Opinion: Owning a Car Will Soon Be as Quaint as Owning a Horse
I will die before I buy another car. I don't say that because I am particularly old or sick, but because I am at the front end of one of the next major secular trends in tech. Owning a car will soon be like owning a horse — a quaint hobby, an interesting rarity and a cool thing to take out for a spin on the weekend.
Before you object, let me be clear: I will drive in cars until I die. But the concept of actually purchasing, maintaining, insuring and garaging an automobile in the next few decades? Finished.
[...] It's obviously an easier decision if you live near a major metropolitan area, like I do, where the alternatives — cars and then car pools and then bikes and now scooters — are myriad. (Why, by the way, this is a revolution led by private companies instead of public transportation is an important topic for another day.) In other countries, often with denser populations, there are even more ideas bubbling up, from auto-rickshaws and motorbike taxis to new bus services.
Obviously, the biggest change will be the advent of truly autonomous vehicles, which are still years or even decades in the future. But in the meantime I am going to lean into this future all I can, and will chronicle the efforts over the next year, its costs and its benefits and how I get there. Or not.
Related Stories
Uber Sells Off Self-Driving and Flying Taxi Units
Uber sells its self-driving unit to Aurora
Uber's self-driving unit, Advanced Technologies Group (ATG), is being acquired by its start-up competitor Aurora Innovation, the companies announced Monday.
The deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2021, values ATG at approximately $4 billion. The unit was valued at $7.25 billion in Apr. 2019 when Softbank, Denso and Toyota took a stake.
[...] Uber's co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick had viewed self-driving as an essential investment, saying in 2016 he believed the world would shift to autonomous vehicles. ATG had been a long-term play for Uber, but the unit brought high costs and safety challenges. Throughout the course of a pandemic-stricken year, Uber has made efforts to stem losses in its ride hailing business, control business costs -- including with major layoffs in the spring -- and to grow its delivery business.
Uber is also reportedly selling its flying taxi division to Joby Aviation, presumably putting an end to its involvement with the U.S. Army.
Uber has been scaling back its driverless car efforts since it caused the death of a pedestrian in 2018. Uber has never had a profitable quarter.
Also at NYT, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, and The Verge.
Previously: The Fall of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick
Uber Pulls Self-Driving Cars After First Fatal Crash of Autonomous Vehicle
Uber Shutting Down Self-Driving Truck Division
Uber Allegedly Ignored Safety Warnings Before Self-Driving Fatality
Will Car Ownership Soon Become "Quaint"?
Uber Freezes Engineering Hires Amid Mounting Losses
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:01AM (6 children)
Back to Dark Ages, plebs renting small areas to cultivate. Now cars to move around (and maybe also the homes where to sleep). If you really have money, you own without problems. Multiple times. Otherwise you rent, and in the long term keep less, because the difference goes to others.
Revolutions led by private companies... guess why... profit. Even in places where health system is public, companies are pushing to privatise it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by isostatic on Monday March 25 2019, @07:56AM (4 children)
Land appreciates in value (they’re not making any more of it)
Cars depreciate
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @10:11AM (3 children)
An uneducated argument. There's plenty of unoccupied land, some places will pay you to live on it. Also yes, "they" are making more of it (see islands in Dubai and South China Sea).
Cars do depreciate, and the rent you'll pay already includes it.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday March 25 2019, @04:29PM (2 children)
There's plenty of unoccupied land
:-) There's usually a pretty good reason for that. On the other hand, there is Palm Springs.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @11:25PM (1 child)
That's true, I was trying to illustrate that there's still plenty of land, not all land appreciates in value, and "they" *are* making more of it.
It's on the same hand! Plenty of reasons to not live there :)
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 26 2019, @12:37AM
On the whole land gets more valuable. Sure places like Detroit may go down in value, but nowhere near as much as cars, or a conservative sandwich heavy portfolio [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday March 25 2019, @09:27AM
First thing: Betteridge's Law.
