4 ms·

I truly believe my children (not born yet) are going to buy their first car and it will be fully autonomous. Too many people my age and older will be apprehens

I truly believe my children (not born yet) are going to buy their first car and it will be fully autonomous. Too many people my age and older will be apprehensive about giving up control, despite it likely being safer. So I think it is fair to say that in 20 years there will be many people who learned to "drive" with a self driving car and their parents and grandparents will refuse to give up driving themselves.

smileysteve 7y ago
Insurance and police enforcement are two reasons why the decision will be removed from law abiding citizens and won't happen linearly. Once proven safe (or if a manufacturer directly insures the product) the cost to adequately insure a vehicle (as prices of what you hit continue to increase), especially an older vehicle, will increase. With income inequality where it is (and state minimums lagging) it has already become common to have underinsured drivers (and the upper middle class are already paying more through uninsured motorist protection). When it comes to police enforcement, but especially jurisdictions that use traffic stops to find or create crime to fundraise; the expense of having traffic police in a world where > 50% of cars can do no wrong flips the model. Finally, there is a large group of people who will not drive a car that's 7 years old or has over 100k miles; combining with less trained ability to do maintenance on more computerized cars. These people claim to be in control, but at one check engine light away from doing whatever a dealer tells them.
- nradov 7y ago
  Insurance premiums are calculated based on loss rates. In some hypothetical future where level 5 autonomous vehicles are available, there is no reason to expect that the remaining human drivers will have more collisions than they do today. Rather the reverse, considering the increased availability of advanced driver assistance systems. There's nothing wrong with driving a newer car and relying on the dealer service. Sure it's expensive, but if you can afford it then so what.
  - smileysteve 7y ago
    If you always drive a newer car and rely on a dealer for service, you no longer control what you drive when those dealers only sell self driving cars. (Or when the service model shifts as electrics have fewer service items and the service department closes)
    - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
      The myth that electric cars require less service needs to die. Maintenance needs in any modern car mostly comes back to value engineering. It's literally someone's job to optimize "how cheaply can we make this part, that it breaks just often enough that people won't complain". The exact same thing is already happening for electric cars, and you'll need to spend exactly the same amount of time and money on service. Furthermore, almost none of the service on a modern car is related to the combustion engine itself. It's mainly electronics, linkages, wheel beqrings, shocks, suspension, rust damage, tires etc. If you think about it, a car that's done 200 000 miles at EOL has only been running for around 200 days continuously. A generator, or the engine on a ship, train, airplane etc. runs more than a full order of magnitude longer.
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        I drive an electric (LEAF) for a little over 5 years and also maintain my wife’s characteristically low maintenance car (Honda CR-V). Despite being very low maintenance, her car is much more maintenance intensive than my car. In five years, I’ve filled the washer fluid several times, changed the wiper blades, and plugged one flat tire. On her car, oil changes alone have taken more time, to say nothing of the brakes, power steering pump, valve adjustment, exhaust gasket change, and a handful of other jobs (all small). In my case, the “myth” very much matches my experience.
        perl4ever 7y ago
        ICE cars these days typically have electric power steering. And BEVs have brakes. I don't think ICE cars necessarily need valve adjustment - doesn't Honda use solid lifters where others use hydraulics?
megablast 7y ago
Hopefully they don’t buy any car.

smileysteve 7y ago

Insurance and police enforcement are two reasons why the decision will be removed from law abiding citizens and won't happen linearly. Once proven safe (or if a manufacturer directly insures the product) the cost to adequately insure a vehicle (as prices of what you hit continue to increase), especially an older vehicle, will increase. With income inequality where it is (and state minimums lagging) it has already become common to have underinsured drivers (and the upper middle class are already paying more through uninsured motorist protection). When it comes to police enforcement, but especially jurisdictions that use traffic stops to find or create crime to fundraise; the expense of having traffic police in a world where > 50% of cars can do no wrong flips the model. Finally, there is a large group of people who will not drive a car that's 7 years old or has over 100k miles; combining with less trained ability to do maintenance on more computerized cars. These people claim to be in control, but at one check engine light away from doing whatever a dealer tells them.

nradov 7y ago
Insurance premiums are calculated based on loss rates. In some hypothetical future where level 5 autonomous vehicles are available, there is no reason to expect that the remaining human drivers will have more collisions than they do today. Rather the reverse, considering the increased availability of advanced driver assistance systems. There's nothing wrong with driving a newer car and relying on the dealer service. Sure it's expensive, but if you can afford it then so what.
- smileysteve 7y ago
  If you always drive a newer car and rely on a dealer for service, you no longer control what you drive when those dealers only sell self driving cars. (Or when the service model shifts as electrics have fewer service items and the service department closes)
  - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
    The myth that electric cars require less service needs to die. Maintenance needs in any modern car mostly comes back to value engineering. It's literally someone's job to optimize "how cheaply can we make this part, that it breaks just often enough that people won't complain". The exact same thing is already happening for electric cars, and you'll need to spend exactly the same amount of time and money on service. Furthermore, almost none of the service on a modern car is related to the combustion engine itself. It's mainly electronics, linkages, wheel beqrings, shocks, suspension, rust damage, tires etc. If you think about it, a car that's done 200 000 miles at EOL has only been running for around 200 days continuously. A generator, or the engine on a ship, train, airplane etc. runs more than a full order of magnitude longer.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      I drive an electric (LEAF) for a little over 5 years and also maintain my wife’s characteristically low maintenance car (Honda CR-V). Despite being very low maintenance, her car is much more maintenance intensive than my car. In five years, I’ve filled the washer fluid several times, changed the wiper blades, and plugged one flat tire. On her car, oil changes alone have taken more time, to say nothing of the brakes, power steering pump, valve adjustment, exhaust gasket change, and a handful of other jobs (all small). In my case, the “myth” very much matches my experience.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        ICE cars these days typically have electric power steering. And BEVs have brakes. I don't think ICE cars necessarily need valve adjustment - doesn't Honda use solid lifters where others use hydraulics?

megablast 7y ago

Hopefully they don’t buy any car.