Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Privacy while driving

 Internet connected cars collect lots of data on driving behavior, which can be sold to insurance companies and used to change drivers' insurance rates.

The NYT has the story:

Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies . LexisNexis, which generates consumer risk profiles for the insurers, knew about every trip G.M. drivers had taken in their cars, including when they sped, braked too hard or accelerated rapidly.   By Kashmir Hill

"LexisNexis is a New York-based global data broker with a “Risk Solutions” division that caters to the auto insurance industry and has traditionally kept tabs on car accidents and tickets. 

...

"In recent years, insurance companies have offered incentives to people who install dongles in their cars or download smartphone apps that monitor their driving, including how much they drive, how fast they take corners, how hard they hit the brakes and whether they speed. But “drivers are historically reluctant to participate in these programs,” as Ford Motor put it in a patent application that describes what is happening instead: Car companies are collecting information directly from internet-connected vehicles for use by the insurance industry.

"Sometimes this is happening with a driver’s awareness and consent. Car companies have established relationships with insurance companies, so that if drivers want to sign up for what’s called usage-based insurance — where rates are set based on monitoring of their driving habits — it’s easy to collect that data wirelessly from their cars.

But in other instances, something much sneakier has happened. Modern cars are internet-enabled, allowing access to services like navigation, roadside assistance and car apps that drivers can connect to their vehicles to locate them or unlock them remotely. In recent years, automakers, including G.M., Honda, Kia and Hyundai, have started offering optional features in their connected-car apps that rate people’s driving. Some drivers may not realize that, if they turn on these features, the car companies then give information about how they drive to data brokers like LexisNexis.

"Automakers and data brokers that have partnered to collect detailed driving data from millions of Americans say they have drivers’ permission to do so. But the existence of these partnerships is nearly invisible to drivers, whose consent is obtained in fine print and murky privacy policies that few read.

"Especially troubling is that some drivers with vehicles made by G.M. say they were tracked even when they did not turn on the feature — called OnStar Smart Driver — and that their insurance rates went up as a result."

Saturday, August 5, 2023

Prohibition, Moonshine, and the origins of stock car racing (NASCAR)

Prohibition (and before and after prohibition, high taxes) gave rise to black markets in alcohol. Some of the participants in those markets became folk heroes and later sports heroes, as smugglers became race car drivers, driving "stock" cars rather than cars that drew attention to themselves, eventually giving rise to the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).

Here's on old article from Smithsonian Magazine that gets right to the point:

How Moonshine Bootlegging Gave Rise to NASCAR. Rotgut and firewater are the founding fathers of our nation’s racing pastime.  by Jennifer Billock

"Even before Prohibition, erstwhile distillers were gathering in secret locations throughout rural areas in the south, brewing up homemade spirits to sell under the radar and away from alcohol taxes and bans. The drinks were made under the light of the moon, in hopes that no one would detect smoke rising from the stills and ultimately bust the operation—a practice that earned the booze its name “moonshine.”

"Moonshining dates back to the 1700s, when officials imposed taxes on liquor sales. Farmers and immigrants throughout the south took to making their own batches to sell for extra money, tax free, to counteract the effects of extreme poverty in the region. And with the introduction of Prohibition, production skyrocketed, creating a thriving black market business for secretly distilled hooch.

"Each hidden distillery needed to use runners—drivers in understated or otherwise ordinary-looking cars who could smuggle moonshine from the stills to thirsty customers across the region. On the outside, the cars looked “stock,” normal enough to avoid attention. But inside, both the mechanics of the cars and the drivers behind the wheel were far from ordinary. The vehicles were outfitted with heavy-duty shocks and springs, safeguarding the jars containing the hooch from breaking on bumpy mountain roads. The seats in the back were usually removed so more booze could fit. And high-powered engines gave the cars extra speed to outrun any cops and tax agents along the route. 

...

"From the 1930s on, once Prohibition had ended, demand for bootlegged alcohol waned and the runners found themselves with souped-up cars yet out of work—though they continued to take part in organized races. On December 14, 1947, one of these runners, Big Bill France, held a meeting with other drivers, car owners and mechanics to finally put in place some standardized rules for the races—thus NASCAR, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, was born. The first official race was held two months later.

..."Arcadia Publishing released North Carolina Moonshine, a book about the Tar Heel State’s role in firewater history, covering everything from the NASCAR connection to local moonshining celebrities. In the book, the authors mention a secret garage hidden in the woods by the North Carolina-Virginia state line, which had opened in the 1930s and specialized in moonshine cars.

“This garage was operated for over 35 years by a shrewd, large and [purportedly] wily mechanic named Jelly Belly, who provided moonshine runners near and far with powerful cars that were almost untouchable,” authors Frank Stephenson Jr. and Barbara Nichols Mulder write."

