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Why do people what self driving cars at all? I certainly hate the thought of having to pay for any of this. Even if the end product is subscription based, all t

• bluGill 10mo ago
  It remains to be seen, but there is reason to believe that self driving cars will be enough safer than regular cars that I as a citizen want everyone to have them if you have a car. I have kids who walk, ride bikes, and I do the same. There are a lot of terrible drivers out there - the average driver who thinks they are better than everyone else is still terrible (yes this includes me - I'm one of the few honest enough to admit I'm not good, but I'm about equal to everyone else)
• ricardobeat 10mo ago
  Doing long highway drives is effortless. Think cruise control, but you can let go of the wheel. The hardware necessary for level 2 autonomy is estimated to cost about US$400 in a Tesla. Much higher for companies using Lidar though prices are coming down as well.
  • kjkjadksj 10mo ago
    Driving is already effortless. It’s not like you actively think about steering.
• aclatuts 10mo ago
  My sister plans to just buy the self driving subscription for the month they go on road trips and thats it. Far better than buying it up front.
  • fragmede 10mo ago
    I don't think so. My financial situation isn't hers though, and I don't even own one. I borrowed a friend's for a 550 mile road trip this past weekend and then for a few days after. It's there enough to do the usual daily trips with minimal interaction, so while road trips is the obvious situation for it it's also really nice to have the rest of the time. It sucks that it costs so much when it could be free, but we still live under capitalism so that's just how that one goes.
• m463 10mo ago
  I think it helps you drive. It takes away the tedium of driving and reduces your workload. Big wins are: 1) stop-and-go traffic 2) long boring highway trips infrequent but just as important - emergency braking That said I absolutely hate that this seems to give tesla the "courage" to remove physical driver controls (like turn signal stalks, drive select stalks, full controls for wipers, lights and defrost)
  • rootusrootus 10mo ago
    As an aside, IIRC they put the turn signal stalk back in a recent update. It saves them a few bucks per car to use buttons instead, but there are people who will not buy a Tesla without a turn-signal stalk -- and the loss on that is probably 500x what is saved by not putting in a stalk.
    • m463 10mo ago
      do they do this for all cars? S/X, truck, 3/Y? EDIT: looks like model 3 only and they didn't remove it from the y?
• justinholt 10mo ago
  I like approaching it from an accessibility standpoint. I don't need it and I enjoy the act of driving. That said, if I had vision impairment and wanted freedom to travel further from home with no assistance self driving cars make a lot more sense. The product isn't necessarily "for me", but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.
  • squigz 10mo ago
    I'm extremely visually impaired. I'd rather see (ha) good public transport. I also sincerely doubt (and hope so) that I'd be legally able to drive a car simply because it has "self-driving" - what if I need to take control of it? What happens if someone gets hurt because of it? Am I liable, even though I don't have a license?
• readthenotes1 10mo ago
  I would like self-driving car for myself, but more so, I would like it for all the other drivers on the road who regularly try to kill me or destroy my car.
• mike-cardwell 10mo ago
  I'd love to get in my car and go to sleep for a couple of hours or read a book whilst it drives me somewhere. Imagine if it could even pull over and charge up without any kind of intervention too. You could get in your car, and get a full nights sleep whilst it drive you somewhere 500 miles away. Also, at some point, I'm probably going to be too old to drive safely, which will restrict my travels. Not if self driving gets to the point where that doesn't matter anymore.
  • llbeansandrice 10mo ago
    This is a train. You want a train. If you don't like sharing space with other people, you want a private room on a train. These cars and their supporting infrastructure should cost more than a private room on a train because they are less efficient and have more negative externalities than a private room on a train.
    • jjcm 10mo ago
      A train can't take me to the beach. It can't take me camping away from civilization. It can't haul lumber from a hardware store so I can build a treehouse. I love trains, but let's not pretend there is a perfect Venn diagram of overlap between what their use cases are.
      • lapetitejort 10mo ago
        Trains can take you to the beach and away from civilization. Build a station where you want to go. At one point trains were the most practical way to get to national parks. How often are you building treehouses that you need to pay hundreds of dollars extra a month to justify the cost, versus a one-time delivery fee?
