Musk endeavours

[BobbyD]

BobbyD
Erm, where do I sign up to short Tesla?

You are a serious investor and you don't know?

Regards,

I was so shocked that you see Tesla as being so incredibly vulnerable whilst being so perpetually bullish that my mind went blank.

Tesla one bad seafood dish away from oblivion...?

[PeterGray]

If Musk leaves Tesla stock collapses.

Yes, short term probably right as the Musk groupies bail out. But in terms of the real future of the company it would be the making of it, and it might produce a good buying opportunity. Musk may have had the right approach to get Tesla to where it is now, but he is not the right person to be CEO where they are now, where they have to start doing all that boring stuff big auto has so much experience of. Predictable production, while ensuring quality control, meeting regulation, proper corporate governance, serious (and truthful) communications with investors, dealing with staff and unions.

If you really see Tesla as being a major car producer then you have to face up to having a management that can handle all that.

Peter

[dspp]

It strikes me that you must be deluded.

How anyone can contemplate buying a product or service from something with Musk behind it, beats me.

TJH

Folk will buy or not on performance, quality and aura, with aura being a very important selling point.
.....

The same is true of Apple, it created a brand that many regard has being massively over priced and run in non-business ways and yet they are the biggest company in the US. When the conventional folk got in charge of Apple they made such a mess that they had to bring Jobs back....

If you examine the careers of the UK folk who have become self made billionaires: Sugar, Branson etc., you will not find they made their money by learning difficult stuff and sitting at a desk in an office, things that are often taken as the measure of success in society.

Regards,

Prompted by a DCF discussion further up, some comments:

1. The lifetime of an Apple product in consumer eyes is about 2 years. Maybe 4 at a stretch, but 2 for most people. Think back to first iPod, or iMac, or Apple II, etc. So what you were buying is all you were getting, and after 2 years resale value trivial, throw it away ad get another one. Risk is therefore low. But when buying a car the lifetime is 20 years or so, and it is a big ticket item. That means the resale value is a significant factor in may people's assessment of fair value pricing at purchase. If you think that Tesla is going to go bust then you tend to steer away from that, as residual prices would be low post bankruptcy. Up until now Musk was th eglory boy, but actual bad news lawsuits that cause you to think he is a particular problem, and that without him it might go bust, then you might be more leery.

2. Branson was a crook. Deliberate VAT evasion is fraud, and he admitted it. It gave him an advantage in the market and thereby he got started and got his initial legup the wealth chain. (I think I am the only person who has ever put the phone down on Branson's VC arm.)

3. I think Tesla could survive without Musk. But there is no denying that some of its impetus comes from his centralised concentrated decision making that is prepared to take risk his particular way. So whether Tesla would survive and grow, quickly & sufficiently enough, to become long term organically successful vs legacy auto is questionable.

4. Good link, thank you. So 51,000 model 3 in last quarter is 3,600 per week. That is an improvement but still short of 5,000/week. They report hitting the 5k rate at quarter end. I am very interested to see if operational cash burn has ended.

regards, dspp

[odysseus2000]

If Musk leaves Tesla stock collapses.

Yes, short term probably right as the Musk groupies bail out. But in terms of the real future of the company it would be the making of it, and it might produce a good buying opportunity. Musk may have had the right approach to get Tesla to where it is now, but he is not the right person to be CEO where they are now, where they have to start doing all that boring stuff big auto has so much experience of. Predictable production, while ensuring quality control, meeting regulation, proper corporate governance, serious (and truthful) communications with investors, dealing with staff and unions.

If you really see Tesla as being a major car producer then you have to face up to having a management that can handle all that.

Peter

Hello Peter & DSPP,

I doubt the existing car market will survive, more likely imho that cars become things you rent as needed, driven by computer, highly recyclable, built for short lives before being upgraded to the next, kind of like iPhone & other Apple products.

The car market has already moved to have a large lease component which I see as just the beginning.

There are of course many reasons why this might not happen including if self drive cars can not be made to work reliably & safely, but the advantages of this look so over whelming to me, that I expect the problems to be over come.

Imagine if the 3000+ road deaths in the uk was reduced to a small number like zero, all the space now taken by cars at home & at work was freed up as there would no longer be a need for parking spaces & everyone can at low cost get transportation to where ever they want to go. If the replacement cars become pod like one could cut congestion dramatically.

