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I dislike the idea of transportation as a service. I would much rather own a self driving car and use it as a mobile office. Being able to get work done durin

by valine 10y ago

I dislike the idea of transportation as a service. I would much rather own a self driving car and use it as a mobile office. Being able to get work done during my commute would be a major benefit. I imagine having a full size monitor with a nice keyboard and mouse that I would leave in the car. That simply wouldn't be possible with a service like Uber.

11thEarlOfMar 10y ago
My wife and I visited Mendocino a couple of weeks ago. The natural beauty of it had us talking about the possibility of living there. The first obvious concern: Employment. It's a 3 hour drive to San Francisco. My first thought was autonomous electric vehicles and exactly your point. Charge the batteries with sunlight and let the car do the driving to the office in San Francisco and back while I'm pounding out code, design documents, presentations, tax returns, or just hanging out on Hacker News ;-) Not every day, but maybe 3 times a week to spend 4 or 5 hours in the office. Would that work?
- aetherson 10y ago
  I think that Mendocino is probably a little far for these purposes, but it seems completely clear to me that if self-driving cars become a genuine thing (not just a safety feature, but an actual "it will drive you to work by itself safely most days" thing), then there will be additional suburban/exurban sprawl.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  Motion sickness?
  - tnecniv 10y ago
    Doesn't impact plenty of people.
yellow_viper 10y ago
Why not? Store all your data on the cloud - access it from the computer in the uber. Lots of people who commute to offices will have the same idea as you and uber will account for that.
Fricken 10y ago
I would much rather you didn't place so emphasis on the control premium. The cumulative effect of everybody pursuing their self interest with no regard for the sanctity of our shared spaces has been resoundingly bad. It's the tragedy of the commons in a nutshell. With personal automobiles we've already completely jumped the shark. People travel from all over the world to visit cities like Paris, but I can't think of an urban environment built post-car that's worth visiting just to hang out. They are undesirable- they're ugly, hostile, wasteful dystopias. It's a trend we want to reverse.
- sgustard 10y ago
  Hm, to me the "on demand" economy, which Uber and the like are part of, is the ultimate pursuit of self-interest. The entire model is built on getting exactly what you want when you want it, with no downsides. Once there are robot cars there is no longer a limit to how many cars can be on the road. Imagine one car zipping around for every Amazon delivery, 24 by 7.
  - Fricken 10y ago
    I don't necessarily disagree with you. While autonomous vehicles can be tremendously valuable tool, if we let narrow self interest and unfettered capitalism determine how they're implemented, they'll cause as many problems as they solve.
  - wrsh07 10y ago
    But ultimately, it also means you can share perfectly. I don't need to own a hammer if I can get one exactly when I need it.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    There are more and less naïve ways of pursuing self-interest. Or maybe I should use the word greedy, because it's effectively a synonym here. Owning a bunch of cars (or hammers) so that you can use them whenever you need is one strategy; efficiently sharing them with everyone else so that there's always one available when you need it is another. For fulfilling needs that most people have, sharing can indeed be a more efficient solution than owning - especially if the good itself is expensive to make (with "expensive" including also energy use and environmental impact). Now, if you absolutely, positively need to own something because you like ownership itself, then that's a need sharing won't address - but that's a need society will always have to fight against in more extreme cases, because no matter how wealthy the world is, one can always invent something to own that's beyond the society's ability to provide sustainably to everyone.
aninhumer 10y ago
I expect the option to own a self-driving car instead of taking taxis will exist, and various people it will be worthwhile (e.g. people in more remote areas). However, I expect this to be quite a bit more expensive overall, and I think a lot of people might not care so much about owning a vehicle once they see that cost difference.
- sgustard 10y ago
  I'd love to see that cost comparison. I lease a Fiat 500e for 100/month and insurance plus electricity costs the same for 1000 miles of monthly driving as one Uber to the airport and back, and I don't live in a remote area. Obviously urban areas with expensive parking are different but are already served by public transit.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    But we're talking about hypothetical self-driving taxis, not the existing Uber. Once you no longer need to pay for a driver, you're comparing with mostly the same costs, but with the overheads amortised over many users.
- dclowd9901 10y ago
  Maybe you could lease your self driving car to self drive others around and pay for it that way...
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    Perhaps, but in doing so you trade off many of the benefits of ownership (i.e. personal space). Plus you'd need to time-box the rental to ensure availability when you need it, whereas the taxi user can just decide to go somewhere. (So maybe you choose to use a taxi in those cases...) I think you'd end up blurring the line with taxis so much that the ownership would hardly be worth it.

