11 ms·

Self-Driving RVs, Not Cars, Will Bring About the True Paradigm Shift (2016)

55 points by splitbrain 9y ago

zenir 9y ago
Clicked it because no idea what RVs are: Recreational Vehicles, meaning vehicles with fancy interior, e.g. kitchen and so on
- dTal 9y ago
  Ridiculously generic name. Skateboards are also recreational vehicles.
- stephengillie 9y ago
  An RV is basically any bus-sized living space which has its own engine. They usually range from 20 feet to 40 feet, and frequently require the same restricted Class B driving license as a city bus.
crooked-v 9y ago
I'm reminded of the Judge Dredd comics, where automated two-lane mega-RVs are an established part of the setting, complete with a subculture of people who have psychological problems if they live somewhere that's not moving most of the time.
- bane 9y ago
  There was an old, now defunct, satire magazine called "CARtoons" that once did a piece on Earth's entire civilization being confined inside of large self-driving cars all barreling down the highway and going nowhere in particular. Everything was self-driving, the mall, restaurants, offices. It's hard to find any scans of the magazine online, but archive.org has a few (not that issue in particular) if you want to get a feel for them. https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive?and[]=cartoons https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive?and[]=cartoo...
- stephengillie 9y ago
  It's also similar to the Dr Who episode Gridlock, where future humans who live in their cars, and are constantly stuck in traffic outside major cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridlock_(Doctor_Who) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridlock_(Doctor_Who)
- ljf 9y ago
  I just framed the start of that comic this weekend, to put up in the house and was thinking about that exact scenario this morning on my commute to work - odd to see both this article and this comment here. Love the idea though - the problem with roadtripping in a 'camper' is that you waste the day travelling. I looked into staying in a camper in London for a bit when I was commuting there - but you have to go very stealth (if it isn't automatically driving around all night ;))
- lurker_primo 9y ago
  There is a podcast called "The Earth Collective" where an entire civilization is constantly moving. I guess they use big RV's there too. It is quite interesting.
Shivetya 9y ago
twenty miles per gallon in a RV? Only on class B (van conversions) and even then a limited subset of small ones. I certainly would not want to do a 12k trip in one. Throw in that you only save over hotels if you don't stop anywhere because many campgrounds can be nearly half the price of a hotel if not similar depending on time of year. then lets throw in reliability. there is so much more to break and none of it cheap to fix as outside of appliances most of it is unique to the manufacturer. Class A (the big boys) are also a whole different world than B and C which are based on vehicles which have crash test regulation and protection. Class A and many Class C are sub 10 miles per gallon. self driving long distance trucking is where its at. companies can absorb the cost much easier than individuals. as for the comment about liability, yeah I don't expect level 5 any time soon and even level 4 as an option.
- derefr 9y ago
  From what I see around me, the preferred stopping place of the average modern RV owner is not the campground, but rather the Walmart parking lot.
  - justadeveloper2 9y ago
    That's just where you are. Out west, RVs are the thing for traveling the vast distances and there are tons of RV parks. It's a weird subculture.
newman8r 9y ago
I think a bigger paradigm shift is going to happen with off-gridding in California with tiny houses and also RVs. There's a perfect storm of technology and circumstance. Real estate prices are soaring in the cities, solar power is cheap and getting cheaper, more people are able to work off-site via the internet, there's beautiful california land that can be had for thousands of dollars an acre.. the technology that powers water pumps and wells is cheaper and more effective, self driving water/food/garbage collection/road grading/ deliveries will soon be a reality.
- xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
  You forget the psychological aspect though. I consider myself a loner, often sit alone at times when everyone is out. I then went to live in the mountains for a while (due to work) sounded great, had internet, a phone, a house 10 times as big with a godly view etc. However, lonely at home is different from actual loneliness, and I was surprised how much I missed something as simple as seeing a random person walk on the street or a simple child shouting. You cannot fathom this type of loneliness, unless you actually been in isolation for a while, it changes you. I think you can substitute most if not all social needs if you have a family, but the paradox is, that people who grew up lonely, more often than not want to live in the city, or at least a place with a certain size off community. So you either move back "for the kids", or (as you see so often) kids leave for the city as soon as they turn adult. Leaving you alone again. This is not so much opinion, as it is the nature of the human social mind. Anecdotally; One of my friends grew up with a brother and a sister in the mountains. Their parents moved there from the city before they were born, exactly for the dream scenario off living that way. Now they are adults and he now lives in Madrid, his brother in Toronto, his sister in Amsterdam. Hows that for contrast? tldr; Grass is always greener on the other side. Isolation is experienced by many as a golden cage.
  - dagw 9y ago
    I can completely related. I'm an introvert and pretty much loner, but I get weird if I'm away from people for too long. I love and need the bustle of crowded city street even if I have no desire to interact with any of the people on the street.
rawnlq 9y ago