Apart from that, what's she going to be using instead, solar-powered maglev monorails running off power too cheap to meter?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday March 25 2019, @05:21AM (16 children)
Leaving aside the whole big city arrogance thing (and the ridiculous pronouncements and judgments of such snobs) this is not at all like "owning a horse will be quaint." Back in the day when horses were the transportation tool, the vast majority of people in massive cities didn't own them either but would rely on the then equivalent to cabs or uber. The fact that denizens of the modern metroplosis would also not own cars is thus not surprising and says nothing at all about the utility of cars.
What changed for people who needed a personal horse was that a more efficient mode of transportation became available which is why owning a car superseded the owning of horses for practical uses, although there are scenarios where horses are still the superior mode (back country packing, especially in mountainous terrain, for example).
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday March 25 2019, @05:29AM (3 children)
https://animals.mom.me/average-monthly-cost-owning-horse-5504.html [animals.mom.me]
So owning a horse if you don't own your own stable is going to be like 700/night. I imagine these costs would have been lower (not just inflation) back then because it was the prevailing industry, but you are still paying a lot.
Modern price to own a car is what? 120/200 for a corolla? 3-500 for not a corolla, then gas on top of that with insurance. But pretty doable if we just assume 200.
Guess our lives are improved by some tiny amount in a hundred years
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:35AM (2 children)
I think you meant $700/month.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday March 25 2019, @07:41AM
Or maybe 700 cents per night? After all, no monetary unit was given.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @04:50PM
Even that is high. I just checked Craigslist and there's a place that will board for $100/mo you feed, or $150/mo and they feed. It doesn't say anything about exercise though. Usually you can find somebody who wants to ride your horse once in a while. The hard part is probably getting the proper daily exercise. Then of course there's vet care, but it might not be too much more expense than a car. Thing is, it's a luxury. My area is generally regarded as expensive, and I have no idea about the rep of a stable that advertises on CL--maybe they suck. It was the only ad. I'd shop around and ask other horse people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:07AM (8 children)
Or they could rent one from a livery stable, like the Lincoln assassins did.
Owning a horse is not quaint, it's just expensive as fuck.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday March 25 2019, @06:41AM (7 children)
Quaint is not a matter of "when" it's more a matter of "where".
I imagine that living at countryside property with a stable makes from owning a horse affordable even nowadays.
On the other side, owning a car in a big city is expensive as fuck today - for almost the same reason you can't own a horse in a big city: parking (granted, a horse will have higher maintenance cost, but the major cost is still "parking" - i.e. the stable).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hartree on Monday March 25 2019, @07:34AM (6 children)
Location is a big thing.
My boss moved out of her apartment into a rural house with a barn and three outbuildings. She also moved her horse that she had been paying to be stabled to the barn. Between those she's paying about the same in mortgage as she was in rent and boarding fees and is building equity. The house is about twice as far from work as her apartment, so she has to pay a bit more in fuel but it was quite equitable.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aiwarrior on Monday March 25 2019, @09:58AM (5 children)
And spend her precious time in commuting. Thanks but no thanks. Money can be earned back. Times does not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:13PM
I don't know about OP's boss, but my move from the city to the country increased my commute distance by 10 mi, but reduced my commute time by 15 min because I no longer need to go across the entire city and deal with traffic the entire way.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Monday March 25 2019, @02:38PM
A slightly longer commute in exchange for a nice private country home? I'd do it in a heartbeat.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:24PM (1 child)
Commutte time is not always wasted. For example, now that I do not commutte I struggle to find the time in my day to listen to audio books.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:26AM
Nailed it in one. It adds about 20 minutes to her commute, but she's an audiobook addict, so doesn't mind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:55PM
She also doesn't spend any precious time listening to her upstairs neighbors clacking around.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday March 25 2019, @01:30PM (2 children)
Moreover, TFA's comparison with horses taking over from cars is utter nonsense.
Cars and horses, apart from both being forms of transport, are otherwise radically different - in speed for a start. OTOH, cars that are owned and cars that are hired are very similar; in fact the difference is only visible in their paperwork. For as long as they exist, owned and hired cars will always exist in parallel, as they have for a long time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @09:29PM
And cows taking over from cars is udder nonsense.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:35AM
Cars that are hired are much like horses that were hired. Urban people did not own a horse, they called a cab or rented. In the future, I think rural people will still own cars (just like they owned horses) as it is hard to depend on a cab in the countryside
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:35AM (7 children)
Families need cars. There are just too many things to do and places to go. Concentrated urban areas may be able to avoid car ownership (like they do today), but not other places.
