Tesla’s robotaxi debut in Austin got people excited. But can the company compete on the global stage with Chinese AV giants like Baidu and Pony.ai?

  • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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    24 hours ago

    Heavily underutilized for now. It’s significantly cheaper and easier to build the network too early than too late, when you have to coordinate property acquisition and demolition across the full length of the network.

    • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      Heavily underutilized for now.

      China has a birthrate of 1.15 children per woman. When is this later time you allude to when there will be more people to utilize the heavily underutilized network?

      • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
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        4 hours ago

        690 million women in China, let’s say 30% are in age to give birth, that’s 207 million. If only 50% of those actually give birth in the next 5 years, that’s a whooping 47.6 million kids per year.

        Yeah, that population will climb, just not overnight.

        • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          China’s birthrate is 1.15 children per woman. Replacement birthrate is 2.1 children per woman.

          If each woman is having less than 2.1 children, the population falls.

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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        19 hours ago

        When many who still aren’t in cities move into them. Urbanization in China has yet more runway and that drives rail utilization.