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My family doesn't own our cars because we like driving them. We own them for convenience! The prospect of ordering a car, waiting for it to arrive, futzing with

My family doesn't own our cars because we like driving them. We own them for convenience! The prospect of ordering a car, waiting for it to arrive, futzing with car seats, transferring car toys, dealing with scarcity and surge pricing, etc. for every trip is very unappealing. And renting is usually more expensive than owning anyways! In the near term, I'm looking forwards to hybrid assistive technologies. We took a vacation that required seven hours of highway driving. Toyota's freeway mode ("Automated Highway Driving Assist"), which controls speed and steering, would have made a big difference.

aetherson 12y ago
I think that virtually nobody who is certain that self-driving cars will be short-term rentals (ie, the Uber model) has children. It's a HUGE blind spot that the of course mostly very young, mostly childless tech commentariat has. The value of car ownership as a way to have large amounts of your property available at whatever location you are presently at without you constantly engaging in a bunch of loading and unloading work is not to be underestimated. (There are plenty of other ways that long-term rental or ownership of driverless cars makes sense, too. How prevalent a ride-for-hire model will be is going to depend on lots of details about the technology; it's not a given.)
- xur17 12y ago
  They'll likely start expensive, and mainly be viable for short-term rental services, which are mainly used by people living in cities, etc. Then, as prices drop, some people will start to own them for convenience, but I expect car ownership to drop. Maybe people will only own one car to cover the situations you described, and rent when they need more than one. As a young person living in a city, I'm looking forward to getting rid of my car, and not having to worry about maintenance, etc. I expect it to be competitive with the cost of owning your own car.
  - aetherson 12y ago
    I think I more or less expect car ownership to drop at least a little as well. That said, let me present the other case: Car ownership is very prevalent right now. A driverless car that you can own is higher value than a traditional car you can own. Particularly, the owned driverless car: 1. Can be operated by a passenger who is not legal or safe to drive a traditional car, for reasons including but not limited to: sleepy, under the influence of alcohol, disabled, or (importantly) TOO YOUNG. 2. Can be used as a mobile depot for goods even in situations where a traditional car is impractical for such purposes (such as when parking is too much of a pain in the ass). 3. Can be more efficiently shared among a family, doing things like dropping a working family-member off at their job and then coming back home to serve the non-working family-member. So while there may be young urban people who choose not to buy a car and instead rent it per-ride, they will be more than counterbalanced by the following rises in car ownership: * Wealthy families who had one or two traditional cars and choose to buy two or three driverless cars, with the extra car devoted to driving the kids around when the parents don't want to. * Cost-constrained couples who have the need for effectively two cars but only the money for one who previously chose to apply that money to public transit, but now buy a driverless car and share it. * Wealthy urban dwellers who previously don't really like public transit/don't find it that convenient but previously coped with it because cars were so inconvenient now buy a driverless car that has increased utility in their city (because they don't need to park it/can use it when going out drinking/don't need to pay attention while in-transit). They don't go with the Uber option because they aren't cost-constrained and they like the privacy, reliability, and prestige of owning.
- eru 12y ago
  > I think that virtually nobody who is certain that self-driving cars will be short-term rentals (ie, the Uber model) has children. It's a HUGE blind spot that the of course mostly very young, mostly childless tech commentariat has. Why? Can't be less convenient than trains or planes. People take those all the time with kids. (My parents used to.)
  - aetherson 12y ago
    I have a hard time believing this is a serious comment. Obviously plane travel is in no way comparable to travel intended to replace the family car -- they're wildly different modes of transportation with different destinations, plane travel is vastly less frequent, and its many annoyances are dealt with because it is the only reasonably expedited way to travel the distances it covers. Depending on what you mean by "train" travel, that is perhaps more comparable (ie, local subway is in some ways a substitutable good for local car travel). In short, though: families are considerably less likely to find local rail travel useful than are single people. Yes, of course you can find people who use it by choice or necessity. But when you have to tote a baby carrier and diaper bag, or your kid's soccer gear, or just keep track of a gaggle of children in a crowded train, it's just much less convenient.
