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This is fun because until the last couple of decades, private transportation wasn’t very common in China at all, people simply didn’t own their own cars and tax

This is fun because until the last couple of decades, private transportation wasn’t very common in China at all, people simply didn’t own their own cars and taxis were (and still are) ubiquitous even in small rural towns (though they might be breadbox vans to supplement shared minibuses). Almost everyone was relying in third party transportation and even today most still are. And really, this kind of thing was common in most countries and turned out America (along with Canada, Australia) are the odd ones out with almost ubiquitous private car ownership in most of its area. I have no idea how self driving taxis will change the USA, but I rode in my first Waymo last week on a trip to SF and it felt very real. Having lived in a country where I took a taxi to work everyday, I can totally see that life working for me (since I already lived it anyways).

majormajor 2y ago
Private car ownership has not been unusual in developed countries. There is a reason so many large car manufactures are not American, after all. It's not just to sell to people in NA and Australia. What's different about the US and those other places is that far more large cities were built after private automobiles were common. There are cars everywhere in both countryside and cities in Italy, say, but there is ALSO more walkability and transit because the cities were there first (and even there, there are cities like Florence that didn't invest in rail for decades before starting to build some more light rail again very recently). China is something of an odd one out for development patterns because of the much higher levels of state control. What I don't really see is places voluntarily giving up point-to-point private transit after having it as an easy option for generations. Places where even the super-wealthy have turned in their private cars and drivers and take the bus with everyone else. I think the market that self-driving cars could potentially capture over mass transit is exactly those people who would rather have a private point-to-point experience. Which can be an overlapping set with the people who would also be willing to use mass transit if it was "good enough", in addition to the people who actively dislike mass transit. The total pool of users is very large.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Nothing really replaces good mass transit. But in a rural town a taxi is often the best you can manage as an alternative. Even in cities, taxis fill in gaps that make it possible to live without cars and use mass transit more. Like a trip can involve a taxi to a station then a train ride then a taxi from destination station to your actual destination.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
The reason it "works" in rural China is people largely don't drive places, at least not the way Americans do. Lots of tech folks love to shit on "car-culture" in the US, and while I agree it has resulted in really crappy urban design for a lot of US cities, you can't ignore that a lot of people love their cars because it gives them a ton of freedom. People like being able to go off at a moment's notice, independently, and drive long distances. America may be an "outlier", but that still doesn't mean that it's reasonable to think we'll move from where we are now to getting rid of our cars because that's how China does it.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Taxis give you most of that for inner city travel. I don’t mean American taxis, I mean Chinese taxis that are everywhere. If that was a fleet of self driving cars, then it really would be like wait one minute for a taxi if you aren’t going somewhere on peak. My point, though, isn’t how China can show America how to do things, just that American car culture is unusual and unlikely to apply to most of the rest of the world. There are also costs of dumb decisions to consider, which is going to affect the competitiveness of our cities long term (Shanghai doesn’t have to make the same stupid decisions that Denver did, and eventually it just isn’t worth doing business in cities with crappy transit infra), and eventually some more optimal norm is going to affect even the USA.

majormajor 2y ago

Private car ownership has not been unusual in developed countries. There is a reason so many large car manufactures are not American, after all. It's not just to sell to people in NA and Australia. What's different about the US and those other places is that far more large cities were built after private automobiles were common. There are cars everywhere in both countryside and cities in Italy, say, but there is ALSO more walkability and transit because the cities were there first (and even there, there are cities like Florence that didn't invest in rail for decades before starting to build some more light rail again very recently). China is something of an odd one out for development patterns because of the much higher levels of state control. What I don't really see is places voluntarily giving up point-to-point private transit after having it as an easy option for generations. Places where even the super-wealthy have turned in their private cars and drivers and take the bus with everyone else. I think the market that self-driving cars could potentially capture over mass transit is exactly those people who would rather have a private point-to-point experience. Which can be an overlapping set with the people who would also be willing to use mass transit if it was "good enough", in addition to the people who actively dislike mass transit. The total pool of users is very large.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Nothing really replaces good mass transit. But in a rural town a taxi is often the best you can manage as an alternative. Even in cities, taxis fill in gaps that make it possible to live without cars and use mass transit more. Like a trip can involve a taxi to a station then a train ride then a taxi from destination station to your actual destination.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

The reason it "works" in rural China is people largely don't drive places, at least not the way Americans do. Lots of tech folks love to shit on "car-culture" in the US, and while I agree it has resulted in really crappy urban design for a lot of US cities, you can't ignore that a lot of people love their cars because it gives them a ton of freedom. People like being able to go off at a moment's notice, independently, and drive long distances. America may be an "outlier", but that still doesn't mean that it's reasonable to think we'll move from where we are now to getting rid of our cars because that's how China does it.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Taxis give you most of that for inner city travel. I don’t mean American taxis, I mean Chinese taxis that are everywhere. If that was a fleet of self driving cars, then it really would be like wait one minute for a taxi if you aren’t going somewhere on peak. My point, though, isn’t how China can show America how to do things, just that American car culture is unusual and unlikely to apply to most of the rest of the world. There are also costs of dumb decisions to consider, which is going to affect the competitiveness of our cities long term (Shanghai doesn’t have to make the same stupid decisions that Denver did, and eventually it just isn’t worth doing business in cities with crappy transit infra), and eventually some more optimal norm is going to affect even the USA.