If this begins to happen it will require a new mind set, that of the relentlessly upgrading retailer, which I doubt exists in most legacy auto and it will be dominated by one or a few companies such that the spoils for the winner(s) will be huge.

If this view is anything like reality it will create huge changes & legacy auto as is will collapse to nothing.

Regards,

[PeterGray]

I doubt the existing car market will survive, more likely imho that cars become things you rent as needed

That may happen, but not on a timescale that I have any interest in from the investment point of view.

Peter

[odysseus2000]

I doubt the existing car market will survive, more likely imho that cars become things you rent as needed

That may happen, but not on a timescale that I have any interest in from the investment point of view.

Peter

It is evolution if it happens and it will happen as evolution always does: Very quickly.

If you consider how fast mobile phones went from house bricks to iPhones you will have only an upper bound, things now are much faster & if these evolutionary developments occur it will be well underway in five years. The time between iPhone X & Xs, gives some insight into how fast new things are now practical. For my little electronics business I can order & have pcb' made in China & with me in 6 days, sometimes faster. Apple, Amazon, Google, Tesla, Uber... all have seriously funded groups working hard on the technology of robotic cars. We have reached the time when if anyone gets the technology to work they can crank out stuff at remarkable rates & if it is better than what we have now the barriers to its use are low to non-existent & the commercial rewards to the winners gigantic.

Regards,

[Itsallaguess]

If you consider how fast mobile phones went from house bricks to iPhones you will have only an upper bound, things now are much faster & if these evolutionary developments occur it will be well underway in five years.

The time between iPhone X & Xs, gives some insight into how fast new things are now practical. For my little electronics business I can order & have pcb' made in China & with me in 6 days, sometimes faster. Apple, Amazon, Google, Tesla, Uber... all have seriously funded groups working hard on the technology of robotic cars.

We have reached the time when if anyone gets the technology to work they can crank out stuff at remarkable rates & if it is better than what we have now the barriers to its use are low to non-existent & the commercial rewards to the winners gigantic.

The speed at which people want the latest iPhone is likely to be diametrically opposed to the speed at which they'll wish to give up their cars...

I think you're making the mistake of trying to align the potential availability of a future technology with the widescale public acceptance of it.

We've already got a global taxi market. Why do people still own cars?

I've no doubt that Google Glasses had a pitch similar to your quotes above. How did that go?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[odysseus2000]

If you consider how fast mobile phones went from house bricks to iPhones you will have only an upper bound, things now are much faster & if these evolutionary developments occur it will be well underway in five years.

The time between iPhone X & Xs, gives some insight into how fast new things are now practical. For my little electronics business I can order & have pcb' made in China & with me in 6 days, sometimes faster. Apple, Amazon, Google, Tesla, Uber... all have seriously funded groups working hard on the technology of robotic cars.

We have reached the time when if anyone gets the technology to work they can crank out stuff at remarkable rates & if it is better than what we have now the barriers to its use are low to non-existent & the commercial rewards to the winners gigantic.

The speed at which people want the latest iPhone is likely to be diametrically opposed to the speed at which they'll wish to give up their cars...

I think you're making the mistake of trying to align the potential availability of a future technology with the widescale public acceptance of it.

We've already got a global taxi market. Why do people still own cars?

I've no doubt that Google Glasses had a pitch similar to your quotes above. How did that go?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Fair points, but lets not forget the 3000 deaths and serious injuries every year on UK roads. This is a real and on going tragedy.

If a new technology comes along and offer an end to this, the odds on the politicians, insurance industry, media etc adopting it fast especially along with
all the other benefits I mentioned is high.

One could not say the same for Google Glasses which were a way to give faster access to the internet. However and interestingly the Chinese police seem to have adopted something like Google glasses as a way of bringing images of criminals to their officers eyes very quickly. Unlike in the west where folk can feel threatened by this type of technology there is no counter to such systems in a communist state. Moreover there are several research studies aimed at a more direct interface of the internet to the mind via implants to give machine speed access for the human brain. A few years ago this was science fiction, but it now begins to look like it may happen.

The world is now changing at an incredible rate such that historical rates of technology deployment are no longer guides as to what can happen or at what speed.

