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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

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.
rictic 9y ago
There's more to it than that. The self driving car promises advantages beyond a smaller total cost of transportation. From an individual perspective though, few people will need to make a big tradeoff decision all at once. It'll start by just trying out the service, using it when convenient. A few years later, when the question of fixing or replacing a car comes up, then people will ask themselves whether they really need a car.
tmh79 9y ago
From what I see, you're looking at the current set of constraints/opportunities and then just inserting a self driving car, the reality is that autonomy and the way people live is going to change things in many hard to predict ways. You're heuristic is probably applicable for the first ~5 years, but after then all bets are off. A few things that I think you are assuming that will not change are: 1) High availability of free/cheap parking at all of your destinations including your home. 2) high availability of autonomous cars actually for sale to end users. Due to the odd liability of an autonomous car (is the owner responsible for a crash? how do you insure against that) I anticipate most/all L5 autonomy to be subscription based, not available for purchase. 3) Prohibitively expensive congestion/registration/etc charges for owner occupied cars in order to reduce the number of cars on the road 4) car ownership remaining legal (unlikely to change, I admit) There is a lot that can happen. You will probably own a car for the rest of your life, your children probably will never own a car.

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.

rictic 9y ago

There's more to it than that. The self driving car promises advantages beyond a smaller total cost of transportation. From an individual perspective though, few people will need to make a big tradeoff decision all at once. It'll start by just trying out the service, using it when convenient. A few years later, when the question of fixing or replacing a car comes up, then people will ask themselves whether they really need a car.

tmh79 9y ago

From what I see, you're looking at the current set of constraints/opportunities and then just inserting a self driving car, the reality is that autonomy and the way people live is going to change things in many hard to predict ways. You're heuristic is probably applicable for the first ~5 years, but after then all bets are off. A few things that I think you are assuming that will not change are: 1) High availability of free/cheap parking at all of your destinations including your home. 2) high availability of autonomous cars actually for sale to end users. Due to the odd liability of an autonomous car (is the owner responsible for a crash? how do you insure against that) I anticipate most/all L5 autonomy to be subscription based, not available for purchase. 3) Prohibitively expensive congestion/registration/etc charges for owner occupied cars in order to reduce the number of cars on the road 4) car ownership remaining legal (unlikely to change, I admit) There is a lot that can happen. You will probably own a car for the rest of your life, your children probably will never own a car.