> Autonomous cars are the next big tech that changes the world - I put them up there with computer, Internet, and smart phone.
I wouldn't be so sure. Yeah, it might prove to be a very good thing for the United States, but for the rest of world there's first Europe's public transport networks (I'm 31, don't have a driver's license, I live in Europe, I'm doing perfectly fine, thank you), and short of us reaching the Singularity I honestly don't see any of these cars driving in the crazy traffic of Cairo, Istanbul, or any other metropolis from the rest of Asia or Africa.
It's going to shift a lot of capital that's currently tied up in owning and maintaining cars into other uses. Right now, most cars are only in use for about 5% of their lifetimes. When everybody owns their own private car, those cars spend a lot of time sitting parked. If those cars could drive around and be used by other people who need them on demand, you'd need a lot fewer cars, as well as a lot less parking.
There are so many things I can think of. The taxi/rental/on demand model is far more likely to happen because who needs to own a car 100% of the time. Ride sharing is also easier - I suspect many people would be happy going a few minutes out of their way for halving the cost of their journey. (Computer systems would automatically manage supply and matching demand, as well as pricing.)
Not only do you need less parking for fewer cars, but you could have less parking for the same number of cars. For example there is no need for stores to have huge car parks - customer and employee cars can go and wait somewhere else and only return to the front door just as you come out with your goods. This can lead to far denser human centric areas.
Some roads can actually be decommissioned. Vehicles can load balance across existing alternatives and respond far quicker to developing bottlenecks. Occupied vehicles can be given priority over shorter routes than non-occupied ones.
Deliveries can be done without drivers. For example the delivery vehicle can drive to your home, work or anywhere else and you enter a code to get your items vending machine style.
It will give people greater freedom. For example if your vision isn't acceptable, or you have physical issues then it won't matter. In general the maladies that come with age won't affect mobility anywhere near as much as they do today.
Drives can be over longer distances as there is no driver fatigue. Perhaps there could be sleeper cars for when you want to go somewhere overnight.
Heck they can even do things like deal with you in the vehicle while you are driving to an airport or a border. You could show your passport, answer questions, check luggage etc. And then go straight through the border or walk straight to your gate at airport, or even be driven to a closer access point to the gate.
And I suspect we never get flying cars out of this. When the two dimensional earth surface is used so much more efficiently, why expand into 3 dimensions? And since we can increase the speed the more vehicles are automated, what advantage does flight have?
Yes, it seems unlikely that the same car could be re-used for multiple trips. However, you could move the parking lots far away from the places people want to go because the car could drop you off at the door and then valet itself to a remote lot. That would at least free some of the very valuable space currently used by downtown parking lots.
Nobody is talking about replacing a car part of let's say 100 with a car park of 5. If we could just replace it with a car park of 50, which with current travel patterns is perfectly reasonable, that would be a tremendous gain.
The "lot less parking" will do wonders for urban landscapes. When I travel through cities (including my own) and land that could be used for parks or habitation swallowed up by parking space, it seems like an incredible waste.
Though this presents a problem in that we're burning through a car 20 time faster, (100% vs 5%). Most cars people own don't last 20 years, so they won't even last a year in the future? There better be some distributed economic system for providing those cars, because that's a large expense.
A car right now needs regular maintenance as it is every few months, even if it's just changing the oil. That will go from months to days if they're being used 24/7.
Actually a car that is driven frequently holds up better than a car that is only driven every now and then, and is left outside for the rest of the time. Cars in almost-constant use will also be taken care of better, and automatically; for example, they will be driven through a car wash automatically regularly, and the automatic oil monitoring system will replace said oil at a machine during 15 minutes somewhere at a point where the demand is lowest. Maybe we'd be burning the car 2 times faster, I don't know exact numbers - but it surely won't be 20 times, and for any multiplier lower than those 20, we come out ahead.
> I'm 31, don't have a driver's license, I live in Europe, I'm doing perfectly fine, thank you
I have a license but don't have a car (actually owning a car was too much of a hassle) and you're only telling half the story. Yes, day to day not having a car is fine, but every once in a while you want to buy something larger that is not delivered, or move some stuff, or go for a short vacation, or even just drive out of the city to pick some mushrooms and you're stuck. You either borrow/rent a car or skip on the activity.
A car does provide a kind of freedom that public transport simply can't. A car that drives itself, or, even better, a car that I can cheaply rent that will drive itself to my doorsteps, then drive me wherever I want to go, and then return itself would be absolutely perfect.
A car that drives itself, or, even better, a car that I can cheaply rent that will drive itself to my doorsteps, then drive me wherever I want to go, and then return itself would be absolutely perfect.
