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I'm not interested in cars I can't own. This idea that we'll turn cars into some kind of service and convert roads into places filled with company-owned vehicle

I'm not interested in cars I can't own. This idea that we'll turn cars into some kind of service and convert roads into places filled with company-owned vehicles is completely foreign. At that point it'd be cheaper to have self-driving buses and subways. I can only think this viewpoint comes from people who have only ever lived in cities where car ownership is inconvenient given the lack of personal garages. At the moment the only company working towards this idea is Tesla, which is unfortunate. I'd like to see more companies working towards selling self-driving vehicles to customers.

alexchamberlain 5y ago
City dweller, raised in a village in the east of England. I got my license 3 months after my 17th and already had a car - I've had a car ever since. I'd give it up in a heartbeat if hiring a car was easier and more economical, but the reality is that for visiting family over weekends, renting would cost about the same as owning the car full time. The convenience of then having the car ready to go whenever you want it wins out. I sincerely hope that self driving cars bring in the possibility of renting it for a couple of hours as it drives us to Kent to visit the in laws then drives itself back to London, or simply re-clusters itself into the local network ready to take us back on Sunday evening.
- bluGill 5y ago
  I think that depends on your taste in cars. If you trade in your car for a new one every 3 years then shared cars will save you money. However if you drive a 23 year old car (ie the car I drive) then it is fully depreciated and so paying for a nice new car to drive you around has to cost more. Of course it also depends on how much you drive. If you only drive a few times per month that is very different from driving hundreds of miles per day. I've concluded that the majority of suburban dwellers will own their own car even where shared cars are possible to get. Because of the amount of driving they do a shared car won't save them much if anything, and by owning a car they can leave "stuff" in the trunk.
snotrockets 5y ago
Even cheaper: don't have computer driven transit, but human driven transit. The current money sunk on the automated driving tech startups could pay drivers for years to come. What I would like to see is companies and people working towrds eliminating as many vehciles from the road. It is untainable, if we want an habitable planet, to have have a dependency on cars. This means we have to move back to a denser environment (for the US, think pre WW2 suburbs, vs the current car-dependent sprawl). Either that, or boil the planet. We don't have any other way right now – and as such, Tesla is working towards the idea of heating the planet. Musk is very amandmanet on that, with his constant efforts to destroy public transit with his other companies.
- bduerst 5y ago
  On any given timeline, dedicated human drivers will always have larger variable costs and waste than dedicated computational drivers, on top of being cost-prohibitive to people who can't afford to pay for human driven rides. You could make the same argument for ditching email and calendar technology in favor of everyone having human secretaries typing inter-office memos. It's absurd now, yeah, but that's because we live with the benefits.
- zild3d 5y ago
  > Even cheaper: don't have computer driven transit, but human driven transit Cheaper on what time frame? Obviously the upfront R&D costs start out as more expensive, but the marginal cost goes toward 0 while human cost is flat/increases. Also cheaper isn't the only axis, safety is a big reason to invest in not having humans drive.
  - snotrockets 5y ago
    Paying humans have better utility, for society in whole, than cheap machines.
    - mattnewton 5y ago
      If that was a universal good why do we keep inventing machines to replace labour? Would it be better to hire servants to wash dishes and fetch water to scrub clothing in the tub, or is this labour that we can largely get machines to do, and free humans from?
bduerst 5y ago
Cars are large, depreciating assets that spend the vast majority of their product lifecycle doing nothing. Conversely, metropolitan areas have to dedicate up to half their available space to empty blacktop storing these unused assets that sit around doing nothing. The sooner we solve on-demand transportation at scale without requiring a human driver the sooner we can move away from this colossal degree of waste.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  All this tech we have is large, depreciating assets yet it still keeps happening. Humans are a large depreciating asset to the elite, lets hope they don't get tired of us anytime soon and replace us with AI and robotic servants...
  - bduerst 5y ago
    Automation breeds new job creation and QoL improvements. Coming closer to a post-scarcity society with little waste would be considered a boon, not dystopia. The capitalist idea that your worth is tied to how many hours you work is fading; the newer generations are already calling for work reform.
  - astrange 5y ago
    That's an Ayn Rand novel, not real life; if you somehow had all the money in the country and fired everyone (i.e. stopped trading with them) then by definition you're not rich because the ability to trade with people is what being rich is. Instead you've created two economies, one with just you and one with all of them, and the other one's better because it has more people.
- pishpash 5y ago
  By this logic you should promote trailer parks.
  - r00fus 5y ago
    Trailer parks are peanuts against really dense buildings like apartments/condos with dedicated park/fitness facilities. Stuff I saw in HK is amazing.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Who said all cars would be replaced? There is PLENTY room out there for company cars and personally owned cars.
soaxre 5y ago
dnissley 5y ago
I always assumed that cruise technology is behind self driving functionality like "super cruise" (https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/super-cruise https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/super-cruise), if only because of the name and based on the fact that gm owns cruise. Can anyone clarify?
- pavon 5y ago
  The naming is confusing, but the "super cruise" feature of GM vehicles predates the founding of Cruise. I have no knowledge of whether there has been cross-pollination between the two teams since GM acquired Cruise.
julienb_sea 5y ago
Buses and subways cannot operate door to door. That is a fundamental service restriction which will always create a need for personal transit. People with accessibility needs, safety concerns or timing restrictions create a legitimate and important market for door-to-door personal transportation. Buses are also inherently less efficient outside of peak operating hours. Why should we operate a fleet of million-dollar, high energy consumption buses looping practically empty late at night? A fleet of cars would far better suit the transportation demands for off-peak small scale transport. Cars as a service are also easy for a local government to subsidize so that lower income riders can access the benefits.
- astrange 5y ago
  You should visit Tokyo when they let you back in. If your city lets you get a car up to every door, it's not dense enough.
  - pishpash 5y ago
    Do Tokyo'ians enjoy being packed like sardines, other than the fact that they have no choice over it?
    - astrange 5y ago
      You're confusing density with overcrowding. They don't have roommates, making it strictly nicer than SF. Also, Tokyo is the best city in the world, so yes. The rural areas are depopulating because nobody wants to live there more than a lack of work. There are suburbs for families too, but they're still transit-oriented. (Not that Japan is against cars. They just don't do all their transportation with them.)
- mlindner 5y ago
  If taxicabs can function in the evenings during low demand hours then we can replace those with these robocabs. In Tokyo that's the case as well for when after the busses and trains stop running. In terms of subsidization, we've had enough problems in the US from the US picking winners with the interstate highway system to the detriment of railway. They shouldn't subsidize anything and let the market handle things. There will be a small demand for robocabs but most will still want to own a car, if they want a car at all.
r00fus 5y ago
In suburban US, automated taxis are way more accurate and for folks like my parents who don't drive. Taking an uber to supermarket and back? Easy. Taking a bus? Much more difficult (primarily because we don't have a good bus or tram culture here). Same with e.g. visiting friends/family. Limited capability folks benefit a lot from easy to access taxi service. It won't replace folks who want to own a car or need to (e.g. commuting when public transit isn't good enough).

