7 ms·

This seems needlessly alarmist. If this is a problem it will get solved. It's probably not a big problem because: 1. Cars can go off and park somewhere further

This seems needlessly alarmist. If this is a problem it will get solved. It's probably not a big problem because: 1. Cars can go off and park somewhere further away. Cruising around the city isn't free (fuel, maintenance, risk of damage) 2. We should be able to get more density out of our existing parking lots if cars can park each other in and shuffle around to let each other out. 3. Cars can go do something more useful (run errands, work for ride share).

ProAm 8y ago
> Cruising around the city isn't free (fuel, maintenance, risk of damage) Says this will cost about .50 an hour (USD) so quite affordable.
- cornellwright 8y ago
  I would love it if it cost me only $0.50/hour to operate my car. Conservatively I'd go with more like $5/hour (assume 10mph average at $0.50 per mile). According to [1], median daily unreserved parking in SF is $29/day, so at 6 hours you break even. You can likely get much cheaper than this by driving a bit further away. Even at the $38 for New York and $42 for Honolulu you still break even around 8 hours. [1] https://investinganswers.com/articles/most-ridiculously-expensive-places-park-america https://investinganswers.com/articles/most-ridiculously-expe...
  - ProAm 8y ago
    Straight from the article: > "Even when you factor in electricity, depreciation, wear and tear, and maintenance, cruising costs about 50 cents an hour—that's cheaper than parking even in a small town," says Millard-Ball. "Unless it's free or cheaper than cruising, why would anyone use a remote lot?"
    - cornellwright 8y ago
      I don't have time to dig into it, but $0.50 seems like a wishfully low number.
      - ensignavenger 8y ago
        Doesn't take too long to prove it is too low. Lets say this fancy self-driving car cost $50,000. Lets say it is expected to go 250,000 miles in its lifetime. That is $.20 per mile! If it cruises at only 25 mph, that is $5 in wear and tear alone! Even if you slash the price and up double the life of the vehicle, you are paying more than $.50 an hour.
        Johnny555 8y ago
        That's a very simplistic analysis since it ignores the difference in wear and tear between cruising at low speed versus driving at normal speed. A car that's built to last 250,000 miles of normal driving can likely go much farther at low speed cruising, especially for an EV.
        ensignavenger 8y ago
        I don't know, that low of a cruising speed suggest a lot of stop and go driving. Even if true, the analysis was meant to be a simple refutation of the $.50 per hour claim, and I really doubt you can increase durability enough to tip the balance. And that doesn't even include regular maintenance- lubrication, tires, brakes. It doesn't include electricity. It doesn't include damage, insurance costs, etc.
        Johnny555 8y ago
        When the traffic lights can coordinate with cars, they can avoid the need to stop, at most they may just need to slow down, which can be done without brakes. An EV doesn't need (much) lubrication, for example, the Chevy Bolt EV maintenance schedule has only tire rotations for the first 150,000 miles: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/chevy-bolt-maintenance-schedule/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/chevy-bolt-maintenance-sc... With low speed travel and minimal stops, there's not much tire wear. Ubiquitous EV's should reduce the accident rate dramatically.
    - scarmig 8y ago
      The point is that 50 cents an hour is not an accurate representation of the cost of continuously operating a car for an hour. The IRS allows something near that per mile as a standard mileage rate. If the car is driving more than a mile per hour on average, it's significantly exceeding 50 cents/hour.
  - dplavery92 8y ago
    How in the world do you figure $0.50 per mile? Even if you assume a modest 20 mi/gallon at $3/gal, you're looking at about $0.15 a mile. A $40 oil change every 5000 miles, and a more expensive maintenance job every 10000 miles isn't going to push you past $0.25/mi. Are you amortizing the cost of the vehicle?
    - 24gttghh 8y ago
      The IRS comes up with a roughly $.50/mile figure. It takes into consideration the physical wear on the vehicle as well as consumables and fuel costs, among other things I think (averaged nationally).
    - arcticbull 8y ago
      $0.50 per mile is pretty reasonable, the IRS reimbursement rate for distance drive in a business context is $0.58 (https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-standard-mileage-rates-for-2019 https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-standard-mileage-rat...)
    - davidgould 8y ago
      Electric car, so fuel cost is minimal given low speeds and no scheduled oil changes or other maintenance.