There's an active "van dweller" sub on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/vandwellers/top/?sort=top&t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/vandwellers/top/?sort=top&t=all I can't wait for a future where you can just set a destination (possibly random), go to sleep, and then wake up to a different view each day: http://i.imgur.com/9T7NuhJ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/9T7NuhJ.jpg
- trevyn 9y ago
  It's called yachting!
  - masklinn 9y ago
    Or night buses.
  - dTal 9y ago
    I think the implication was "without someone else driving / piloting".
    - radiorental 9y ago
      I think the counter point is that with gps, radar & autopilot... Yachting is there today, to a degree.
      - christinamltn 9y ago
        You may not need to physically hold the wheel but someone does have to be awake on watch at all times, even with radar & AIS.
        dTal 9y ago
        Someone should tell the US Navy: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/22/us_navy_4th_ship_mishap_of_the_year/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/22/us_navy_4th_ship_mi... I don't care how many fancy screens you have, one person on watch with a pair of binoculars should have spotted a bloody oil tanker.
SwellJoe 9y ago
The cost of an RV makes this out of reach of all but the most wealthy. A "paradigm shift" doesn't come from luxury goods, it comes when the cost is within reach of average folks. The photos in the article are of RVs that cost $100k+ (for the little class B) and $175k+ (for the big diesel pusher class A). People who spend $60k+ on a luxury auto may not blink at that, but I doubt it's gonna be a mainstream thing. It's a high margin industry, but even if we assume it becomes much more widespread and competition increases and margins come down, it's still just really expensive to put a whole apartment in a van/bus. Also, RVs are a tremendous amount of labor to own even if you don't do the driving. They need a lot more maintenance (if you're barreling down the highway in your living room at 70MPH, shit's gonna break), maintenance is a lot more expensive, and you have to deal with dumping and refilling tanks, among other things. I just don't think everyone is going to want that as part of their normal daily commute. My sister's family tried renting an RV for trips, rather than flying for a while (because their son liked my motorhome and wanted to try out that kind of travel), but decided not to buy an RV and went back to flying or traveling in their SUV and staying in hotels along the way when they wanted a road trip. As with the boat they bought on a whim, it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth to them. I live in an RV and travel kinda full-time, and have done so for ~6 of the past ~8 years, so I totally understand the appeal. I love having my whole house with me when I travel, sleeping in my own bed every night, cooking in my familiar kitchen, etc., but I can see how it's not for everyone. And, again, the cost is prohibitive for a lot of people. If you live in the RV full-time and don't have rent or a mortgage payment, it's entirely do-able on a modest income...but, in addition to a primary residence, it's a pricey endeavor, really only within reach of pretty wealthy people.
- dugditches 9y ago
  I think the high cost, but strong desire to achieve the lifestyle has contributed to the 'van-dweller' lifestyle. I've gone from a Class C(Small RV/on truck/van frame) down to a Class B(typical Camper Van). As you've said large RV's(Class A's) are lots of work, and less affluent people buying a used one, don't realize they're taking a problem off someone's hands. Namely finding a place to park it.
  - 9y ago
PeterStuer 9y ago
Will the RV occupants, excluding the occasional bathroom trip, not be tied to a chair with seat-belts? At least in my country seat-belts are required to be worn by law by all car occupants.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Not true in the US AFAIK. (It's on a state by state basis.)
  - gambiting 9y ago
    In the EU you can only have as many people in an RV as it has seats with seatbelts(while it's moving, obviously) and everyone has to be sitting and buckled up on the road. Anything over 3.5 tonnes(so most of these large ones count, but the modified Mercedes Sprinter from the article probably doesn't) requires a separate C class licence(so a licence to drive a truck basically).
    - ljf 9y ago
      Yes - but when/if we get safe(r) self driving vehicles will seatbelt laws change?
      - gambiting 9y ago
        Presumably? Who knows? It's like trying to guess the weather. Personally I think truly autonomous level 5 vehicles are at least 50-100 years away, so wondering how will the laws change in half a century is a bit pointless.
zelos 9y ago
No mention of the fact that by the time autonomous cars are a reality then internal combustion engines will likely be illegal as well? MPG figures are irrelevant. Is it realistic to have a large, economically viable, electric RV with reasonable performance and a decent range? That's going to need a huge, expensive battery, surely?
- matt4077 9y ago
  I would think that larger vehicles should be easier, because their volumes grows at a cubic rate with size, while energy requirements only grow at ^2 (because the latter depends mostly on the wind resistance, which is a function of the front-facing area). But I remember reading that Elon Musk decided against electric trucks because the numbers just wouldn't work out. But maybe that had to do with the much higher weight of a loaded truck, whereas a camper is more similar to a really large car.
- gambiting 9y ago