alexchamberlain 5y ago

City dweller, raised in a village in the east of England. I got my license 3 months after my 17th and already had a car - I've had a car ever since. I'd give it up in a heartbeat if hiring a car was easier and more economical, but the reality is that for visiting family over weekends, renting would cost about the same as owning the car full time. The convenience of then having the car ready to go whenever you want it wins out. I sincerely hope that self driving cars bring in the possibility of renting it for a couple of hours as it drives us to Kent to visit the in laws then drives itself back to London, or simply re-clusters itself into the local network ready to take us back on Sunday evening.

bluGill 5y ago
I think that depends on your taste in cars. If you trade in your car for a new one every 3 years then shared cars will save you money. However if you drive a 23 year old car (ie the car I drive) then it is fully depreciated and so paying for a nice new car to drive you around has to cost more. Of course it also depends on how much you drive. If you only drive a few times per month that is very different from driving hundreds of miles per day. I've concluded that the majority of suburban dwellers will own their own car even where shared cars are possible to get. Because of the amount of driving they do a shared car won't save them much if anything, and by owning a car they can leave "stuff" in the trunk.

snotrockets 5y ago

Even cheaper: don't have computer driven transit, but human driven transit. The current money sunk on the automated driving tech startups could pay drivers for years to come. What I would like to see is companies and people working towrds eliminating as many vehciles from the road. It is untainable, if we want an habitable planet, to have have a dependency on cars. This means we have to move back to a denser environment (for the US, think pre WW2 suburbs, vs the current car-dependent sprawl). Either that, or boil the planet. We don't have any other way right now – and as such, Tesla is working towards the idea of heating the planet. Musk is very amandmanet on that, with his constant efforts to destroy public transit with his other companies.

