4 ms·

Interesting idea buying property on busy roads, but why would they become less busy solely because of electric cars? Yes, they may be quieter and cleaner, but y

by jblok 10y ago

Interesting idea buying property on busy roads, but why would they become less busy solely because of electric cars? Yes, they may be quieter and cleaner, but you still have the eyesore of a road, and the associated people that roads bring.

madaxe_again 10y ago
Because with EVs we will see the rise of autonomous vehicles - once you have a car that is run by a computer and powered by electricity, and self-driving tech is available and affordable, it becomes a no-brainer. Once autonomous vehicles become prevalent, traffic volume should drop, as we'll see less car ownership and more car use, meaning fewer cars parking, better traffic flow, etc. I believe the future of road transport is going to be something very like uber, just with no human drivers, and cars that only ever stop to recharge and to let passengers in and out. The latter part of the equation (autonomy and associated behavioural changes) will take longer than the transition to EVs, and will happen, barring legislation fighting it. As to the eyesore bit - I should clarify - I've been buying property on polluted, busy, pretty roads. Think A-roads in town centres, with houses on one side and a park on the other.
- 05 10y ago
  > Once autonomous vehicles become prevalent, traffic volume should drop That's simply not true; not only will SDCs create 'empty miles' of 0-passenger cars, but they will make people more comfortable with longer commutes (you can sleep on the way to work now), and with average commute getting longer we'll get more passenger-miles. Sharing won't really pick up (except on the low end, displacing public transport) because SDCs are pretty cheap as is, and people generally prefer their personal space unmolested by others.
  - madaxe_again 10y ago
    As I said, "more car use" - I.e. More passenger miles - but you can still paradoxically have less traffic volume, as journies become more efficient but more importantly as freight becomes more efficient. Re: the personal space bit... Not so sure. Many of the "younger" generation spurn car ownership so have no sunk costs, no personal space to lose. For the rest, it's going to be a question of marginal utility - and the fact that many car owners will get a train preferably where possible suggests that there is a case for non-ownership. I mean, ten years ago your man on the street would have found it inconceivable that they would own no movies, no albums, that they'd just rent them - yet here we are. Behaviour changes quickly when it starts, but slowly enough that you don't notice the change until after the event.
    - 05 10y ago
      The younger generation is using cars less exactly because driving/parking/owning a car is expensive and a hassle, not because they suddenly prefer watching bums on the subway to watching Netflix alone. Choosing between Uber and shared public transportation is a question of cost, and self driving cars will get the cost down so it's much less of a factor. In all the countries where the share of public transportation is significant, the main reason is economical. Gas is more expensive in the EU, free parking is scarce, wages are lower, etc. Actually walkable cities help, but it's not like europeans couldn't find a use for a car if they could easily afford one. Or how about private car ownership growth in China [1]? The other point is that American society is pretty well-segregated, and personal cars and suburbs ensure there's minimal contact between the classes. Unless your shared car service has tiers that allow that segregation to continue, a significant amount of people won't use it. Physical security is a part of the equation - you're probably not getting sexually assaulted or burgled in a personal SDC. On renting vs owning: again, it doesn't matter - if the cars are not shared, this doesn't really affect the traffic volume (driving between drop-off and the next pick-up are empty miles, but that's hopefully insignificant). [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=16251 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=16251
      - Symbiote 10y ago
        > In all the countries where the share of public transportation is significant, the main reason is economical. Gas is more expensive in the EU, free parking is scarce, wages are lower, etc. Actually walkable cities help, but it's not like europeans couldn't find a use for a car if they could easily afford one. No, the main reason is government policy, most obviously in town planning. There's simply no place to park, and enough traffic that the journey is neither fast nor relaxing. The result is that people who could easily afford to (e.g. my friends working at Google or Facebook, or in finance) don't own cars, and use public transport to get to and from work. Walk round the suburbs of European cities on a weekday, and you'll see lots of parked cars, in rich and poor areas. People own them, but don't find them the best way to get to work. They use them at the weekend.
  - clenfest 10y ago
    If you own a car, the marginal cost of an additional trip is low (basically just gas). If you don't have a car, the cost of each trip will reflect its true cost. Basic economics will tell you this will lead to less trips, trip consolidation, other modes of transportation (walking/bike) chosen as primary transportation because ride sharing is there if you really need it. The really big cost that most people consider is parking. If large wasteful parking lots are eliminated, cities can become more compact which in turn will cause even more people to give up cars and so on. As to your point about sharing, at some point if you want to be in the car by yourself it will cost extra. Again, economics...
- roel_v 10y ago
  "Think A-roads in town centres, with houses on one side and a park on the other." Where are those houses so cheap that it becomes profitable to bet on the emergence of autonomous EV's only? Cheap houses are cheap in most places because they're in undesirable locations. I can imagine houses in commuting distance of major job centers becoming more attractive with autonomous vehicles (I mean, the commuting distance will become larger, i.e. the 'ring' expanding) but that expansion won't be hundreds of miles. And houses within this distance aren't that much cheaper that it becomes feasible to buy in bulk and hoard (well maybe you're spending hundreds of millions, I don't know).
  - madaxe_again 10y ago
    Think Bristol and the like. Plenty of period properties in great locations, but smack next to traffic lights on an a-Road, therefore noisy, dirty, 30% or more cheaper than one street over. Often unrenovated as nobody sees any point in investing in a place that has its value substantially diminished by traffic, so cheaper yet. No, hardly a squillionaire, just mortgaged up to my eyeballs and have three so far, eyeing up number four. Live in one of them. They're my hedge against the apocalypse not happening.
- mac01021 10y ago
  Aren't electricality and autonomy, as properties of vehicles, pretty much independent of one another?