*****

Moonshine whisky didn't completely disappear after the end of Prohibition, there are likely still some stills in the backcountry, to avoid taxes.  But while it's a tiny part of the whisky economy today, there are still auto sports heroes who got their start running the back roads with moonshine.  President Ronald Reagan pardoned one of them in 1985 for a 1956 conviction and prison sentence (followed by a storied racing career). The State of North Carolina commemorates the event here:

Junior Johnson Pardoned by Ronald Reagan

"On December 26, 1985, Robert Glen “Junior” Johnson received a  full and unconditional pardon from President Ronald Reagan for his 1956 conviction in federal court for moonshining.  Junior was caught firing up his father’s still and he became entangled in a barbed wire fence while trying to escape.  The conviction put Junior on a forced eleven-month, three-day hiatus in a federal penitentiary from his other career as a rising NASCAR star.

"Johnson, like many early NASCAR drivers, got his first high-speed driving experience in a souped-up automobile loaded with illegal white liquor.  He was a natural as a driver and has always made it a point of pride that the revenuers never caught him on the highway.  He parlayed his experience on the backroads of North Carolina into one of the most successful careers in NASCAR history.

********

Whisky running is memorialized in the NASCAR Hall of Fame:

DIGGING INTO NASCAR'S ROOTS, MOONSHINE RUNNERS & JUNIOR JOHNSON




HT: Kurt Sweat





Sunday, June 11, 2023

Digital data yields suspect in Idaho murders (NYT)

 The NYT has the story of how a wide ranging search of a large variety of digital data  led to an arrest of a suspect (whose trial hasn't yet begun):

Inside the Hunt for the Idaho Killer,” by Mike Baker, New York Times, June 10, 2023

"“Online shopping, car sales, carrying a cellphone, drives along city streets and amateur genealogy all played roles in an investigation that was solved, in the end, as much through technology as traditional sleuthing.

...

"A week after the killings, records show, investigators were on the lookout for a certain type of vehicle: Nissan Sentras from the model years 2019 to 2023. Quietly, they ran down details on thousands of such vehicles, including the owners’ addresses, license plate numbers and the color of each sedan.

"But further scrutiny of the video footage produced more clarity, and on Nov. 25 the police in Moscow asked law enforcement agencies to look for a different type of car with a similar shape: white Hyundai Elantras from the model years 2011 to 2013.

"Just across the state border, at Washington State University, campus police officers began looking through their records for Elantras registered there. 

...

"The hunt broadened as investigators vacuumed up more records and data. They had already sought cellphone data for all phones that pinged cell towers within a half-mile of the victims’ house from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., according to search warrant filings. 

...

"after getting back data on [one of the victim]’s account on the Tinder dating app, detectives asked for details on 19 specific account-holders, including their locations, credit card information and any “private images, pictures or videos” associated with the accounts.

...

"Investigators were also working with a key piece of evidence: a Ka-Bar knife sheath, branded with a U.S. Marine Corps logo, that had been found next to two of the victims. They initially began looking for local stores that may have sold the weapon, and then fanned out.

"A request to Amazon sought the order histories of account holders who had purchased such knives. A follow-up request to eBay focused on a series of specific users, seeking their purchase histories. Some had connections to the area — including one in Idaho and two in Washington State...

...

"Forensic teams had examined the knife sheath and found DNA that did not belong to any of the inhabitants of the house. They ran the sample through the F.B.I.’s database, which contains millions of DNA profiles of past criminal offenders, but according to three people briefed on the case, they did not get a match.

"At that point, investigators decided to try genetic genealogy, a method that until now has been used primarily to solve cold cases, not active murder investigations.

...

"F.B.I. personnel ...{spent] days building out a family tree that began with a distant relative.

"By the morning of Dec. 19, records show, investigators had a name: Bryan Kohberger. He had a white Elantra. He was a student at a university eight miles from the murder scene.

...

"On Dec. 23, investigators sought and received Mr. Kohberger’s cellphone records. The results added more to their suspicions: His phone was moving around in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, but was disconnected from cell networks — perhaps turned off — in the two hours around when the killings occurred.

"Four days later, agents in Pennsylvania managed to retrieve some trash from Mr. Kohberger’s family residence, sending the material to the Idaho State Police forensic lab. Checking it against their original DNA profile, the lab was able to reach a game-changing conclusion: The DNA in the trash belonged to a close relative of whoever had left DNA on the knife sheath.

"Mr. Kohberger was arrested on Dec. 30."


Thursday, May 7, 2020

Price versus waiting time in a ride sharing market

Here's an interesting paper on ride sharing, with estimates of the tradeoffs that individuals make between price and waiting time. The data come from the Uber-like ride sharing service Liftago in the Czech Republic, which however offers passengers a tradeoff between price and waiting time.

THE VALUE OF TIME: EVIDENCE FROM AUCTIONED CAB RIDES
Nicholas Buchholz, Laura Doval, Jakub Kastl, Filip Matějka, Tobias Salz
Working Paper 27087  http://www.nber.org/papers/w27087

ABSTRACT: We estimate valuations of time using detailed consumer choice data from a large European ride hail platform, where drivers bid on trips and consumers choose between a set of potential rides with different prices and waiting times. We estimate consumer demand as a function of prices and waiting times. While demand is responsive to both, price elasticities are on average four times higher than waiting-time elasticities. We show how these estimates can be mapped into values of time that vary by place, person, and time of day. Regarding variation within a day, the value of time during non-work hours is 16% lower than during work hours. Regarding the spatial dimension, our value of time measures are highly correlated both with real estate prices and urban GPS travel flows. A variance decomposition reveals that most of the substantial heterogeneity in the value of time is explained by individual differences as opposed to place or time of day. In contrast with other studies that focus on long run choices we do not find evidence of spatial sorting. We apply our measures to quantify the opportunity cost of traffic congestion in Prague, which we estimate at $483,000 per day.

In the body of the paper they say:

"We use detailed consumer choice data from Liftago, a large European ride-hailing application. This platform uses a unique mechanism to allocate each ride through a rapid auction process in which nearby drivers bid on ride requests and requesting consumers choose between bids based on various characteristics. Most importantly, bids often involve tradeoffs between price and waiting time, or the time it would take the taxi to pick up the customer. Contrast this with platforms like Uber and Lyft that employ “surge” pricing to equilibrate demand and supply so that consumers do not get to directly express their preferences over prices and waiting times within the platform. We are able to observe both consumers’ individual choice sets as well as their ultimate selection for 1.9 million ride requests and 5.2 million bids.

"The first contribution of this paper is to provide a direct and clean measurement of consumers’ willingness-to-pay to reduce waiting times. We use the variation in choice sets and choices to estimate a demand system that depends both on prices and waiting times. Such measures are of first-order importance for the provision of public transportation infrastructure as well as for the ride hail industry where price and waiting time are the two key variables on which firms compete. Our setting allows us to overcome some of the empirical challenges in measuring preferences over both prices and waiting-time.
"Our second contribution, building on the work of Small (1982), is to provide a conceptual  framework to interpret the disutility of waiting and to demonstrate how the willingness-to-pay for waiting-time reductions can be used to recover the value of time. When consumers choose a shorter wait time over a lower price, they reveal that the value of their time at a particular destination and time-of-day is greater than the value at the original location. Intuitively, the willingness to pay for lower wait times is simply the difference between the value of time at the destination and the value of time at the origin. "
**********
I think the first contribution mentioned above is quite an accomplishment, since I don't know of any equally good measure of consumer preferences for waiting time versus price.

I have some reservations about the value of shorter waiting time being a measure of the value of time at the destination minus the value of time at the origin. That seems to me to be a bit complicated. If I'm at work, ready to go home, and I expect waiting time to be not too long, I might go out of my building before calling a car (and now my value of time where I am is quite low). If I thought the waiting time would be longer, I might call the car from my office, where my value of time could be pretty high.  So the value of time "where I am" depends on whether I'm working or just waiting...and that depends on how long I think I'll have to wait.



Sunday, November 4, 2018

Waze carpool--launched nationwide

At the NBER market design conference, Michael Schwarz spoke of market design with his practioner hat on (he's Microsoft's chief economist, and former chief scientist at Waze when he worked for Google). He points out the importance of reducing transaction costs, because "enormous [potential] markets may consist of tiny transactions."

Speaking of which, he points out that Waze carpool went live throughout the U.S. last month.

Here's a story: Waze launches carpool service across the U.S.

"Carpooling isn’t just a smart way to cut down on weekly expenditures. It’s also good for the planet: Sharing a car with coworkers, friends, or neighbors keeps 1,600 pounds of greenhouse gas out of the air each year. And if 100 people were to take advantage of a carpool every day, it’d eliminate 1,320 pounds of carbon monoxide and a whopping 2,376,000 pounds of carbon dioxide.

That’s one of the reasons Google-owned navigation platform Waze hopes to lower the barrier to entry. Starting today, it’s launching Waze Carpool, a ridesharing platform it hopes will one day eliminate traffic congestion — and by extension pollution — across the U.S. in all 50 states. The rollout follows successful pilot tests in Israel, California, Texas, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Nevada."

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Modern congestion pricing, by Cramton, Geddes and Ockenfels

Here's a short paper in the July 31 Nature:
Set road charges in real time to ease traffic
Track vehicles to link tolls with demand and cut congestion, urge Peter Cramton, R. Richard Geddes and Axel Ockenfels


And here's the longer working paper:
Markets for Road Use: Eliminating Congestion through Scheduling, Routing, and Real-Time Road Pricing
Peter Cramton, R. Richard Geddes, and Axel Ockenfels

Their vision:

"Efficient pricing of network capacity is not new. Indeed, wholesale electricity markets have been dynamically priced for over a decade. Communications markets are adopting dynamic pricing today. Efficient pricing of road use, however, has only recently become feasible. Advances in mobile communications make it possible to identify and communicate the location of a vehicle to within one cubic meter—allowing precise measurement of road use. User preferences can be communicated both in advance to determine scheduled transport and in real time to optimize routes based on the latest information. Computer advances also facilitate efficient scheduling and pricing of road use. Consumer apps help road users translate detailed price information into preferred transport plans. Computers also allow an independent system operator to better model demand and adjust prices to eliminate congestion and maximize the total value of road infrastructure. An independent market monitor, distinct from the
operator, observes the market, identifies problems, and suggests solutions. A board governs the market subject to regulatory oversight."

