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from the I'm-sorry-Dave,-I-can't-do-that dept.
[...] some experts believe as much as 95% of passenger miles could be electric, autonomous by 2030, thanks to some basic economics. Because electric vehicles cost a whole lot less to drive and maintain—but more to buy—and because autonomous vehicles greatly reduce the cost of commercial driving, a combination of the two technologies will make autonomous Transportation as a Service exponentially more cost competitive than either owning a car, or hiring a car and driver. It's also exponentially more profitable for car companies, who have long feared the loss of maintenance and service profits associated with a transition to electric cars.
This question will come up more frequently as self-driving technology advances. Will perfection of that technology make a difference, though, in the face of social behaviors that have been deeply ingrained over the past century?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:13AM (79 children)
To get in a car last used by some dude who showered sometime last month and left his Burger King trash in the car.
I'm not seeing shared cars as ever becoming a thing. I like my car. I like that I can get in it and go somewhere at a moment's notice. You know that, when shared cars become a thing, the companies that own the cars will keep the fewest number they possibly can, and when you ask for a car to take you to Taco Bell it's gonna take an hour or three for one to be available. Never mind 5 minutes later, when you have your order and want to go home.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:20AM (15 children)
You are no longer representative (or will not be in a shortish time) - get used with the idea, granpa'.
The millennials are driving the economy now and they don't seem to care [google.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jimtheowl on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:27AM (8 children)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:57AM (7 children)
Oh, wise owl, what should I make from your comment if I'm already old? (or at least in the same age group as the poster I was "condescending" towards?)
'Cause it just happens that I am so, and I'm also becoming more adjusted to the (ever waning) importance my age group has in this world.
I wasn't asking for this respect and I don't actually care about having it.
The sooner you get to the same attitude, the less time from your remaining life you'll waste with begging respect on the grounds of advanced age.
Not wasting that time, maybe you'll be able to do something that actually deserves respect; because, you see, the age happens to anyone, but maybe not anyone gets to deserve more respect (than the one every person in this world deserves for simply being a human).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @10:13AM (3 children)
Being a jackass has no age limit.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 26 2017, @11:05AM (2 children)
Even more, it gets better with age
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday July 26 2017, @02:17PM (1 child)
No, it gets better with *practice*.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 26 2017, @09:46PM
Practice require time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Thursday July 27 2017, @09:24AM (2 children)
You should make it a general statement that applies to everyone, not just yourself.
And where would you get the notion that an owl is wise? Probably from television, where you likely take the notions that mocking people and talking shit is a proper way to behave.
Its not about begging for respect, it is about being civil.
That said, consider yourself despised.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 27 2017, @01:17PM (1 child)
If I'm different from some others and I know it, in my honesty I can't make a statement that applies to them as well as me.
Case at hand, I care not for the respect that one should get only because of age.
(ok, for this case I'm willing to change the appellation to "stupid owl". Are you pleased now?)
Eh, traditions, folklore, ancient ones, before people got televisions to dumb them down (so they needed to do it themselves... grin)
You know Pallas Athena? The Greek goddess of wisdom and crafts? The western civilization believe she had a weak spot for owls [wikipedia.org] while in her young ages.
(Just in case you are interested: this is quite inconsequential to me or my quality of sleep)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Thursday July 27 2017, @01:58PM
Your name calling is inconsequential to me but it does say something about you, although I'm sure you don't care.
(Score: 4, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday July 26 2017, @09:20AM
It seems being able to drive is already declining..https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-decline-of-the-drivers-license/425169/
And not just millenials..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:15PM
I've read that, but I'm not seeing it. Most places in the US have terrible public transportation. My oldest daughter doesn't drive, but it's because of here severe ADD. My younest has been driving since she was sixteen, as do all the others in their twenties and early thirties I know.