      - ams6110 8y ago
        Fuel cost won't remain minimal in this envisioned all-EV future. Governments will need to make up the fuel tax revenue somehow.
wiremine 8y ago
> Cars can go do something more useful Came here to say this. The article seems to have a basic lack of imagination about the types of new vlaue automated cars will create. It also sounds like a crazy hard logistics/optimziation problem: "I have X number of rolling cars, how do I use them to maximize their value and reduce maintance and resource use?"
- baq 8y ago
  Maybe the author of the article has a basic understanding of physics of rock throwing? Those empty cruising cars will be sitting ducks for angry or even simply very bored and irresponsible people.
  - rbobby 8y ago
    Not sure it would be any different with people inside. If I'm using an Uber self-driver why would I care if someone tossed a rock at it (so long as the self driving sensors aren't damaged)?
  - TheDong 8y ago
    Right now we have parking lots full of cars without people in them. Seems like sitting ducks for bored people with rocks, right? Why would anyone have windows in their house if someone could just throw a rock through it? In reality, people are usually well behaved. The fact that self-driving cars have cameras and sensors like mad means that even fewer people would risk the jail-time they'd get by throwing rocks at them. The idea that suddenly once cars are driving without people there will be a significant enough uptick in vandalism that it will deter cars from driving around is absolutely laughable. If this were a realistic threat, we wouldn't have parking lots now.
takk309 8y ago
With regards to point #2, do you really think that multiple manufactures will be able to agree on a single vehicle to vehicle communication protocol that is robust enough to sort out shifting around a parking lot? Or would the parking lot have the infrastructure that communicates to the cars? It doesn't seem an insurmountable task either way.
- MikeCapone 8y ago
  A lot of things are regulated on the road. This kind of communication protocol could be one of them.
- kstenerud 8y ago
  Currently, all cars speak OBD II.
- rco8786 8y ago
  I mean. We all agreed on IP, TCP, HTTP, etc. no reason to think we can’t do that again.
  - clairity 8y ago
    those protocols were developed when the internet was much smaller and (mostly) in the control of researchers & technologists. now, we have multi-billion/trillion dollar entities jostling for control over a multi-billion/trillion dollar industry. how's that for a reason?
    - maemilius 8y ago
      I would direct you to the numerous things that _are_ standard on automobiles. For example, CAN bus[1] which is used in almost every single car you'll encounter these days and is what allows their modern electronics to communicate with each other. The auto industry is fully capable of standardizing on something when it's mutually beneficial for them to do so. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus
panarky 8y ago
1. When self-driving cars are common, people won't park their car from 9-5 while they're at work. 2. While the passenger is at work, the self-driving car will be giving rides to other people, or delivering packages and meals (not parking or driving around empty). 3. Greater car sharing means fewer parked cars, lower demand for parking and hence lower cost to park.
- cornellwright 8y ago
  I generally agree with all of these, however demand is not uniform which results in some vehicles having to be parked while they're not needed. As another commented, it will be a very interesting optimization problem to figure out how to efficiently use the underutilized time of the fleet. There are a lot of things which are done at peak times now only because the owner of the car has to physically drive it there that could easily be moved to non-peak.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    The nice part about that problem is that it can be solved by some startup, which means that we don't have to be alarmist about it. As for the uniform thing, you are right, but it can be restated in economic terms as the car being more expensive to use during certain times of the day -- so people will have an incentive to go to work in off-peak hours (which will be an option not available to everybody, but the more that do so, the less the premium cost will be) thus smoothing demand.
  - panarky 8y ago
    > demand is not uniform which results in some vehicles having to be parked while they're not needed Exactly. The salient questions are whether, at the point of minimum demand during the day, there would be more unutilized self-driven vehicles than the current state of unutilized owner-driven vehicles, and if at the point of maximum demand, there would be more or less vehicles on the road than today. Intuitively, the answer is "no" to the first question, since cars used for commuting in the morning and evening could be used for deliveries during the day. I don't know about the second question, and this probably has more to do with shifting trips from public transit to self-driven cars (not cruising to avoid paying to park). This research doesn't consider the reduction in parking demand, the reduced cost to park, the densification from reclaiming thousands of hectares of parking spaces, offsetting traffic of current delivery vehicles, etc.
fhood 8y ago
Ride share? I would not let random strangers into my car without being present.
- crazygringo 8y ago
  If it halved the cost of ownership of your car and the service was guaranteed to reimburse you fully for damages (zero deductible and zero higher insurance rates) then a lot of people would, I think. And you could probably keep personal things locked in your trunk or a high-security locked glove compartment. Money can be surprisingly motivating.
  - cr0sh 8y ago
    > and the service was guaranteed to reimburse you fully for damages That will be of zero comfort the moment you get inside your car, and find out a drunk has puked into the foot well, or somebody was incontinent in the back seat. ...and those are the nice scenarios - I could think of plenty of others that wouldn't be pleasant at all for the owner. At that point, your only recourse would be to send your car off to be detailed/repaired/whatever, while you went to hail a ride service (and hope you don't get another car with the same issue). Heck - can you imagine getting into your car, only to find that it was inhabited by a chain smoker for the entire day?
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  I believe the assumption is that the car is owned by a ride-sharing company, not you. You are not letting random strangers into your car -- you are one of the random strangers.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  Even if it took full pictures of everything before and after the ride, and the identities of the people involved where validated? I mean there is still the freak cases of them doing meth or otherwise not caring, but that seems likely to be something you can insure yourself out of for a relatively small cost.
  - 8y ago
EGreg 8y ago
Why have parking when self driving cars can at like taxis?
clairity 8y ago
they address point #1 directly (still cheaper to drive around, at $0.50/hour). but really, they buried the lede: > "But no one owns an autonomous vehicle now, so there's no constituency organized to oppose charging for the use of public streets. This is the time to establish the principle and use it to avoid the nightmarish scenario of total gridlock." their thesis is that now is the right time from a policy perspective to implement congestion pricing on autonomous cars. the driving around aimlessly bit is literally to alarm politicians into action. a pay-per-use model is economically rational but notoriously hard politically. only recently has technology advanced enough to do real-time pricing, which is arguably more fair than former systems (like flat rate pricing). ideally you'd pay per mile*minute (similar to taxis and ridehailing).
- skybrian 8y ago
  Not a bad idea, but there's the question of why we should single out autonomous cars, rather than having congestion pricing for everyone? Every car takes up space. If it's doing something useful then it's worth it.
  - clairity 8y ago
    you shouldn't limit it to autonomous vehcles, but as the article notes, no one wants to pay for something that was formerly free, so it's politically difficult. but the strategy of implementing it only on autonomous vehicles now provides a wedge for wider implementation later.
    - jstarfish 8y ago
      But we already have 'no-cruising' ordinances to harass human drivers endlessly circling around looking for fares, parking or prostitutes, artificially creating traffic and the hyperbolic 'nightmarish scenario of total gridlock.' This is not a new problem, and focusing solutions on autonomous vehicles is pointless discrimination.
Johnny555 8y ago
"Cars can go off and park somewhere further away. Cruising around the city isn't free (fuel, maintenance, risk of damage)" They can, but then they are farther away when someone calls for a ride. If there's only a few self-driving car rental companies, then maybe it's not so bad, they can send most cars to a remote lot, with a few cars remaining in the city to address demand. But if hundreds of companies are going to have cars on the street, then they'll all want their cars to be crusing near potential riders. Though a bigger problem is that self-driving cars will cause double the traffic of normally driven cars -- they'll drive into the city to drop off their passenger, then out of the city to a remote lot.
JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Right! Each self-driving car replaces how many other cars on the road? Look at regions where only cabs are allowed - they don't park much either - and congestion goes down. There are solutions.
ljf 8y ago
Part of the benefit (for me) of traveling by car is thst I can leave whenever I want. If I have to wait even 5 mins for my car to return to me, I'd consider that an inconvenience - if I could pay for short term parking near by, I'd take it.
- mikepurvis 8y ago
  It's reasonable that you'd pay a premium for the privilege of being able to leave the second you're ready to go, compared with say: - Telling your car to do rideshare until 5pm, and then stand by until you're ready to go sometime between 5pm and 6pm. - Telling your car to go park far away and you'll give it twenty minute's notice when you're ready to go so that it can come get you. - Telling your car to park in a lot where it'll be boxed in and may take a few minutes of shuffling to get itself out. That said, I definitely can see an issue here where everyone's cars all descend on the downtown trying to perform curbside pickups right at 5pm. You could imagine similar things happening in any parking lot environment (mall, movie theatre, amusement park, etc), where the prime kiss-and-ride location ends up being a giant snarl of self driving cars all trying to save their owners a five minute walk across some asphalt.
  - ljf 8y ago
    I don't disagree, but that one time you have a sudden errand to run or an urgent need to get him,e and your car is off being driven by others... Obvs I'm thinking very much in an ownership mentality here, and in tbe future I'd just grab another random car and head home in that, but this is the mindset that we will have to overcome. (btw I never commute by car, only by bike ad public transport - so I'm just playing devil's advocate here)
cronix 8y ago
There's a solution for #2, and it's even better than having the car park itself in a traditional parking structure, which has a lot of unused wasted space dedicated to things other than the individual parking space the car occupies (the paths to the parking spaces, stairs, elevators, wider parking spaces so people can get in/out of the car, etc. I saw in Japan, China, Germany (and other places) they have circular parking structures that you just drive your car onto a platform, get out and pay. The automated, robotic system, lifts the car up to whatever level there is an open parking space, and just puts the car in the space. When you need it, it retrieves it and away you go. No stairs to climb, no elevators, no paths for cars to drive on. Very compact and efficient. I imagine it cuts down on quite a bit of theft, breakins, sexual assaults and security equipment (cameras, staff) as you really just need to make sure the entrance is secure. Even better, you can put them all underground. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXWrpE1Khkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXWrpE1Khkk
- jsharf 8y ago
  This doesn't look that more space efficient than a normal parking garage. I'm sure better implementations could exist that would make it way better. Also... I'm imagining having to wait in a huge line during rush hour because everyone wants to get their car out, and they have to wait for the car retriever arm to travel to each car and back for all 20-30 people in line ahead of them.
  - cronix 8y ago
    There is a lot of space saving there. There are no "roads" for cars to have to drive on in the garage to get to the space individual spaces, no stairwells. > I'm imagining having to wait in a huge line during rush hour because everyone wants to get their car out That problem exists currently, except you wait an hour in line trying to exit the garage and nobody allowing you to back out because they want out first. I don't really see a solution to that particular problem if everybody is going to continue to have their own individual transports taking up space all day while not in use, and then everybody getting off work at the same time and rushing to get their cars at the same time, clogging the freeways at the same time. Well, except for things like Teslas, it would be nice to just summon your vehicle and have it unpark itself and drive to you to pick you up and give you an uber-like map and ETA on where it is. You could be doing more productive things while waiting for your car instead of standing (or sitting) in a line. 20 minutes before work ends, just summon your car so it's out front waiting, or circling the block or whatever.
skywhopper 8y ago
1. Why would they leave the area where they can most likely get work? 2. Why/how would these autonomous cars cooperate in this way? Why would they be willing to pen themselves in at all? 3. If people-sized cars are filling the streets, traffic will be far far worse than it is now, which is the point of the article.
ip26 8y ago
If this is a problem it will get solved Like how we solved human-driver traffic once and for all back in '83?

