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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday December 16 2015, @01:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the who's-gonna-drive-miss-daisy? dept.

The race to bring driverless cars to the masses is only just beginning, but already it is a fight for the ages. The competition is fierce, secretive, and elite. It pits Apple against Google against Tesla against Uber: all titans of Silicon Valley, in many ways as enigmatic as they are revered.

As these technology giants zero in on the car industry, global automakers are being forced to dramatically rethink what it means to build a vehicle for the first time in a century. Aspects of this race evoke several pivotal moments in technological history: the construction of railroads, the dawn of electric light, the birth of the automobile, the beginning of aviation. There's no precedent for what engineers are trying to build now, and no single blueprint for how to build it.

Self-driving cars promise to create a new kind of leisure, offering passengers additional time for reading books, writing email, knitting, practicing an instrument, cracking open a beer, taking a catnap, and any number of other diversions. Peope who are unable to drive themselves could experience a new kind of independence. And self-driving cars could re-contextualize land-use on massive scales. In this imagined mobility utopia, drone trucks would haul packages across the country and no human would have to circle a city block in search of a parking spot.

If self-driving vehicles deliver on their promises, they will save millions of lives over the course of a few decades, destroy and create entire industries, and fundamentally change the human relationship with space and time. All of which is why some of the planet's most valuable companies are pouring billions of dollars into the effort to build driverless cars.

After automation puts everyone out of work, will anyone need to drive anywhere anymore?


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday December 16 2015, @03:47PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 16 2015, @03:47PM (#277145) Journal

    I love suckers like you!

    There's always someone who has to mentally turn a straightforward exchange of service into an imaginary con game.

    Lets say you rent a house for 500 a month (which is low in many areas). You do that for 10 years. At the end of the time your landlord has 40-50k in assets. You have -60k.

    So? Renters routinely don't have to do a bit of upkeep, depending on the terms of the rental contract. So at the end of that time, the renter also has several hundred hours of free time that they wouldn't have had, if they owned the house and less stress. $60k buys a hassle-free roof over your head for ten years? That's worth it.

    Finally, there is the important matter of the illiquidity of many real estate markets. In your home ownership model, you still have to buy and sell the house. That's not a trivial risk since you might be forced to sell into a bad market year.

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  • (Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday December 16 2015, @05:30PM

    by JeanCroix (573) on Wednesday December 16 2015, @05:30PM (#277215)

    a hassle-free roof over your head

    Purely anecdotal, but I was a renter for a dozen or so years before purchasing, and I would certainly never refer to any of the apartments or townhouses I rented as "hassle-free." There was always something. And no landlord was perfect.

    • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday December 16 2015, @07:37PM

      by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday December 16 2015, @07:37PM (#277258)

      As someone else who rented for a number of years before buying a house, I'd agree with you.

      It's not hassle free, but the responsibility still falls on the landlord for repairs. In the last seven years I've had to replace my roof, back door, driveway, rewired the house, and replaced the stove. I suspect next year I'll have to replace the oil tank and the furnace likely will be replaced in the next 2-5 years. So on top of mortgage, taxes, utilities and home owners insurance I've likely spent $25K for maintenance and repairs with another $10K expected in the next few years.

      When I rented I paid rent, utilities (not including sewer/water) and renters insurance, which was quite a bit less than I pay for a mortgage and other costs now. Never had to buy or replace a fridge, stove, washer/dryer or rewire the apartment. I was living in a basement apartment once and had a pipes freeze and break while the owners were vacationing. It took over a week to get the pipes fixed, but I didn't have pay for it directly.

      I still prefer owning my own house though. I couldn't have a wood shop in an apartment.

      --
      "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe