5 ms·

A car can take you to work and instead of waiting in carpark, it can help you do stuff, that would be awesome XD

mrweasel 5y ago
I just want my car to drive itself to service checks, when I'm at work. Save all that trouble of having to gamble that they have a car you can use, or there's a bus route that won't take you an hour back and forth. Self-driving done right could save me from having two cars. It could take me to work, drive back home, pickup the wife, drive her to work. Go back and pick me up in the afternoon, drop me of at home and the drive back to get the wife.
- jahller 5y ago
  this would be the best usage for what we consider cars imaginable. also would negate the need to personally own a car. just order one from a fleet of autonomous cars if you are in need of mobility.
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    Ideally yes, but there's a lot of hurdles to overcome. For many it would work just fine, but for other there's going to be minor details that makes it work less well. Firstly we need to spread out peoples work day. We can't all be at the office a 8:00, and go home at 16:00. it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day. There's also details like: I would like a car to pick me up at 15:45, and drive me to the kindergarten, and that car MUST have a seat for a three year old (but not a seat of brand X, Y, or Z, because they're to small). Or I need a car with a trailer, or a truck, because I'm moving 500kg of dirt to the recycling station. Most people shop around for cars and pick very specific cars that fit their needs. So renting for a fleet of cars also need a rather large variety and flexibility in allowed usage. I believe that many would still want to buy their own cars, even if it's self-driving, to ensure it's available when they need it, and that it fulfil their specific needs. If we didn't have all these specific needs, most of us could just take the bus, which in turn would make it feasible to have all the bus routes people would need.
    - gilbertbw 5y ago
      > it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day. But that’s the current state of the world. Even if you have enough cars to meet peak demand you will have an efficiency saving (at least where I live you see a lot of cars in driveways during rush hour traffic). That said I agree that for a lot of people their car is an extension of their home, they’ll keep the golf clubs and a coat in the boot etc. But for the 80% case of just carrying a rucksack to and from work there is a massive efficiency improvement to be had.
      - mrweasel 5y ago
        > But that’s the current state of the world. True, but the difference is who's carrying the financial risk of the buying the car. Right now it's the individual consumers, who are mostly forced to do so, because better alternatives are not available. Leasing companies would never buy a fleet of cars that would sit mostly unused. Their cars needs to be on the road most of the time. This puts us back in Uber vs. taxis. Uber works because (depending on area and regulation) there cannot be sufficient taxis to handle peak demands, that wouldn't be financially sound for the taxi companies. Uber tries to fix this, by taping into idle cars in the driveways. A company that maintains a fleet of cars that you can just order on-demand, would always have to few cars for rush hour.
        jahller 5y ago
        > True, but the difference is who's carrying the financial risk of the buying the car. Right now it's the individual consumers, who are mostly forced to do so, because better alternatives are not available. car-sharing already exists on a large scale in German capitals. you can park and pickup cars from e.g. Sixt or Share Now everywhere within a marked area. the business model for owning and maintaining a big fleet is already there.
        88 5y ago
        The market solves these problems so we don’t have to. It is extremely common for markets to face bursts in demand at peak times, and yet somehow we always find a sustainable equilibrium.
  - itsoktocry 5y ago
    >just order one from a fleet of autonomous cars if you are in need of mobility. I find it confusing that one reason the tech crowd cheered on Uber's success was because taxis were often filthy and poorly maintained. But autonomous car fleets won't be?
- prawn 5y ago
  This made me think of something I hadn't considered before - whether we'll first see automated driving, but only when the vehicle is empty. e.g., you drive yourself somewhere, then the vehicle moves on to another job. If the vehicle is privately owned, it would park or drive home for your wife to use. If part of a fleet, it would just drive on to the next request. Cars in that mode could be constrained to a less dangerous speed to limit damage in an accident. I don't want to drive to work at 20km/h, but once I'm out of the car, I don't really care how slowly it goes. Of course, it wouldn't necessarily work to combine too broadly differing speeds on the same roads. But it would remove a bit of the "I'm not putting on my VR goggles to do work and trusting this car to drive to the office" fear.
  - slavik81 5y ago
    A basic form of low-speed self-driving would be automated valet parking. Drop people off or pick them up at the entrance, then go park far away. If there was a common communication standard, the vehicles could also park much more tightly than is done in a normal parking lot. You don't need to keep empty space behind each car when you can coordinate the parked cars to move and clear a path. My guess is that you could park almost twice as many cars in the same space. The combination of reducing parking lot size and freeing people from walking to/from the lot would open up many interesting options for increasing density and walkability in commercial areas.
  - itsoktocry 5y ago
    >I don't want to drive to work at 20km/h, but once I'm out of the car, I don't really care how slowly it goes. The other people on the road trying to get to work probably do.
    - prawn 5y ago
      Yes, figured that went without saying. From my comment: "Of course, it wouldn't necessarily work to combine too broadly differing speeds on the same roads."
    - curryst 5y ago
      There are other options. They could take surface roads instead of highways. Or they could potentially use the emergency lane if there's some kind of communication standard to let them know when to get out of the emergency lane.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
blackoil 5y ago
Autobots, collect the grocery and parcel.

I just want my car to drive itself to service checks, when I'm at work. Save all that trouble of having to gamble that they have a car you can use, or there's a bus route that won't take you an hour back and forth. Self-driving done right could save me from having two cars. It could take me to work, drive back home, pickup the wife, drive her to work. Go back and pick me up in the afternoon, drop me of at home and the drive back to get the wife.

jahller 5y ago
this would be the best usage for what we consider cars imaginable. also would negate the need to personally own a car. just order one from a fleet of autonomous cars if you are in need of mobility.
- mrweasel 5y ago
  Ideally yes, but there's a lot of hurdles to overcome. For many it would work just fine, but for other there's going to be minor details that makes it work less well. Firstly we need to spread out peoples work day. We can't all be at the office a 8:00, and go home at 16:00. it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day. There's also details like: I would like a car to pick me up at 15:45, and drive me to the kindergarten, and that car MUST have a seat for a three year old (but not a seat of brand X, Y, or Z, because they're to small). Or I need a car with a trailer, or a truck, because I'm moving 500kg of dirt to the recycling station. Most people shop around for cars and pick very specific cars that fit their needs. So renting for a fleet of cars also need a rather large variety and flexibility in allowed usage. I believe that many would still want to buy their own cars, even if it's self-driving, to ensure it's available when they need it, and that it fulfil their specific needs. If we didn't have all these specific needs, most of us could just take the bus, which in turn would make it feasible to have all the bus routes people would need.
  - gilbertbw 5y ago
    > it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day. But that’s the current state of the world. Even if you have enough cars to meet peak demand you will have an efficiency saving (at least where I live you see a lot of cars in driveways during rush hour traffic). That said I agree that for a lot of people their car is an extension of their home, they’ll keep the golf clubs and a coat in the boot etc. But for the 80% case of just carrying a rucksack to and from work there is a massive efficiency improvement to be had.
    - mrweasel 5y ago
      > But that’s the current state of the world. True, but the difference is who's carrying the financial risk of the buying the car. Right now it's the individual consumers, who are mostly forced to do so, because better alternatives are not available. Leasing companies would never buy a fleet of cars that would sit mostly unused. Their cars needs to be on the road most of the time. This puts us back in Uber vs. taxis. Uber works because (depending on area and regulation) there cannot be sufficient taxis to handle peak demands, that wouldn't be financially sound for the taxi companies. Uber tries to fix this, by taping into idle cars in the driveways. A company that maintains a fleet of cars that you can just order on-demand, would always have to few cars for rush hour.
      - jahller 5y ago
        > True, but the difference is who's carrying the financial risk of the buying the car. Right now it's the individual consumers, who are mostly forced to do so, because better alternatives are not available. car-sharing already exists on a large scale in German capitals. you can park and pickup cars from e.g. Sixt or Share Now everywhere within a marked area. the business model for owning and maintaining a big fleet is already there.
      - 88 5y ago
        The market solves these problems so we don’t have to. It is extremely common for markets to face bursts in demand at peak times, and yet somehow we always find a sustainable equilibrium.
- itsoktocry 5y ago
  >just order one from a fleet of autonomous cars if you are in need of mobility. I find it confusing that one reason the tech crowd cheered on Uber's success was because taxis were often filthy and poorly maintained. But autonomous car fleets won't be?
prawn 5y ago
This made me think of something I hadn't considered before - whether we'll first see automated driving, but only when the vehicle is empty. e.g., you drive yourself somewhere, then the vehicle moves on to another job. If the vehicle is privately owned, it would park or drive home for your wife to use. If part of a fleet, it would just drive on to the next request. Cars in that mode could be constrained to a less dangerous speed to limit damage in an accident. I don't want to drive to work at 20km/h, but once I'm out of the car, I don't really care how slowly it goes. Of course, it wouldn't necessarily work to combine too broadly differing speeds on the same roads. But it would remove a bit of the "I'm not putting on my VR goggles to do work and trusting this car to drive to the office" fear.
- slavik81 5y ago
  A basic form of low-speed self-driving would be automated valet parking. Drop people off or pick them up at the entrance, then go park far away. If there was a common communication standard, the vehicles could also park much more tightly than is done in a normal parking lot. You don't need to keep empty space behind each car when you can coordinate the parked cars to move and clear a path. My guess is that you could park almost twice as many cars in the same space. The combination of reducing parking lot size and freeing people from walking to/from the lot would open up many interesting options for increasing density and walkability in commercial areas.
- itsoktocry 5y ago
  >I don't want to drive to work at 20km/h, but once I'm out of the car, I don't really care how slowly it goes. The other people on the road trying to get to work probably do.
  - prawn 5y ago
    Yes, figured that went without saying. From my comment: "Of course, it wouldn't necessarily work to combine too broadly differing speeds on the same roads."
  - curryst 5y ago
    There are other options. They could take surface roads instead of highways. Or they could potentially use the emergency lane if there's some kind of communication standard to let them know when to get out of the emergency lane.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

blackoil 5y ago

Autobots, collect the grocery and parcel.