- ollysb 12y ago
  Couldn't you order a car replete with everything you needed? There are lot's of parents on the roads, presumably there's a fair degree of overlap regarding what they'd want in the car?
  - aetherson 12y ago
    No, of course not. It's not generic cartons of "insert kid item here," it's your stuff. It's your kid's clothes, it's your stroller, it's your sporting goods, it's all the elements of a life that isn't the mid-20's techie lifestyle, where all your important material goods are your various computing devices at home and your smartphone. I suppose that you could try to have the cars come with baby seats (though there are like a million variations of baby seats depending on the age of your child, so that's going to be a headache) and things like kleenex/wipes/snacks/drinks (though replenishing those is going to be a huge logistical issue and there are some legit sanitary concerns). But lots of the stuff people tote around is individual, valuable property. This is what I'm saying about the blind spot of the tech commentariat. Next time you walk past a family unloading their car, glance at their trunk. It's twice the size of your car's trunk, and it's filled with stuff all the time.
- lallysingh 12y ago
  When you start going up the ladder in the tech community, you'll see that people are older and have children. The reason that kids aren't discussed in this scenario is that they don't present any complications, technically or business-wise. If you've got that much stuff to carry with them, then swap the cache you're using the car for with a big bag. Then move the big bag in and out of the car as needed. If that's too much hassle, then you're out of luck. You've got too much value in the vehicle when it's not operating (for storage).
  - jpatokal 12y ago
    I think you've just proved the previous poster's point here: child seats alone most certainly present "complications". They have to be fitted precisely to your child, they're a pain in the ass to install, and they have to be installed carefully, or they're worse than useless in an accident. For a typical parent use case like taking your kid to daycare and back, installing and fitting a seat twice a day in any sort of rental car is a complete non-starter.
ghaff 12y ago
From a technology perspective as well, autonomous operations on designated sections of highways seems much more practical and nearer-term than visions of robo-Uber. I suspect a lot of the enthusiasm comes from urbanites who only marginally need a car today. And the capability gap between today's assistive technologies or even truly autonomous highway operations and being able to just virtually hail a robotic cab in a city seems as if it's a lot bigger than a lot of people appreciate. I suspect this has been the source of much of the tension between the auto makers and Google. I'm all for having a vision of what's ultimately probably possible but there would seem to be pretty compelling interim steps that seem much more achievable in interesting time horizons. They're probably not very interesting is you just drive around cities or congested suburbia but they look pretty appealing if you do any amount of longer distance driving.
- eru 12y ago
  I think a robo-Uber is more likely. Mostly because the designated highway sections would require concerted public actions and overcoming a lot of NIMBYs. Robo-Uber requires to solve technical problems (and some regulation). Designated lanes are more of a social problem. (We could have had automatic driving on designated roads for decades; just make the cars run on rails, too.)
  - bsdetector 12y ago
    On the other hand highways are much simpler and could be completely self-driven with today's technology, probably much more safely than a human driver. This takes people out of high-stakes boring driving where the vast majority of fatalities take place and give them an easier, safer commute. I can't react to debris in the road, a pothole, or a deer crossing the road in 1 ms like an automated driver can and at 80 MPH that's where it really matters. A 25 MPH collision is basically just a matter of money, as with today's cars there's almost no mortal danger. Hitting a deer at highway speeds is a life-threatening problem. You can make a flatbed-type powered sled that people drive their cars onto and it drives you from exit A to exit B. It can enclose and lock the wheels of your car for safety. This can even be electric or hybrid to reduce costs with a long, flat Tesla-like battery under the flatbed. If I could drive my car onto a system like this and take a nap for 5 hours on the highway I would do this in a heartbeat because I have confidence that today's technology can drive a restricted access road better than I can in good conditions.