It's probably true in parts of Europe, but not here.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 27 2017, @01:44AM (3 children)
So the "millennials" are going to pay for the experience of waiting one to three hours for a car? Any other fantasies you want to share with us?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 27 2017, @05:07AM (2 children)
One to three hours? I don't have to wait that long for a taxi today, so why should I have to wait that long for an autonomous car?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 27 2017, @12:56PM
I've had to wait an hour for a taxi before so it's not that weird. My presumption was that that the previous replier, c0lo accepted [soylentnews.org] the viewpoint of the AC who made that claim and doubled down by saying that "millennials" would be accepting of such long waits because they're into the experience economy. The implication is that waiting hours for a self-driving taxi is an "experience" worth paying for. I don't buy that in the least.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Thursday July 27 2017, @04:08PM
And where do you live? In Detroit, where everyone is /expected/ to have a car, a taxi comes with a long wait unless you schedule the ride hours beforehand. In the suburbs it's worse, you might not even be able to GET a taxi. Being philosophically opposed to uber and the like, I don't have any experience with those, but I'm told it's not much better.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:23AM (26 children)
Loads of people say that/... but loads of people also catch busses. trains and all that public transport that is affordable.
The moment a private drive-me-anywhere vehicle comes at an affordable rate, people will use it.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday July 26 2017, @08:11AM (1 child)
I live in San Diego. Mass transit is pretty much a joke. Trolley? 45 minutes from home to downtown and costs twice what gas would. Trolley to work? Doesn't go within 15 miles of my job (but they're working on that, it will be ready after I retire).
Bus? Um, no. Slower than the trolley, not as comfortable, getting to work would take a couple hours.
Taxi? Oh hell no. Too damn expensive, I'd rather trade favors with friends. Uber/Lyft? If I run out of friends I'll look into them.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:27PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @08:19AM (13 children)
You assume that a person doesn't value their own time. People do use public transportation, mass transit, etc but that's only a small percentage of the population. Not owning a vehicle and having to get to work on time will be difficult unless there are enough available cars for hire to pick everyone up around the time they would normally leave for work.
Sure, people can car pool, but that takes longer each way. More people could take busses but only if the bus routes are close to home. More could take trains but how do they get to the train station - a hired car? Only if enough are available at times of peek demand, which brings us back to where we started.
Not owning a vehicle eliminates opportunity shopping, like picking up a few items from the store on the way home. It also limits the true freedom of movement that owning your own vehicle provides.
I'm not saying these autonomous vehicles won't become available. I'm just saying for most people they are not a realistic replacement for owning their own vehicle.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @12:33PM (6 children)
And you assume everyone lives in North America? Somehow here in Europe, the fastest way around the city is bike and then public transport and then car. People "value their time", but forget how much time they actually waste owning a car.
1. getting into a car
2. finding place to park
3. getting from parking place to destination
But yes, maybe here in Germany it's a little different than America. Maybe if you actually look at places with decent public transit and shitty car access, like downtown New York and compare it with car travel, you'd have a different view. Comparing some suburbs to work in Chicago for car vs. public transport vs. bike, yeah .... not a good comparison since city planning is quite terrible, and 100% reliant on cars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @02:58PM
Immaterial. This story is about replacing cars in use by car owners. For most people who have alternative options - public trans, biking, walking, etc - they are already exercising those options.
How much time am I wasting owning a car if I use it to visit clients? How about to go where public transportation doesn't go (which is just about everywhere that I go)? How about how much time I'd waste using public transportation in my area? Should I walk 15 minutes to wait for a bus that will take a roundabout route to my post office? Once I check my PO Box I'll wait another 1/2 hour for another bus to take me back to somewhere I can walk 15 minutes home.
Why spend ~90 minutes or more on that adventure when I can make the round trip, stop at the store, hit a gas station and then a drive-thru and make it home in less than 30? Never mind having to deal with the weather while walking (plenty of sections of road around here don't have sidewalks so we have to walk in the gutter) to a bus (that may or not be on time), waiting for the bus while standing on the roadside (not an actual "bus stop"), waiting for another bus to come back and walking home.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:26PM (4 children)
Ah, the (twisted) logic.