Regards,

[DiamondEcho]

Fair points, but lets not forget the 3000 deaths and serious injuries every year on UK roads. This is a real and on going tragedy.
If a new technology comes along and offer an end to this,

'IF.... that big fat word you can spend hours contemplating over a big fat spliff'.

Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian. March-2018
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... zona-tempe


Tesla fatal crash: 'autopilot' mode sped up car before driver killed, report finds. June-2018
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ode-report
Except:
'The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that four seconds before the 23 March crash on a highway in Silicon Valley, which killed Walter Huang, 38, the car stopped following the path of a vehicle in front of it. Three seconds before the impact, it sped up from 62mph to 70.8mph, and the car did not brake or steer away, the NTSB said.
The report – which said the Tesla battery was breached, causing the car to be engulfed in flames – comes after after the company has repeatedly sought to deflect blame on to the driver and the local highway conditions. Musk has also aggressively attacked journalists writing about this crash and other recent autopilot collisions, complaining that the negative attention would discourage people from using his technology.'

[Itsallaguess]

The world is now changing at an incredible rate such that historical rates of technology deployment are no longer guides as to what can happen or at what speed.

But you're discussing the potential for an ultra-swift roll-out of an as-yet unproven car-technology (auto-pilot cars) that you suggest will do away with the need for anyone to own a car.

I've asked if you can tell us why it is that we still own cars in huge numbers now, given that we already have a global taxi market that's both cheap and available to your door in minutes today....

What will be different between the current local taxi market and these auto-pilot cars, that's going to make us all suddenly not need the cars we own today?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[odysseus2000]

The world is now changing at an incredible rate such that historical rates of technology deployment are no longer guides as to what can happen or at what speed.

But you're discussing the potential for an ultra-swift roll-out of an as-yet unproven car-technology (auto-pilot cars) that you suggest will do away with the need for anyone to own a car.

I've asked if you can tell us why it is that we still own cars in huge numbers now, given that we already have a global taxi market that's both cheap and available to your door in minutes today....

What will be different between the current local taxi market and these auto-pilot cars, that's going to make us all suddenly not need the cars we own today?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

The difference will be safety, reliability and government incentives.

Human driven taxi are no safer, sometimes less, than owner drivers.

If machines work and so far there are lots of questions and a few deaths to say they don't, but if they do then one has a much better experience than is possible with a relatively expensive human driven car.

Regards,

[onthemove]

I doubt the existing car market will survive, more likely imho that cars become things you rent as needed, driven by computer, ....

That's a scenario which is frequently presented as the future for self driving cars.

But I just don't believe that that will be how it pans out.

When you own your car, the inside of it is your own personal space. The car itself is chosen most likely based on aesthetics - the colour your choice. The extras, your choice.

When you step into your own car, you are entering your own personal space. When you walk out of work at the end of the day, when you climb into your car, you are entering home territory.

Wouldn't it be great to then turn off, not have to worry about driving, pull your favourite book, computer game, whatever, out of the glove compartment, and simply relax in your own personal space while the car autonomously navigates rush hour traffic for you.

Try that scenario if the car isn't yours. If you've had to call it from an app. No idea what colour you're going to get, no idea who was sat in your seat before hand, nor what they did in that seat. When you open up the glove box, no idea what someone might have left in there, definitely not your favourite book, movie, whatever. When you open the door of the car, you get the aroma of the previous occupant who hasn't washed for several days.

A car is about personal transport.

The key thing is personal. It is your transport. It is your personal space.

Sure, there currently are hire cars, taxis, etc, and they will continue. There certainly is a use for ad-hoc temporary use of a vehicle.

But it's not going to replace private car ownership.

When you call your self driving car to pick you up, that is what you want - your - self driving car, with your chosen options, your individual taste, your personal space inside it.

[RececaDron]

Highly pertinent:

Tesla, software and disruption
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans ... disruption

"When Nokia people looked at the first iPhone, they saw a not-great phone with some cool features that they were going to build too, being produced at a small fraction of the volumes they were selling. They shrugged. “No 3G, and just look at the camera!”

When many car company people look at a Tesla, they see a not-great car with some cool features that they’re going to build too, being produced at a small fraction of the volumes they’re selling. “Look at the fit and finish, and the panel gaps, and the tent!”