  I think there's literally zero chance that combustion engines will be made straight up illegal, just like we haven't made steam engines illegal. They will fade into obscurity and be only used on special occasions, mostly because of raising fuel prices but also competitiveness from electric vehicles. I see no problem in someone firing up a combustion engine to power a vintage car if there is close to zero of them on the road. Even now you can see examples of it happening with some really really old tanks, which are only started up during shows and only if there is a tonne of funding for them, since they use a few gallons of fuel just to start. Once the fuel hits $20+/gallon there won't be any need to ban ICEs, they will push themselves out.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    Why would fuel hit $20/gallon? If demand is low it's not worth taxing (either for the money or just to punish people for using it). It will just be harder to get. The countries that could soak up so much fuel as to raise global prices like that (China, India, etc) are also the ones where just making ICEs illegal is more politically possible and have the biggest local environmental incentives to do so.
erikb 9y ago
Had to stop at point three. There are just too many assumptions in there that are already shown as incorrect by the world in general. For instance, it's not true that with losing the personality of horses all cars behaved the same. Why should that change when the driving part is automated? There are so many different needs people try to fulfill with cars. One might want to arrive quickly and electricity efficient. He may prefer something like these lay-back bycicles. Another person wants some recreational time with his family and he will prefer the RV version. Another person simply doesn't have the funds to choose anything but still needs to get from A to B. He may add a request to his Uber app, then a grey little box comes, and on the way to B will put him as much as possible into lines with other box to decrease air resistance, even though that will take more time in the end for the customer. In my experience more automation will end up providing more options not fewer.
agumonkey 9y ago
I was thinking about our relation to space and location. With ubiquitous networking and self driving vehicles instead of all going to a spot, the spot might move near us; or others ways fitting; and now you're at "work". That is for information jobs.
js8 9y ago
I don't want to be a party pooper but I am kinda worried that self-driving cars are an ecological disaster in the making. We already need to limit GHG emissions, and switching to public transport is a good way to do it. However, with self-driving cars, one of the main incentives for public transport (you don't have to drive) is gone.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Presumably once you have full autonomy in some number of decades, you'll also have a lot more electric vehicles and renewables. That said, there's every reason to think that you will see vastly more miles driven. What may encourage transit is the increase in miles may make cars in urban cores that much less tenable.
- criddell 9y ago
  I've been thinking about that as well. Self-driving cars are going to bring the cost of a trip way down and when the cost of something drops, we tend to use more of it. Rather than a big shared fleet, I suspect people will continue to buy their own cars and will in fact own more of them because (eventually) they will be much less expensive than current vehicles. People already spend far more on their cars than they really have to and I doubt that will change. On the plus side, I think the inexpensive cars of the near future will probably be small and electric with a much smaller operational carbon footprint. On the down side, when you have a robot chauffeur, the value of proximity drops and so I think they will fuel sprawl like nothing else before. I guess I'm saying I have no idea what's going to happen, but I doubt it will fulfill the Polyanna prophesies that I sometimes read about.
justadeveloper2 9y ago
I'm skeptical. Class A motorcoaches are already very complex beasts and the people who operate them are in no particular rush to get anywhere from my experiences in Montana and Idaho the last couple of weeks. They're mostly retired people and they wander from RV park to RV park without much care. It's a nice life in some ways. It would drive me batty to live in campgrounds after awhile, but that's me. My elderly parents bought a 38' Bluebird years ago. They used it some in the first couple of years, but then their health problems began preventing them from going anywhere and now it just sits. The thing is a monster, especially when flat-towing a car behind it. Its huge size has gotten them into all kinds of misadventures because it's like driving a semi around, you have to be careful about bridges, grades, road width, parking, where you're going to turn around, and on and on. I keep trying to get them to sell it, but they are holding on to a dream that will never be. The punchline is that they could have flown anywhere in the world multiple times and stayed in 4-star hotels for what that stupid RV cost and they would have had a much better time. Anyhow, I just don't see a lot of people relying on self-driving RVs, sorry.
- justadeveloper2 9y ago
  Why the downvote? Do you have any experience with the RV world? I'm telling you--most of the fun is in driving the thing and self-driving takes even that away. People imagine they can hop in some self-driving motorhome and read books and nap until they get to their destination and I'm here to tell you that that is a highly unlikely thing to come to be for all kinds of reasons.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
Even if all the high end stuff switched over tomorrow it would take a very long time for this to trickle down. Look at class A and C motor-homes on CList. The average age is probably 15yr +/- some depending on how wealthy the area you're looking in is. Currently there is no fielded system to enable trucks pulling doubles to back those doubles easily (cutting brakes would be enough, the hardware is already there). Currently major truck rental fleet operators like Uhaul and Budget do not buy vehicles that make it very hard for people who have no business driving a truck that side to do things like knock over light posts by taking a turn too tight. Even if the technology exists it's not at the cost/benefit point where it's worth adopting for most use cases.
chewyland 9y ago
I use my campervan as my regular car, have for the last 6 years. Sleeps 6, has a hot shower and a kitchen. Amazing way to cruise around and if you're bored, park and have a nap.

