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Self driving cars will mean the huge shift. As rehashed many times, most people won't buy a car but rather use it on demand. Right now a car is driven perhaps 1
by chx 10y ago
Self driving cars will mean the huge shift. As rehashed many times, most people won't buy a car but rather use it on demand. Right now a car is driven perhaps 15 000 miles a year which means probably two hours a day. This will jump to 12, perhaps 18 hours a day. Maintenance costs and reliability will be king and electric cars are huge leaders in that.
- notahacker 10y agoConsidering that use of cars is highly synchronised for commute times, and people's pride in car ownership as a status symbol extends to spending a non-trivial portion of their annual income on depreciation to ensure their car is unsullied by previous owners, I'm not so sure...
- laser 10y agoVery affordable ownership will be viable if you're willing to lend your car into the share fleet when you're not using it. Might even be near break-even; the natural benefit of fronting the capital for production.
- superdude 10y agoMainly because they require fewer parts, right?
- chx 10y agoWell, that's one half. Like, Teslas and Nissan Leaf have no transmission at all, they are direct drives. That's a hell lot of sensitive gearing gone. Also, the load on brake pads is much lighter because breaking is regenerative and so instead of needing to waste away all the energy of the spinning wheel as heat on the brake pads, you just use it as a generator for a while. But in general, there are less consumables, so to speak. Like oil filters, what oil filters? An electronic cable has a lot less chance to break than a seal to grew old. No spark plugs. And, again, see brake pads above. Still some parts require maintenance (wiper blades) but much less.
- csours 10y agoCurrent Teslas [1] along with the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt all have single gear transmissions with a ratio of about 8 to 1. It is true that these are very simple transmissions that never need to shift, which should reduce complexity. 1. Very early Tesla Roadsters had 2 speed transmissions.