The Nokia people were terribly, terribly wrong. Are the car people wrong? We hear that a Tesla is ‘the new iPhone’ - what would that mean?

This is partly a question about Tesla, but it’s more interesting as a way to think about what happens when ‘software eats the world’ in general, and when tech moves into new industries. How do we think about whether something is disruptive? If it is, who exactly gets disrupted? And does that disruption mean that one company wins in the new world? Which one?"

[odysseus2000]

I doubt the existing car market will survive, more likely imho that cars become things you rent as needed, driven by computer, ....

That's a scenario which is frequently presented as the future for self driving cars.

But I just don't believe that that will be how it pans out.

When you own your car, the inside of it is your own personal space. The car itself is chosen most likely based on aesthetics - the colour your choice. The extras, your choice.

When you step into your own car, you are entering your own personal space. When you walk out of work at the end of the day, when you climb into your car, you are entering home territory.

Wouldn't it be great to then turn off, not have to worry about driving, pull your favourite book, computer game, whatever, out of the glove compartment, and simply relax in your own personal space while the car autonomously navigates rush hour traffic for you.

Try that scenario if the car isn't yours. If you've had to call it from an app. No idea what colour you're going to get, no idea who was sat in your seat before hand, nor what they did in that seat. When you open up the glove box, no idea what someone might have left in there, definitely not your favourite book, movie, whatever. When you open the door of the car, you get the aroma of the previous occupant who hasn't washed for several days.

A car is about personal transport.

The key thing is personal. It is your transport. It is your personal space.

Sure, there currently are hire cars, taxis, etc, and they will continue. There certainly is a use for ad-hoc temporary use of a vehicle.

But it's not going to replace private car ownership.

When you call your self driving car to pick you up, that is what you want - your - self driving car, with your chosen options, your individual taste, your personal space inside it.

Yes, everyone wants their personal space, but what do folk accept? People travel by coach and train, nothing personal there, folk sleep at hotels on beds that have had many others sleep on them, on carpets and fittings that many others have used and still folk do it endlessly.

Something like a pod could easily include its own sanitising technology, air change, steam cleaning etc. You would sit in, be restrained and then taken to where ever you wanted, complete with what ever things you needed, just as a vip is picked up by a chauffeur and taken to their destination. Such a life is good enough for the rich and famous, are you sure its not good enough for everyone else?

Regards,

[onthemove]

Yes, everyone wants their personal space, but what do folk accept? People travel by coach and train, nothing personal there, folk sleep at hotels on beds that have had many others sleep on them, on carpets and fittings that many others have used and still folk do it endlessly.

But those people don't use cars - at least not for the train journeys, coach journeys, etc.

To recap ... your point was that "[you] doubt the existing car market will survive".

So it's the people who currently drive cars that you need to convince to use the shared transport. Not the ones already using shared transport.

And when it comes to self driving cars, it's just a matter of the same journey as now, simply with the car doing the driving instead of the person in the (what was) driver's seat.

These people have already made their decision to have their own personal car. The only difference will be who, or what, drives it.

The only thing that would sway the equation is if the self driving aspect were too costly.

But then would drivers leave their own personal car to use an autonomous pod, shared with other people?

Or would they just keep doing what they are already doing - driving for themselves, in their own car that they own themselves - until the technology becomes cheap enough that they could have the automated driver option.

"Something like a pod could easily include its own sanitising technology, air change, steam cleaning etc."

Have you ever experienced those self-cleaning-pod style public toilets?
I can safely say self cleaning pods won't be an appealing replacement to your own personal space in your own car.

And that is without considering the cost such self cleaning technology would add to the pod.

You only need to look at that bike scheme that gave up on manchester to see the problems associated with mass, shared transport where there isn't a person overseeing the vehicle at all times.

[dspp]

It is evolution if it happens and it will happen as evolution always does: Very quickly.

If you consider how fast mobile phones went from house bricks to iPhones you will have only an upper bound, things now are much faster & if these evolutionary developments occur it will be well underway in five years.

Evolution does not always happen very quickly. Even in a punctuated equilibrium evolutionary model the rate of change is very dependent on the individual lifetime (and other things, strictly speaking time to reproduce which equates to time to buy). So in a system where the (mobile phone) lifetime is approx 2-years then it still took about 10-years for smartphones to reach approx 85% penetration in the UK market. That is 5 product lifetimes.