Just think of all the other cars you see on the road during peak traffic times. Most of those people are still going to need to get from where they're coming from to where they're going to around the same time. That's not going to happen with this "someone else's automobiles at your beck and call" mentality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:38AM (6 children)
You click button on app to summon driverless van. What amount of time is acceptable for it to get there? 10 minutes? Hit the button 10 minutes before you want to leave. Or you could schedule it in advance so it arrives around the exact time you want it to show up.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @11:46AM (5 children)
> schedule it in advance so it arrives around the exact time you want it to show up.
And if a gazillion others want to get somewhere at the same time, a bidding war will ensue for the scarce resource. As long as there are rush hours, because businesses open and close around the same time of day, there will be peak demands for transportation.
Can someone explain to me how driverless rideshare cars drastically reduce the number of cars in the system (as is being claimed for a metro area)? I can see a small reduction because some small number of people don't travel during rush hour, that's about it??
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday March 25 2019, @12:16PM (3 children)
You said yourself: sharing. You start by replacing every car by a driverless one - no net gain yet. Then, you account for the possiblity of sharing. First, for peak hours, you will be able to select what of group of people you feel comfortable to share with (let's say by profession, also a similar destination will be a natural selection), you may blacklist people. Some people will take the discount and share. Next, in non-peak times there is an abundance of cars. If the pool of people does not overlap completely with the pool of people going at peak (and this is highly likely) there is potential. Finally, being able to work in the car might make commuting more flexible (go an hour later but login in when you are in the car and do your email). As to how much these potentials will be realized is an open question, I think, but the potential is there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @01:13PM
Ok, previous AC here. Sounds like there isn't any magic sauce, just incremental improvements available. From all the hype, I thought I might be missing something?
Note that ridesharing is already a thing, so any increase in that segment will also be incremental. See for example, https://www.rideshare.com/ [rideshare.com] Many cities have designated outlying lots where an inbound commuter can stop and pick up one or more people to take along on their commute.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday March 25 2019, @05:28PM
> Then, you account for the possiblity of sharing. First, for peak hours, you will be able to select what of group of people you feel comfortable to share with
Why have the passengers in the same open compartment? Why not have partitions that allow you to have some security and privacy? Imagine a 4-door car with internal partitions between the 3 passenger seats. Your door stays locked until you arrive at your destination, and then only your door opens. Same with pickup - only your door opens when the car arrives.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @12:56AM
Consider an evacuation from a class 5 hurricane.
All vehicles need to go the same direction. All vehicles are going a long distance. It is thus nearly impossible to reuse the vehicles; they are occupied and moving far away.
The government even reverses the direction on one side of the freeway, doubling the evacuation capacity of the road network. Attempting to return to the city may be illegal, and will at least encounter a state police road block along most routes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:42PM
Indeed, if nobody changes their routes or times then replacing a driverless car with an autonomous one obviously does nothing for traffic. Carpooling might be a bit easier to arrange with computers planning routes automatically, but really I would not expect there to be a sudden shift in the number of carpoolers unless not carpooling becomes prohibitively expensive for most people.
Where I do see a place for autonomous vehicles that may help with traffic is completely replacing milk run bus routes, picking people up wherever they happen to be and transporting them directly to or from mass transit hubs.
