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Jerry Hirsch writes in the LA Times that personal transportation is on the cusp of its greatest transformation since the advent of the internal combustion engine. For a century, cars have been symbols of freedom and status but according to Hirsch, passengers of the future may well view vehicles as just another form of public transportation, to be purchased by the trip or in a subscription. Buying sexy, fast cars for garages could evolve into buying seat-miles in appliance-like pods, piloted by robots, parked in public stalls. "There will come a time when driving the car is like riding the horse," says futurist Peter Schwartz. "Some people will still like to do it, but most of us won't." People still will want to own vehicles for various needs, says James Lentz, chief executive of Toyota's North American operations. They might live in a rural area and travel long distances daily. They might have a big family to haul around. They might own a business that requires transporting supplies. "You will still have people who have the passion for driving the cars and feeling the road," says Lentz. "There may be times when they want the cars to drive them, but they won't be buying autonomous-only cars."
One vision of the future is already playing out in Grenoble, France, where residents can rent from a fleet of 70 pod-like Toyota i-Road and Coms electric cars for short city trips. "It is a sharing program like what you see in Portland [Oregon] with bicycles," says Lentz. Drivers can check out and return the cars at various charging points. Through a subscription, they pay the equivalent of $3.75 for 30 minutes. Because the vehicles are so small, it's easy to build out their parking and charging infrastructure. Skeptics should consider the cynicism that greeted the horseless carriage more than a century ago, says Adam Jonas who adds that fully autonomous vehicles will be here far sooner than the market thinks (PDF). Then, Jonas says, skeptics asked: "Why would any rational person want to replace the assuredness of that hot horse body trustily pulling your comfortable carriage with an unreliable, oil-spurting heap of gears, belts and chains?"
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:06AM
At a minimum, there will be more taxi-like trips once autonomous cars become ubiquitous, since they will be cheaper to rent than taxis while fulfilling the same role. No driver to pay, algorithmic precision in picking up new passengers, no need to stop other than fuel or maintenance.
Auto ownership and operation are already decreasing among millenials [nytimes.com], even without widespread access to autonomous cars. Rentable autonomous cars will cause ownership to decline further. Cities with public transportation might see train and bus use increase somewhat if non-owners have a choice between the flexibility of the autonomous car or cheaper public transit, rather than using their own car that they have sunk money into (purchase/payments, insurance, fuel, maintenance, garage).
Some people will resist the change, clinging to their auto ownership as a symbol of independence or status. But a decade or two after the autonomous debut, ownership will be associated with wealth. Insurance costs will double or more. If human operation declines dramatically, in-car breathalyzers might become a mandatory feature or retrofit for human-operated cars.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:29AM
When I visited Chili years back many people there didn't drive. Taxis were so cheap and prevalent that many people took them to work and back. Heck the people that picked us up from the airport took a taxi to the airport and we took a taxi back. At the exit there were taxi drivers lined up begging us for their labor. Very different from what you see in the U.S. where the industry is monopolized due to corruption. You actually have freedoms in Chili and their citizens participate in the political process. For instance you can own a slot machine in your backyard and allow random people and neighbors to come in and gamble.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @12:57PM
It's a sad, sad future. Hopefully i'll be dead before that. I have no hobby there, it'd just be work and sleep.
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday November 23 2014, @02:50PM
There are a number of benefits to owning one's own transportation versus borrowing from someone else. Glossing over these benefits seems presumptuous. Some of these benefits are:
1. Choice of geographical location is greater when transportation is owned. Owning a car in New York City is less important than in Sticks, Alabama.
2. Ownership of transportation allows for instant utilization, which can easily be shown as useful in situations such as medical emergencies.
3. Privacy is generally better maintained with personally-owned transportation. I expect the majority of transportation companies and customers to prefer electronic payment, since the majority of customers tend not to value the confidentiality of their purchases and companies love having the data to mine.
This is not said to discount the value and utility of autonomous transportation that people borrow rather than own, but to point out some of the always-present trade-offs.
(The comment regarding "mandatory breathalyzers" seems out of place, considering the subject matter of the potential proliferation of automated automobiles - such transport would seem to be a boon to habitual drunks, as in much of the United States, for example, a person is at risk of arrest for "drunken driving" if they are discovered to be sleeping in their car's backseat and with their car's keys in the trunk! To suggest ignition interlocks in specific be mandated smacks of forbidden prior restraint.)
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Sunday November 23 2014, @04:57PM
Evacuation, if the shit hits the fan near you.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 1) by theronb on Sunday November 23 2014, @07:44PM
useful in situations such as medical emergencies.
In many cases, depending of course on your location, you're better off calling an ambulance, as the EMTs can provide initial treatment during transportation. The worst option is driving yourself alone during a medical emergency, although I can't say I would be any more sensible.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 24 2014, @12:11AM
It's 2050. Autonomous cars on the road: closer to 90% than 50%. Accidents are way down. Insurance rates are up for the remaining drivers, who are wealthier. Almost nobody drives for a living. Human driving and non-autonomous vehicles are not banned, but there are additional regulations, particularly for new vehicles. If ignition interlocks aren't mandatory, then having one definitely lowers your insurance rate.
