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This would be an absolute energy and efficiency nightmare. I hope to god this never ever happens. > No sharing space with people on public transit. If people

This would be an absolute energy and efficiency nightmare. I hope to god this never ever happens. > No sharing space with people on public transit. If people really want their own private suites they should be paying thru the nose and ears for it. Cars are a worse version of this and the car-centric lifestyle is heavily subsidized by everything from taxes to people's lives (air pollution from ICEs yes, but tire pollution is actually worse in many ways and is made worse with heavier EVs). This will not fix food deserts, it will make them worse. If your car isn't packed to capacity on every single trip, it is less efficient and worse than public transit. Roads are awful. We should be trying to minimize them, not expand them. Whatever ungodly sum you are prepared to pay, I'm certain the actual cost is yet higher.

hcurtiss 10mo ago
Public transit is a dream turned nightmare consistently for seventy-five years. Autonomy will be less efficient -- but not that much less efficient given closer car spacing, speed, and remote parking -- but it will be spectacularly more convenient and comfortable. I'm all for it. You'll survive the tire pollution.
- malnourish 10mo ago
  That's one opinion. My opinion is public transport is phenomenal. It's relatively reliable (very in some places), generally clean and safe, low cost, encourages urban/high efficiency development, protects greenspace, and employees people.
  - hcurtiss 10mo ago
    I'm not sure where you live, but that doesn't match my experience at all. And I think most people agree given the overwhelming majority of people who choose to drive, notwithstanding traffic and parking. The declining public transit ridership in most metropolitan areas over time is well documented.[1] It's because in most places -- but evidently not where you live -- public transit sucks relative to private transportation and ride-hailing services. As discussed above, EV autonomy will only increase the difference. [1] https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/fta-transit-ridership-per-capita-report/737603/#:~:text=The%20FTA,as%20high-capacity https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/fta-transit-ridership-p...
    - eldaisfish 10mo ago
      most people in the US are forced to drive, they don't willingly choose to sink large sums of money into a rolling metal cage.
      - nradov 10mo ago
        Speak for yourself. I love my cars. For a relatively modest expense they allow me to go wherever, whenever I want and bring all my stuff with me. This is a miracle of modern civilization.
        eldaisfish 10mo ago
        as is the consequent traffic, pollution and inefficiency that choices like yours add up to.
        nradov 10mo ago
        Well I guess it beats having horse manure in the streets.
  - ekianjo 10mo ago
    What are you talking about? In most cities public transport sucks, hardly goes anywhere, gets more expensive year after year, makes housing prices go up, and is slow and inflexible enough that people still end up needing cars to go around
    - zx8080 10mo ago
      It's interesting to read such an opposite opinions on public transport from Americans and Europeans.
      - andsoitis 10mo ago
        Worth noting that only 17% of passenger transport activity in the EU is public transit (trains and buses). https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/share-of-buses-and-trains https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/share-of-bu...
  - jjav 10mo ago
    > It's relatively reliable In most places it is not, which is a big drawback. Every week I hear on the news how the train shut down some stations or got massively delayed for random reasons. I couldn't possibly rely on that if I need to be at work at a specific time.
- llbeansandrice 10mo ago
  > You'll survive the tire pollution. I tend to expect better from HN commenters. I don't have an interest in having a discussion with such a callous and dismissive comment. I hope your day gets better. Tire pollution is worse than tailpipe emissions and the full effects aren't known. You're dismissive of other people's and the environment's health and you're wrong. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyres-produce-more-particle-pollution-than-exhausts-tests-show https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyre...
  - andsoitis 10mo ago
    > Tire pollution is worse than tailpipe emissions and the full effects aren't known. You're dismissive of other people's and the environment's health and you're wrong. Tire pollution is now as large or larger than tailpipe particulate pollution, but it’s not a complete apples-to-apples comparison. Tail pipe pollution includes CO₂, NOx, SO₂, CO, and fine particulates (PM2.5 + PM10) and is strongly linked to asthma, heart disease, climate change. Tire pollution on the other hand is microplastics, synthetic rubber particles, zinc, and volatile organic compounds. Toxic to aquatic life; long-term human health effects still being studied.
  - simondotau 10mo ago
    A typical ICE car will consume at least 500 gallons of petrol (gasoline) per 1 gallon of tire tread worn. The environmental impact per volume of tire is certainly greater, but it's not remotely five hundred times greater. I'm not saying we should disregard the issue of tire pollution. But if it was as serious as you suggest, it would be making more headlines than it is.
    - pastel8739 10mo ago
      Why wouldn’t it be 500 times greater? Gasoline is combusted for energy, converting most of it into mostly harmless byproducts; tire tread is just released as is.
      - simondotau 10mo ago
- stephen_g 10mo ago
  > Public transit is a dream turned nightmare consistently for seventy-five years *In the United States. For reasons we have avoided in much of the rest of the world...
  - echelon 10mo ago