55 points by splitbrain 9y ago

Clicked it because no idea what RVs are: Recreational Vehicles, meaning vehicles with fancy interior, e.g. kitchen and so on

dTal 9y ago
Ridiculously generic name. Skateboards are also recreational vehicles.
stephengillie 9y ago
An RV is basically any bus-sized living space which has its own engine. They usually range from 20 feet to 40 feet, and frequently require the same restricted Class B driving license as a city bus.

crooked-v 9y ago

I'm reminded of the Judge Dredd comics, where automated two-lane mega-RVs are an established part of the setting, complete with a subculture of people who have psychological problems if they live somewhere that's not moving most of the time.

bane 9y ago
There was an old, now defunct, satire magazine called "CARtoons" that once did a piece on Earth's entire civilization being confined inside of large self-driving cars all barreling down the highway and going nowhere in particular. Everything was self-driving, the mall, restaurants, offices. It's hard to find any scans of the magazine online, but archive.org has a few (not that issue in particular) if you want to get a feel for them. https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive?and[]=cartoons https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive?and[]=cartoo...
stephengillie 9y ago
It's also similar to the Dr Who episode Gridlock, where future humans who live in their cars, and are constantly stuck in traffic outside major cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridlock_(Doctor_Who) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridlock_(Doctor_Who)
ljf 9y ago
I just framed the start of that comic this weekend, to put up in the house and was thinking about that exact scenario this morning on my commute to work - odd to see both this article and this comment here. Love the idea though - the problem with roadtripping in a 'camper' is that you waste the day travelling. I looked into staying in a camper in London for a bit when I was commuting there - but you have to go very stealth (if it isn't automatically driving around all night ;))
lurker_primo 9y ago
There is a podcast called "The Earth Collective" where an entire civilization is constantly moving. I guess they use big RV's there too. It is quite interesting.