ProAm 8y ago

> Cruising around the city isn't free (fuel, maintenance, risk of damage) Says this will cost about .50 an hour (USD) so quite affordable.

cornellwright 8y ago
I would love it if it cost me only $0.50/hour to operate my car. Conservatively I'd go with more like $5/hour (assume 10mph average at $0.50 per mile). According to [1], median daily unreserved parking in SF is $29/day, so at 6 hours you break even. You can likely get much cheaper than this by driving a bit further away. Even at the $38 for New York and $42 for Honolulu you still break even around 8 hours. [1] https://investinganswers.com/articles/most-ridiculously-expensive-places-park-america https://investinganswers.com/articles/most-ridiculously-expe...
- ProAm 8y ago
  Straight from the article: > "Even when you factor in electricity, depreciation, wear and tear, and maintenance, cruising costs about 50 cents an hour—that's cheaper than parking even in a small town," says Millard-Ball. "Unless it's free or cheaper than cruising, why would anyone use a remote lot?"
  - cornellwright 8y ago
    I don't have time to dig into it, but $0.50 seems like a wishfully low number.
    - ensignavenger 8y ago
      Doesn't take too long to prove it is too low. Lets say this fancy self-driving car cost $50,000. Lets say it is expected to go 250,000 miles in its lifetime. That is $.20 per mile! If it cruises at only 25 mph, that is $5 in wear and tear alone! Even if you slash the price and up double the life of the vehicle, you are paying more than $.50 an hour.
      - Johnny555 8y ago
        That's a very simplistic analysis since it ignores the difference in wear and tear between cruising at low speed versus driving at normal speed. A car that's built to last 250,000 miles of normal driving can likely go much farther at low speed cruising, especially for an EV.
        ensignavenger 8y ago
        I don't know, that low of a cruising speed suggest a lot of stop and go driving. Even if true, the analysis was meant to be a simple refutation of the $.50 per hour claim, and I really doubt you can increase durability enough to tip the balance. And that doesn't even include regular maintenance- lubrication, tires, brakes. It doesn't include electricity. It doesn't include damage, insurance costs, etc.
        Johnny555 8y ago
        When the traffic lights can coordinate with cars, they can avoid the need to stop, at most they may just need to slow down, which can be done without brakes. An EV doesn't need (much) lubrication, for example, the Chevy Bolt EV maintenance schedule has only tire rotations for the first 150,000 miles: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/chevy-bolt-maintenance-schedule/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/chevy-bolt-maintenance-sc... With low speed travel and minimal stops, there's not much tire wear. Ubiquitous EV's should reduce the accident rate dramatically.
  - scarmig 8y ago
    The point is that 50 cents an hour is not an accurate representation of the cost of continuously operating a car for an hour. The IRS allows something near that per mile as a standard mileage rate. If the car is driving more than a mile per hour on average, it's significantly exceeding 50 cents/hour.
- dplavery92 8y ago
  How in the world do you figure $0.50 per mile? Even if you assume a modest 20 mi/gallon at $3/gal, you're looking at about $0.15 a mile. A $40 oil change every 5000 miles, and a more expensive maintenance job every 10000 miles isn't going to push you past $0.25/mi. Are you amortizing the cost of the vehicle?
  - 24gttghh 8y ago
    The IRS comes up with a roughly $.50/mile figure. It takes into consideration the physical wear on the vehicle as well as consumables and fuel costs, among other things I think (averaged nationally).
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    $0.50 per mile is pretty reasonable, the IRS reimbursement rate for distance drive in a business context is $0.58 (https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-standard-mileage-rates-for-2019 https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-standard-mileage-rat...)
  - davidgould 8y ago
    Electric car, so fuel cost is minimal given low speeds and no scheduled oil changes or other maintenance.
    - ams6110 8y ago
      Fuel cost won't remain minimal in this envisioned all-EV future. Governments will need to make up the fuel tax revenue somehow.

