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Do they really belong to the same league? I’m sure this will be downvoted into oblivion because everyone on here is working on these projects but I don’t think

by tbrock 8y ago

Do they really belong to the same league? I’m sure this will be downvoted into oblivion because everyone on here is working on these projects but I don’t think self driving cars should be uttered in the same breath as any of the aforementioned technologies. It just doesn’t matter all that much. Maybe I’m being dense but can soemone spell out the glorious moment we are all waiting for here after spending all this money? - Trucking is cheaper because we fire the drivers? - There are cheap Ubers taking people from ramen to sushi in SF but clogging the streets? - There safer roads because there are no bad drivers? Ugh, this is not a transportation revolution folks. Where are the personal transportation devices? The hypersonic planes? The hyper loops?

newfocogi 8y ago
Well optimized, high volume autonomous taxi services could be revolutionary: imagine if cars being parked went from being the norm to being an rarity. Instead of 90% of cars in cities being parked, there could be drastically higher usage rates. The average apartment complex wouldn’t need to be 50% parking lot; cities wouldn’t be rows of parallel parking. I can’t find the reference, but a surprisingly high amount of useable space in densely populated areas in the US is parking lots. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but if cars were optimizing for time spent moving people, a city could be much more space efficient.
- tbrock 8y ago
  Wouldn’t it use more gas to park further away?
  - sand500 8y ago
    They won't park at all. They will drop you off and then go onto the next person.
  - IshKebab 8y ago
    Autonomous cars could be electric more easily - they could charge themselves.
keymone 8y ago
So if it prevents thousands of people from dying it somehow isn’t a big enough impact? Or tens of thousands from being injured? Or makes co2 emissions 10-30% lower? Or makes delivery of goods same amount more efficient? Are you overlooking all these gigantic benefits to social and economic life intentionally? I don’t get it...
michaelkeenan 8y ago
This is a good question, and doesn't deserve a snarky response. This is the long-term good-case scenario (using USA-focused numbers, but you can extrapolate to the rest of the world): -Car accidents will be reduced to nearly zero, saving about 34,000 lives and 250,000 injuries each year. The NHTSA estimates that this costs $871 billion per year[0]. -Because car accidents will be much less frequent, cars can be built lighter, saving the energy that's currently spent on armor. And in the scenario where people hail rides rather than own cars, the car that transports you will be the right size for you - i.e. a one-person car for most trips - which saves a lot of energy too. The energy savings help with intra-city air pollution, climate change, and decreased costs. -Self-driving cars free up the 50 billion hours that Americans spend driving each year. At the average wage, that's worth about one trillion dollars. -A lot of valuable land is used for parking (14% of Los Angeles, for example[1]). Hailed robot cars wouldn't need to park, and self-owned cars can drop their owners at their expensive destinations in a central business district, and drive a few minutes away to park in a garage where they pack together much more closely than humans can park them. The freed-up space can be used for housing or other valuable uses. -Hopefully, self-driving cars massively reduce congestion. Due to their much-faster-than-human reaction time, they can drive very close behind each other at high speeds. Two single-person cars can fit side by side in a lane. Street-side parking space can be turned into more lanes. Reduced crashes result in fewer traffic jams and lane closures. (Personally, I worry that increased car usage might exceed these effects.) Most of these figures come from Brad Templeton's webpages about robot cars[2]. [0] http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/207567-nhtsa-car-crashes-cost-us-871b http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/207567-nhtsa-car-cr... [1] https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/12/parking-los-angeles-maps-study/418593/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/12/parking-los-a... [2] https://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/robot-cars.html https://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/robot-cars.html

by tbrock 8y ago

newfocogi 8y ago

Well optimized, high volume autonomous taxi services could be revolutionary: imagine if cars being parked went from being the norm to being an rarity. Instead of 90% of cars in cities being parked, there could be drastically higher usage rates. The average apartment complex wouldn’t need to be 50% parking lot; cities wouldn’t be rows of parallel parking. I can’t find the reference, but a surprisingly high amount of useable space in densely populated areas in the US is parking lots. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but if cars were optimizing for time spent moving people, a city could be much more space efficient.

tbrock 8y ago
Wouldn’t it use more gas to park further away?
- sand500 8y ago
  They won't park at all. They will drop you off and then go onto the next person.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  Autonomous cars could be electric more easily - they could charge themselves.

keymone 8y ago

So if it prevents thousands of people from dying it somehow isn’t a big enough impact? Or tens of thousands from being injured? Or makes co2 emissions 10-30% lower? Or makes delivery of goods same amount more efficient? Are you overlooking all these gigantic benefits to social and economic life intentionally? I don’t get it...

michaelkeenan 8y ago

This is a good question, and doesn't deserve a snarky response. This is the long-term good-case scenario (using USA-focused numbers, but you can extrapolate to the rest of the world): -Car accidents will be reduced to nearly zero, saving about 34,000 lives and 250,000 injuries each year. The NHTSA estimates that this costs $871 billion per year[0]. -Because car accidents will be much less frequent, cars can be built lighter, saving the energy that's currently spent on armor. And in the scenario where people hail rides rather than own cars, the car that transports you will be the right size for you - i.e. a one-person car for most trips - which saves a lot of energy too. The energy savings help with intra-city air pollution, climate change, and decreased costs. -Self-driving cars free up the 50 billion hours that Americans spend driving each year. At the average wage, that's worth about one trillion dollars. -A lot of valuable land is used for parking (14% of Los Angeles, for example[1]). Hailed robot cars wouldn't need to park, and self-owned cars can drop their owners at their expensive destinations in a central business district, and drive a few minutes away to park in a garage where they pack together much more closely than humans can park them. The freed-up space can be used for housing or other valuable uses. -Hopefully, self-driving cars massively reduce congestion. Due to their much-faster-than-human reaction time, they can drive very close behind each other at high speeds. Two single-person cars can fit side by side in a lane. Street-side parking space can be turned into more lanes. Reduced crashes result in fewer traffic jams and lane closures. (Personally, I worry that increased car usage might exceed these effects.) Most of these figures come from Brad Templeton's webpages about robot cars[2]. [0] http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/207567-nhtsa-car-crashes-cost-us-871b http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/207567-nhtsa-car-cr... [1] https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/12/parking-los-angeles-maps-study/418593/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/12/parking-los-a... [2] https://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/robot-cars.html https://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/robot-cars.html