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Dealing with shortages of deceased donors in a future with fewer automobile accidents

Sometimes you find out that someone has already worried about something that you haven't even thought of worrying about.  I worry about some aspects of transplantation, and I sometimes think about driverless cars, but here's an article about a worry that is nowhere near the top of my list.  However the short article below (it's a comment on another article) raises some interesting points about how society may want to rethink increasing organ donation as we see (I hope) ever fewer deaths from automobile accidents:

How Do You Donate Life When People Are Not Dying: Transplants in the Age of Autonomous Vehicles

Zoe Corin, Roee Furman, Shira Lifshitz, Ophir Samuelov & Dov Greenbaum (2018) , The American Journal of Bioethics, 18:7, 27-29, DOI: 10.1080/15265161.2018.1478024

"While there are differences of opinion as to when autonomous or self-driving cars will actually invade our roads—some car manufacturers are predicting consumer-ready self-driving cars as early as 2021—there is broad consensus that their inevitability is assured. And while there are clear positive social consequences that will result from self-driving cars and trucks, there are also a number of often less appreciated negative externalities. Balanced against the saved lives, minimized commutes, reduction in pollution, and general decrease in daily stress are the driving-related job losses and the reality that there will be fewer organ donors."
...
"There are no quick fixes, and current laws already place significant restrictions on the organ acquisition process. Buying and selling organs is nearly universally objectionable, unethical, and illegal (Ludin 2008). Some countries even ban any benefit, or any form of valuable consideration whatsoever, in exchange for an organ (Caulfield et al. 2014
Caulfield, T.E. NelsonB. Goldfeldt, and S.Klarenbach2014Incentives and organ donation: what’s (really) legal in Canada?Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease 1: 7.[Crossref][PubMed], [Google Scholar]). Some jurisdictions go even beyond this altruistic-only donor requirement, and allow live donations only among blood relatives (India 1994Government of India. 1994. Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994.http://wwwmedindianet/tho/thobill1asp. [Google Scholar]).
...
"However, even these universal attitudes have some specific exceptions: In many countries, blood donors are paid, and sperm and egg donors can receive thousands of dollars in remuneration. But just because a handful of tissue donations have been commodified (albeit sometimes obfuscated as gifts with financial consideration), it is not clear that this cash for contribution system will expand anytime soon to include other types of living donations, such as liver lobes or kidneys. To wit: While New York sperm donors can make more than a thousand dollars a month (Lewinnov 2016
Lewinnov, T201610 things to know about being a sperm donor, New York Times, Nov. 3 2016. [Google Scholar]), surrogacy contracts are still void and unenforceable by law (New York 2014New York. 2014. N.Y. Dom. REL. Law §§ 121-124 Surrogate Parenting Contracts Organ Donation and Recovery Improvement Act (2004). [Google Scholar]).
Nevertheless, in light of the need for organs, a number of jurisdictions have tried to indirectly incentivize donation, either through financial or non-financial mechanisms. Such incentives include paying for funeral costs of non-living donors, or for the out-of-pocket expenses directly associated with transplantation (US 2004)."

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Too many traffic jams: an interview with Stanford's Mike Ostrovsky (and a paper by Ostrovsky and Schwarz)

Mike Ostrovsky at Stanford GSB is interviewed on technology and traffic:
An End to Traffic Jams? It Might Not Be a Dream

And here's the paper on which the interview is based:

Carpooling and the Economics of Self-Driving Cars
Michael Ostrovsky and Michael Schwarz
February 12, 2018

Abstract: We study the interplay between autonomous transportation, carpooling, and road pricing.We discuss how improvements in these technologies, and interactions among them, will affect transportation markets. Our main results show how to achieve socially efficient outcomes in such markets, taking into account the costs of driving, road capacity, and commuter preferences.  An important  component  of  the  efficient  outcome  is  the  socially  optimal  matching  of  carpooling riders.  Our approach shows how to set road prices and how to share the costs of driving and tolls among carpooling riders in a way that implements the efficient outcome

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

2018 BEIJING INTERNATIONAL AUTOMOTIVE EXHIBITION

I am on my way to the auto show in Beijing as a guest of NIO, the Chinese electric car company.


From Google translate:
"
*********
Update:
Here's a picture of me speaking at the auto show, from this news story, in Chinese.

