This article, Who Should Let Driverless Cars Off the Leash? was published on
March 29, 2019 by Jamie Condliffe within the New York Times. Within this
article the author talks about how Lyft and Uber, which are both transportation
companies, are investing larges amount of money into driverless technology because they were eager to get their hands on this new technology and get these autonomous vehicles on the road in order to boost their earnings. However, this
article goes in depth as to why this technology is simply not ready for publication
and how these companies’ “ambition to push harder are [also] softening.” Along with
companies taking the back track on this technology, the article also raises questions
about how strictly cities and states will regulate self-driving vehicles. As I read
this article, I came up with a few points as to why companies should continue their
actions into coming up with solutions for this technology and why cities and
states should in fact be an advocate for driver-less cars being used for public
transportation.
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| Uber Testing a Driverless Vehicle |
Although there are many hesitations
for city and state authorities into allowing this type of technology to be used
for public transportation use based. There is however a strong argument as to
why this type of technology being used for public transportation can be very
beneficial to society. For instance, just this week a very scary news story was
broadcasted about a young female college student from University of South
Carolina who was brutally killed after allegedly stepping into an Uber. Although
the verdict has come out that the suspect was in fact not an Uber employee,
this story however was not the first story published about Uber, Lyft, or even
taxi drivers assaulting their passengers. Time and time again we have heard awful
stories about sexual assault and murder within Ubers and taxis however this new
driverless technology can in fact impact these company’s tremendously. For
example, if Uber began using autonomous vehicles to transport their customers,
they would in fact cut down a misdemeanor / sexual assault cases because there
would no longer be a human to human interaction. In addition, there are many
cases where drivers of these transportation companies get into accidents due to
falling asleep behind the wheel because they are up so late driving their customers
around. Using this technology, after being tested of course, could in fact decrease
accident reports for these customers tremendously. Last but not least, the
final advantage for transportation companies to use driverless technology is to
in fact decrease their bottom line by cutting the cost of labor.
Sources:
3 comments:
The possibility of having driverless cars have always fascinated me, and seeing large companies such as Uber and Lyft are looking into driverless cars really grabs my attention, and while there science behind it is very fascinating, it leaves me wondering on how large of an effect it would have on ubers over all business structure. At the moment, Uber does not actually own the vehicles that their employees use, they belong to the drivers, however if uber starts the shift towards driverless vehicles, will they now start to purchase their own cars? If so what will happen to the millions of uber drivers worldwide? Would you just be able to pick having a autonomous vehicle like you can choose to either have a uberx or uber XL? Will it be a extra luxury feature like getting an uber black? This is the thing i am wondering the most, because if they want to swap to the majority of their business being autonomous self driving cars, they will having to make a pretty big shift in business structure. They would have to spend a lot of money on purchasing these vehicles, however, they would no longer have to pay drivers. Other thing i can think of is where will they keep all this cars when they are not in use? Will they have to have warehouses where they can be stored? Also, would they need to hire workers for the warehouses to keep the cars clean and refill them on gas/recharge their batteries? However one thing this would help with is that fact that some people might not feel safe getting into cars with a stranger behind the wheel, but this might be replaced with a fear of getting into a car with no one behind the wheel. I would be very interested to hear logistics behind their business plans if they decide to move forward with autonomous self driving cars.
Lyft and Uber are investing heavily into driverless technology to boost earnings and crush the competition when the tech goes mainstream. The early adopters that can integrate autonomous vehicles into the business model first will win the ride-share war. Other companies such as Google and Tesla are investing heavily in the space. These firms are betting on autonomous vehicles, with capital expenditures in the tens of billions and nearing $100 billion over the last five years. Each year, the tech improves, with data logged from miles of autonomous testing being used to continually improve
The aggressive push to bring autonomous vehicles to market is proving expedited at the expense of safety and regulation. Safety and regulation are the two main issues regarding autonomous vehicles and serve as an example for how government has begun to struggle regulating disruptive technology in recent years. Lawmakers are at odds with how to handle data mismanagement by Facebook, potential monopolies of Google and Amazon, and other areas such as the Bird and Lime scooter apocalypse or Tesla Autopilot. The world is evolving faster than the law can keep up, and if no law exists that explicitly prevents something profitable, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist will surely see it enter reality.
This is not to suggest that the government should put restrictive anticipatory laws in place that could disincentivize competition; more to suggest that the government may need to be quicker on the draw to acknowledge paradigm shifts and put the necessary laws in place. If the government continues to operate at a snail’s pace compared to the tech companies, and only spring into action once it’s too late, who is really in control?
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