aetherson 12y ago

I think that virtually nobody who is certain that self-driving cars will be short-term rentals (ie, the Uber model) has children. It's a HUGE blind spot that the of course mostly very young, mostly childless tech commentariat has. The value of car ownership as a way to have large amounts of your property available at whatever location you are presently at without you constantly engaging in a bunch of loading and unloading work is not to be underestimated. (There are plenty of other ways that long-term rental or ownership of driverless cars makes sense, too. How prevalent a ride-for-hire model will be is going to depend on lots of details about the technology; it's not a given.)

xur17 12y ago
They'll likely start expensive, and mainly be viable for short-term rental services, which are mainly used by people living in cities, etc. Then, as prices drop, some people will start to own them for convenience, but I expect car ownership to drop. Maybe people will only own one car to cover the situations you described, and rent when they need more than one. As a young person living in a city, I'm looking forward to getting rid of my car, and not having to worry about maintenance, etc. I expect it to be competitive with the cost of owning your own car.
- aetherson 12y ago
  I think I more or less expect car ownership to drop at least a little as well. That said, let me present the other case: Car ownership is very prevalent right now. A driverless car that you can own is higher value than a traditional car you can own. Particularly, the owned driverless car: 1. Can be operated by a passenger who is not legal or safe to drive a traditional car, for reasons including but not limited to: sleepy, under the influence of alcohol, disabled, or (importantly) TOO YOUNG. 2. Can be used as a mobile depot for goods even in situations where a traditional car is impractical for such purposes (such as when parking is too much of a pain in the ass). 3. Can be more efficiently shared among a family, doing things like dropping a working family-member off at their job and then coming back home to serve the non-working family-member. So while there may be young urban people who choose not to buy a car and instead rent it per-ride, they will be more than counterbalanced by the following rises in car ownership: * Wealthy families who had one or two traditional cars and choose to buy two or three driverless cars, with the extra car devoted to driving the kids around when the parents don't want to. * Cost-constrained couples who have the need for effectively two cars but only the money for one who previously chose to apply that money to public transit, but now buy a driverless car and share it. * Wealthy urban dwellers who previously don't really like public transit/don't find it that convenient but previously coped with it because cars were so inconvenient now buy a driverless car that has increased utility in their city (because they don't need to park it/can use it when going out drinking/don't need to pay attention while in-transit). They don't go with the Uber option because they aren't cost-constrained and they like the privacy, reliability, and prestige of owning.
eru 12y ago
> I think that virtually nobody who is certain that self-driving cars will be short-term rentals (ie, the Uber model) has children. It's a HUGE blind spot that the of course mostly very young, mostly childless tech commentariat has. Why? Can't be less convenient than trains or planes. People take those all the time with kids. (My parents used to.)
- aetherson 12y ago
  I have a hard time believing this is a serious comment. Obviously plane travel is in no way comparable to travel intended to replace the family car -- they're wildly different modes of transportation with different destinations, plane travel is vastly less frequent, and its many annoyances are dealt with because it is the only reasonably expedited way to travel the distances it covers. Depending on what you mean by "train" travel, that is perhaps more comparable (ie, local subway is in some ways a substitutable good for local car travel). In short, though: families are considerably less likely to find local rail travel useful than are single people. Yes, of course you can find people who use it by choice or necessity. But when you have to tote a baby carrier and diaper bag, or your kid's soccer gear, or just keep track of a gaggle of children in a crowded train, it's just much less convenient.
ollysb 12y ago
Couldn't you order a car replete with everything you needed? There are lot's of parents on the roads, presumably there's a fair degree of overlap regarding what they'd want in the car?
- aetherson 12y ago
  No, of course not. It's not generic cartons of "insert kid item here," it's your stuff. It's your kid's clothes, it's your stroller, it's your sporting goods, it's all the elements of a life that isn't the mid-20's techie lifestyle, where all your important material goods are your various computing devices at home and your smartphone. I suppose that you could try to have the cars come with baby seats (though there are like a million variations of baby seats depending on the age of your child, so that's going to be a headache) and things like kleenex/wipes/snacks/drinks (though replenishing those is going to be a huge logistical issue and there are some legit sanitary concerns). But lots of the stuff people tote around is individual, valuable property. This is what I'm saying about the blind spot of the tech commentariat. Next time you walk past a family unloading their car, glance at their trunk. It's twice the size of your car's trunk, and it's filled with stuff all the time.
lallysingh 12y ago
When you start going up the ladder in the tech community, you'll see that people are older and have children. The reason that kids aren't discussed in this scenario is that they don't present any complications, technically or business-wise. If you've got that much stuff to carry with them, then swap the cache you're using the car for with a big bag. Then move the big bag in and out of the car as needed. If that's too much hassle, then you're out of luck. You've got too much value in the vehicle when it's not operating (for storage).
- jpatokal 12y ago
  I think you've just proved the previous poster's point here: child seats alone most certainly present "complications". They have to be fitted precisely to your child, they're a pain in the ass to install, and they have to be installed carefully, or they're worse than useless in an accident. For a typical parent use case like taking your kid to daycare and back, installing and fitting a seat twice a day in any sort of rental car is a complete non-starter.

ghaff 12y ago

From a technology perspective as well, autonomous operations on designated sections of highways seems much more practical and nearer-term than visions of robo-Uber. I suspect a lot of the enthusiasm comes from urbanites who only marginally need a car today. And the capability gap between today's assistive technologies or even truly autonomous highway operations and being able to just virtually hail a robotic cab in a city seems as if it's a lot bigger than a lot of people appreciate. I suspect this has been the source of much of the tension between the auto makers and Google. I'm all for having a vision of what's ultimately probably possible but there would seem to be pretty compelling interim steps that seem much more achievable in interesting time horizons. They're probably not very interesting is you just drive around cities or congested suburbia but they look pretty appealing if you do any amount of longer distance driving.

eru 12y ago
I think a robo-Uber is more likely. Mostly because the designated highway sections would require concerted public actions and overcoming a lot of NIMBYs. Robo-Uber requires to solve technical problems (and some regulation). Designated lanes are more of a social problem. (We could have had automatic driving on designated roads for decades; just make the cars run on rails, too.)
- bsdetector 12y ago
  On the other hand highways are much simpler and could be completely self-driven with today's technology, probably much more safely than a human driver. This takes people out of high-stakes boring driving where the vast majority of fatalities take place and give them an easier, safer commute. I can't react to debris in the road, a pothole, or a deer crossing the road in 1 ms like an automated driver can and at 80 MPH that's where it really matters. A 25 MPH collision is basically just a matter of money, as with today's cars there's almost no mortal danger. Hitting a deer at highway speeds is a life-threatening problem. You can make a flatbed-type powered sled that people drive their cars onto and it drives you from exit A to exit B. It can enclose and lock the wheels of your car for safety. This can even be electric or hybrid to reduce costs with a long, flat Tesla-like battery under the flatbed. If I could drive my car onto a system like this and take a nap for 5 hours on the highway I would do this in a heartbeat because I have confidence that today's technology can drive a restricted access road better than I can in good conditions.