(from iphone launch 2007 to 85% in 2017, which is being generous as the first smartphones were available pre the iphone. )

Contrast that with a car. The average lifetime of a car is about 20 years. The main bits in an EV are the battery, which is very high cost but with a fairly fast evolutionary rate, and the motors which have a slow evolutionary rate, and the software which is an over-the-air update so irrelevant. Contrast the rate-of-change of the battery technology with the rate of change of mobile technology and you can see that cars are evolving more slowly.

The average hold time for a car is seven years (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/28/car-own ... d-bad.html). So to go from near zero to 85% penetration, assuming same uptake rate as for smartphones (which as I have pointed out is generous given the technology curve on batteries) would take 5 x 7yrs = 35 years.

(strictly speaking duration of first ownership is the most important thing, but that's 6.5 years so not much different: https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/07/ ... onger-Ever)

Now I happen to think that the adoption rate will go faster than that, but not primarily driven by the reason you are stating. I think the prime reason for more rapid adoption will be the decreased cost of operation due to energy costs, plus decreased cost of build due to component cost reduction. It costs a lot more to run a fossil vehicle than an EV; and fairly soon it will cost less to build an EV than a fossil one (I think the switch point is about a year or so away, driven by the technology curve for batteries). Add in any carbon taxation and that works in EV favour.

My personal opinion is that this will be a 20-year adoption curve as for most other big items.

But that given, it still does not mean Tesla have a great deal of advantage. In fact pretty soon they will be into disadvantage territory. It is only another few years and they will have all the problems of maintaining multiple product lines, backwards compatibility, etc that currently are not distracting them. Meanwhile legacy auto have the scale advantages, and second mover advantage.

Success for Tesla is not a given.

That said I am rooting for Tesla, but not buying the stock.

regards, dspp

[BobbyD]

Fair points, but lets not forget the 3000 deaths and serious injuries every year on UK roads. This is a real and on going tragedy.
If a new technology comes along and offer an end to this,

'IF.... that big fat word you can spend hours contemplating over a big fat spliff'.

Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian. March-2018
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... zona-tempe


Tesla fatal crash: 'autopilot' mode sped up car before driver killed, report finds. June-2018
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ode-report
Except:
'The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that four seconds before the 23 March crash on a highway in Silicon Valley, which killed Walter Huang, 38, the car stopped following the path of a vehicle in front of it. Three seconds before the impact, it sped up from 62mph to 70.8mph, and the car did not brake or steer away, the NTSB said.
The report – which said the Tesla battery was breached, causing the car to be engulfed in flames – comes after after the company has repeatedly sought to deflect blame on to the driver and the local highway conditions. Musk has also aggressively attacked journalists writing about this crash and other recent autopilot collisions, complaining that the negative attention would discourage people from using his technology.'

Coincidentally those are the two companies trying to do it on the cheap by using no (Tesla) or one (UBER) LIDAR... Proper Autonomous Driving systems built for that purpose from the ground up, rather than as over developed cruise controls with abilities bolted on as and when have significantly better safety records.

[BobbyD]

Contrast that with a car. The average lifetime of a car is about 20 years.

It's about 13 years in the UK.

It's also worth considering that there is no reason Autonomous Driving kits couldn't be retro-fitted in to dumb cars. Just as there are those looking to develop a box they can ship to every car factory including a complete bolt in AD system, a complete setup designed for after market installation would pose no real technical challenges*. It's noticeable that a lot of companies working on AD use hardware from the same suppliers such as Mobileye and Aptiv.


* Other than those involved in getting a certified AD system in the first place obviously...

[dspp]

Contrast that with a car. The average lifetime of a car is about 20 years.

It's about 13 years in the UK.

It's also worth considering that there is no reason Autonomous Driving kits couldn't be retro-fitted in to dumb cars. Just as there are those looking to develop a box they can ship to every car factory including a complete bolt in AD system, a complete setup designed for after market installation would pose no real technical challenges*. It's noticeable that a lot of companies working on AD use hardware from the same suppliers such as Mobileye and Aptiv.


* Other than those involved in getting a certified AD system in the first place obviously...

