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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: 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.