We have those, they're called cabs/taxis ;) Well, I suppose they're not exactly cheap, but personally I use them so rarely that it doesn't really matter, even though I'm on a tight budget.
Ubiquity and response time matter. I live in Los Feliz, a popular LA neighborhood full of lots of 20 and 30 somethings with disposable income. It's nigh impossible to hail a cab here. In fact, outside of NY and the downtown business districts of a few other major American cities at certain times of day, "cab on demand" basically doesn't exist. If I want to go out without driving on Friday night, I use an app like Taxi Magic to request a cab, then wait somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes for a cab driver who speaks relatively poor English, has never heard of the bar I'm going to, needs me to provide turn-by-turn directions the entire way, misses our side-street repeatedly, and then is annoyed that I'm paying with a credit card.
Imagine instead being able to use an app where, in any urban area, you can have a car sitting in front of your house in 3-5 minutes, with reasonable mileage rates, exact GPS coordinates preprogrammed, and no haggling over tip and payment method at the end of the ride.
Speaking as half a couple paying $1000 a month in car payments, car insurance, maintenance and gas, this is going to fundamentally change the calculus for private car ownership in America.
Yes. cabs are useless where I am, too. They say they will be there in 30 minutes, but that's best case.
But there are plenty of unemployed folks with cars. How much of the cab shortage is due to regulatory capture?
Imagine, for instance, an app where I could give my location, a timeframe and, say, an amount I was willing to pay. "Hey, $50 if you pick me up from the office and drive me home... if you get here within 10 minutes"
Such an app is technically easy, and I imagine there are enough people with cars either going where I'm going or simply idle to make it work. But there are... legal barriers in place.
"(I'm 31, don't have a driver's license, I live in Europe, I'm doing perfectly fine, thank you)"
Anecdote does not data make. I'm 32, I have a drivers license and two cars, I live in Europe, and my quality of life would be severely impacted if I didn't have a car. The vast majority of Europeans live in places where the population density is too low for it to be sensible to depend solely on public transport, not to mention that only a part of Europe has any 'reliable' (I use that word loosely, because name me one public transport system outside of the German one that works 'reliably') form of public transport at all.
It only takes one or two times a month that you need a car (for big groceries, visiting a far away friend or relative, or going somewhere where there is no public transport) to make it worth while to get a car, and once you have it, it's better to use it as much as possible to make it pay for itself. Public transport is not a viable long-term option to satisfy our transportation needs - it's too expensive, inconvenient and inefficient. Lean, pay-per-use and easily rentable autonomously driven cars are the way of the future, and the near future, at that.
Cars will become more appealing than public transportation over time. As the downsides of cars fall away, their packet switched functionality will ultimately win out, particularly for wealthier people.
If driverless cars eliminated the need for public transport (in the contemporary sense) you could open up rail corridors to create highways for cyclists, joggers, and walkers - it would open up alternatives to motorised travel.
Or you could turn the theory on its head - use the rail corridors as motorised transport arteries and open up the roads to the bipeds.
(From Sydney where the rail network is extensive - I'd imagine places with less ubiquitous rail wouldn't benefit as much)
I would think the reverse. Why own a car if you can get a taxi at your door in the size/shape/color of your choice whenever you need one without having to pay for the taxi driver?
You are right, but I am, too :-). In my mind, a taxi also is public transportation. I do not think I am alone in that. Wikipedia disagrees with it in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport ("as distinct from modes such as taxicab"), but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab talks of "modes of public transport" for taxicabs. I guess the terminology will become more confused if/when driverless cars become commonplace.
I think the parent poster meant cities where the road rules amount to a functioning car horn. The roads of Japan are nothing like Cairo/Istanbul etc. There are a lot of cars - but they drive in an orderly, predictable manner.
Either you have the perfect commute (rent must be expensive?) or you're just not paying attention to how much time you're using in travel. Public transport takes longer than driving in virtually every possible situation. The only equalizer is if your commute were near perfect, and short you might gain a slight advantage since the driver has to park.
But if we go to robot cars we no longer have to park.
Also, places like Cairo are bad because of the human drivers. If you only allow robot cars that all goes away. The system can know where everyone is and where they are going and adjust speeds to the point of having your car end up 20cm behind the next car instead of having to use the breaks if you went 1/kmph faster for the last 200km.
I wouldn't be so sure. Yeah, it might prove to be a very good thing for the United States, but for the rest of world there's first Europe's public transport networks (I'm 31, don't have a driver's license, I live in Europe, I'm doing perfectly fine, thank you), and short of us reaching the Singularity I honestly don't see any of these cars driving in the crazy traffic of Cairo, Istanbul, or any other metropolis from the rest of Asia or Africa.