wiremine 8y ago

> Cars can go do something more useful Came here to say this. The article seems to have a basic lack of imagination about the types of new vlaue automated cars will create. It also sounds like a crazy hard logistics/optimziation problem: "I have X number of rolling cars, how do I use them to maximize their value and reduce maintance and resource use?"

baq 8y ago
Maybe the author of the article has a basic understanding of physics of rock throwing? Those empty cruising cars will be sitting ducks for angry or even simply very bored and irresponsible people.
- rbobby 8y ago
  Not sure it would be any different with people inside. If I'm using an Uber self-driver why would I care if someone tossed a rock at it (so long as the self driving sensors aren't damaged)?
- TheDong 8y ago
  Right now we have parking lots full of cars without people in them. Seems like sitting ducks for bored people with rocks, right? Why would anyone have windows in their house if someone could just throw a rock through it? In reality, people are usually well behaved. The fact that self-driving cars have cameras and sensors like mad means that even fewer people would risk the jail-time they'd get by throwing rocks at them. The idea that suddenly once cars are driving without people there will be a significant enough uptick in vandalism that it will deter cars from driving around is absolutely laughable. If this were a realistic threat, we wouldn't have parking lots now.

takk309 8y ago

With regards to point #2, do you really think that multiple manufactures will be able to agree on a single vehicle to vehicle communication protocol that is robust enough to sort out shifting around a parking lot? Or would the parking lot have the infrastructure that communicates to the cars? It doesn't seem an insurmountable task either way.

MikeCapone 8y ago
A lot of things are regulated on the road. This kind of communication protocol could be one of them.
kstenerud 8y ago
Currently, all cars speak OBD II.
rco8786 8y ago
I mean. We all agreed on IP, TCP, HTTP, etc. no reason to think we can’t do that again.
- clairity 8y ago
  those protocols were developed when the internet was much smaller and (mostly) in the control of researchers & technologists. now, we have multi-billion/trillion dollar entities jostling for control over a multi-billion/trillion dollar industry. how's that for a reason?
  - maemilius 8y ago
    I would direct you to the numerous things that _are_ standard on automobiles. For example, CAN bus[1] which is used in almost every single car you'll encounter these days and is what allows their modern electronics to communicate with each other. The auto industry is fully capable of standardizing on something when it's mutually beneficial for them to do so. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus

panarky 8y ago

1. When self-driving cars are common, people won't park their car from 9-5 while they're at work. 2. While the passenger is at work, the self-driving car will be giving rides to other people, or delivering packages and meals (not parking or driving around empty). 3. Greater car sharing means fewer parked cars, lower demand for parking and hence lower cost to park.

cornellwright 8y ago
I generally agree with all of these, however demand is not uniform which results in some vehicles having to be parked while they're not needed. As another commented, it will be a very interesting optimization problem to figure out how to efficiently use the underutilized time of the fleet. There are a lot of things which are done at peak times now only because the owner of the car has to physically drive it there that could easily be moved to non-peak.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tomjen3 8y ago
  The nice part about that problem is that it can be solved by some startup, which means that we don't have to be alarmist about it. As for the uniform thing, you are right, but it can be restated in economic terms as the car being more expensive to use during certain times of the day -- so people will have an incentive to go to work in off-peak hours (which will be an option not available to everybody, but the more that do so, the less the premium cost will be) thus smoothing demand.
- panarky 8y ago
  > demand is not uniform which results in some vehicles having to be parked while they're not needed Exactly. The salient questions are whether, at the point of minimum demand during the day, there would be more unutilized self-driven vehicles than the current state of unutilized owner-driven vehicles, and if at the point of maximum demand, there would be more or less vehicles on the road than today. Intuitively, the answer is "no" to the first question, since cars used for commuting in the morning and evening could be used for deliveries during the day. I don't know about the second question, and this probably has more to do with shifting trips from public transit to self-driven cars (not cruising to avoid paying to park). This research doesn't consider the reduction in parking demand, the reduced cost to park, the densification from reclaiming thousands of hectares of parking spaces, offsetting traffic of current delivery vehicles, etc.