Here's another Chinese news story, and a later one.
And here's a story about NIO, from Forbes, at the Beijing Auto Show:
NIO Takes A Decisive Lead In China's Premium Electric Race
"The Shanghai- and San Jose based company got out of the blocks a little earlier and has moved faster than anyone else. Extravagant funding to recruit world-class talent is fueling startling innovation too.
Deliveries of the first NIO product, the ES8, begin this week."

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Google knocks on Uber's door with a ride-sharing service using Waze

The WSJ has the story about how Google/Alphabet will capitalize on Waze/Google Maps to offer drivers ride shares with people on their routes:
Google Takes on Uber With New Ride-Share Service -- Alphabet’s carpooling program in San Francisco offers rides at cheaper rates

"Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., began a pilot program around its California headquarters in May that enables several thousand area workers at specific firms to use the Waze app to connect with fellow commuters. It plans to open the program to all San Francisco-area Waze users this fall, the person said. Waze, which Google acquired in 2013, offers real-time driving directions based on information from other drivers.

"Unlike Uber and its crosstown San Francisco rival Lyft Inc., which each largely operate as on-demand taxi businesses, Waze wants to connect riders with drivers who are already headed in the same direction. The company has said it aims to make fares low enough to discourage drivers from operating as taxi drivers. Waze’s current pilot program charges riders at most 54 cents a mile—less than most Uber and Lyft rides—and, for now, Google doesn’t take a fee.
...
"In the San Francisco pilot, any local Waze user can sign up as a driver, but ridership is limited to roughly 25,000 San Francisco-area employees of several large firms, including Google, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc. Riders are limited to two rides a day—intended to ferry them to and from work.

"In the planned expansion, anyone with the Waze app in the San Francisco area could sign up to be a rider or driver, the person said. Though Google currently doesn’t collect a fee, the company is exploring different rates in Israel and San Francisco, the person familiar with the matter said."
***********

I can't say I'm completely surprised. Here's an earlier post (which ended with "Stay tuned...":

Monday, July 6, 2015

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Mergers of taxi-hailing services in Europe, and China

Europe is preparing to defend itself against Uber. Bloomberg has the story:
Daimler Targets Uber by Merging Mytaxi With U.K.’s Hailo

"Daimler AG will challenge Uber Technologies Inc.’s ride-hailing dominance by merging its Mytaxi unit with one of the U.K.’s most popular cab-calling services, Hailo, to create Europe’s biggest taxi app.
The combined company will operate under the Mytaxi brand, with 100,000 registered drivers in more than 50 cities across nine countries, and be headquartered in Hamburg, the companies announced
...
"Car manufacturers have been investing heavily in apps to keep pace with changing consumer habits that have seen ride-sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft Inc. proliferate. General Motors Co. has invested $500 million in Lyft, Volkswagen AG put $300 million into Israel-based Gett Inc., and Toyota Motor Corp. backed Uber for an undisclosed amount. Uber has raised at least $12.5 billion in funding to date.
Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars, also owns the Car2Go car-sharing service and purchased Mytaxi in September 2014. It bought U.S. ride-booking service RideScout LLC at the same time. "
***********

China appears to have been too much for Uber to swallow. The NY Times has the story: Uber to Sell to Rival Didi Chuxing and Create New Business in China

"In a stark signal of how difficult it is for American technology companies to thrive in China, Uber China said it was selling itself to Didi Chuxing, its fiercest rival there.
The sale, which would create a new company worth about $35 billion, would end the great ride-hailing battle of China. A person with knowledge of the deal said Uber investors had been pushing for such a transaction.
The companies have been fighting relentlessly for market share in mainland China for two years, spending tens of millions of dollars every month to attract riders and drivers. The merger would end that competition and create significant scale, but it would also be a repudiation of Uber’s ambitions to take on local Chinese competitors in their huge home market."
and this:
"...Mr. Kalanick helped Uber overcome the biggest obstacle in China: the Communist Party. By traveling frequently to China, meeting with officials and speaking in language often used by party cadres, Mr. Kalanick helped the company avoid the regulatory tripwire that has led many companies to stumble in the market. Last week, Chinese officials said ride-hailing apps were legal and laid out a framework to license drivers.
"But entry is just the first obstacle to the Chinese internet market. Competition is fierce, and the focus is less on the product than on big spending to lure customers or on tricks to harm competitors. Fraudsters and opportunists also abound.
"Uber’s engineers, operating from San Francisco, had to deal with drivers who simulated or faked rides to get commissions. At the same time, the company was blocked from marketing on China’s biggest social network, WeChat, because the internet giant Tencent was an early investor in Didi. All of that made it much harder to compete with a company that already had an advantage in scale, not to mention the backing of Tencent, Alibaba and Apple. When it raised $7 billion in June, Didi made it clear it was willing to continue the fight for a long time."

Monday, February 22, 2016

Autos as platforms: the market for radio, and the connected car

The NY Times has a story on the fight that Sirius radio won, and the challenges that it faces
SiriusXM Fights to Dominate the Dashboard of the Connected Car

"SiriusXM has hit on the formula for getting people — nearly 30 million of them — to pay for radio, a form of media that has always been free. But while the company likes to emphasize the awesomeness of its audio “mosaics,” there is another, more mundane, explanation for its success: cars.