    The United States is freaking huge. By the time modern transportation arrived, people were already living all over the country in pockets every which where. We opted for cars and planes to cover the vast distances. And as it turns out, we have some of the best in the world of both of these - and in vast quantities. We do have dense pockets. NYC, in particular, has a nice metro (it just needs to be cleaner and more modernized - but it's great otherwise). Most countries are small. Their dense cities are well-served by public transit. America is just too spread out. Insanely spread out. China is an exception in that, while a huge landmass, its large cities emerged as the country was wholesale industrializing. It was easy for them to allocate lots of points to infrastructure. And given their unmatched population size and density, it makes a lot of sense. As much as I envy China's infrastructure (I've been on their metros - they're amazing!), it would be a supreme malinvestment here in the United States to try to follow in their footsteps. The situation we have here is optimal for our density and the preferences of our citizens. (As much as people love to complain about cars, even more people than those that complain really love their cars.) Public transit in the US is probably going to wind down as autonomous driving picks up the slack. Our road infrastructure is the very best in the world - it's more expansive, comprehensive, and well-maintained than any nation on the planet. We'd be wise to double down. It can turn into a super power once the machines take over driving for us. The fact that we have this extent of totally unmatched road infrastructure might actually turn out to be hugely advantageous over countries that opted for static, expensive heavy rail. Our system is flexible, last mile, to every address in the country. With multiple routes, re-routes, detours. Roads are America's central nervous system. Our interstate system is flexible, and when cars turn into IP packets, we'll have the thickest and most flexible infrastructure in the world. We've shit on cars for the last 15 years under the guise that "strong towns" are correct and that cars are bad. But as it may turn out, these sleeping pieces of infrastructure might actually be the best investment we've ever made. Going to call this now: in 20 years' time, cars will make America OP. Those things everything complains about - they'll be America's superpower. The rest of the world with their heavy rail trains and public transit will be jealous. Our highways will turn into smart logistics corridors that get people and goods P2P at high speed and low cost to every inch of the country. Roads are truly America's circulatory and nervous system. I'm so stoked for this. I once fell for the "we need more trains meme" - that was a suboptima anachronism, and our peak will be 100x higher than expensive, inflexible heavy rail.
- deaux 10mo ago
  > I'm all for it. You'll survive the tire pollution. Will you enthusiastically support the taxes on you needed to entirely offset this negative externality?
  - echelon 10mo ago
    Rubber ppm over some threshold safety level is a negative externality worth maybe a few billion in remediation, healthcare costs, etc. (As a society, we're still not convinced pulmonary health as impacted by particulate inhalation is important - which is a mistake. It absolutely is a big deal and negative externality driving a whole host of bad health outcomes.) Malinvestment into public transit in a way that serves only a limited few of the population and that costs 10x the already high initial estimates is a negative drain on the balance sheet worth 500 billion or more. And this infra is woefully inflexible and static. California HSR alone is already suboptimal vs. flights, and once we have long distance autonomous self-driving, that'll meet the same demand with 1/100,0000,000th the cost (if you average out the costs and benefits of self driving over all other routes).
    - nine_k 10mo ago
      California is just uniquely dysfunctional in many ways.
    - bdamm 10mo ago
      Can we solve the poisoning of fish while we're at it?
jmye 10mo ago
> I hope to god this never ever happens. Then I'll never buy an autonomous vehicle. I get that most people just want short trips around a major city, but given we, I'm sure it's shocking, don't all live in places like that, or want to spend our time in places like that, it might behoove y'all to solve for other use cases if you want widespread adoption (or at least accept that it's ok to solve for those use cases). Or, I guess, you can hope that everyone will suddenly decide that all they want is to live in modern Kowloon City because "roads are awful" or whatever memetic nonsense is trending on TikTok.
- eldaisfish 10mo ago
  "we" here is a minority of the population in any developed country. The vast majority of people - almost globally - live in dense areas.
  - robocat 10mo ago
    Rubbish. Population density varies, and your cutoff between "dense" and "not dense" must be tautological.
robocat 10mo ago
> If your car isn't packed to capacity on every single trip, it is less efficient and worse than public transit. Cost is a great proxy for costs versus benefits. People choose cars because they are efficient for them. In theory public transit is efficient. In practice, only if you live in a very high density area, or you value your time at $0.
- eldaisfish 10mo ago
  cars are barely efficient in terms of time. In cost terms, cars are incredibly expensive once you add in infrastructure costs, insurance, fuel, the cost of land use, etc. Public transit is efficient even outside areas of high density - see suburban Europe or India. Why are so many people here utterly car-brained?
  - nradov 10mo ago
    Have you ever actually been to Europe? Public transit is pretty good in first-tier cities like Vienna / Stockholm / London where tourists spend most of their time. But out in the smaller cities and rural areas where regular people live there's very little public transit except for slow and inconvenient buses. So everyone drives. Or if they're too poor to afford a car then they just don't go anywhere.
    - eldaisfish 10mo ago
      are you familiar with population distributions and the fact that more of the word lives in urban areas than rural? >So everyone drives Citation needed, because this is obviously false. >Or if they're too poor to afford a car then they just don't go anywhere What a horrible thing to say.
      - nradov 10mo ago
        Horrible how? I'm telling you that's the reality, not that it's a good thing. Unlike you I've actually been to those places and talked to the locals.
    - 10mo ago