1. It takes the same amount of time to enter a self-driving car as a driven one
2. Your car will be able to park itself
3. After it drops you off at the door.
But yes, maybe here in Germany it's a little different than America.
It's a LOT different. All of Europe is 3.931 million square miles, the US alone is 3.797 million. Germany is closer to the Ukraine than Illinois is from Ohio. No two European countries are as far apart as New York and Hawaii. There is no comparison at all between any European country with any North American country.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:32PM (2 children)
This kind of statistic completely ignores the fact that the majority of the population of the US is clustered around the coasts, and the remainder is clustered in cities. For example, the total population of Utah is around 3 million, the population of the metro areas of the three largest cities in Utah is over 2 million.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @09:25PM (1 child)
Have you been to Utah (or Nevada--similar terrain)? It's mostly steep rocky mountains (beautiful scenery) and desert. I'm surprised there are anywhere near a million people living outside the major metro areas, would have guessed much lower.
I've crossed it several times by car, and twice on the crew of a friend riding his bike in RAAM (Race Across AMerica), a great way to see the country at ~15 mph (~25kph). Out in the desert areas we often went for an hour not seeing any other cars or people on the road, and then it was often another bike/crew that was in the same race with us. This sign and story, including the comments, is about what I remember --
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865586821/No-bull-no-service-for-106-miles.html [deseretnews.com]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday July 27 2017, @07:54AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday July 27 2017, @03:35AM
The US is closer to the UN than any European country. Each state in the US would be the equivalent of a European country.
So of course comparing the US to Germany is wrong, it'd make more sense to compare New York to Germany.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:09PM
I do value my own time. That's why I prefer not to waste it with driving when I could do other things while sitting in a nice train. If you drive, you have to concentrate on driving. If you are driven, you can do lots of other things like read, play games, work on your laptop, or just let your thoughts wander.
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:20PM (4 children)
And you assume everyone lives in North America? Somehow here in Brazil the vast majority of the population commute by public transportation.
Maybe you should change "percentage of the population" to "percentage of the population that can afford to buy a car". Even then, here in Rio many people that already own a car prefer to take the subway or the bus.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:28PM (3 children)
While you assume everyone lives in Europe.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:35PM (2 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday July 27 2017, @06:33PM (1 child)
Nobody mentioned Brazil or South America, they mentioned North America and Europe.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday July 28 2017, @08:03AM
It then goes on to talk exclusively about Brazil, finishing with:
You might want to try reading the posts that you reply to.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ledow on Wednesday July 26 2017, @11:36AM (5 children)
Hate public transport.
And what people miss is that public transport is NOT set up to do some things:
1) Your weekly shop. This consists - in my country at least - of driving to a supermarket, loading up the boot. You can't do that on public transport.
Though you MIGHT be able to do that in a hired car (which is what any automated vehicle essentially is), you certainly can't do it on a bus or train.
2) Occasional shopping. Christmas, birthdays, a new bin for the kitchen, you can't drag some stuff home and if you say "delivery" it means that you wouldn't bother to go out in the first place.
3) Unscheduled trips. Sod having to do everything by even a London bus/Tube timetable.
4) Things in out of the way places. I go to boot sales, to people's houses who don't even have a postcode, let alone a bus-stop, to pubs in the middle of nowhere not served by a public route.
Some of those things can be done in an automated car, but none of them are practical on existing public transport.
In an automated car, however, I have to book, wait for it to arrive, go do that thing, hand the car back in some fashion.
With my car, it's just there. Jump in, go. My power went out last week. Once I realised it was going to be out for a while, I jumped in the car and in 10 minutes had visited three hardware stores to try to rent a generator. You can't do that in a demand-hire-car.
Also my car costs less than 50p a mile, purchase, fuel, tax, testing and maintenance included. Good luck getting that price on any public transport route longer than half a mile, or in any hired vehicle whatsoever. Once you take into account things like membership fees, even things like Zip cars can't compete with that. And I get a "free car" for that price (i.e. the car gets paid for and I own it outright within a couple of years, at which point per-mile prices plummet and the car has an inherent value I can reclaim if I want to). I don't get anything for hiring a car beyond the journey I wanted.