bduerst 5y ago
On any given timeline, dedicated human drivers will always have larger variable costs and waste than dedicated computational drivers, on top of being cost-prohibitive to people who can't afford to pay for human driven rides. You could make the same argument for ditching email and calendar technology in favor of everyone having human secretaries typing inter-office memos. It's absurd now, yeah, but that's because we live with the benefits.
zild3d 5y ago
> Even cheaper: don't have computer driven transit, but human driven transit Cheaper on what time frame? Obviously the upfront R&D costs start out as more expensive, but the marginal cost goes toward 0 while human cost is flat/increases. Also cheaper isn't the only axis, safety is a big reason to invest in not having humans drive.
- snotrockets 5y ago
  Paying humans have better utility, for society in whole, than cheap machines.
  - mattnewton 5y ago
    If that was a universal good why do we keep inventing machines to replace labour? Would it be better to hire servants to wash dishes and fetch water to scrub clothing in the tub, or is this labour that we can largely get machines to do, and free humans from?

bduerst 5y ago

Cars are large, depreciating assets that spend the vast majority of their product lifecycle doing nothing. Conversely, metropolitan areas have to dedicate up to half their available space to empty blacktop storing these unused assets that sit around doing nothing. The sooner we solve on-demand transportation at scale without requiring a human driver the sooner we can move away from this colossal degree of waste.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
All this tech we have is large, depreciating assets yet it still keeps happening. Humans are a large depreciating asset to the elite, lets hope they don't get tired of us anytime soon and replace us with AI and robotic servants...
- bduerst 5y ago
  Automation breeds new job creation and QoL improvements. Coming closer to a post-scarcity society with little waste would be considered a boon, not dystopia. The capitalist idea that your worth is tied to how many hours you work is fading; the newer generations are already calling for work reform.
- astrange 5y ago
  That's an Ayn Rand novel, not real life; if you somehow had all the money in the country and fired everyone (i.e. stopped trading with them) then by definition you're not rich because the ability to trade with people is what being rich is. Instead you've created two economies, one with just you and one with all of them, and the other one's better because it has more people.
pishpash 5y ago
By this logic you should promote trailer parks.
- r00fus 5y ago
  Trailer parks are peanuts against really dense buildings like apartments/condos with dedicated park/fitness facilities. Stuff I saw in HK is amazing.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Who said all cars would be replaced? There is PLENTY room out there for company cars and personally owned cars.

soaxre 5y ago

dnissley 5y ago

I always assumed that cruise technology is behind self driving functionality like "super cruise" (https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/super-cruise https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/super-cruise), if only because of the name and based on the fact that gm owns cruise. Can anyone clarify?

pavon 5y ago
The naming is confusing, but the "super cruise" feature of GM vehicles predates the founding of Cruise. I have no knowledge of whether there has been cross-pollination between the two teams since GM acquired Cruise.

julienb_sea 5y ago

Buses and subways cannot operate door to door. That is a fundamental service restriction which will always create a need for personal transit. People with accessibility needs, safety concerns or timing restrictions create a legitimate and important market for door-to-door personal transportation. Buses are also inherently less efficient outside of peak operating hours. Why should we operate a fleet of million-dollar, high energy consumption buses looping practically empty late at night? A fleet of cars would far better suit the transportation demands for off-peak small scale transport. Cars as a service are also easy for a local government to subsidize so that lower income riders can access the benefits.

astrange 5y ago
You should visit Tokyo when they let you back in. If your city lets you get a car up to every door, it's not dense enough.
- pishpash 5y ago
  Do Tokyo'ians enjoy being packed like sardines, other than the fact that they have no choice over it?
  - astrange 5y ago
    You're confusing density with overcrowding. They don't have roommates, making it strictly nicer than SF. Also, Tokyo is the best city in the world, so yes. The rural areas are depopulating because nobody wants to live there more than a lack of work. There are suburbs for families too, but they're still transit-oriented. (Not that Japan is against cars. They just don't do all their transportation with them.)
mlindner 5y ago
If taxicabs can function in the evenings during low demand hours then we can replace those with these robocabs. In Tokyo that's the case as well for when after the busses and trains stop running. In terms of subsidization, we've had enough problems in the US from the US picking winners with the interstate highway system to the detriment of railway. They shouldn't subsidize anything and let the market handle things. There will be a small demand for robocabs but most will still want to own a car, if they want a car at all.

r00fus 5y ago

In suburban US, automated taxis are way more accurate and for folks like my parents who don't drive. Taking an uber to supermarket and back? Easy. Taking a bus? Much more difficult (primarily because we don't have a good bus or tram culture here). Same with e.g. visiting friends/family. Limited capability folks benefit a lot from easy to access taxi service. It won't replace folks who want to own a car or need to (e.g. commuting when public transit isn't good enough).