SiriusXM pays about $1 billion a year in subsidies and revenue splits to automakers, and according to the company, 75 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States come with satellite radio installed. (It works with every major carmaker.) Of the 29.6 million subscribers to SiriusXM at the end of last year, 24.2 million paid the $11 to $20 monthly fee themselves, with the rest covered through promotions by car companies."

Monday, July 6, 2015

Straw in the wind: Google's Waze is piloting a ridesharing marketplace in Israel

Ynet has the story:
Google's Waze to start carpooling pilot program in Israel
Mapping company launching RideWith, which will allow commuters to pay fellow drivers a small fee to share rides with the help of Waze's navigation system

"Google-owned online mapping company Waze is launching a carpooling pilot program in Israel where commuters pay fellow drivers a small fee for a ride to and from work.

"The new application, called RideWith, will use Waze's navigation system to learn the routes drivers most frequently take to work and match them up with people looking for a ride in the same direction.
...
""We're conducting a small, private beta test in the greater Tel Aviv area for a carpool concept, but we have nothing further to announce at this time," Waze told Reuters of its foray into the increasingly competitive field of ride-sharing.

Drivers will be limited to just two journeys a day and will not be able to earn a salary from RideWith, a source close to the company said, differentiating it from businesses such as Uber, where drivers can turn a profit.

Should RideWith be rolled out globally, this limitation could help it avoid the backlash Uber is facing in a number of countries that want to protect professional taxi drivers."
****************

Stay tuned...

Monday, June 1, 2015

The market for robotics talent

The labor market for computer scientists is thriving.

The collaboration between Uber and Carnegie Mellon University on driverless-car technology has some unusually competitive dimensions, when it comes to hiring. The WSJ has the story:
Carnegie Mellon Reels After Uber Lures Away Researchers--Uber staffs new tech center with researchers poached from its collaborator on self-driving technology

"Carnegie Mellon University is scrambling to recover after Uber Technologies Inc. poached 40 of its researchers and scientists earlier this year, a raid that left one of the world’s top robotics research institutions in a crisis.

In February, Carnegie Mellon and Uber trumpeted a strategic partnership in which the school would “work closely” with the ride-hailing service to develop driverless-car technology.

Behind the scenes, the tie-up was more combative than collaborative.

Uber envisions autonomous cars that could someday replace its tens of thousands of contract drivers. With virtually no in-house capability, the San Francisco company went to the one place with enough talent to build a team instantly: Carnegie Mellon’s National Robotics Engineering Center, or NREC.

Flush with cash after raising more than $5 billion from investors, Uber offered some scientists bonuses of hundreds of thousands of dollars and a doubling of salaries to staff the company’s new tech center in Pittsburgh, according to one researcher at NREC."

The WSJ story ends with a nice quote about CMU:

"Carnegie Mellon likes “to focus on the fringe of science, not the center of it,” Mr. Thrun said. “It is easier to do something crazy and get it done. You could do almost anything at Carnegie Mellon and get away with it.”

Saturday, October 4, 2014

The wholesale used car market

My colleague Brad Larsen has an NBER paper that looks at the post-auction bargaining for used cars that didn't reach their reserve price in the market to dealers.

The Efficiency of Real-World Bargaining: Evidence from Wholesale Used-Auto Auctions

Bradley Larsen

NBER Working Paper No. 20431
Issued in August 2014
NBER Program(s):   IO 
This study quantifies the efficiency of a real-world bargaining game with two-sided incomplete information. Myerson and Satterthwaite (1983) and Williams (1987) derived the theoretical efficient frontier for bilateral trade under two-sided uncertainty, but little is known about how well real-world bargaining performs relative to the frontier. The setting is wholesale used-auto auctions, an $80 billion industry where buyers and sellers participate in alternating-offer bargaining when the auction price fails to reach a secret reserve price. Using 270,000 auction/bargaining sequences, this study nonparametrically estimates bounds on the distributions of buyer and seller valuations and then estimates where bargaining outcomes lie relative to the efficient frontier. Findings indicate that the dynamic mechanism attains 80-91% of the surplus which can be achieved on the efficient frontier.


Friday, June 28, 2013

Chinese auctions of auto registrations, and the market for cars in China

To keep down congestion in big cities, Chinese authorities limit who can drive, either by lottery or by auction.  Here's a story suggesting that the high price of driving drives inexpensive cars out of the market:
In China, the license plates can cost more than the car


"Shanghai’s busy streets teem with Buicks, Fords, Volkswagens, and Toyotas. More than 9 out of 10 cars in the world’s most populous city are made by foreign companies, and it’s not just a reflection of mainlanders’ preference for Western design. Some local automakers say the city’s license plate auctions are responsible for their weak sales. Shanghai is one of four Chinese cities that limit car purchases by imposing quotas on registrations. The prices paid at Shanghai’s license auctions in recent months—90,000 yuan ($14,530)—have exceeded the cost of many entry-level cars, the stronghold of Chinese brands such as Chery, Geely, and Great Wall. While residents with modest incomes may be able to afford an inexpensive car, the registration cost is often beyond their reach. “Whenever there’s a restriction of new car purchases through the quota system, there is always a big impact on lower-price cars like the ones we make,” says Lawrence Ang, executive director of Geely Automobile Holdings (175), whose Panda minicar sells for 37,800 yuan.