Automated cars as a service industry have uses, pretty much on par with demand-hire vehicles now, and taxis. Beyond that they are niche and public transport will still be required and used, and personal transport will still be required and used.
All of those are more expensive than owning and running your own car. Whether that car is petrol, diesel or electric. In fact, making it electric makes any other type of hire unable to compete entirely. Price per mile plummets with an electric car, or even a hybrid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @01:13PM
I dunno. I certainly lived for a couple years (in the US) with no car -- and I didn't do the whole shopping every day or two that's apparently popular in some European cities. I went shopping once a week, sometimes less, with a bicycle and a sturdy duffle bag. I packed my groceries in the bag, put the bag on my back, and rode home -- every week. I could certainly have taken a bus or train with that load of groceries, or even more. (But this was a typical US city, so there were no trains, and the bus routes would actually require you to walk a mile, take two buses (with a 25-minute wait at the changeover), and generally turn a 1-hour shopping run into a whole afternoon wasted.) If someone needs more groceries in a week than he can hump on his back, perhaps he should attack the problem from both ends by eating less?
And yeah, I realize you might be shopping for several mouths. But since you stated it as "Your weekly shop", not "a family's weekly shop", I think it's fair to point out that a properly routed and scheduled public transportation system really can handle this for quite a lot of folks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @01:38PM
That's what taxis are for.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:38PM (1 child)
How quaint. I select the things that I want in an app or on a web site, and the shopping is delivered to my house. The combined time of both the ordering and putting away the shopping takes less time than driving (one way) to the nearest large supermarket. For smaller things, I'll pick them up at one of the small shops on my cycle home. All of the major supermarkets in the UK deliver, though I use the one that doesn't have a brick-and-mortar presence.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday July 26 2017, @08:19PM
That's sort of the other end of the driving picture that most of the other people in the thread have been missing: how many of your necessary trips are still necessary? The "Retail is dying" headlines have really proliferated this year thanks to Amazon, FreshDirect, BlueApron, and other online services. As your post pointed out, that takes care of a swath of "necessary" trips that are no longer necessary.
Even in the suburbs I loathe getting in the car to go anywhere to buy anything because the traffic is prohibitive and the driving culture is appalling. And after you've battled through that and gritted your teeth as the 10th asshole in a row has cut you off, you get to the store staffed by people who don't know why they're there, what they're selling, and don't care; plus, the thing you want is not in stock or it's twice the price that you can find online. So why subject yourself to that entire exercise anymore at all if there are alternatives? Alternatives there are.
Beyond that there's the larger effect of Peak Stuff. How many tvs do any of us really need? How many pairs of shoes? Do the extra 10 outfits that will go out of style before you ever get around to wearing them all once really make your life so much more fulfilling? When the cost of all that is endless debt slavery to credit card companies/banks, is it really worth the stress and loss of freedom and health that come with it? If people decide they do not need to do those things, then that is another "necessary" trip in a car avoided.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday July 27 2017, @02:13AM
The real thing about public transport is that public transport in the US intentionally doesn't go to some places.
As in, if you look at a metro area, it's not uncommon to find areas of the cities where no buses or subway or light rail lines go anywhere near. And there's a reason for that: If the public transit board suggests putting in a route, the residents will stomp and scream in opposition. When you ask the residents why they don't want public transit service to their neighborhood, they'll tell you that they're worried about the kind of people that the new route will bring to their area.
In other words, it's a method of enforcing racial segregation in American cities.
My experience using public transport is it's fairly pleasant, all told: I get to sit there reading a book, and then I get to where I'm going. And that's been true in Boston, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and my own fair city of Cleveland.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:53PM (2 children)
We're (well, I am, but I assume a fair number of people here would agree) not saying driverless cars should never be a thing. We just want to keep the choice to say "no" to driverless and have our own vehicle.