Assuming the milk runs being replaced are not where the traffic problems are, this might significantly reduce some of the biggest pain points of using mass transit and thus increase the proportion of people in a city who are actually using mass transit.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:35AM (2 children)
Uber/Lyft and other transportation and future driverless vehicle transportation are and will be wonderful for cities and metro areas. And moderately populous rural areas. But for truly rural areas and for those who enjoy driving up into the mountains on dirt roads, it will be a LOOONG time yet before one can live without their own vehicle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:41AM (1 child)
Most people will live in the denser areas, and the truly rural will be the quaint group. Even they could end up using driverless vehicles that they own that don't wander off to pick up other passengers. Great for drinking and driving.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday March 25 2019, @11:23AM
So would the people who grow the food that you buy at the grocery be "the quaint group"? Let me know when urban agriculture becomes practical, and let me know when city zoning boards are convinced of that being the case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:59AM (2 children)
Just No.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:03AM
No choice.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday March 25 2019, @06:16AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Disagree) by MostCynical on Monday March 25 2019, @06:28AM
no, but driving yourself will be very "old fashioned"
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @07:16AM
Uh-oh, if we get rid of car dealerships, what industry or industries will their re-employed selves contaminate and transform into the next generation of jokes and consumer warnings? Assuming that they don't all starve out and spare us their continued existence once the motorcar dealership goes the way of the dodo...
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Monday March 25 2019, @07:38AM (5 children)
Be careful who you tell how "quaint" owning a horse is. A lot of horse owners (especially the ladies) can be pretty fanatical. The tongue lashing will be memorable. :)
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Monday March 25 2019, @07:47AM (3 children)
How quaint! :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday March 25 2019, @08:02AM (2 children)
Plus if you want to go meta, if you do quaintly own your own horse, do you plan to rent a car every time you need to cart around any tack?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Hartree on Monday March 25 2019, @08:06AM (1 child)
You'd do better to rent a truck. How else will you pull the horse trailer?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 26 2019, @05:24AM
With horses, of course!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:29PM
Where exactly will said tongue lashing be applied?
*cough*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @08:00AM (1 child)
I can't wait until people who say naughty things or have the wrong political opinions can't get anywhere outside walking distance!
Truly, a free market solution to the US public not being willing to accept a government mandated social credit system, and even better since it drains the bank accounts of gross people! Not even China can get away with that level of suppression!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:20PM
Eerrr, china is currently already restricting travel options (amongst other things) of people with bad social credit scores
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday March 25 2019, @08:00AM (1 child)
Renting a minivan/SUV on-demand in the suburbs? Unlikely.
Car ownership in NYC has been the domain of rich people (who probably have chauffeurs) and cab companies (who drive other people) for as long as I can recall, so in those environments, sure. But if you have anything bigger than a breadbox you want to shuttle around -- which is becoming less likely, with the progress of digital computing, imaging, networking, and storage -- you'll probably want to stick it in the trunk for a few hours. Committed to a team sport or camping? I bet you'll still want your own vehicle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:20PM
Malls are the ideal suburban travel hubs of the future.
You don't think there is any way that someone could start putting shit that people need inside the giant empty malls of america?
That empty sears? With it's loading bays, full service garages with lifts and everything?
Plus they can fill the rest of the mall with shit that people actually need. Like banks,public libraries, movie theatres, government offices, gyms, barbers, laundromats, accountants, maybe an Amazon Featured showroom and some pickup lockers. Refrigerated lockers for Amazon Fresh even, get your groceries and go! Not to mention the good bus and highway access these locations usually have. Often these places have a few dying car dealerships or auto shops right next door.
Most suburban neighborhoods have grocery stores, parks, churches, and schools that have parking that could be used for local drop off. If you're in a hurry they can also host a bike share so you can ride your fat ass back home. They can hire kids to return the bikes like they used to get paid for delivering newspapers or mowing lawns. Wrangling cars could be a good low skill gig, just a clean driving record and you're in.
None of that shit will bring money in hand over fist like a Best Buy selling monster cables and extended warranties in the 90s but oh well.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Bot on Monday March 25 2019, @08:45AM (5 children)
if you let things go, control (of yourself over your life) evaporates.
Car ownership is now pricier than car leasing, because it's better to have people paying amounts every month instead of relying on their DESIRE to buy a new car.
Cars are money sinks by design.
Cities are control sinks by design.
Car ownership will become quaint because OWNERSHIP will become quaint because, goto line 1 of this post.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @11:53AM
> Car ownership is now pricier than car leasing ...
Maybe for some cases, but not if you buy a used car and maintain it. Or, if you don't put many miles on your car (so the fixed costs like insurance dominate).
