Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo
Makes me feel less bad about Calgary being cut, but surprised this service is now less economically viable than when it started. What changed? Was it just subsidised the whole time?
Hopefully something replaces it, hopefully something electrically powered.
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Smart and then the main Mercedes brand were using it as advertising, sort of like when car brands used to have exclusivity agreements with rental car companies. It would also allow maintenance facilities within the cities to operate at a larger scale, which I could potentially see benefits from.
I think without major support to build collective charging infrastructure, the writing is on the wall for the business IF you think a self driving taxi is going to work. If you have to have them drive home at the end of the night to charge, why not have them in auto mode all the time?
It is a cool business. If there had been a way to car share post ww2 I wonder how our cities would look different. But their niche is going to be filled by driverless taxis, vanpools, and small buses- where it hasn't already been filled for short trips by scooters or human driven rideshare.
I wouldn't have thought even last year that scooters could be a viable business (and they still probably aren't, but all it takes is for one company to build the durable enough model to make the numbers work), but now it seems that scooters might end up being the sustainable business model to the surprise of almost everyone.