"After Beijing (pop. 21 million) introduced a license plate lottery in January 2011, the combined share of Chinese brands sold there plunged by more than half, to 9.7 percent for the year, according to researcher IHS Automotive. In Shanghai, which began auctioning license plates in 1994, domestic brands made up only 8.9 percent of cars sold in 2011 (the most recent data available), less than a third the level nationwide, IHS reports."

Saturday, December 24, 2011

What would the national kidney foundation like you to donate?

Advertisement seen at St. Louis airport

Friday, November 27, 2009

Rules of the road for cars and bikes

In many places where cars and bikes share a road, they customarily (if not legally) follow different rules. In England, a trial program will allow bikes to travel the wrong way down some one-way streets: Cyclists will be given green light to ignore one-way signs.

"Cyclists will be permitted to ride the wrong way along one-way streets under a change intended to encourage more people to give up their cars or use them less.
The Government will announce today that cyclists will be permitted to ignore no-entry signs: a practice already followed by many, including David Cameron, the Conservative leader.
The Department for Transport is authorising a trial in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, Mr Cameron’s home authority in West London, in which a small plate saying “Except cyclists” will be attached to poles carrying no-entry signs.
If the trial is successful, the department intends to extend the policy to the rest of Britain and permit thousands of one-way streets to become two-way for bikes. It believes that long diversions around one-way systems are a significant deterrent to new cyclists, who might be less confident about breaking the rules."

On this side of the pond, Brookline MA is trying something similar, although not on the roads that I ride to work: Right way or wrong way? Brookline tries out new bike lanes

Lynne Kiesling at KP has a nice post on whether cars and bikes should obey the same rules of the road: Roads and paths as common-pool resources, and the problem of governing them

The rules of the road are a relatively recent invention: 2009 marks the 100th anniversary of Boston’s first traffic regulations, as issued by the Board of Street Commissioners. Peter DeMarco of the Boston Globe reports A century ago, driving laws tamed Boston’s wild streets.

"Back then there were no street signs, no stop signs, no traffic lights, no double center lines, no traveling lanes, and no yield signs. Automobiles had to battle horse-drawn carriages and wagons, bicyclists, trolleys, and pedestrians for space on the road. And while we joke today about how infrequently we obey traffic laws in Massachusetts, a century ago, there were scarcely any laws to obey."

Of the new laws adopted in 1909 he says:"A number of the laws are still very much in use today. Boston got its first one-way streets, adopted a new rule requiring drivers to “signal if about to turn,’’ and began requiring drivers to pass on the left - all in 1909. Parking within 10 feet of a curb was prohibited, double parking was outlawed (well, at least on paper), and police, fire, and other emergency vehicles (including postal carriers and doctors) were given the right of way.
But the rules also show how little our state’s first motorists actually knew about driving, and how Boston streets were really a free-for-all. Drivers had to be told not to stop in the middle of the street, not to park on sidewalks, and not to drive in reverse. The regulations include basic diagrams, reprinted in newspapers for all to study, explaining how to properly make a right turn, a left turn, and a U-turn - revolutionary stuff in 1909, when license exams consisted of a paltry 12 questions."
...
"Most cars were rudimentary, lacking not only turn signals, brake lights, and treaded tires, but also speedometers, windshields (thus the need for driving goggles), roofs, shock absorbers, power steering, and heat (necessitating leather driving coats and gloves). Steam-engine cars could explode, while hand-crank starter rods could spin back and break your arm. To apply brakes, you pulled hard on a lever. Seat belts, alas, didn’t exist."

Update: a column in the London Times suggests that bike riders will have to become more law abiding if London is to become more like Amsterdam, with high volume bike traffic: Time’s up, bike bandits

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Entrepreneurial Market Design

In the coming weeks, I'll be making a series of posts on a subject I term Entrepreneurial Market Design, the study of creating for-profit marketplaces. Such marketplaces often require innovations (market rules, information flows, timing adjustments, reputation mechanisms) to resolve longstanding inefficiencies (lack of market thickness, adverse selection, high transaction costs, etc). These innovations can create significant value for market participants, and at the same time offer a promising business model for the entrepreneur.

I've had the opportunity to study many such markets, in the capacity of academic researcher, case author, and advisor to students who are have started market-based businesses. The first set of markets I'll list are those founded or managed by recent HBS students with whom I've interacted. Future posts will go into greater detail on these.

