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As a layman, I think this title is way off, even if the internal concepts of the piece are reasonable. We're a long way from fleets of autonomous vehicles being

As a layman, I think this title is way off, even if the internal concepts of the piece are reasonable. We're a long way from fleets of autonomous vehicles being ubiquitous enough that I can expect a vehicle of the specs I require to be available in the same amount of time as I could start one in my driveway. Maybe this isn't fully informed, but my impression is that even an early automobile was strictly better than a horse, for the riders in the moment. That said, the average person may have bought their second-to-last car. But I bet you we end up owning passenger/cargo modules that dock at our houses for transport platforms to pick us up in.

vidarh 8y ago
As someone who lives without a car: you don't really need to be able to just start one. The big differentiator in my experience is whether or not the wait is consistent. I will ditch a cab company if the waits become too variable, but will happily accept a few minutes longer wait, as it's not really a matter of whether it's 3 minutes or 5 or 10, but knowing that I need to think about it at least that much in advance. If I regularly go to book one 3 minutes in advance and 25% of the time it turns out to take 8, that's more annoying that if it's consistently a 10 minute wait. As long as it's consistent, it becomes habit very quickly to order at the right time in advance.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  That's also a great way to sum up the problem with many forms of public transportation in the US too. The light rail and buses near my home are reliably unreliable, sometimes they are right on schedule, sometimes they arrives 10-15 minutes after schedule, and sometimes they arrives somewhere in between.
Theodores 8y ago
The horse was autonomous driving with collision avoidance, voice commands, no steering wheel needed. But horses left a lot of dung in the roads and needed lots of pasture. So the horse, despite wonderful self-driving modes, had to go. Currently we only have a few EV cars in the West, apart from Tesla and Nissan/Renault nobody is really up to speed with it, they are all still churning out these old-fashioned ICE cars and not making a lot of money at it. Right now Ford are pulling out of cars as they cannot do so profitably, they need to sell tank sized trucks that are a tax fiddle for them to make a profit in their domestic market. The Fords, GMs, FCAs and Daimlers of this world have left it too late. Meanwhile, in China we have plenty of EV cars being actually made and driven, not talked about and waited for. The Chinese government fully expect to take over the world when it comes to making electric cars, buses and trade vehicles. I can't see Donald Trump with his tariffs (taxes on American consumers) turning this around. Although Ford might see making a $20K car as impossible, even with an old-fashioned 'ecoboost' engine, never mind an electric one, companies in China might be more than willing to enter the low end of the market and be able to deliver a profit. Think of how the Japanese were able to do so with economical cars two generations ago and how Korean companies have came along too. They were happy starting out with the low-end that Ford, GM and Chrysler couldn't really do. Meanwhile, people might realise they do not need 300 miles of range and that only 30 miles range is needed for what they actually do. The less batteries you have the less batteries are needed to carry those batteries. So a city car could have only 30 miles of range and a nice little supercapacitor to give it some 'ludicrous' grunt. Plug it in when at home and at the shops and it will always have those thirty miles, no range anxiety needed. Electricity could even be the new 'free parking'. These chargers are coming, soon pubs will have them in their car parks and if they don't have them then they won't be getting any wealthy customers. So these things will just appear. If you were to strip all the 'falcon wing doors', 'alcantara trim', little lights where you don't need them, bits of carpet in the boot, pointless speakers and other nonsense that you get in one of today's cars then that 30-mile range battery can be even smaller. A light and efficient EV will be more pleasant just due to being quiet, customers won't need the silly 'extras'. Since most people don't buy cars but have some finance hack going on there is a high likelihood that the people that buy new cars will be buying new ones in the next 1-3 years. Next time round they might decide to go electric. If by then the Chinese armada has arrived and there are 'Dacia' grade EV cars that cost $20K then why would you want to pay for anything else? Of course the older generation who watch Jeremy Clarkson and like their 'vroom-vroom' noises will stick with ICE but those folks will not be around forever. The younger generation will soon have no interest in those things much like how nobody is that interested in long playing records these days. Buyers in the second hand market might also decide to not have some old-person's hand-me-down ICE car and want something more practical such as an affordable Chinese EV. Why would you want to buy something that costs a fortune to be serviced? Might as well get a horse! So it should be a no-brainer to get an affordable EV. The article shows New York with no horses a century ago. There were probably lots of people still using horses in the countryside. It will be the same with the EV switchover, in big cities like London (maybe not New York) there will be just EVs but in the countryside, e.g. rural Scotland, people will have the old-fashioned cars still. So the article is far from way off. The autonomous driving 'gig economy' nonsense isn't coming for a long time, if at all, but practical EV 'motoring' is definitely possible in a short period of time. How long did it take for the world to go from dial-up to broadband? It is that type of timescale.

