Via the AFR:
The chief executive of Cabcharge says driverless taxis are likely to be operating in Australia by 2026 but they will “co-mingle” with thousands of traditional cabs that will still be on the roads with a driver for decades to come.
Andrew Skelton, the boss of the taxi payments company which oversees a fleet of 8,600 taxis across Australia, said the right regulatory framework needed to be in place but the company was working internally on a timetable of 2026-27 for the advent of the first autonomous taxi vehicles.
“They are going to co-mingle. Driven taxis don’t suddenly stop,” he said after the company’s annual general meeting in Sydney.
Cabcharge expects revenues to return to double-digit growth in 2017-18 as the acquisition of Yellow Cabs in Queensland and heavy investment in new technology and marketing begin to pay off, but it still faces an uphill battle against ride-sharing services like Uber.
If this is what Cabcharge is planning for then it’s already dead. It will be wiped out by Uber and other private operators in about a week when driverless rideshares takeoff. The economics of driverless cars are unbelievably cheap compared with manned cabs and the latter will simply cease to exist overnight.