by valine 10y ago

11thEarlOfMar 10y ago

My wife and I visited Mendocino a couple of weeks ago. The natural beauty of it had us talking about the possibility of living there. The first obvious concern: Employment. It's a 3 hour drive to San Francisco. My first thought was autonomous electric vehicles and exactly your point. Charge the batteries with sunlight and let the car do the driving to the office in San Francisco and back while I'm pounding out code, design documents, presentations, tax returns, or just hanging out on Hacker News ;-) Not every day, but maybe 3 times a week to spend 4 or 5 hours in the office. Would that work?

aetherson 10y ago
I think that Mendocino is probably a little far for these purposes, but it seems completely clear to me that if self-driving cars become a genuine thing (not just a safety feature, but an actual "it will drive you to work by itself safely most days" thing), then there will be additional suburban/exurban sprawl.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
Motion sickness?
- tnecniv 10y ago
  Doesn't impact plenty of people.

yellow_viper 10y ago

Why not? Store all your data on the cloud - access it from the computer in the uber. Lots of people who commute to offices will have the same idea as you and uber will account for that.

Fricken 10y ago

I would much rather you didn't place so emphasis on the control premium. The cumulative effect of everybody pursuing their self interest with no regard for the sanctity of our shared spaces has been resoundingly bad. It's the tragedy of the commons in a nutshell. With personal automobiles we've already completely jumped the shark. People travel from all over the world to visit cities like Paris, but I can't think of an urban environment built post-car that's worth visiting just to hang out. They are undesirable- they're ugly, hostile, wasteful dystopias. It's a trend we want to reverse.

sgustard 10y ago
Hm, to me the "on demand" economy, which Uber and the like are part of, is the ultimate pursuit of self-interest. The entire model is built on getting exactly what you want when you want it, with no downsides. Once there are robot cars there is no longer a limit to how many cars can be on the road. Imagine one car zipping around for every Amazon delivery, 24 by 7.
- Fricken 10y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree with you. While autonomous vehicles can be tremendously valuable tool, if we let narrow self interest and unfettered capitalism determine how they're implemented, they'll cause as many problems as they solve.
- wrsh07 10y ago
  But ultimately, it also means you can share perfectly. I don't need to own a hammer if I can get one exactly when I need it.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  There are more and less naïve ways of pursuing self-interest. Or maybe I should use the word greedy, because it's effectively a synonym here. Owning a bunch of cars (or hammers) so that you can use them whenever you need is one strategy; efficiently sharing them with everyone else so that there's always one available when you need it is another. For fulfilling needs that most people have, sharing can indeed be a more efficient solution than owning - especially if the good itself is expensive to make (with "expensive" including also energy use and environmental impact). Now, if you absolutely, positively need to own something because you like ownership itself, then that's a need sharing won't address - but that's a need society will always have to fight against in more extreme cases, because no matter how wealthy the world is, one can always invent something to own that's beyond the society's ability to provide sustainably to everyone.

aninhumer 10y ago

I expect the option to own a self-driving car instead of taking taxis will exist, and various people it will be worthwhile (e.g. people in more remote areas). However, I expect this to be quite a bit more expensive overall, and I think a lot of people might not care so much about owning a vehicle once they see that cost difference.

sgustard 10y ago
I'd love to see that cost comparison. I lease a Fiat 500e for 100/month and insurance plus electricity costs the same for 1000 miles of monthly driving as one Uber to the airport and back, and I don't live in a remote area. Obviously urban areas with expensive parking are different but are already served by public transit.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  But we're talking about hypothetical self-driving taxis, not the existing Uber. Once you no longer need to pay for a driver, you're comparing with mostly the same costs, but with the overheads amortised over many users.
dclowd9901 10y ago
Maybe you could lease your self driving car to self drive others around and pay for it that way...
- aninhumer 10y ago
  Perhaps, but in doing so you trade off many of the benefits of ownership (i.e. personal space). Plus you'd need to time-box the rental to ensure availability when you need it, whereas the taxi user can just decide to go somewhere. (So maybe you choose to use a taxi in those cases...) I think you'd end up blurring the line with taxis so much that the ownership would hardly be worth it.