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People still don‘t get just how radically synergistic electric driving, self-charging and self-driving technology will be. All the drawbacks of electric driving

People still don‘t get just how radically synergistic electric driving, self-charging and self-driving technology will be. All the drawbacks of electric driving such as low range and slow and cumbersome charging will just instantly disappear as soon as cars will just drive away and charge themselves. It will mostly solve parking problems, availability of chargers and even help absorb the (basicall free) excess energy produced by photovoltaics in the middle of the day. Just one or two of these technologies won‘t do much, but I suspect we‘ll see a massive tipping point once all three hit. If you ask me, we‘ll see this completely altering cityscapes and car ownership between 2020 and 2030.

Latteland 8y ago
but that's not happening for a while. 10+ years maybe more. what are we doing for the next 10 years?
- pxtail 8y ago
  > what are we doing for the next 10 years? pour gasoline into fuel tank (:
peterwwillis 8y ago
Self-driving is expected to bring down ridesharing costs. As costs go down, ridership goes up. As ridership goes up, traffic goes up. Currently I can get around by bicycle, rideshare, bus, subway, trolley, and rail. With the exception of the subway, all of those are slowed down by increased vehicle traffic. The tipping point you're talking about may be city streets becoming gridlocked. Then there's the bit rot problem. Most of this self driving tech is software. Over time, software becomes old, eventually is abandoned, and has to be rewritten. Assuming the cityscape was changed by 2030 (this is impossible, but just for argument's sake) we could have broken legacy tech by 2050. But we will either be stuck with it, or middle-aged people will have to start driving 30+ year old cars as taxis, as no young people will have gotten a drivers license, and all the self driving cars won't have steering wheels.
- WhompingWindows 8y ago
  A vehicle miles added tax would, in smart policy districts, allow the curbing of excessive car use, especially for a company like Uber or Lyft. There's also congestion tax, which many cities are already implementing. Some cities just straight up banned non-electric past a certain year, so we're already moving slowly to deal with traffic. I think we'll have the tools we need by the time it's a huge problem. In Boston, the traffic is pretty awful, there are just many cars shoved into a small area with infrastructure based on cow paths from original settlements.
  - peterwwillis 8y ago
    You don't think they'd just pass the taxes on to the customer in fees and then blame the local govt? Personally I'm for banning cars altogether from city centers. Many cities are implementing that too, and not nearly soon enough.
- a_t48 8y ago
  There's some balance in that we might be able to ditch some parking spots, opening up lanes for other usage.

Latteland 8y ago

but that's not happening for a while. 10+ years maybe more. what are we doing for the next 10 years?

pxtail 8y ago
> what are we doing for the next 10 years? pour gasoline into fuel tank (:

peterwwillis 8y ago

Self-driving is expected to bring down ridesharing costs. As costs go down, ridership goes up. As ridership goes up, traffic goes up. Currently I can get around by bicycle, rideshare, bus, subway, trolley, and rail. With the exception of the subway, all of those are slowed down by increased vehicle traffic. The tipping point you're talking about may be city streets becoming gridlocked. Then there's the bit rot problem. Most of this self driving tech is software. Over time, software becomes old, eventually is abandoned, and has to be rewritten. Assuming the cityscape was changed by 2030 (this is impossible, but just for argument's sake) we could have broken legacy tech by 2050. But we will either be stuck with it, or middle-aged people will have to start driving 30+ year old cars as taxis, as no young people will have gotten a drivers license, and all the self driving cars won't have steering wheels.

WhompingWindows 8y ago
A vehicle miles added tax would, in smart policy districts, allow the curbing of excessive car use, especially for a company like Uber or Lyft. There's also congestion tax, which many cities are already implementing. Some cities just straight up banned non-electric past a certain year, so we're already moving slowly to deal with traffic. I think we'll have the tools we need by the time it's a huge problem. In Boston, the traffic is pretty awful, there are just many cars shoved into a small area with infrastructure based on cow paths from original settlements.
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  You don't think they'd just pass the taxes on to the customer in fees and then blame the local govt? Personally I'm for banning cars altogether from city centers. Many cities are implementing that too, and not nearly soon enough.
a_t48 8y ago
There's some balance in that we might be able to ditch some parking spots, opening up lanes for other usage.