5 ms·

Is your self-driving car going to take up less space or something?

• andrewmunsell 7y ago
  The idea is that a self-driving car rarely has to park, it can simply drive around for your entire 8-hour work day after dropping you off. Or, maybe provide some ride-sharing services instead to be more useful and profitable.
  • sp332 7y ago
    I would guess that parking in a parking lot is preferable to continuing to waste fuel and make traffic worse for the entire work day. Not to mention the other hours in a day you're not driving it.
    • andrewmunsell 7y ago
      Yes, that's a pretty common counterargument. Having a large number of autonomous cars roaming the streets during the day like zombies isn't really sustainable. But, with companies like Tesla promoting the idea that you car could be productive via ride sharing during the day, it might prevent the cars from at least wandering aimlessly. Fortunately, many self-driving car companies are using alternative fuel vehicles (Cruise uses the Bolt, Tesla is obviously electric, Waymo has the i-Pace and Pacifica Hybrids), and things like inductive charging are also helpful for complete autonomy so the future of autonomous zombie cars may involve fewer tailpipe emissions at least :)
  • Digory 7y ago
    Cars by Bird, Sedans by Lime. It seems less promising, now that I see the piles of scooters in downtowns.
• marpstar 7y ago
  I believe GP is referring to the idea that when self-driving cars make up a majority of transportation, the cars can just go drive for someone else instead of sitting in a lot.
  • sp332 7y ago
    That's not going to help if everyone is going to work and coming home from work around the same time. And it's only going to make a difference if a large % of people stop owning cars and start renting them from other people. Buses and trains would actually help during rush hours though.
    • oarabbus_ 7y ago
      It would help significantly by reducing congestion because people can go directly to their destination instead of going into and out of parking lots, which tend to be clustered and add significant traffic to the city. On top of that people won't need to start and end at the same time with self driving cars, as you have the ability to sleep/read/do work during the commute.
• Symmetry 7y ago
  No, they're just not going to park in a city center.
• bryanlarsen 7y ago
  IIRC, a typical city has 3.5 parking spots per car. A car that can always return to it's "home" spot doesn't need more than 1 spot. And if you can assume that a certain percentage of cars are always on the road you might be able to have more cars than parking spots. Of course the increased traffic of homing cars might turn the roads into metaphorical parking spots...
  • dmitrygr 7y ago
    That works...if it were not for the fact that moving through the city is not instant. Not even fast at busy times. So if your "home spot" is 10 blocks away, that might be 3 minutes. Or might be 60. Who'll want to wait that long?
• oarabbus_ 7y ago
  No, I don't think so. Not really relevant tbh.
• baroffoos 7y ago
  Rather than pay to park your car you can just have it go get stuck in traffic and slowly crawl around in circles utilizing the free "parking" provided by the roads. Since electric cars do not need to idle they should be able to roll around slowly fairly efficiently. As horrific as that idea sounds you just know that will be the reality until there is a law against it.
  • function_seven 7y ago
    I think I'd rather minimize the time my self-driving car spends out on the road where it can get hit by a dumb human driver, rot in the sun, wear out the tires, and accumulate grime. I'd just send it to the nearest Sears parking lot (and instruct it to attempt to find shade?)