Shivetya 9y ago

twenty miles per gallon in a RV? Only on class B (van conversions) and even then a limited subset of small ones. I certainly would not want to do a 12k trip in one. Throw in that you only save over hotels if you don't stop anywhere because many campgrounds can be nearly half the price of a hotel if not similar depending on time of year. then lets throw in reliability. there is so much more to break and none of it cheap to fix as outside of appliances most of it is unique to the manufacturer. Class A (the big boys) are also a whole different world than B and C which are based on vehicles which have crash test regulation and protection. Class A and many Class C are sub 10 miles per gallon. self driving long distance trucking is where its at. companies can absorb the cost much easier than individuals. as for the comment about liability, yeah I don't expect level 5 any time soon and even level 4 as an option.

derefr 9y ago
From what I see around me, the preferred stopping place of the average modern RV owner is not the campground, but rather the Walmart parking lot.
- justadeveloper2 9y ago
  That's just where you are. Out west, RVs are the thing for traveling the vast distances and there are tons of RV parks. It's a weird subculture.

newman8r 9y ago

I think a bigger paradigm shift is going to happen with off-gridding in California with tiny houses and also RVs. There's a perfect storm of technology and circumstance. Real estate prices are soaring in the cities, solar power is cheap and getting cheaper, more people are able to work off-site via the internet, there's beautiful california land that can be had for thousands of dollars an acre.. the technology that powers water pumps and wells is cheaper and more effective, self driving water/food/garbage collection/road grading/ deliveries will soon be a reality.

xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
You forget the psychological aspect though. I consider myself a loner, often sit alone at times when everyone is out. I then went to live in the mountains for a while (due to work) sounded great, had internet, a phone, a house 10 times as big with a godly view etc. However, lonely at home is different from actual loneliness, and I was surprised how much I missed something as simple as seeing a random person walk on the street or a simple child shouting. You cannot fathom this type of loneliness, unless you actually been in isolation for a while, it changes you. I think you can substitute most if not all social needs if you have a family, but the paradox is, that people who grew up lonely, more often than not want to live in the city, or at least a place with a certain size off community. So you either move back "for the kids", or (as you see so often) kids leave for the city as soon as they turn adult. Leaving you alone again. This is not so much opinion, as it is the nature of the human social mind. Anecdotally; One of my friends grew up with a brother and a sister in the mountains. Their parents moved there from the city before they were born, exactly for the dream scenario off living that way. Now they are adults and he now lives in Madrid, his brother in Toronto, his sister in Amsterdam. Hows that for contrast? tldr; Grass is always greener on the other side. Isolation is experienced by many as a golden cage.
- dagw 9y ago
  I can completely related. I'm an introvert and pretty much loner, but I get weird if I'm away from people for too long. I love and need the bustle of crowded city street even if I have no desire to interact with any of the people on the street.

rawnlq 9y ago

There's an active "van dweller" sub on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/vandwellers/top/?sort=top&t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/vandwellers/top/?sort=top&t=all I can't wait for a future where you can just set a destination (possibly random), go to sleep, and then wake up to a different view each day: http://i.imgur.com/9T7NuhJ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/9T7NuhJ.jpg

trevyn 9y ago
It's called yachting!
- masklinn 9y ago
  Or night buses.
- dTal 9y ago
  I think the implication was "without someone else driving / piloting".
  - radiorental 9y ago
    I think the counter point is that with gps, radar & autopilot... Yachting is there today, to a degree.
    - christinamltn 9y ago
      You may not need to physically hold the wheel but someone does have to be awake on watch at all times, even with radar & AIS.
      - dTal 9y ago
        Someone should tell the US Navy: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/22/us_navy_4th_ship_mishap_of_the_year/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/22/us_navy_4th_ship_mi... I don't care how many fancy screens you have, one person on watch with a pair of binoculars should have spotted a bloody oil tanker.

