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IMHO self driving cars will predominately be a fleet/subscription-service model eventually, and in that case it will actually further incentivize shorter commut

IMHO self driving cars will predominately be a fleet/subscription-service model eventually, and in that case it will actually further incentivize shorter commutes (denser living). Right now, when you buy, finance or lease a car you pay a fixed rate and the variable component is almost negligible. That means a 10 or a 50 mile commute are really just a question of your personal time, they don't have much price-cost. Conversely for a shared-fleet-subscription model you will pay a much more utility-like rate (or they will price the subscription based on utility like analysis). Now there will be a much more direct correlation to the distances you travel and the price you pay. Especially since commuting will have the peak-utilization effect on pricing that all shared services from frame-relay networks to ec2 autoscaling exhibit. People will be able to directly price the cost of living in location X vs. location Y and make a much more informed decision (I can pay $250/month on my mortgage for a 3rd bedroom in a home closer to work, or I can pay $300/month for my 45-minute rush-hour service charge). Overall more accurate pricing will dramatically skew toward density.

jstanley 9y ago
But if living further from work costs you $300/mo extra, then it won't actually be cheaper to use a subscription-service model than to own the car yourself, and therefore people won't do that.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
You ignore places like china with severe traffic problems in their cities and an autocratic government that can push things through. They'll make self driving cars mandatory inside the fifth ring road just to optimize road and parking resources and ignore the western habits you describe above. That will be a huge deal for megacities, and not much of a change from personal habits where taxis are already ubiquitous. Also, see Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangkok, Manila, ....
- pjc50 9y ago
  I expect to see fossil fuel vehicles banned from London in my lifetime, so the city could well bar non-autonomous private cars once the autonomous tech is good enough. It would make it a lot safer for cyclists, although it's the trucks and buses that are the real danger there.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    Well, if we're at the point where non-autonomous cars are outlawed, there's no way trucks and buses will still have human drivers.
- cagenut 9y ago
  Thank you, great point. The impact of these things on american/burb/pre-existing-car-culture locations will be very different than how it plays out in 'developing' locations.
walterstucco 9y ago
> That means a 10 or a 50 mile commute are really just a question of your personal time, they don't have much price-cost Maybe in the united states, but in most Europe the highest cost for owning a car is gas. 10 miles a day or 50 miles a day can make easily a difference at the end of the year of thousands of euro.
barrkel 9y ago
If you want space - perhaps you have children - you'll easily trade commute time. Don't forget big houses are way more expensive in dense areas, dwarfing transport costs. Mortgage on a central house vs suburbs is in the region of 5x to 10x more expensive (London prices), not 50 bucks. The reason is simple. You can fit 5 to 10x more people in the land area of a big house in a city, at least.
dcosson 9y ago
In my building (pretty close to where I work) it would be an extra $1200-$1500 per month to go from 1 to 2 bedrooms. So I'm not sure this math adds up, with the housing crises we've created in cities transportation is just significantly cheaper than living closer and it doesn't seem like something changing around the car ownership model can fix.
- cagenut 9y ago
  we can anecdata whatever numbers we want at each other, the point is the shift from upfront/sunk-cost to utilization cost will give every actor more information and better price signaling to work with. And the shift to fleet/service-provider from individual consumer for the assets themselves will cut a massive amount of the fashion-premium out of the costs. You could argue that with this greater efficiency will come a jevons paradox like greater consumption. And that will probably be true in-aggregate, but I think thats going to skew toward more short trips per day (off-peak) than longer commutes (peak).
dredmorbius 9y ago
The variable costs of driving are actually fairly substantial: fuel, depreciation cost, insurance, tolls, if any, and maintenance. There are also fixed costs: parking (including at your residence, by way of dedicated real-estate), registration, and the like. Depreciation is often hugely underappreciated, but if your car's life is based on the mileage driven (which to a large extent it is) then increasing the miles driven by a factor of five will reduce the car's life proportionately, and increase the frequency with which you have to replace the vehicle. This isn't a currently realised cash cost, but it is in fact a real cost. The inflection point between needing to own or not needing to own a car is a large one. The ability to foregoe the real-estate dedication of a driveway and garage accounts for 1/3 or more of many lots or structure area.

jstanley 9y ago

But if living further from work costs you $300/mo extra, then it won't actually be cheaper to use a subscription-service model than to own the car yourself, and therefore people won't do that.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

You ignore places like china with severe traffic problems in their cities and an autocratic government that can push things through. They'll make self driving cars mandatory inside the fifth ring road just to optimize road and parking resources and ignore the western habits you describe above. That will be a huge deal for megacities, and not much of a change from personal habits where taxis are already ubiquitous. Also, see Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangkok, Manila, ....

pjc50 9y ago
I expect to see fossil fuel vehicles banned from London in my lifetime, so the city could well bar non-autonomous private cars once the autonomous tech is good enough. It would make it a lot safer for cyclists, although it's the trucks and buses that are the real danger there.
- majewsky 9y ago
  Well, if we're at the point where non-autonomous cars are outlawed, there's no way trucks and buses will still have human drivers.
cagenut 9y ago
Thank you, great point. The impact of these things on american/burb/pre-existing-car-culture locations will be very different than how it plays out in 'developing' locations.

walterstucco 9y ago

> That means a 10 or a 50 mile commute are really just a question of your personal time, they don't have much price-cost Maybe in the united states, but in most Europe the highest cost for owning a car is gas. 10 miles a day or 50 miles a day can make easily a difference at the end of the year of thousands of euro.

barrkel 9y ago

If you want space - perhaps you have children - you'll easily trade commute time. Don't forget big houses are way more expensive in dense areas, dwarfing transport costs. Mortgage on a central house vs suburbs is in the region of 5x to 10x more expensive (London prices), not 50 bucks. The reason is simple. You can fit 5 to 10x more people in the land area of a big house in a city, at least.

dcosson 9y ago

In my building (pretty close to where I work) it would be an extra $1200-$1500 per month to go from 1 to 2 bedrooms. So I'm not sure this math adds up, with the housing crises we've created in cities transportation is just significantly cheaper than living closer and it doesn't seem like something changing around the car ownership model can fix.

cagenut 9y ago
we can anecdata whatever numbers we want at each other, the point is the shift from upfront/sunk-cost to utilization cost will give every actor more information and better price signaling to work with. And the shift to fleet/service-provider from individual consumer for the assets themselves will cut a massive amount of the fashion-premium out of the costs. You could argue that with this greater efficiency will come a jevons paradox like greater consumption. And that will probably be true in-aggregate, but I think thats going to skew toward more short trips per day (off-peak) than longer commutes (peak).

dredmorbius 9y ago

The variable costs of driving are actually fairly substantial: fuel, depreciation cost, insurance, tolls, if any, and maintenance. There are also fixed costs: parking (including at your residence, by way of dedicated real-estate), registration, and the like. Depreciation is often hugely underappreciated, but if your car's life is based on the mileage driven (which to a large extent it is) then increasing the miles driven by a factor of five will reduce the car's life proportionately, and increase the frequency with which you have to replace the vehicle. This isn't a currently realised cash cost, but it is in fact a real cost. The inflection point between needing to own or not needing to own a car is a large one. The ability to foregoe the real-estate dedication of a driveway and garage accounts for 1/3 or more of many lots or structure area.