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I watched Tesla's We, Robot event last night. As many of you know, Elon and his team showcased a Cybercab, Robovan, and a humanoid robot that dances funny, all of which will be available in the market for purchase at some unknowable date in the future. What was obvious is that Elon himself has no clear idea of when this will be.
What I will say, though, is that the designs look cool. The Cybercab looks like a Porsche and a Cybertruck had a love child, and the Robovan looks like an Art Deco rendition of what the future is supposed to be like. I first wondered why they'd create a robotaxi with only two seats. But thinking about it now, most Uber rides probably only have 1-2 passengers.
Despite these pretty designs, the overwhelming reaction to the event seems to be one of disappointment. We've heard what was said before. Public transportation is bad (I disagree). Autonomy will free up your time and remove unnecessary parking spaces from our cities (allowing for more public space). And soon you'll be able to put your under-utilized car to work and earn extra cash.
Cool, but when?
Waymo and Uber are not, as far as I know, hosting similarly flashy events. But as far as I can tell, they're making meaningful progress in advancing toward full autonomy. As of June of this year, Waymo had already logged over 22 million rider-only miles. And in September, they announced a partnership that would bring AVs to Austin and Atlanta by way of the Uber app.
At this point in the hype cycle, I don't think anyone is interested in hearing promises about what the future of autonomy will be like, especially without any firm dates. They want to know: Are we there yet? So I think it's no surprise that people, including investors, weren't all that pumped up by the event.
On a more important note, Tesla had bicycles with brightly illuminated wheels circulating around their event set (at Warner Bros.) to presumably demonstrate that their Cybercabs can successfully navigate around moving objects (when brightly illuminated). If you missed them, look at the 29 second mark in the below video:
https://youtu.be/Mu-eK72ioDk?si=JeU4z8Q5HLI-f9r3&t=29
I can't be the only one who thought: "What are those? Now, that's what I want!" So I've asked Elon when they'll be available and when I can buy one. I'll keep you all posted on his response.
Here is an interesting chart (source) showing housing starts in Canada, by type, between 2000 and 2023:
As recent as 2000, single-family houses accounted for 61% of total starts and multi-family housing accounted for 39%. This flipped somewhere around the financial crisis and, last year in 2023, the percentages were 23% and 77%, respectively. This is a meaningful inversion which has helped our cities become more vibrant and more conducive to non-car modes of transport.
In Google's guide to its maps, there is a section on live traffic congestion, and in it, this image is used:
I'm not exactly sure what he believes to be the solution, but I don't think this problem is as simple as "we've built some housing, we made our cities denser, and yet housing is still expensive -- more supply must not be the answer. Let's move on."
Among many other things, it's important to understand what kind of density we've been building. Because up until very recently, we've basically taken the position that single-family neighborhoods should never be touched, and that density should only go in very specific areas -- and only after a lengthy and expensive rezoning process has been completed.
We've designed new housing to be expensive.
But attitudes are changing all across North America. We are now starting to do two very important things: (1) we are opening up more of our cities to intensification and (2) we are now allowing more multi-family housing on an as-of-right basis. Meaning, no lengthy rezoning exercises and no risk of community opposition.
These are two fundamental changes that should alter the kind of density that gets built. And in my view, it's going to be a positive thing for Canadian cities.
It is a map of the Toronto region, and not surprisingly, it is showing traffic congestion on the 401 highway. But what's interesting about this image is that there's no traffic at all on the 407 express toll route. (This is the green highway running generally parallel and north of the 401, for those of you who aren't familiar with Toronto.)
This is, of course, accurate. A 2019 study by the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis called the Economic Impacts of Highway 407 found that, at the time, an average of 413,000 drivers were using the 407 highway each weekday. And of these trips, more than 85% of vehicles were travelling at or above 100 km/h. This translates into a traffic congestion index of almost zero.
During this same time, the highway 401 through Toronto showed that about 85% of vehicles were travelling below 50 km/h. Meaning, lots of congestion. This also had a significant impact on collision and fatality rates. On the 407, both were about half of what they were on the 401. (I couldn't find any more decent data, but if you have it, please share it in the comments.)
The reason for these differences is simple: the 407 charges for congestion. Here are the current per kilometer weekday rates for light vehicles travelling westbound:
Naturally, there are people who think the 407 is too expensive and that it shouldn't have been privatized. But the reality is that it works; really well in fact. And this is the only method that has been proven to reliably combat congestion. We can go ahead and spend a gazillion dollars building a new tunnel under the 401, and double the number of lanes (it's already 18 lanes at its widest point), but we already know that it won't solve our congestion problem.
Either we price roads and congestion, or we don't. But if we don't, then we need to be brutally honest with ourselves about the economic trade off that we are making: free/underpriced roads = traffic congestion, and accurately priced roads and congestion = less traffic. The choice is ours. But know, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
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