SwellJoe 9y ago

The cost of an RV makes this out of reach of all but the most wealthy. A "paradigm shift" doesn't come from luxury goods, it comes when the cost is within reach of average folks. The photos in the article are of RVs that cost $100k+ (for the little class B) and $175k+ (for the big diesel pusher class A). People who spend $60k+ on a luxury auto may not blink at that, but I doubt it's gonna be a mainstream thing. It's a high margin industry, but even if we assume it becomes much more widespread and competition increases and margins come down, it's still just really expensive to put a whole apartment in a van/bus. Also, RVs are a tremendous amount of labor to own even if you don't do the driving. They need a lot more maintenance (if you're barreling down the highway in your living room at 70MPH, shit's gonna break), maintenance is a lot more expensive, and you have to deal with dumping and refilling tanks, among other things. I just don't think everyone is going to want that as part of their normal daily commute. My sister's family tried renting an RV for trips, rather than flying for a while (because their son liked my motorhome and wanted to try out that kind of travel), but decided not to buy an RV and went back to flying or traveling in their SUV and staying in hotels along the way when they wanted a road trip. As with the boat they bought on a whim, it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth to them. I live in an RV and travel kinda full-time, and have done so for ~6 of the past ~8 years, so I totally understand the appeal. I love having my whole house with me when I travel, sleeping in my own bed every night, cooking in my familiar kitchen, etc., but I can see how it's not for everyone. And, again, the cost is prohibitive for a lot of people. If you live in the RV full-time and don't have rent or a mortgage payment, it's entirely do-able on a modest income...but, in addition to a primary residence, it's a pricey endeavor, really only within reach of pretty wealthy people.

dugditches 9y ago
I think the high cost, but strong desire to achieve the lifestyle has contributed to the 'van-dweller' lifestyle. I've gone from a Class C(Small RV/on truck/van frame) down to a Class B(typical Camper Van). As you've said large RV's(Class A's) are lots of work, and less affluent people buying a used one, don't realize they're taking a problem off someone's hands. Namely finding a place to park it.
- 9y ago

PeterStuer 9y ago

Will the RV occupants, excluding the occasional bathroom trip, not be tied to a chair with seat-belts? At least in my country seat-belts are required to be worn by law by all car occupants.

ghaff 9y ago
Not true in the US AFAIK. (It's on a state by state basis.)
- gambiting 9y ago
  In the EU you can only have as many people in an RV as it has seats with seatbelts(while it's moving, obviously) and everyone has to be sitting and buckled up on the road. Anything over 3.5 tonnes(so most of these large ones count, but the modified Mercedes Sprinter from the article probably doesn't) requires a separate C class licence(so a licence to drive a truck basically).
  - ljf 9y ago
    Yes - but when/if we get safe(r) self driving vehicles will seatbelt laws change?
    - gambiting 9y ago
      Presumably? Who knows? It's like trying to guess the weather. Personally I think truly autonomous level 5 vehicles are at least 50-100 years away, so wondering how will the laws change in half a century is a bit pointless.

zelos 9y ago

No mention of the fact that by the time autonomous cars are a reality then internal combustion engines will likely be illegal as well? MPG figures are irrelevant. Is it realistic to have a large, economically viable, electric RV with reasonable performance and a decent range? That's going to need a huge, expensive battery, surely?

matt4077 9y ago
I would think that larger vehicles should be easier, because their volumes grows at a cubic rate with size, while energy requirements only grow at ^2 (because the latter depends mostly on the wind resistance, which is a function of the front-facing area). But I remember reading that Elon Musk decided against electric trucks because the numbers just wouldn't work out. But maybe that had to do with the much higher weight of a loaded truck, whereas a camper is more similar to a really large car.
gambiting 9y ago
I think there's literally zero chance that combustion engines will be made straight up illegal, just like we haven't made steam engines illegal. They will fade into obscurity and be only used on special occasions, mostly because of raising fuel prices but also competitiveness from electric vehicles. I see no problem in someone firing up a combustion engine to power a vintage car if there is close to zero of them on the road. Even now you can see examples of it happening with some really really old tanks, which are only started up during shows and only if there is a tonne of funding for them, since they use a few gallons of fuel just to start. Once the fuel hits $20+/gallon there won't be any need to ban ICEs, they will push themselves out.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  Why would fuel hit $20/gallon? If demand is low it's not worth taxing (either for the money or just to punish people for using it). It will just be harder to get. The countries that could soak up so much fuel as to raise global prices like that (China, India, etc) are also the ones where just making ICEs illegal is more politically possible and have the biggest local environmental incentives to do so.

