6,000 mi or less, than it is about autonomous electric taxis.
It must have, if you have done an Amazon purchase and had it delivered to your home.
And, if it really hasn't for you, it has for the many millions of people who have substituted getting things delivered to their house instead of driving out to get it themselves.
For better or worse, electricfication of transportation, whether that involves automation or not, is happening and will be impactful.
I'm not sure most deliveries really reduce the recipients mileage.
The alternative to Uber eats coming round with dinner 5 times a week is that you bought enough food to cook your own dinner when you went shopping on Monday.
I agree with the fact that it's better to cook at home than order in 5 times a week. However there are many people who just don't cook, and I think that 5 Uber deliveries a week is better than 5 trips to get takeout (assuming the Uber delivery is done on motorcycle or bicycle compared to trips in the car).
Seems like it might depend. I might be able to pick up dinner on my way home but delivery might need a whole round trip. In some cases delivery might be able to make a few deliveries in one trip but I'm not sure if that's done in general for things like Uber eats.
People already use Amazon for deliveries before autonomous driving. That substitution already happened, and switching to autonomous vehicles for last mile deliver isn’t going to change the consumer’s driving habits.
Again, either you use Uber eats or, like me, you don’t. I don’t see how the mechanism of deliver changes that decision, for the customer?
Delivery doesn't have to change qualitative features to shift tripmaking demand, it just has to become relatively cheaper and faster, which AV does promise. "The cheaper it is, the more we use it" is a basic outcome of supply and demand.
If a restaurant can run delivery bots at a low enough operating cost, they can offer free neighborhood delivery. Who would make a trip to pick up an order, given that?
Increasing the variety of things that are delivered (and the percentage of purchases delivered rather than fetched), rather than you fetching them yourself, would do that.
Sidewalk bots that weigh 50 lb and move at 4 mph (already in operation); bike lane bots that weigh 100-150 lb and move at 12 - 15 mph (ditto); golf cart bots that weigh a few hundred lb and move at 25 mph (being trialed); large trucks on freeways, and eventually vans.
Also, aerial taxis for slightly longer trips: 6-10 seat short range electric planes that can use small local airfields to fly point to point, up to 200 mi or so.
The shrinking role is more about reducing annual mileage on the Camry in the garage from 12,000 mi to 6,000 mi or less, than it is about autonomous electric taxis.