TeachStreet. TeachStreet is a platform for matching students with classes, usually in a non-academic setting. Instructors of classes ranging from foreign language to cooking to SAT prep to belly dancing post listings on TeachStreet.com. Users browse through classes and sign up, and Teachstreet takes a commission for each new student. Julie Sandler, a current HBS student, is currently investigating how to expand to the platform to include children's classes. www.teachstreet.com

RelayRides. Concisely described as a peer-to-peer version of Zipcar. Car owners sign up to make their cars available for rental, naming their own rates and hours. Renters select from available cars. In theory, prices could be lower than in Zipcar and fleet size could be much larger. This looks like a classic two-sided network, but with some intriguing challenges of insurance, monitoring, and adverse selection. The founders are HBS students Shelby Clark and Nabeel Al-Kady. http://www.relayrides.com/check-zip.cgi?zip=21202&x=10&y=16

ClearMechanic. ClearMechanic is a platform to better connect auto mechanics with their customers. In an industry often considered technologically backward and rife with trust problems, ClearMechanic is meant to offer transparency and online accessibility to auto-owners. Using ClearMechanic, customers can go online to see the where their repair is in the work queue, learn about the repair being done, and interact with the repair shop. It also serves a marketplace for complementary products, such as accessories, insurance, repurchase options. The founder and CEO is Brad Simmons, a former student of my MBA class Managing Networked Businesses. www.clearmechanic.com

VigLink. VigLink is a startup that describes itself publicly as “building a unique platform for the real-time optimization of affiliate marketing." The founder, Oliver Roup is a recent HBS graduate and former student of Managing Networked Business. www.viglink.com

Cork'd. Cork'd is a social network for wine lovers. The founder is wine celebrity Gary Vaynerchuk, and the CEO is Lindsay Ronga, a former student in Managing Networked Businesses. Among other goals, Cork'd would like to match users with their favorite wines. www.corkd.com

SaleAwayWithMe. SaleAwayWithMe is a website that offers users customizable notifications about sales from their favorite brands. SaleAwayWithMe differentiates itself from spammy newsletters in that specific brands can be chosen, their sales are consolidated into a single list, and users can set thresholds (e.g. only include the most popular notices, such as sale notices that XX% of recipients click on.) SaleAwayWithMe is in a very early state, and was founded by former HBS student Sumir Meghani. www.saleawaywithme.com

I've recently spoken with all of the founders/managers of these companies, and each is willing to work with students who choose to study the business as part of the class project.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Behavioral game theory on the MA Turnpike

A recent story in the Boston Globe sounds like a behavioral economics seminar on transaction costs: why are a third of the tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike still paid (more slowly and expensively) in cash, rather than using the (now free) transponders?
Some still slow to make the move to Fast Lane: 1 in 3 tollpayers paying at booth
"The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority has made strides in signing people up to use Fast Lane, with 66 percent of tolls now paid electronically, up from 62 percent in January. But the 34 percent who use cash, and pay higher tolls at booths inside Greater Boston to do so, remain a bit of a mystery."
...
"The survey LeBovidge conducted found that the biggest hurdle to signing up more people used to be cost, accounting for about 75 percent of the abstainers. About 7 percent worried about handing personal data to the Turnpike Authority or having their movements tracked. Some remaining drivers - not reflected in the survey - come from out of state and might not have an E-Z Pass account usable in Massachusetts. Other commuters do not have a checking account or credit card.
...
"If they wait in cash lanes enough times, most technophobes get converted. Fast Lane usage at the Allston-Brighton booths rises to 86 percent during morning rush hour into Boston. Massive traffic jams also do the trick: The Easter backup helped drive signups to 45,905 in May, compared with 10,875 during the same month last year."

One reason this is an interesting problem is that it's not just about individual choice, there's an element of behavioral game theory in this kind of slow learning. Cash payers produce congestion--negative reinforcement--for other cash payers. When lines at the toll booths get really long, even the EZ Pass users have to wait on line to get to the toll booths. So slower payers provide a negative externality to everyone on the busiest days.

In a forthcoming paper in the QJE, Amy Finkelstein raises the possibility that those cash payers may also provide a small positive externality by being more politically sensitive to changes in the tolls: EZ-Tax: Tax Salience and Tax Rates.
"Abstract: This paper examines whether the salience of a tax system affects equilibrium tax rates. I analyze how tolls change after toll facilities adopt electronic toll collection (ETC); drivers are substantially less aware of tolls paid electronically. I estimate that, in steady state, tolls are 20 to 40 percent higher than they would have been without ETC. Consistent with a salience-based explanation for this toll increase, I find that under ETC, driving becomes less elastic with respect to the toll and toll setting becomes less sensitive to the electoral calendar. Alternative explanations appear unlikely to be able to explain the findings."

So the next time you are stuck on the Mass Pike behind a long line of drivers waiting to pay their tolls, try to remember that there may be a small benefit to having the toll be so salient.