hcurtiss 10mo ago

Public transit is a dream turned nightmare consistently for seventy-five years. Autonomy will be less efficient -- but not that much less efficient given closer car spacing, speed, and remote parking -- but it will be spectacularly more convenient and comfortable. I'm all for it. You'll survive the tire pollution.

malnourish 10mo ago
That's one opinion. My opinion is public transport is phenomenal. It's relatively reliable (very in some places), generally clean and safe, low cost, encourages urban/high efficiency development, protects greenspace, and employees people.
- hcurtiss 10mo ago
  I'm not sure where you live, but that doesn't match my experience at all. And I think most people agree given the overwhelming majority of people who choose to drive, notwithstanding traffic and parking. The declining public transit ridership in most metropolitan areas over time is well documented.[1] It's because in most places -- but evidently not where you live -- public transit sucks relative to private transportation and ride-hailing services. As discussed above, EV autonomy will only increase the difference. [1] https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/fta-transit-ridership-per-capita-report/737603/#:~:text=The%20FTA,as%20high-capacity https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/fta-transit-ridership-p...
  - eldaisfish 10mo ago
    most people in the US are forced to drive, they don't willingly choose to sink large sums of money into a rolling metal cage.
    - nradov 10mo ago
      Speak for yourself. I love my cars. For a relatively modest expense they allow me to go wherever, whenever I want and bring all my stuff with me. This is a miracle of modern civilization.
      - eldaisfish 10mo ago
        as is the consequent traffic, pollution and inefficiency that choices like yours add up to.
        nradov 10mo ago
        Well I guess it beats having horse manure in the streets.
- ekianjo 10mo ago
  What are you talking about? In most cities public transport sucks, hardly goes anywhere, gets more expensive year after year, makes housing prices go up, and is slow and inflexible enough that people still end up needing cars to go around
  - zx8080 10mo ago
    It's interesting to read such an opposite opinions on public transport from Americans and Europeans.
    - andsoitis 10mo ago
      Worth noting that only 17% of passenger transport activity in the EU is public transit (trains and buses). https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/share-of-buses-and-trains https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/share-of-bu...
- jjav 10mo ago
  > It's relatively reliable In most places it is not, which is a big drawback. Every week I hear on the news how the train shut down some stations or got massively delayed for random reasons. I couldn't possibly rely on that if I need to be at work at a specific time.
llbeansandrice 10mo ago
> You'll survive the tire pollution. I tend to expect better from HN commenters. I don't have an interest in having a discussion with such a callous and dismissive comment. I hope your day gets better. Tire pollution is worse than tailpipe emissions and the full effects aren't known. You're dismissive of other people's and the environment's health and you're wrong. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyres-produce-more-particle-pollution-than-exhausts-tests-show https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyre...
- andsoitis 10mo ago
  > Tire pollution is worse than tailpipe emissions and the full effects aren't known. You're dismissive of other people's and the environment's health and you're wrong. Tire pollution is now as large or larger than tailpipe particulate pollution, but it’s not a complete apples-to-apples comparison. Tail pipe pollution includes CO₂, NOx, SO₂, CO, and fine particulates (PM2.5 + PM10) and is strongly linked to asthma, heart disease, climate change. Tire pollution on the other hand is microplastics, synthetic rubber particles, zinc, and volatile organic compounds. Toxic to aquatic life; long-term human health effects still being studied.
- simondotau 10mo ago
  A typical ICE car will consume at least 500 gallons of petrol (gasoline) per 1 gallon of tire tread worn. The environmental impact per volume of tire is certainly greater, but it's not remotely five hundred times greater. I'm not saying we should disregard the issue of tire pollution. But if it was as serious as you suggest, it would be making more headlines than it is.