As it is all kinds of ridiculous, expensive, mostly-useless-to-people-who-actually-know-how-to-drive gizmos are going to be required to be built into new cars over the next decade. "That's why government exists--to get in a man's way."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:32PM (1 child)
I think eventually the insurance on a non-self driving car will be out of reach for most people and dirt cheap fpr autonomous cars. Face it, people drive very badly, at least where I live. But I don't foresee ever not being able to buy a car.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 27 2017, @02:09AM
Why would that be? The frequency and severity of accidents is going to go down with self-driving cars because the roads are safer for everyone, right? And we can revoke the drivers license of the worst drivers on the road (something like 5% of US drivers are responsible for both the majority of accidents on the road and particularly negligent behavior like drunk driving) which in itself will make roads far safer and insurance less costly for everyone.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 27 2017, @01:07PM
Loads of people say carjacking is bad, but loads of people do it anyway. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out what the problem is with using a vague quantitative term to compare quantities which can vary by orders of magnitude.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:33AM (7 children)
So you never used a taxi?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @09:50AM (3 children)
Taxi is taken care about, at least a little bit, by its driver or the owner. Public transportation is guarded by public shame of most of passengers in front of the crowd. Automatic car will be oblivious to ... mishaps ... previous patrons had.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @10:09AM
All autonomous taxi users will have a credit card on file like Uber requires and if you shit in there the next person will report you and then camera footage can be reviewed. Then you incur a huge fee or criminal charges.
The only other way would be to price out the revolting peasants which defeats the purpose of the autonomous car being a cheap alternative to ownership. However it is reasonable to charge more for a car than a bus because you can go anywhere with the car and usually faster, load it with groceries, have it idle while you go do something, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @10:15AM
The owner of a self-driving car will certainly care just as much about the status of the car as the owner of a human-driven car. And unlike with human-driven car, he will likely know quite exactly who did travel in the car at which time, through booking data, so any misbehaviour will not only make you risk a ban from cars from that owner, but furthermore through data sharing/selling also possibly for cars from other owners, and maybe even for unrelated things like some restaurants.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:09PM
What people do in limousines and helicopters is disgusting. And Air Force One. I inherited a mess! 🇺🇸
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 26 2017, @10:12AM (2 children)
I have. Once. When I needed a ride from the airport in a town I didn't know anyone in. In over 40 years. Haven't even ridden a bus since the schoolbus and didn't ride that after I got my license.
Human-driven cars are going to be a thing for the foreseeable future. Deal with it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:17PM (1 child)
And of course everyone is like you, right?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:40PM
Nope, but ditto right back at you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 26 2017, @07:27AM (5 children)
I've never owned a car and hate the idea of having to regularly spent large amounts of my time in transit between places. My current commute is a shade over 10 minutes by bicycle and it's the furthest that I've ever lived from work. We did the ZipCar thing for a while, but for the amount that we use it, it isn't actually that useful (it was when we moved house, because we got a van cheaply and were able to extend our booking by two hours when we saw that we were moving things more slowly than we'd thought). Taxis are already cheaper for the few times that we actually need a car than owning a car would be (between tax and insurance, we'd spend more on a car parked in the driveway and never used than we spend on taxis). Remove the need to pay a human driver from taxis and the price should go down even more - and if it doesn't then there's a market for cooperatives to buy self-driving cars for the sole use of their members. We've never had a problem with the state of ZipCars. If there's any damage to them or mess, you're supposed to take photos and send them in via the phone app - you get your booking refunded and the last person to use the car has to pay for cleaning it and may have their membership in the scheme revoked. They're also routinely cleaned. As a result, the ZipCars that I've been in (I know a few people who use the scheme in different cities around the world, and have used them when visiting) have been far cleaner than 95% of all single-owner cars that I've been in.
