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The 'electric' part of the article here is fluff. Electric cars already exist and will take over the market within a similar time frame to any proposed self-dri

The 'electric' part of the article here is fluff. Electric cars already exist and will take over the market within a similar time frame to any proposed self-driving car takeover (it's primarily a matter of manufacturing capacity, which affects this company too, and waiting for older cars to die out at this point). Aside from that, there are three main ways I can think of that a self-driving car could reduce pollution. a) More people fit in the same car and an intelligent mechanism can pair riders. This exists today in the form of things like Uber Pool. Without a driver you might get one additional passenger in a car. That's the main mechanism. In the best case it can reduce energy use per passenger by around 20-25% - in a realistic case it would be more like 10% or less. b) Cars can drive closer together and with more intelligent traffic lights. I think this is incredibly overblown - pedestrians exist and cars are already pretty close together in cities. I doubt this will make much difference especially given that electric cars use ~zero energy at idle. c) Over a long time-frame, cities are redesigned such that parking spaces don't exist and so things are closer together. This is both a multi-decade (possibly even a century) change, and likely to just result in people commuting further - the 1 hour sweet spot isn't going anywhere, all people won't stack in cities unless they're forced, if we're being charitable, say, 50% of people actually prefer that lifestyle. It also works for taxis. Basically, the whole thing is nonsense. What I see as being more likely if self-driving takes off is crackpots sitting at desks in the back of their van, or chilling on a sofa watching movies, and doing multi-hour commutes, offsetting the savings. I've not even mentioned here the fact that a significant amount of people just like to own their own car and have the funds to do so. Particularly if you're in a rural area, the idea of some SV startup self driving to your ranch is absurd, you're almost certain to either be priced out or just directly geofenced out.

naasking 7y ago
> a) More people fit in the same car and an intelligent mechanism can pair riders. This exists today in the form of things like Uber Pool. Without a driver you might get one additional passenger in a car. That's the main mechanism. In the best case it can reduce energy use per passenger by around 20-25% - in a realistic case it would be more like 10% or less. And it would reduce the number of cars on the road, the number of mechanics shops needed to service those cars, the number of insurance companies, most of the infrastructure around licensing, etc. Lots of knock-on effects that would also impact emissions, and a fleet of self-driving cars permit a lot more vertical integration, which reduces TCO. A fleet of self-driving cars will simply be more cost effective and reduce emissions. Car ownership becoming a luxury is probably inevitable. It will become a collector's hobby, like old sports cars are today.
- bluGill 7y ago
  Only if self driving cars are legally required and expensive. If self driving cars are not legally required (ie because they are that much safer), or they are cheap people will continue to buy and own cars. The convenience of a personal car with your golf clubs in the trunk is worth it. Don't forget that the self driving world you imagine is worse for the environment: all those cars going empty to a distant parking lot until you are done with work eat up a lot of energy. If you want to solve environmental problems from cars invest in public transit. The biggest problem in modern cities is neighborhood designs that make public transit too slow. (you need to have a short walk to the stop, and then the vehicle not make many twists and turns along the way to where you want to be). Density is useful for transit, but suburbs already have the minimum density required, they lack the ability for transit to be fast though.
  - naasking 7y ago
    > If self driving cars are not legally required (ie because they are that much safer), or they are cheap people will continue to buy and own cars. They will be cheaper. No licensing, insurance, maintenance, fuel, but still almost all of the convenience of a personal vehicle requiring only a short wait time. > Don't forget that the self driving world you imagine is worse for the environment: all those cars going empty to a distant parking lot until you are done with work eat up a lot of energy. That's not how it would work. If parking becomes necessary because network capacity is too high and utilization too low, the car would park in its immediate vicinity. We have lots of parking everywhere to accommodate far more cars than would be needed in a world with mostly self-driving cars.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      Why wouldn't their be licensing? Insurance maybe. Maintenance is a requirement - the tires will wear out if nothing else. Fuel is still a factor - it might not be liquid, but you need some sort of energy. The advantage of a personal vehicle is 0 wait time. If you are willing to wait the bus is cheaper because you can share the ride with so many other people. Sure we have parking everywhere. However at that point there is essentially one car per person anyway, so it may as well be your personal car so you can leave the golf clubs in the trunk.

naasking 7y ago

> a) More people fit in the same car and an intelligent mechanism can pair riders. This exists today in the form of things like Uber Pool. Without a driver you might get one additional passenger in a car. That's the main mechanism. In the best case it can reduce energy use per passenger by around 20-25% - in a realistic case it would be more like 10% or less. And it would reduce the number of cars on the road, the number of mechanics shops needed to service those cars, the number of insurance companies, most of the infrastructure around licensing, etc. Lots of knock-on effects that would also impact emissions, and a fleet of self-driving cars permit a lot more vertical integration, which reduces TCO. A fleet of self-driving cars will simply be more cost effective and reduce emissions. Car ownership becoming a luxury is probably inevitable. It will become a collector's hobby, like old sports cars are today.

bluGill 7y ago
Only if self driving cars are legally required and expensive. If self driving cars are not legally required (ie because they are that much safer), or they are cheap people will continue to buy and own cars. The convenience of a personal car with your golf clubs in the trunk is worth it. Don't forget that the self driving world you imagine is worse for the environment: all those cars going empty to a distant parking lot until you are done with work eat up a lot of energy. If you want to solve environmental problems from cars invest in public transit. The biggest problem in modern cities is neighborhood designs that make public transit too slow. (you need to have a short walk to the stop, and then the vehicle not make many twists and turns along the way to where you want to be). Density is useful for transit, but suburbs already have the minimum density required, they lack the ability for transit to be fast though.
- naasking 7y ago
  > If self driving cars are not legally required (ie because they are that much safer), or they are cheap people will continue to buy and own cars. They will be cheaper. No licensing, insurance, maintenance, fuel, but still almost all of the convenience of a personal vehicle requiring only a short wait time. > Don't forget that the self driving world you imagine is worse for the environment: all those cars going empty to a distant parking lot until you are done with work eat up a lot of energy. That's not how it would work. If parking becomes necessary because network capacity is too high and utilization too low, the car would park in its immediate vicinity. We have lots of parking everywhere to accommodate far more cars than would be needed in a world with mostly self-driving cars.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Why wouldn't their be licensing? Insurance maybe. Maintenance is a requirement - the tires will wear out if nothing else. Fuel is still a factor - it might not be liquid, but you need some sort of energy. The advantage of a personal vehicle is 0 wait time. If you are willing to wait the bus is cheaper because you can share the ride with so many other people. Sure we have parking everywhere. However at that point there is essentially one car per person anyway, so it may as well be your personal car so you can leave the golf clubs in the trunk.