  - pastel8739 10mo ago
    Why wouldn’t it be 500 times greater? Gasoline is combusted for energy, converting most of it into mostly harmless byproducts; tire tread is just released as is.
    - simondotau 10mo ago
stephen_g 10mo ago
> Public transit is a dream turned nightmare consistently for seventy-five years *In the United States. For reasons we have avoided in much of the rest of the world...
- echelon 10mo ago
  The United States is freaking huge. By the time modern transportation arrived, people were already living all over the country in pockets every which where. We opted for cars and planes to cover the vast distances. And as it turns out, we have some of the best in the world of both of these - and in vast quantities. We do have dense pockets. NYC, in particular, has a nice metro (it just needs to be cleaner and more modernized - but it's great otherwise). Most countries are small. Their dense cities are well-served by public transit. America is just too spread out. Insanely spread out. China is an exception in that, while a huge landmass, its large cities emerged as the country was wholesale industrializing. It was easy for them to allocate lots of points to infrastructure. And given their unmatched population size and density, it makes a lot of sense. As much as I envy China's infrastructure (I've been on their metros - they're amazing!), it would be a supreme malinvestment here in the United States to try to follow in their footsteps. The situation we have here is optimal for our density and the preferences of our citizens. (As much as people love to complain about cars, even more people than those that complain really love their cars.) Public transit in the US is probably going to wind down as autonomous driving picks up the slack. Our road infrastructure is the very best in the world - it's more expansive, comprehensive, and well-maintained than any nation on the planet. We'd be wise to double down. It can turn into a super power once the machines take over driving for us. The fact that we have this extent of totally unmatched road infrastructure might actually turn out to be hugely advantageous over countries that opted for static, expensive heavy rail. Our system is flexible, last mile, to every address in the country. With multiple routes, re-routes, detours. Roads are America's central nervous system. Our interstate system is flexible, and when cars turn into IP packets, we'll have the thickest and most flexible infrastructure in the world. We've shit on cars for the last 15 years under the guise that "strong towns" are correct and that cars are bad. But as it may turn out, these sleeping pieces of infrastructure might actually be the best investment we've ever made. Going to call this now: in 20 years' time, cars will make America OP. Those things everything complains about - they'll be America's superpower. The rest of the world with their heavy rail trains and public transit will be jealous. Our highways will turn into smart logistics corridors that get people and goods P2P at high speed and low cost to every inch of the country. Roads are truly America's circulatory and nervous system. I'm so stoked for this. I once fell for the "we need more trains meme" - that was a suboptima anachronism, and our peak will be 100x higher than expensive, inflexible heavy rail.
deaux 10mo ago
> I'm all for it. You'll survive the tire pollution. Will you enthusiastically support the taxes on you needed to entirely offset this negative externality?
- echelon 10mo ago
  Rubber ppm over some threshold safety level is a negative externality worth maybe a few billion in remediation, healthcare costs, etc. (As a society, we're still not convinced pulmonary health as impacted by particulate inhalation is important - which is a mistake. It absolutely is a big deal and negative externality driving a whole host of bad health outcomes.) Malinvestment into public transit in a way that serves only a limited few of the population and that costs 10x the already high initial estimates is a negative drain on the balance sheet worth 500 billion or more. And this infra is woefully inflexible and static. California HSR alone is already suboptimal vs. flights, and once we have long distance autonomous self-driving, that'll meet the same demand with 1/100,0000,000th the cost (if you average out the costs and benefits of self driving over all other routes).
  - nine_k 10mo ago
    California is just uniquely dysfunctional in many ways.
  - bdamm 10mo ago
    Can we solve the poisoning of fish while we're at it?