If there aren't enough cars available to meet demand, then that means that there are people willing to give a company money and not able to. That may happen over the short term, but generally companies like to maximise their profits and the ones that don't end up with competitors. Also, you only spend 5 minutes at a restaurant? Why not just get them to deliver?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 26 2017, @10:15AM (4 children)
You should get out more. What you describe is not possible in the vast majority of America.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 26 2017, @01:48PM (3 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @02:54PM (1 child)
How else are you going to maximize return per customer? It's all about throughput. That's how Walmart and Wallgreens and shopping malls work. You don't want 1000 or 5000 people from the neighborhood going to the place. You want to force 1/10th of the city to be the catchment area. And the only way to do that is to make sure that the rest of the city has 0 services. By maximizing distances you guarantee that the corner store, if it still exists, has to compete with Walmart and at Walmart you can get stuff $0.50 cheaper. And since someone has to drive everywhere, including the corner store, then the corner store is SOL.
This is to maximize throughput. To maximize profits for the stores.
The funniest is everyone is talking about "wasting your time" when you take public transit or walk. But the waste with cars is tremendously worse. By forcing people out of their neighbourhoods, people literally waste YEARS of their life in their cars. And since it's accepted as normal, no one actually talks about it. People actually believe that by getting into their cars they are "saving time" because they are "moving".
The opposite is true. I'm in Germany for a while. I walk to work. 15 minutes. I have 4 supermarkets on way to work. I have another few within 1000ft of home and work. And this is typical for people living inside cities. If I stayed in US or Canada, I would have to drive to work for 30-45 minutes each way. More realistically, it would be 1h each way. To get to store, I would have to walk at least 5 minutes across the parking lot to and from my car. This is literally 1.5h savings per day vs. walking here. In 10 years, with 200 workdays (more or less), this is 3000 hours in saved time by NOT using a car and living in a people friendly city. 3000 hours is 1.5 years of full time work. If you do this for 40 years, the difference is 6+ years of your time driving to "save" time vs. walking. Still glad you can get in your car?
So why is city planning so shitty in US and Canada? It's car-centric, not people centric. You couldn't design more people unfriendly cities even if you wanted to. What a mess.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday July 26 2017, @08:24PM
I think this is right. Driving is the worst waste of time. On a bike, you're also getting exercise and seeing the area in a way, in greater detail, than you do in a car; also, when I commute by bike I get there faster than by car or even public transportation, because traffic and congestion in the subway are that bad. Walking/running are similar, though obviously you can't cover as much ground in the same time. On public transportation you can read and do other things.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:53PM
Your stat is insanely misleading. It counts every incorporated town and suburb, no matter how small or remote as urban when the vast majority of them aren't even close.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Wednesday July 26 2017, @07:46AM (9 children)
My thought too..!
And autonomous driving. It has its uses. But I would really not trust it.
Besides by owning the vehicle it's possible to whack the phone-home and by extension the remote killing program of various organizations. They simple can't be entrusted with this capability. Nice coax.. *snip*snip*
Btw, any ideas for antenna detection? using the intermediate frequencies of heterodyne receivers or so.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @10:29AM (2 children)
For now, maybe. You really believe that will keep that way? What makes you think they'll not make the car detect any attempt to disable the phone-home functionality?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 26 2017, @11:48AM (1 child)
The fact that phone home may be legitimately impossible under some circumstances?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @01:51PM
And you think the car is unable to distinguish between being unable to phone home occasionally, and being unable to phone home perpetually (while the GPS indicates that you passed about ten dozen different cell towers last week which are extremely unlikely to have all been switched off)? Not to mention that sooner or later your car will have to go for obligatory maintenance (don't count on being able to do the maintenance yourself!), and then the non-operational connectivity will surely be detected and "fixed".
Not to mention that you'll have to alter something on the car to disable the phone-home functionality. Probably you will open something that you are not supposed to open, and unauthorized opening will disable the car "for safety reasons" until it is reset using a protocol requiring signatures with a valid key from a certified repair shop.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:35PM (5 children)
I trust your autonomous car a lot more than I trust anyone to drive safely. Your non-autonomous car puts MY life at risk!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:50PM (4 children)
Personal Rapid Transit, not autonomous car is the solution for cities.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:45PM (3 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday July 26 2017, @09:11PM (2 children)
Actually my thoughts are more in the cabin-switched ground or underground level network for 3-4 people per cabin traveling ~100 km/h on rails.
