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I would like to see a real study that says people are comfortable with level 5 autonomy. When I ask my 40 something friends their response is "no way". And th

I would like to see a real study that says people are comfortable with level 5 autonomy. When I ask my 40 something friends their response is "no way". And these are engineers. So maybe a generational thing. It's not that there won't be adoption - but to say you will have sea-change style adoption? People who write these reports seem to be ignorant of the diversity of the automobile owning public. Does no one live in suburbia or have kids? The idea of sharing a car just doesn't make sense. it's part home / workshop / storage area. Maybe innovation solves this. Your rental minivan will dump its pod of crap at your house when it drops you off and picks it up when you call it. Yes, if you live in a dense area this stuff makes great sense. But how do you deal with these use cases: 1) Follow behind your kid on halloween 2) Casually drive anywhere and pull over to watch the view. "Alexa - pull over at that little turn off." maybe?

monk_e_boy 9y ago
Most people I ask don't really care. We get in taxis, busses, planes, trains all driven by someone else. The underground in mostly automatic. Planes are flown by software. Traffic signals/lights are software driven. If the software is tested then what? We trust the people who test it. Send the self driving car through a driving test. Sure level 5 is hard... but most people don't appreciate that. They assume it's tested and it works most of the time. Most people will jump in the self driving car and whip out a phone and tweet and facebook and enjoy the free time.
sporkenfang 9y ago
> Does no one live in suburbia or have kids? The idea of sharing a car just doesn't make sense. it's part home / workshop / storage area. Maybe innovation solves this. Your rental minivan will dump its pod of crap at your house when it drops you off and picks it up when you call it. Ok, so this is in no way a criticism of you or your kids, but having kids doesn't have to mean that (e.g., would you let your kid leave her crayons on the subway? in the public library?). Sure, kids anywhere could occasionally mean kid vomit, but that's what damages fees are for, right? Lots of people, my sister included, have kids and don't even own cars, today, right now.
- aetherson 9y ago
  You didn't understand him. He didn't mean that your kids will mess up the car, he meant that when you have kids, your car fills up with kid paraphernalia that you don't want to constantly load and unload. My car has in it: 1. My daughter's carseat. 2. About three kleenex-box-sized volume worth of her books and toys. 3. Wet wipes and diapers and changing equipment. 4. A booster seat. 5. A box of food and eating stuff (bibs, etc.) Those all live in my car permanently. I don't want to take them all out and put them all back every time I go to the store.
  - tmh79 9y ago
    Things will change, people raised kids for thousands of years before the automobile. To some extent, the reason you carry around all of that stuff is because you have the car, and the current state is the best of all possible alternatives for you and your family. In the future, the best of all possible alternatives might change, and the conditions that lead you to having made a choice to live a car centric lifestyle may change such that future parents of young children will do it differently. Maybe the design of cars radically changes. Maybe the design of spaces in which we live changes to accommodate a more car free/car subscription but not ownership lifestyle. Parents are a large market and people will make money by solving these problems, but the first step before that is autonomy.
    - aetherson 9y ago
      Between the alternatives of: 1. Pay a bit more for a car you own (I mean, this isn't THAT expensive. A good used car costs maybe $8,000 and can last for five years). or 2. Fundamentally restructuring your life to a pre-modern approach of childcare Which one would you do?
      - xbmcuser 9y ago
        Its the younger generations that will adopt car sharing. People that are buying fewer cars and use Uber etc anyway. Once they have children they will adjust to a car free lifestyle as they are used to it. Where as people that have kids currently won't have any kids as kids do grow up so might forgo owning cars as well in the future. Another thing is that car shapes and sizes will change dramatically as you don't need a sedan for 1 person commuting to work every day because of that the size of the car the size of battery and motor required will come down with the price.
crush-n-spread 9y ago
Ask people in the 1940s if they're comfortable sitting with blacks on the bus. Ask people in the 1970s if they're comfortable with microwaves. How about we phrase a question like "Are you comfortable with legalizing encryption so that terrorists can hide their communications?" Yeah good thing we pushed on with the technology and ignored them.

monk_e_boy 9y ago

Most people I ask don't really care. We get in taxis, busses, planes, trains all driven by someone else. The underground in mostly automatic. Planes are flown by software. Traffic signals/lights are software driven. If the software is tested then what? We trust the people who test it. Send the self driving car through a driving test. Sure level 5 is hard... but most people don't appreciate that. They assume it's tested and it works most of the time. Most people will jump in the self driving car and whip out a phone and tweet and facebook and enjoy the free time.

sporkenfang 9y ago

> Does no one live in suburbia or have kids? The idea of sharing a car just doesn't make sense. it's part home / workshop / storage area. Maybe innovation solves this. Your rental minivan will dump its pod of crap at your house when it drops you off and picks it up when you call it. Ok, so this is in no way a criticism of you or your kids, but having kids doesn't have to mean that (e.g., would you let your kid leave her crayons on the subway? in the public library?). Sure, kids anywhere could occasionally mean kid vomit, but that's what damages fees are for, right? Lots of people, my sister included, have kids and don't even own cars, today, right now.

aetherson 9y ago
You didn't understand him. He didn't mean that your kids will mess up the car, he meant that when you have kids, your car fills up with kid paraphernalia that you don't want to constantly load and unload. My car has in it: 1. My daughter's carseat. 2. About three kleenex-box-sized volume worth of her books and toys. 3. Wet wipes and diapers and changing equipment. 4. A booster seat. 5. A box of food and eating stuff (bibs, etc.) Those all live in my car permanently. I don't want to take them all out and put them all back every time I go to the store.
- tmh79 9y ago
  Things will change, people raised kids for thousands of years before the automobile. To some extent, the reason you carry around all of that stuff is because you have the car, and the current state is the best of all possible alternatives for you and your family. In the future, the best of all possible alternatives might change, and the conditions that lead you to having made a choice to live a car centric lifestyle may change such that future parents of young children will do it differently. Maybe the design of cars radically changes. Maybe the design of spaces in which we live changes to accommodate a more car free/car subscription but not ownership lifestyle. Parents are a large market and people will make money by solving these problems, but the first step before that is autonomy.
  - aetherson 9y ago
    Between the alternatives of: 1. Pay a bit more for a car you own (I mean, this isn't THAT expensive. A good used car costs maybe $8,000 and can last for five years). or 2. Fundamentally restructuring your life to a pre-modern approach of childcare Which one would you do?
    - xbmcuser 9y ago
      Its the younger generations that will adopt car sharing. People that are buying fewer cars and use Uber etc anyway. Once they have children they will adjust to a car free lifestyle as they are used to it. Where as people that have kids currently won't have any kids as kids do grow up so might forgo owning cars as well in the future. Another thing is that car shapes and sizes will change dramatically as you don't need a sedan for 1 person commuting to work every day because of that the size of the car the size of battery and motor required will come down with the price.

crush-n-spread 9y ago

Ask people in the 1940s if they're comfortable sitting with blacks on the bus. Ask people in the 1970s if they're comfortable with microwaves. How about we phrase a question like "Are you comfortable with legalizing encryption so that terrorists can hide their communications?" Yeah good thing we pushed on with the technology and ignored them.