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Well for one, you don't need to own your car. You just use it. If you (or anyone you know) owns a traditional automobile, it sits unused for 90% of its life. In

Well for one, you don't need to own your car. You just use it. If you (or anyone you know) owns a traditional automobile, it sits unused for 90% of its life. In a driveway, on the sidewalk, in a parking lot, etc. You pay for 100% of the car, but only use 10% of it. If you could rent it out to others ('the grid') while you're not using it, they would share some of the burden, lessening yours. They make things safer because they don't drive drunk.

monkmartinez 9y ago
You know there is a whole legion of jobs that require a vehicle? All construction jobs for example. Most service techs require a bunch of expensive tools and need a secure place to keep them on site. The list literally goes on and on... Can an hunter ride share the pacifica out to the forest with his/her hunting gear? How about bicyclists? People with kids know about activity shuffling... I am not sure that sharing will work for my families schedule. Driving drunk isn't the bulk of the accidents I go to on a regular basis. If we could just eliminate texting while driving, we could see a significant drop in accidents.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Once they're available (and I see no reason not to continue thinking that door-to-door self-driving is decades out), the ownership question definitely gets interesting. But I don't think it's as obvious as some think in part for the reasons you say. Furthermore, a lot of people use their cars at the same time of day. It's also the case that a lot of auto depreciation is mileage-based rather than time-based (especially in non-snowy/salty environments). The questions others raise about the maintenance/update requirements for these sorts of vehicles are interesting ones. My guess is that, like Zipcar and Uber, they will make a difference at the margins but won't cause a wholesale shift. But who knows? Especially if, as I believe, this happens over a number of decades with demographic shifts happening in parallel.
- iainmerrick 9y ago
  Can an hunter ride share the pacifica out to the forest with his/her hunting gear? How about bicyclists? People with kids know about activity shuffling... I am not sure that sharing will work for my families schedule. Easy: many households now have two (or more cars), but self-driving cars will allow many of them to reduce to a single car. One people carrier for family outings, on-demand robot taxis for commutes and quick errands. Maybe not a total revolution, but a 50% reduction in household car ownership would be a pretty big deal (it'd make neighbourhood parking a lot easier for a start).
Noos 9y ago
Do people not get that this also shortens the life of the car? I mean, let's say I use it for a total of 12,000 miles per year. that's 10% of the time. If I rent it out for an additional 50% of the total time, that's going to hit 72k miles in a year! For the average person they are going to have to replace cars ridiculously fast, and increase, not lessen, the burden of car ownership.

monkmartinez 9y ago

You know there is a whole legion of jobs that require a vehicle? All construction jobs for example. Most service techs require a bunch of expensive tools and need a secure place to keep them on site. The list literally goes on and on... Can an hunter ride share the pacifica out to the forest with his/her hunting gear? How about bicyclists? People with kids know about activity shuffling... I am not sure that sharing will work for my families schedule. Driving drunk isn't the bulk of the accidents I go to on a regular basis. If we could just eliminate texting while driving, we could see a significant drop in accidents.

ghaff 9y ago
Once they're available (and I see no reason not to continue thinking that door-to-door self-driving is decades out), the ownership question definitely gets interesting. But I don't think it's as obvious as some think in part for the reasons you say. Furthermore, a lot of people use their cars at the same time of day. It's also the case that a lot of auto depreciation is mileage-based rather than time-based (especially in non-snowy/salty environments). The questions others raise about the maintenance/update requirements for these sorts of vehicles are interesting ones. My guess is that, like Zipcar and Uber, they will make a difference at the margins but won't cause a wholesale shift. But who knows? Especially if, as I believe, this happens over a number of decades with demographic shifts happening in parallel.
iainmerrick 9y ago
Can an hunter ride share the pacifica out to the forest with his/her hunting gear? How about bicyclists? People with kids know about activity shuffling... I am not sure that sharing will work for my families schedule. Easy: many households now have two (or more cars), but self-driving cars will allow many of them to reduce to a single car. One people carrier for family outings, on-demand robot taxis for commutes and quick errands. Maybe not a total revolution, but a 50% reduction in household car ownership would be a pretty big deal (it'd make neighbourhood parking a lot easier for a start).

Noos 9y ago

Do people not get that this also shortens the life of the car? I mean, let's say I use it for a total of 12,000 miles per year. that's 10% of the time. If I rent it out for an additional 50% of the total time, that's going to hit 72k miles in a year! For the average person they are going to have to replace cars ridiculously fast, and increase, not lessen, the burden of car ownership.