More people => higher throughout. Some high traffic sections can actually use cabins for 40 people.
Ground level avoids the risk of falling down like the one in Wuppertal, 1999 [wikipedia.org] with 5 dead and 49 injured.
In addition some cabins can be made to take cars such that people can drive to the city and then not need to drive the car inside the city.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday July 27 2017, @07:45AM (1 child)
The problem with the larger compartments is that it reduces the end-to-end nature of PRT, which is one of its key selling points. If I can go to the station near my house and get a pod directly to my destination, that's a lot more convenient than getting one to the edge of town, changing into a large pod for the across-town trip, and then getting back in a small pod for the last hop. It also makes the switching much harder, because the large pods will have lower acceleration than the smaller ones (or need much more powerful motors) and so will not be joining the main track at the same speed. This also increases the number of possible failure modes, unless the large pods are on entirely separate tracks (which dramatically increases cost).
Building the tracks underground is a factor of 10-50 more expensive than the scheme proposed by SkyTran, with a track suspended from lamppost-like supports. It may be safer (though fires underground can result in quite high death tolls and carbon monoxide is a significant risk), which pushes the cost from expensive to infeasible for a lot of places.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday July 27 2017, @08:03AM
Larger compartments will be needed for some high traffic sites, like central station to the city etc. Where people anyway go the same route. Otherwise the capacity will simply be too low. The larger mass can be compensated with more powerful motors, that is not a problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @08:04AM (5 children)
Your comment makes 0 economic sense. Companies in this industry will make profit on miles driven. Having customers lined up for hours is missing a massive amount of capital.
The economics of self driving taxis are actually phenomenally interesting to consider. And I think we're in for a treat compared to many industries today where competition doesn't work as it 'ought.' The first thing is at the start there will obviously be enormous competition in self driving public transit. The reason is that it's going to end up extremely monopolized and the winner will have a machine that prints billions of dollars with relatively minimal maintenance (in terms of major change/innovation) required and in a field that will be valuable for the foreseeable future. In this field economy of scale means that the bigger a company gets, the better their product becomes. They'll be able to get their cars to you quicker than the competition and given their scale, their baseline costs make up a smaller percent of their overall costs than they will for competitors. What that means is that they can charge rates just pennies per mile above their cost and make billions in revenue.
And I'm not being hyperbolic. In 2015 drivers, in the US alone, drove 3 trillion [thehill.com] miles. At a profit of one penny per mile, that'd translate to $30 billion in profit. Now here's the really crazy thing. This means the company with the monopoly in this field can actually even charge less, much less, than it'd cost you to drive yourself. Again it's economy of scale. They'll be able to repair, refurbish, insure, etc their vehicles by the tens of millions and at cost for whatever industries end up getting vertically integrated into their company. This sends those costs so far down that they will be far below what you pay as an individual.
The big concern is what happens when there is a company that's effectively in control of all transit in the US - perhaps even the world. This is likely decades away, but probably still worth considering. This company will be in a phenomenal position of power, particularly if people begin to choose to no longer drive or even learn how to drive themselves. What barriers to entry (or competition) would there be for upstart competitors? They'd inherently be slower, and they'd be more expensive. That's pretty bad. However, there's a nice quirk here. Those barriers only exist when the monopolist is providing a desirable service. At the point they become coercive (less, more expensive vehicles) the barriers to competition instantly fade. So I do think this is one area where competition will keep things honest. The one critical thing is that we need to ensure there's no regulations that would meaningfully deter new competitors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @09:54AM
Not at all if customers are out of options. If vehicle prices are going to be high, that will make a large barrier to entry for competition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @11:34AM (3 children)
Why exactly would this be a monopoly? All you need to get started in this business is a phone app and a car. Ideally more than one car, but still. You can get into this business for a couple of million dollars with basically off the shelf technology. Barrier to entry is zero, unless there's some stupid licensing scheme, but even that seems relatively unlikely (there's a licensing scheme to get into trucking or limo driving but it's relatively easy... Taxis and their crazy licenses are the exception, not the rule, and their licensing is not likely to transfer to this, especially in the wake of Uber, etc). And it's not like you can lock customers in because a car is a car, so they'll choose whichever service is best for them at that moment. I actually see a side business for a matching service, dispatcher like, that can find a car for a given customer from whichever service has one closest. Google will probably do that if nobody else does. Different companies might specialize in different kinds of cars, one is cheap, one provides luxury cars, one has the lightest capacity usage so your waits are shorter, whatever.