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday March 25 2019, @01:22PM (1 child)
Not for me it isn't, not by a long, long way. I buy good used cars (2-4 years old) that are indistinguishable from new except by the [UK] licence plate. I know cars and can avoid a lemon. Then I run them, maintain them myself, until the rust takes hold - 10 years maybe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:31PM
Newer cars require to be plugged into a computer to be maintained.
Only authorised mechanics who sign expensive NDAs get the software.
Soon you will be SOL
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday March 25 2019, @05:28PM (1 child)
Darn, I got stuck reading that post for hours!
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday March 28 2019, @03:06PM
I should have used recursion instead, so you'd have run out of stack earlier. Sorry.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:32PM
Welcome Mr/Mrs millennial who lives in a big city. Your life does not necessarily reflect the lives of people living outside your big city. You should get out and travel more. Really.
The time when an Uber/Lyft type service can remove the need for rural people owning cars, trucks and other vehicles is very, very far away. More than any of our lifetimes. Sure, big cities will see car ownership drop - just like they have already. But outside the high density big cities, this trend is not present and will not come for a very long time.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Monday March 25 2019, @05:29PM
I'm middle-aged, I have a car in good shape with a lifetime powertrain warranty (and the way I keep my cars, I expect it to last another 20 years.) I do not expect to own another car in my lifetime even though I have owned 8 other cars previously.
Thanks to the internet, I can work at home, shop at home, and pretty much do the majority of things online. For the majority of my shopping, I prefer the convenience of shopping online. I do prefer getting groceries myself, but most supermarkets now have online ordering with delivery. Even fast food can now be ordered, and regular restaurants are well on their way to doing the same. Actually, if you google "virtual kitchens" you will see that chefs/cooks will not even need a restaurant in the future, but will rent a kitchen/freezer to create a whole menu for delivery.
Fedex is testing robots (in TN) which will do last mile deliveries. It is testing with retail clients to offer same day delivery of purchase... Essentially, order online from target, and have a fedex robot deliver it within hours (or probably minutes.) Amazon has considered drones for last mile deliveries and every now and then you hear of "Pizza Robots" that not only deliver but will cook the pizza on the way to the delivery... talk about fresh.
Every day the things that can be done online without the need to travel somewhere and do it in person increases. Even things that some people think will always need to be in person will end up being done online... Think of a Dr appointment... How long before they can see you with video conferencing combined with a picture of what is wrong, or a phone app to determine heart rate and temperature will allow them to make a diagnosis remotely? Add in a robot delivery of medications minutes later and how often will you need to go to the Dr's office? You will do it for convenience, and so you don't spread your germs to others or have their germs spread to you.
The less you travel, the more expensive each trip costs; as a function of spreading the cost of a purchasing a car, insurance, maintenance, registration, and ad valorem taxes across time/trips. (i.e. a $500 car payment every month makes for very expensive trips if you only use a car once or twice a month.) Eventually, uber, lyft, and the next yet-to-be-announced company becomes sound fiscal advice, and as mentioned by others, owning a car will be something only the rich do.
Autonomous technology will only make the fiscal soundness of this takeover happen quicker. The most expensive part of uber and lyft is not the cost of the cars, but the cost of the driver. Eliminate the need for the driver and competition will drop prices like a rock. I don't even expect uber or lyft to make it in the long term... right now both companies work with drivers and their personal vehicles... they will need to transition to owning their own large fleets. It will be a much easier transition for rental car companies to start offering autonomous car service, and watch them undercut uber and lyft prices right away... they will need to as renting a car will also go the way of the dodo (and horse and buggy) and unlike uber, the rental car companies already have large car fleets across the country. (It may even happen that actual car manufacturers start offering autonomous car service as a way to increase their finances as retail sales dry up.)
If you are in a large city right now, in many cases due to public transportation you can already live easily without a car. Day by day, it will happen in smaller cities and metro areas. It will not happen in rural areas immediately, but ultimately it will happen there as well. With autonomous technology, and no driver to pay, a rural fare is just a longer trip... and in time the cost factors will make car ownership in the rural areas just as fiscally unwise as it is in the city. And while getting a car to pick you up may take a little longer than it does in the city, as also mentioned, as long as you schedule it in advance, a car can be at your doorstep the minute you want it there.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P