Self-driving cars for retirees

[msmithy]

I believe it will actually be in Pittsburgh, PA

 

[Totoro]

No one can run a car for 2 cents per mile...the depreciation alone is 12.5 cents per mile assuming that you get 200,000 miles out of a $30,000 vehicle and it's worth $5k when it reaches 200k miles. Then there is insurance, tires, maintenance, charging costs, etc.

However, if you start a business charging $3 per ride, I'll definitely be a customer!!

A few folks on the diesel scandal have cars now with negative depreciation

Wise-ass aside, how low could we go is a good question? 35 cents per mile is a fair estimate for 20k miles in a small ICE sedan today, of which 40% might be depreciation, 20% fuel and 40% everything else.

Going self-driving ups the mileage, and drops the relative depreciation (the time based part, which is the biggest part). Self-driving can reduce the insurance factor by 80% or more. If somehow it can be done electric maintenance will go down by maybe 50%, and fuel by 70%.

With these pretty wild assumptions I think you can end up with 10 - 15 cents or so per mile per car.

In dense urban areas you might get 3 people per car on average, 3 - 5 cents. Not quite there, but close

 

[Walt34]

I think I'd like one of these:

It's powered by four electric motors, giving it all-wheel drive and a rated 738 horsepower. Mercedes claims a 0-100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) time of "less than 4 seconds," not quite in Tesla Motors'(NASDAQ:TSLA) "Ludicrous" league but more than fast enough to be thrilling. (And let's be fair: This thing is probably a lot heavier than a Model S.) The concept has an 80 kilowatt-hour battery that Mercedes said would give it an EPA-rated range of over 200 miles.

Is Daimler's Mercedes-Maybach 6 Concept the Greatest Electric Car Yet? -- The Motley Fool