Average lifetime of a car in the UK is actually 16 years, so below my nominal 20-years, but not the 13 years you state (see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... illennium/). Don't confuse lifetime (16 years) with average age (8 years). But really what we need to focus on is length of ownership of first car-owner in markets in which EVs are being adopted.

I don't think the retrofit market would be economically viable in large quantities for autonomous functionality. There are a lot of sensors to be put in just the right place, then calibrated to those places, then interfaced with the donor car, and a user interface installed. Never mind the technical issues, the legal issues are horrendous. So even though there are not that many system providers out there, I think that smartcar technology will be introduced via the newcar market. But that is an aside for EV adoption to my mind. At heart Tesla are an EV manufacturer that was forced to go the smartcar route once they made their (correct) analysis that premium first was the correct market entry route.

regards, dspp

[vrdiver]

I suspect self-driving cars are coming. It's just a question of which decade - 20s or 30s (my money is on the '20's but the second half...).

Three reasons:
#1 safety. When self driving cars can be demonstrated to be safer than human-driven cars, I suspect there will be incredible pressure to force humans off the road. Each human-caused RTA will add to that pressure.

#2 Cost. As each teenager reaches the legal driving age, the cost (to them) of insurance, learning to drive and passing a test are significant. How much more attractive is a self-driving car with low insurance and no learning or effort required to use it**. For those of us who already hold a license, the attractions of being able to sleep (fully reclining seat option for me) watch a movie or even finish off some work would make it attractive. Oh, and it's safer and lower insurance premiums.

#3 Regulation. Banning humans from sections of road (accident black spots), parking systems that shuffle cars to minimise space (so driverless cars only, thank you) possible government regulation making human drivers who have accidents restricted to driverless car usage, government or road agencies fitting "smart" speed limits which the driverless car will obey - thus maximising traffic flow; there are myriad possibilities to organise, optimise, control and contain costs, once the human is no longer in control.

None of the above impacts ownership. I own a car for the convenience and cost management. It's cheaper than hiring ad-hoc for the usage I make of it, and any additional trips are almost free*. To use a driverless pool car it would have to be always available and significantly cheaper than the current situation of personal ownership. When I compare using my car versus traveling by train, typically I look at the fuel cost vs the ticket price. If it's close I might throw in the parking charges, but emotionally I'd rather be in my car-bubble than in a train carriage, even if the true cost of the car journey is greater. For driverless cars, unless there is a significant saving, I suspect most people will still want their personal space and the guarantee of availability that a car on the drive brings.


I suspect we'll see a hybrid market: dealerships may operate a fleet of "uber-style" driverless cars, as perhaps would the big leasing companies. Low mileage, irregular usage owners might switch, but regular users (school run, daily commute, busy social life) might stay with direct ownership.

Which brings us back to Tesla. Migrating to driverless cars, assuming no retro-fit option, will take years. Even with a scrappage scheme, replacing the current fleet is not a quick task. One or other of the car makers may have the lead at any point, but, like tobacco and vaping, I'd expect legacy car makers to be planning for the switchover. Maximising revenue on existing plant may be important, but ensuring they are in the game long term has to be a strategic imperitive. I'm sure every boardroom has had the "look at what Apple did to Nokia" conversation, as well as the "Kodak moment" discussion. No CEO wants to be the next household example of industrial dinosaur hubris...

Tesla may well make it as a mainstream player (I hope they do) but it's a massive leap of faith to assume that they will not only survive, not only prosper, but in addition wipe out the competition. Cars are bought for so many different reasons and Tesla barely scratches the surface of the carbuying logic.

Incidentally, James Dyson was supposed to be launching his designed-from-the-ground-up electric car at some point. https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new- ... c-car-2020
Apart from not being in the USA, all the arguments in favour of Tesla apply, but with a serious engineer at the helm. Ditto battery technology. The electric car and the driverless car are still in their infancy, with associated mortality rates and unexpected lineage.

VRD


*Fuel, but that's not associated with the specific journey, and depreciation, wear and tear are likewise not usually considered as a per-mile cost when driving, only as an accounting afterthought for most people (IME).

**The current requirement to have a driver hovering over the controls, alert and ready to take over at the drop of a hat is, IMHO, ludicrous. When the technology is proven, I expect that constraint to be removed.