jmye 10mo ago

> I hope to god this never ever happens. Then I'll never buy an autonomous vehicle. I get that most people just want short trips around a major city, but given we, I'm sure it's shocking, don't all live in places like that, or want to spend our time in places like that, it might behoove y'all to solve for other use cases if you want widespread adoption (or at least accept that it's ok to solve for those use cases). Or, I guess, you can hope that everyone will suddenly decide that all they want is to live in modern Kowloon City because "roads are awful" or whatever memetic nonsense is trending on TikTok.

eldaisfish 10mo ago
"we" here is a minority of the population in any developed country. The vast majority of people - almost globally - live in dense areas.
- robocat 10mo ago
  Rubbish. Population density varies, and your cutoff between "dense" and "not dense" must be tautological.

robocat 10mo ago

> If your car isn't packed to capacity on every single trip, it is less efficient and worse than public transit. Cost is a great proxy for costs versus benefits. People choose cars because they are efficient for them. In theory public transit is efficient. In practice, only if you live in a very high density area, or you value your time at $0.

eldaisfish 10mo ago
cars are barely efficient in terms of time. In cost terms, cars are incredibly expensive once you add in infrastructure costs, insurance, fuel, the cost of land use, etc. Public transit is efficient even outside areas of high density - see suburban Europe or India. Why are so many people here utterly car-brained?
- nradov 10mo ago
  Have you ever actually been to Europe? Public transit is pretty good in first-tier cities like Vienna / Stockholm / London where tourists spend most of their time. But out in the smaller cities and rural areas where regular people live there's very little public transit except for slow and inconvenient buses. So everyone drives. Or if they're too poor to afford a car then they just don't go anywhere.
  - eldaisfish 10mo ago
    are you familiar with population distributions and the fact that more of the word lives in urban areas than rural? >So everyone drives Citation needed, because this is obviously false. >Or if they're too poor to afford a car then they just don't go anywhere What a horrible thing to say.
    - nradov 10mo ago
      Horrible how? I'm telling you that's the reality, not that it's a good thing. Unlike you I've actually been to those places and talked to the locals.
  - 10mo ago