fhood 8y ago

Ride share? I would not let random strangers into my car without being present.

crazygringo 8y ago
If it halved the cost of ownership of your car and the service was guaranteed to reimburse you fully for damages (zero deductible and zero higher insurance rates) then a lot of people would, I think. And you could probably keep personal things locked in your trunk or a high-security locked glove compartment. Money can be surprisingly motivating.
- cr0sh 8y ago
  > and the service was guaranteed to reimburse you fully for damages That will be of zero comfort the moment you get inside your car, and find out a drunk has puked into the foot well, or somebody was incontinent in the back seat. ...and those are the nice scenarios - I could think of plenty of others that wouldn't be pleasant at all for the owner. At that point, your only recourse would be to send your car off to be detailed/repaired/whatever, while you went to hail a ride service (and hope you don't get another car with the same issue). Heck - can you imagine getting into your car, only to find that it was inhabited by a chain smoker for the entire day?
chipotle_coyote 8y ago
I believe the assumption is that the car is owned by a ride-sharing company, not you. You are not letting random strangers into your car -- you are one of the random strangers.
tomjen3 8y ago
Even if it took full pictures of everything before and after the ride, and the identities of the people involved where validated? I mean there is still the freak cases of them doing meth or otherwise not caring, but that seems likely to be something you can insure yourself out of for a relatively small cost.
- 8y ago

EGreg 8y ago

Why have parking when self driving cars can at like taxis?

clairity 8y ago

they address point #1 directly (still cheaper to drive around, at $0.50/hour). but really, they buried the lede: > "But no one owns an autonomous vehicle now, so there's no constituency organized to oppose charging for the use of public streets. This is the time to establish the principle and use it to avoid the nightmarish scenario of total gridlock." their thesis is that now is the right time from a policy perspective to implement congestion pricing on autonomous cars. the driving around aimlessly bit is literally to alarm politicians into action. a pay-per-use model is economically rational but notoriously hard politically. only recently has technology advanced enough to do real-time pricing, which is arguably more fair than former systems (like flat rate pricing). ideally you'd pay per mile*minute (similar to taxis and ridehailing).

skybrian 8y ago
Not a bad idea, but there's the question of why we should single out autonomous cars, rather than having congestion pricing for everyone? Every car takes up space. If it's doing something useful then it's worth it.
- clairity 8y ago
  you shouldn't limit it to autonomous vehcles, but as the article notes, no one wants to pay for something that was formerly free, so it's politically difficult. but the strategy of implementing it only on autonomous vehicles now provides a wedge for wider implementation later.
  - jstarfish 8y ago
    But we already have 'no-cruising' ordinances to harass human drivers endlessly circling around looking for fares, parking or prostitutes, artificially creating traffic and the hyperbolic 'nightmarish scenario of total gridlock.' This is not a new problem, and focusing solutions on autonomous vehicles is pointless discrimination.

Johnny555 8y ago

"Cars can go off and park somewhere further away. Cruising around the city isn't free (fuel, maintenance, risk of damage)" They can, but then they are farther away when someone calls for a ride. If there's only a few self-driving car rental companies, then maybe it's not so bad, they can send most cars to a remote lot, with a few cars remaining in the city to address demand. But if hundreds of companies are going to have cars on the street, then they'll all want their cars to be crusing near potential riders. Though a bigger problem is that self-driving cars will cause double the traffic of normally driven cars -- they'll drive into the city to drop off their passenger, then out of the city to a remote lot.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