erikb 9y ago

Had to stop at point three. There are just too many assumptions in there that are already shown as incorrect by the world in general. For instance, it's not true that with losing the personality of horses all cars behaved the same. Why should that change when the driving part is automated? There are so many different needs people try to fulfill with cars. One might want to arrive quickly and electricity efficient. He may prefer something like these lay-back bycicles. Another person wants some recreational time with his family and he will prefer the RV version. Another person simply doesn't have the funds to choose anything but still needs to get from A to B. He may add a request to his Uber app, then a grey little box comes, and on the way to B will put him as much as possible into lines with other box to decrease air resistance, even though that will take more time in the end for the customer. In my experience more automation will end up providing more options not fewer.

agumonkey 9y ago

I was thinking about our relation to space and location. With ubiquitous networking and self driving vehicles instead of all going to a spot, the spot might move near us; or others ways fitting; and now you're at "work". That is for information jobs.

js8 9y ago

I don't want to be a party pooper but I am kinda worried that self-driving cars are an ecological disaster in the making. We already need to limit GHG emissions, and switching to public transport is a good way to do it. However, with self-driving cars, one of the main incentives for public transport (you don't have to drive) is gone.

ghaff 9y ago
Presumably once you have full autonomy in some number of decades, you'll also have a lot more electric vehicles and renewables. That said, there's every reason to think that you will see vastly more miles driven. What may encourage transit is the increase in miles may make cars in urban cores that much less tenable.
criddell 9y ago
I've been thinking about that as well. Self-driving cars are going to bring the cost of a trip way down and when the cost of something drops, we tend to use more of it. Rather than a big shared fleet, I suspect people will continue to buy their own cars and will in fact own more of them because (eventually) they will be much less expensive than current vehicles. People already spend far more on their cars than they really have to and I doubt that will change. On the plus side, I think the inexpensive cars of the near future will probably be small and electric with a much smaller operational carbon footprint. On the down side, when you have a robot chauffeur, the value of proximity drops and so I think they will fuel sprawl like nothing else before. I guess I'm saying I have no idea what's going to happen, but I doubt it will fulfill the Polyanna prophesies that I sometimes read about.

justadeveloper2 9y ago

I'm skeptical. Class A motorcoaches are already very complex beasts and the people who operate them are in no particular rush to get anywhere from my experiences in Montana and Idaho the last couple of weeks. They're mostly retired people and they wander from RV park to RV park without much care. It's a nice life in some ways. It would drive me batty to live in campgrounds after awhile, but that's me. My elderly parents bought a 38' Bluebird years ago. They used it some in the first couple of years, but then their health problems began preventing them from going anywhere and now it just sits. The thing is a monster, especially when flat-towing a car behind it. Its huge size has gotten them into all kinds of misadventures because it's like driving a semi around, you have to be careful about bridges, grades, road width, parking, where you're going to turn around, and on and on. I keep trying to get them to sell it, but they are holding on to a dream that will never be. The punchline is that they could have flown anywhere in the world multiple times and stayed in 4-star hotels for what that stupid RV cost and they would have had a much better time. Anyhow, I just don't see a lot of people relying on self-driving RVs, sorry.

justadeveloper2 9y ago
Why the downvote? Do you have any experience with the RV world? I'm telling you--most of the fun is in driving the thing and self-driving takes even that away. People imagine they can hop in some self-driving motorhome and read books and nap until they get to their destination and I'm here to tell you that that is a highly unlikely thing to come to be for all kinds of reasons.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

Even if all the high end stuff switched over tomorrow it would take a very long time for this to trickle down. Look at class A and C motor-homes on CList. The average age is probably 15yr +/- some depending on how wealthy the area you're looking in is. Currently there is no fielded system to enable trucks pulling doubles to back those doubles easily (cutting brakes would be enough, the hardware is already there). Currently major truck rental fleet operators like Uhaul and Budget do not buy vehicles that make it very hard for people who have no business driving a truck that side to do things like knock over light posts by taking a turn too tight. Even if the technology exists it's not at the cost/benefit point where it's worth adopting for most use cases.

chewyland 9y ago

I use my campervan as my regular car, have for the last 6 years. Sleeps 6, has a hot shower and a kitchen. Amazing way to cruise around and if you're bored, park and have a nap.