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posted by mrpg on Monday March 25 2019, @04:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the no dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @11:46AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @11:46AM (#819449)

    > 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??

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  • (Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday March 25 2019, @12:16PM (3 children)

    by shrewdsheep (5215) on Monday March 25 2019, @12:16PM (#819459)

    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

    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

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @01:13PM (#819478)

      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

      by Muad'Dave (1413) on Monday March 25 2019, @05:28PM (#819634)

      > 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

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @12:56AM (#819826)

      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

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:42PM (#819639)

    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??

    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.