4 ms·

> 2. Ownership changes: municipalities will buy fleets of cheap mass-produced pods to replace extremely capex intensive public transport. Producing more small

> 2. Ownership changes: municipalities will buy fleets of cheap mass-produced pods to replace extremely capex intensive public transport. Producing more small things isn't usually more efficient that fewer equivalent large things. You can't just will some "pods" into existence that are magically cheaper (per person!) than trams, trains and busses. Also, once you have a system running capex and opex aren't that different - replacing a set number of vehicles per year is pretty much the same thing as operating expenses. > 5. Housing changes: Garages transform into rooms. People ditch bulky refrigerators in favor of ordering drone-delivered fresh produce in minutes. Drones deliver upstairs not just at street level. Pods become elevators. We've seen all this in science fiction... guess what the enabling technology is? My prediction is that no one will ever be fine with the amount of noise a "drone" (read helicopter) makes, especially as a replacement for the very noise-free and orders of magnitude more efficient elevators we have right now.

npunt 2y ago
Agree to disagree about economies of scale, but FYI busses are ~$500k and seat ~40, meaning ~$12.5k/person. There are a dozen manufacturers of electric 2 seaters today that can build for a quarter of the cost per person, or half if you assume 1 person occupancy. Yes the area per person is larger (tho not by much), but you can make up for that with increased throughput by way of point-to-point operation without stops, faster speeds, and more. Focusing on rollout, municipal light rail almost never gets deployed in US-style cities due to huge capex, not opex. Smaller vehicles allow incremental roll-out and can use preexisting road infrastructure. Ergo, that's the form of public transit you're most likely to see grow over the next decades. Drone here doesn't imply flying, it's about scaling down wheeled vehicles and the coexistence of a wider variety of vehicle sizes on roads that is unlocked by the automated movement of mass. Delivery to higher up floors can be done through small in-building elevators. If you think that's unrealistic, consider that it was once extremely popular to use pneumatic tubes to send mail in buildings. Built infrastructure changes based on what is possible, and mass needs to move.

npunt 2y ago

Agree to disagree about economies of scale, but FYI busses are ~$500k and seat ~40, meaning ~$12.5k/person. There are a dozen manufacturers of electric 2 seaters today that can build for a quarter of the cost per person, or half if you assume 1 person occupancy. Yes the area per person is larger (tho not by much), but you can make up for that with increased throughput by way of point-to-point operation without stops, faster speeds, and more. Focusing on rollout, municipal light rail almost never gets deployed in US-style cities due to huge capex, not opex. Smaller vehicles allow incremental roll-out and can use preexisting road infrastructure. Ergo, that's the form of public transit you're most likely to see grow over the next decades. Drone here doesn't imply flying, it's about scaling down wheeled vehicles and the coexistence of a wider variety of vehicle sizes on roads that is unlocked by the automated movement of mass. Delivery to higher up floors can be done through small in-building elevators. If you think that's unrealistic, consider that it was once extremely popular to use pneumatic tubes to send mail in buildings. Built infrastructure changes based on what is possible, and mass needs to move.