vidarh 8y ago

As someone who lives without a car: you don't really need to be able to just start one. The big differentiator in my experience is whether or not the wait is consistent. I will ditch a cab company if the waits become too variable, but will happily accept a few minutes longer wait, as it's not really a matter of whether it's 3 minutes or 5 or 10, but knowing that I need to think about it at least that much in advance. If I regularly go to book one 3 minutes in advance and 25% of the time it turns out to take 8, that's more annoying that if it's consistently a 10 minute wait. As long as it's consistent, it becomes habit very quickly to order at the right time in advance.

craftyguy 8y ago
That's also a great way to sum up the problem with many forms of public transportation in the US too. The light rail and buses near my home are reliably unreliable, sometimes they are right on schedule, sometimes they arrives 10-15 minutes after schedule, and sometimes they arrives somewhere in between.

Theodores 8y ago

The horse was autonomous driving with collision avoidance, voice commands, no steering wheel needed. But horses left a lot of dung in the roads and needed lots of pasture. So the horse, despite wonderful self-driving modes, had to go. Currently we only have a few EV cars in the West, apart from Tesla and Nissan/Renault nobody is really up to speed with it, they are all still churning out these old-fashioned ICE cars and not making a lot of money at it. Right now Ford are pulling out of cars as they cannot do so profitably, they need to sell tank sized trucks that are a tax fiddle for them to make a profit in their domestic market. The Fords, GMs, FCAs and Daimlers of this world have left it too late. Meanwhile, in China we have plenty of EV cars being actually made and driven, not talked about and waited for. The Chinese government fully expect to take over the world when it comes to making electric cars, buses and trade vehicles. I can't see Donald Trump with his tariffs (taxes on American consumers) turning this around. Although Ford might see making a $20K car as impossible, even with an old-fashioned 'ecoboost' engine, never mind an electric one, companies in China might be more than willing to enter the low end of the market and be able to deliver a profit. Think of how the Japanese were able to do so with economical cars two generations ago and how Korean companies have came along too. They were happy starting out with the low-end that Ford, GM and Chrysler couldn't really do. Meanwhile, people might realise they do not need 300 miles of range and that only 30 miles range is needed for what they actually do. The less batteries you have the less batteries are needed to carry those batteries. So a city car could have only 30 miles of range and a nice little supercapacitor to give it some 'ludicrous' grunt. Plug it in when at home and at the shops and it will always have those thirty miles, no range anxiety needed. Electricity could even be the new 'free parking'. These chargers are coming, soon pubs will have them in their car parks and if they don't have them then they won't be getting any wealthy customers. So these things will just appear. If you were to strip all the 'falcon wing doors', 'alcantara trim', little lights where you don't need them, bits of carpet in the boot, pointless speakers and other nonsense that you get in one of today's cars then that 30-mile range battery can be even smaller. A light and efficient EV will be more pleasant just due to being quiet, customers won't need the silly 'extras'. Since most people don't buy cars but have some finance hack going on there is a high likelihood that the people that buy new cars will be buying new ones in the next 1-3 years. Next time round they might decide to go electric. If by then the Chinese armada has arrived and there are 'Dacia' grade EV cars that cost $20K then why would you want to pay for anything else? Of course the older generation who watch Jeremy Clarkson and like their 'vroom-vroom' noises will stick with ICE but those folks will not be around forever. The younger generation will soon have no interest in those things much like how nobody is that interested in long playing records these days. Buyers in the second hand market might also decide to not have some old-person's hand-me-down ICE car and want something more practical such as an affordable Chinese EV. Why would you want to buy something that costs a fortune to be serviced? Might as well get a horse! So it should be a no-brainer to get an affordable EV. The article shows New York with no horses a century ago. There were probably lots of people still using horses in the countryside. It will be the same with the EV switchover, in big cities like London (maybe not New York) there will be just EVs but in the countryside, e.g. rural Scotland, people will have the old-fashioned cars still. So the article is far from way off. The autonomous driving 'gig economy' nonsense isn't coming for a long time, if at all, but practical EV 'motoring' is definitely possible in a short period of time. How long did it take for the world to go from dial-up to broadband? It is that type of timescale.