Right! Each self-driving car replaces how many other cars on the road? Look at regions where only cabs are allowed - they don't park much either - and congestion goes down. There are solutions.

ljf 8y ago

Part of the benefit (for me) of traveling by car is thst I can leave whenever I want. If I have to wait even 5 mins for my car to return to me, I'd consider that an inconvenience - if I could pay for short term parking near by, I'd take it.

mikepurvis 8y ago
It's reasonable that you'd pay a premium for the privilege of being able to leave the second you're ready to go, compared with say: - Telling your car to do rideshare until 5pm, and then stand by until you're ready to go sometime between 5pm and 6pm. - Telling your car to go park far away and you'll give it twenty minute's notice when you're ready to go so that it can come get you. - Telling your car to park in a lot where it'll be boxed in and may take a few minutes of shuffling to get itself out. That said, I definitely can see an issue here where everyone's cars all descend on the downtown trying to perform curbside pickups right at 5pm. You could imagine similar things happening in any parking lot environment (mall, movie theatre, amusement park, etc), where the prime kiss-and-ride location ends up being a giant snarl of self driving cars all trying to save their owners a five minute walk across some asphalt.
- ljf 8y ago
  I don't disagree, but that one time you have a sudden errand to run or an urgent need to get him,e and your car is off being driven by others... Obvs I'm thinking very much in an ownership mentality here, and in tbe future I'd just grab another random car and head home in that, but this is the mindset that we will have to overcome. (btw I never commute by car, only by bike ad public transport - so I'm just playing devil's advocate here)

cronix 8y ago

There's a solution for #2, and it's even better than having the car park itself in a traditional parking structure, which has a lot of unused wasted space dedicated to things other than the individual parking space the car occupies (the paths to the parking spaces, stairs, elevators, wider parking spaces so people can get in/out of the car, etc. I saw in Japan, China, Germany (and other places) they have circular parking structures that you just drive your car onto a platform, get out and pay. The automated, robotic system, lifts the car up to whatever level there is an open parking space, and just puts the car in the space. When you need it, it retrieves it and away you go. No stairs to climb, no elevators, no paths for cars to drive on. Very compact and efficient. I imagine it cuts down on quite a bit of theft, breakins, sexual assaults and security equipment (cameras, staff) as you really just need to make sure the entrance is secure. Even better, you can put them all underground. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXWrpE1Khkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXWrpE1Khkk

jsharf 8y ago
This doesn't look that more space efficient than a normal parking garage. I'm sure better implementations could exist that would make it way better. Also... I'm imagining having to wait in a huge line during rush hour because everyone wants to get their car out, and they have to wait for the car retriever arm to travel to each car and back for all 20-30 people in line ahead of them.
- cronix 8y ago
  There is a lot of space saving there. There are no "roads" for cars to have to drive on in the garage to get to the space individual spaces, no stairwells. > I'm imagining having to wait in a huge line during rush hour because everyone wants to get their car out That problem exists currently, except you wait an hour in line trying to exit the garage and nobody allowing you to back out because they want out first. I don't really see a solution to that particular problem if everybody is going to continue to have their own individual transports taking up space all day while not in use, and then everybody getting off work at the same time and rushing to get their cars at the same time, clogging the freeways at the same time. Well, except for things like Teslas, it would be nice to just summon your vehicle and have it unpark itself and drive to you to pick you up and give you an uber-like map and ETA on where it is. You could be doing more productive things while waiting for your car instead of standing (or sitting) in a line. 20 minutes before work ends, just summon your car so it's out front waiting, or circling the block or whatever.

skywhopper 8y ago

1. Why would they leave the area where they can most likely get work? 2. Why/how would these autonomous cars cooperate in this way? Why would they be willing to pen themselves in at all? 3. If people-sized cars are filling the streets, traffic will be far far worse than it is now, which is the point of the article.

ip26 8y ago

If this is a problem it will get solved Like how we solved human-driver traffic once and for all back in '83?