by jblok 10y ago

madaxe_again 10y ago

Because with EVs we will see the rise of autonomous vehicles - once you have a car that is run by a computer and powered by electricity, and self-driving tech is available and affordable, it becomes a no-brainer. Once autonomous vehicles become prevalent, traffic volume should drop, as we'll see less car ownership and more car use, meaning fewer cars parking, better traffic flow, etc. I believe the future of road transport is going to be something very like uber, just with no human drivers, and cars that only ever stop to recharge and to let passengers in and out. The latter part of the equation (autonomy and associated behavioural changes) will take longer than the transition to EVs, and will happen, barring legislation fighting it. As to the eyesore bit - I should clarify - I've been buying property on polluted, busy, pretty roads. Think A-roads in town centres, with houses on one side and a park on the other.

05 10y ago
> Once autonomous vehicles become prevalent, traffic volume should drop That's simply not true; not only will SDCs create 'empty miles' of 0-passenger cars, but they will make people more comfortable with longer commutes (you can sleep on the way to work now), and with average commute getting longer we'll get more passenger-miles. Sharing won't really pick up (except on the low end, displacing public transport) because SDCs are pretty cheap as is, and people generally prefer their personal space unmolested by others.
- madaxe_again 10y ago
  As I said, "more car use" - I.e. More passenger miles - but you can still paradoxically have less traffic volume, as journies become more efficient but more importantly as freight becomes more efficient. Re: the personal space bit... Not so sure. Many of the "younger" generation spurn car ownership so have no sunk costs, no personal space to lose. For the rest, it's going to be a question of marginal utility - and the fact that many car owners will get a train preferably where possible suggests that there is a case for non-ownership. I mean, ten years ago your man on the street would have found it inconceivable that they would own no movies, no albums, that they'd just rent them - yet here we are. Behaviour changes quickly when it starts, but slowly enough that you don't notice the change until after the event.
  - 05 10y ago
    The younger generation is using cars less exactly because driving/parking/owning a car is expensive and a hassle, not because they suddenly prefer watching bums on the subway to watching Netflix alone. Choosing between Uber and shared public transportation is a question of cost, and self driving cars will get the cost down so it's much less of a factor. In all the countries where the share of public transportation is significant, the main reason is economical. Gas is more expensive in the EU, free parking is scarce, wages are lower, etc. Actually walkable cities help, but it's not like europeans couldn't find a use for a car if they could easily afford one. Or how about private car ownership growth in China [1]? The other point is that American society is pretty well-segregated, and personal cars and suburbs ensure there's minimal contact between the classes. Unless your shared car service has tiers that allow that segregation to continue, a significant amount of people won't use it. Physical security is a part of the equation - you're probably not getting sexually assaulted or burgled in a personal SDC. On renting vs owning: again, it doesn't matter - if the cars are not shared, this doesn't really affect the traffic volume (driving between drop-off and the next pick-up are empty miles, but that's hopefully insignificant). [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=16251 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=16251
    - Symbiote 10y ago
      > In all the countries where the share of public transportation is significant, the main reason is economical. Gas is more expensive in the EU, free parking is scarce, wages are lower, etc. Actually walkable cities help, but it's not like europeans couldn't find a use for a car if they could easily afford one. No, the main reason is government policy, most obviously in town planning. There's simply no place to park, and enough traffic that the journey is neither fast nor relaxing. The result is that people who could easily afford to (e.g. my friends working at Google or Facebook, or in finance) don't own cars, and use public transport to get to and from work. Walk round the suburbs of European cities on a weekday, and you'll see lots of parked cars, in rich and poor areas. People own them, but don't find them the best way to get to work. They use them at the weekend.
- clenfest 10y ago
  If you own a car, the marginal cost of an additional trip is low (basically just gas). If you don't have a car, the cost of each trip will reflect its true cost. Basic economics will tell you this will lead to less trips, trip consolidation, other modes of transportation (walking/bike) chosen as primary transportation because ride sharing is there if you really need it. The really big cost that most people consider is parking. If large wasteful parking lots are eliminated, cities can become more compact which in turn will cause even more people to give up cars and so on. As to your point about sharing, at some point if you want to be in the car by yourself it will cost extra. Again, economics...
roel_v 10y ago
"Think A-roads in town centres, with houses on one side and a park on the other." Where are those houses so cheap that it becomes profitable to bet on the emergence of autonomous EV's only? Cheap houses are cheap in most places because they're in undesirable locations. I can imagine houses in commuting distance of major job centers becoming more attractive with autonomous vehicles (I mean, the commuting distance will become larger, i.e. the 'ring' expanding) but that expansion won't be hundreds of miles. And houses within this distance aren't that much cheaper that it becomes feasible to buy in bulk and hoard (well maybe you're spending hundreds of millions, I don't know).
- madaxe_again 10y ago
  Think Bristol and the like. Plenty of period properties in great locations, but smack next to traffic lights on an a-Road, therefore noisy, dirty, 30% or more cheaper than one street over. Often unrenovated as nobody sees any point in investing in a place that has its value substantially diminished by traffic, so cheaper yet. No, hardly a squillionaire, just mortgaged up to my eyeballs and have three so far, eyeing up number four. Live in one of them. They're my hedge against the apocalypse not happening.
mac01021 10y ago
Aren't electricality and autonomy, as properties of vehicles, pretty much independent of one another?