        • dzhiurgis 10mo ago
          If you build train station away from civilization pretty quickly it will be filled with civilization. Trains are ok for mass transit. Rest of world is for cars.
• wat10000 10mo ago
  Driving can be annoying. I like it in some cases, but it's no fun when there's a ton of traffic, lots of stop lights, etc. I'd love to be able to push a button and let it handle the grunt work in those cases. Sometimes I want to do something else. Maybe adjust my music, or send a text. If the car can keep me going while I do that, it would be nice. I live with two people who can't drive. Often I have to take them to things. Tonight I'm going to spend about 90 minutes going, waiting, and coming back, so one of them can do something. It would be great if I could just put them in the car and say, have fun, see you later, and stay home while the car takes them there and back.
  • rootusrootus 10mo ago
    Anecdotally, whenever I have to tote someone around who cannot drive, it is nearly universally true that they also cannot get in and out of the car without help, too. So that has to be arranged, a self-driving car won't be able to solve it.
    • wat10000 10mo ago
      There are reasons other than physical disability for people to be unable to drive. For example, the person I’m driving tonight can’t drive themselves because they’re too young to have a license.
• lowbloodsugar 10mo ago
  One day, all personal transport will be AI, and lunatics like me who enjoy performance driving will have special vehicles we drive at a track. Self driving cars are great. That you can’t afford one is just a matter of time.
  • rootusrootus 10mo ago
    Could happen. But we still allow horse-drawn carriages on some roads. I think I'll be long dead (and I wouldn't be surprised if everyone in this discussion will be long dead as well) before we kick human drivers off the road. If we really gave a shit about driving-related fatalities, there is a lot of fruit hanging way lower than replacing the average sober driver.
• davej 10mo ago
  You sound like someone who doesn't spend 1+ hour every day commuting in traffic. :)
• llbeansandrice 10mo ago
  The replies to this comment are very telling. Everyone is highlighting various desires and issues with cars: - Cars are dangerous to people not in cars - Cars require your undivided attention (and even that isn't fool-proof) - Cars are inaccessible: age, eyesight, control operation, etc. - There's a lot of traffic (iow there's a lot of cars) What people are expressing a desire for is more robust public transit and transportation facilities that protect everyone: peds, drivers, cyclists, etc. The best way to solve all of these problems, totally ignoring self-driving for a moment, is to reduce the total number of vehicle miles traveled. Reduce the number of car trips. Reduce the length of car trips. If there are less cars, there is less danger from cars. If there are less cars, there is less traffic. The only way to have less cars is to provide alternatives: street cars, bike trails, pedestrian facilities, sub-regional buses and trains, inter-regional trains (or buses). Literally all of these problems get significantly better when there are less drivers on the road. Trains can provide the inter-regional travel that allows you to work, read, hangout, sleep, etc. without the constant danger of having to watch the road the entire time. Self-driving cars will certainly be useful, but I think people are really missing the point that the root of the problem is cars specifically. They can (and will!) still be available for people that truly want or need them, but harm reduction is the name of the game. Even changing a portion of your trip from car to something else can make a huge difference! It doesn't have to be door-to-door, it could be that you drive to a park-n-ride. Or you stop driving to the local downtown in the spring, summer, and fall. Most of the people in this comment section want better public transit. It can be made to work even if the goal is to go skiing or mountain biking once you arrive. Cars need to stop being the default and become the exception. It's cheaper, more efficient, safer, and healthier.
  • rootusrootus 10mo ago
    > What people are expressing a desire for is more robust public transit and transportation facilities that protect everyone: peds, drivers, cyclists, etc. I'm going to take a guess here that you're in a bubble. Most people don't give more than a passing thought to protecting anybody else on the road but themselves and their own loved ones. You could say enlightened self interest means this should extend to random strangers, but I bet that as a practical matter it does not. I'd even go farther and suggest that the largest plurality of people who support public transit want it so that it will take other people off the road, not them.
• cryptoegorophy 10mo ago
  Because you haven’t tried it. I want to buy Cadilac ev but the biggest downside is the lack of FSD. Once you go FSD you never go back.