SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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, @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.