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Your model assumes most people still own general-purpose cars, and farm them out on the side. Uber's assumes it will become more possible for people not to, and

Your model assumes most people still own general-purpose cars, and farm them out on the side. Uber's assumes it will become more possible for people not to, and that they will instead rely on trip-optimized vehicles available centrally on a case-by-case basis. I think they have reason for optimism there... For one, many times when Uber is in highest demand are also times when car owners most want to use their own vehicles (say, rush hour), so this notion that an Uber-like service can rely entirely on spare hours of personal vehicles is a little silly; sure, there are tons of idle cars at 4am on a Tuesday morning, but who needs to use them all then? For another, I can totally foresee a future where we move away from this idiotic practice of having the typical vehicle on the road by a five-seater with one person in it, which is hugely inefficient. Commuting alone? Have a tiny car. Going on a trip with the family? Enjoy this self-driving SUV. Need to get from DC to Florida? Enjoy this self-driving bed, and wake up at your destination in the morning. Etc., etc.

semi-extrinsic 9y ago
Self-driving bed? Really? Is this in the hypothetical future where the Land of the Free, the home of muscle cars, pickup trucks and road trips, has banned cars driven by humans? Otherwise there's no way to make that safe.
- sqeaky 9y ago
  Self driving cars are already safer than people when their sensors are not screwed by the weather. As soon as solve the snow and rainy night problem the self driving beds will be a thing and much safer than you or I driving. Sure some idiot could still hit, but a bed doesn't make that woes, if anything it allows ample mattress to act as crumple zone. Also why are trucks and muscles car bad? Can they somehow not co-exist on the roads with other cars? Are they allergic to self-driving cars?
sqeaky 9y ago
People don't give up luxuries or quality of life. Everyone knows smoking kills people, its gone down with that knowledge but leveled off at millions of smokers who do it for the pleasure and damn the consequences. Now that vaping is a thing that is going down again. Americans don't reduce power consumption, recycle in meaningful quantities or take shorter showers. What is making our grid more clean is more renewables (I see a new wind turbine almost everytime I drive on I-80). Recycling is still an issue but sort it from the automatically and that would fix our problem. Water starved areas would rather pipe and truck water in that let their lawns die. Public transit seems to work best in areas were being faster or more convenient is a car is the luxury. It will never happen in Omaha or any other widespread city. I can get to anywhere in this city in 20 minutes on I-80, I might spend that long waiting for Uber or Lyft. Flip it around and look at Manhattan to that same 10 or 20 miles might take more than an hour by car once you factor in parking and other hassles, the subway, buses and taxis are omnipresent (so you don't need to find your own inconveniently placed vehicle) and often faster then you don't need to park it. Traffic is just like any other human problem we will have to create hard solutions for problems that would be easy if we could all just pull back a little.

semi-extrinsic 9y ago

Self-driving bed? Really? Is this in the hypothetical future where the Land of the Free, the home of muscle cars, pickup trucks and road trips, has banned cars driven by humans? Otherwise there's no way to make that safe.

sqeaky 9y ago
Self driving cars are already safer than people when their sensors are not screwed by the weather. As soon as solve the snow and rainy night problem the self driving beds will be a thing and much safer than you or I driving. Sure some idiot could still hit, but a bed doesn't make that woes, if anything it allows ample mattress to act as crumple zone. Also why are trucks and muscles car bad? Can they somehow not co-exist on the roads with other cars? Are they allergic to self-driving cars?

sqeaky 9y ago

People don't give up luxuries or quality of life. Everyone knows smoking kills people, its gone down with that knowledge but leveled off at millions of smokers who do it for the pleasure and damn the consequences. Now that vaping is a thing that is going down again. Americans don't reduce power consumption, recycle in meaningful quantities or take shorter showers. What is making our grid more clean is more renewables (I see a new wind turbine almost everytime I drive on I-80). Recycling is still an issue but sort it from the automatically and that would fix our problem. Water starved areas would rather pipe and truck water in that let their lawns die. Public transit seems to work best in areas were being faster or more convenient is a car is the luxury. It will never happen in Omaha or any other widespread city. I can get to anywhere in this city in 20 minutes on I-80, I might spend that long waiting for Uber or Lyft. Flip it around and look at Manhattan to that same 10 or 20 miles might take more than an hour by car once you factor in parking and other hassles, the subway, buses and taxis are omnipresent (so you don't need to find your own inconveniently placed vehicle) and often faster then you don't need to park it. Traffic is just like any other human problem we will have to create hard solutions for problems that would be easy if we could all just pull back a little.