I actually have a hard time thinking of a business that is less likely to turn into a monopoly.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 26 2017, @02:10PM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @02:56PM
> Their value isn't from running a fleet of vehicles, it's from running the booking system.
Uber's "value" is from idiot investors.
For a company (whose only products are an app and a huge team of lawyers) to lose $2.8 billion in a single year is a spectacular feat. Anyone who thinks this company is headed for success deserves their impending investment loss.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_(company) [wikipedia.org]
http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-2016-financial-numbers-revenue-losses-2017-4/ [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:45PM
Because our Congresscritters are idiots and in the pockets of established market leaders.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @10:20AM (1 child)
I believe the future will be: everyone owns a cheap individual or family transportation pod, a sort of universal, standardized "passenger palette" or "passenger container" for certain number of passengers (1, 2, 4, ...), which packs well together and allows you separation from others, privacy, and comfort (various levels, depending on what you could afford), but which is designed as very limited in autonomy and speed.
It can be easily and quickly loaded to, and unloaded from autonomous carrier vehicles, and carrying is a service you purchase and pay per distance and time (or make use of special offers).
It can use external contact network or magnetic coupling energy tapping to propel itself in environments made for that (usually inside structures).
You can pay for integral transport which combines different means of transportation: individual on the road, clustered on the road, using tracks, using hyperloop, using air, ... . If you really wish so, you can buy your own autonomous road carrier as well, to have a complete car.
You can navigate interior pathways in buildings designed to accommodate this standard (use it instead of an elevator cabin, as well as for horizontal movement along floors), especially inside transportation hubs where you change the carriers.
Freight containers will be compatible with passenger containers as well (but there will be wider range of volumes), so that automatic delivery of goods can use same carrier infrastructure.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday July 26 2017, @08:25PM
I see somebody just visited "World of Tomorrow" at Disneyland. ;-)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday July 26 2017, @11:58AM (1 child)
We call those taxis. Every time you slide your already dirty ass across that naugahyde bench seat, your bottom skims a sea of blood, semin, spit, feces, urine and god know what else. Not to mention coffee, drinks and foods. And even then, people use them all the time.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Wednesday August 02 2017, @09:25PM
Never leave home without your towel.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:22PM
>"I'm not seeing shared cars as ever becoming a thing."
They already are, in the form of taxis, rental cars, and various new concepts like Zip Cars. What you are right about is that shared cars are unlikely to become the only thing, and maybe not even the majority of passenger miles. Most people who can afford to own their car will choose that option. You get to set it up the way you like, store things in it that you want close at hand, and share it only when you want to. People who think that private vehicles are going away are people who are opposed to wealth. They want to optimize society for minimum wealth.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday July 27 2017, @05:53AM
That's all good and fine.. but, depending on your personal circumstances, you might be left with not much of a choice if enough critical mass goes toward Transport-as-a-service and doing stuff the "old" way becomes a luxury for folks with deep pockets.
Again, may not be a problem for you specifically depending on your personal circumstances, but for the rest of the leftover minority who don't have deep pockets and transport is vital they won't have much choice if there's critical mass - and as someone pointed out, though in a very condescending way, them younger ones think very differently than us and their numbers will only grow.