Urban population (tracked by the Census Bureau [census.gov]) creeps towards 90%. But cost pressures might make autonomous driving the norm even in Sticks, Alabama (in 2050).
I wouldn't be optimistic about the state of privacy after 10-30 years. Moore's so-called law might be able to continue past 2025 by stacking transistors vertically. Every new phone will be a smartphone, aka a tracking device [networkworld.com]. Battery technology will improve. IoT devices will take off. I don't know what will happen to Google Glass, but there will be a lot of cheap cameras, and algorithms will be able to monitor the footage. A huge grassroots backlash against surveillance hasn't materialized post-Snowden, and resistance to surveillance will fight an uphill battle against IoT and other technology trends. Privacy cases [wikipedia.org] have had mixed results [nytimes.com].
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(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday November 25 2014, @06:51PM
You realize that phones being tracking devices has nothing to do with smartphones, right? It's literally been true of *every single telephone ever operated*, both mobile and landlines. They've gotta connect to be useful, and whoever connects them knows exactly where they are.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday November 25 2014, @11:16PM
Unlike landlines, cell phones are carried almost everywhere a user goes.
They can be compromised by OTA updates, in order to turn the phone and microphone on and off remotely [techdirt.com].
They can leak your information via compromised or data-mining apps [dailytech.com] (vs. dumbphones).
They can detect your position using any combination of cell towers, GPS, WiFi [wikipedia.org], app checkins, etc.
Your MAC address can be harvested. [washingtonpost.com]
If the cell phone/dumbphone is a tracking device, the smartphone is a much more effective tracking device. As a full computing platform, it also stores more of your data. If you choose to store your data in the cloud, it's one warrant away from being read by the cops and feds. Growing capabilities have made the smartphone's impact on privacy worse. That might change if encryption of the phone, messaging, and calls becomes easy and ubiquitous.
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(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday November 23 2014, @04:47PM
There's an obvious and simple reason for this phenomenon which has nothing to do with technology or hippie-ness: They're broke. When you're broke, you can't take on the costs of car ownership.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @07:26PM
to add to that...
Also living with your parents gives you access to their cars as well.
Our gov also went and did the cash for clunkers thing. Which removed a good chunk of used cars out of circulation. Those are the cars people with little to no money bought. As they were not worth much. Which also had the side effect of raising the value of the remaining cars (scarcity increases value).
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday November 24 2014, @03:12PM
The initial price of the car is not even close to the only expensive involved in owning one. Insurance, maintenance and repairs (even if you're doing the work yourself, parts cost money), gas, etc all add up. So even if you could get a beat-up car for $400 or something, you still could easily be spending $300-$500 a month on it, which is really expensive compared to a monthly transit pass (assuming the person in question lives in a city, of course). And if you're trying to do long-distance travel on the cheap, the answer is usually Megabus or Greyhound or their competitors.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday November 24 2014, @02:55PM
It's not being broke, it's being able to look at cost/benefit ratios. I pondered getting a car about 10 years ago. I looked at how much it would cost and decided I'd put that money into savings instead. That meant that I had enough money after five years to put down the deposit on a house. When I looked at places to buy, it was a lot cheaper to live a long way out of town, but most of that went away once you factored in mandatory car ownership. Instead I bought somewhere 15 minutes walk from the city centre, 2 minutes walk from a small collection of shops (and a few pubs) and 1 minutes walk from a large and quiet park, with views of the sea from all of the front rooms. And was able to actually drink when I went to the pubs a bit nearer the centre of town.
I've now paid off almost all of that mortgage (partly by renting out the house after I moved elsewhere) and still don't have a car. I moved somewhere where I cycle everywhere and occasionally get a taxi. Owning a car would take a noticeable chunk of my disposable income for something that I'd rarely use.
It would be different if I lived in the sprawling wastelands of a US city, where things are so far apart that you spend all of your life getting between them and none of it actually enjoying being in them, but that city structure is the main reason that I haven't seriously considered any of the job offers that I've had from that part of the world.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by EQ on Sunday November 23 2014, @06:32PM
Try living outside of an urban core city without owning a car. "clinging" is a pejorative term and and idiotic thing to say. You sound like the typical oblivious urban hipster that cannot see outside his own cultural blinders.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:28PM
Clinging was a joke I used to trigger your comment.
1. These changes will take at least 2-4 decades.
2. The autonomous car can be your car even outside of urban core cities. Yes, even in states like Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Alabama, Alaska, etc. It will be cheaper to rent than to own and pay insurance. For commuting to work, you can have a car scheduled to arrive at the same place and same time every day. Time spent waiting for a car to arrive in situations like shopping should typically be less than 5 minutes, but whatever time is wasted will be made up by the low cost and the ability to do other things in the car.
3. Urbanization is increasing.
Growth in Urban Population Outpaces Rest of Nation, Census Bureau Reports [census.gov]
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(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday November 25 2014, @07:00PM
...which brings up an interesting question: What if you're running late?
Takes me 30 minutes to get to work. If I'm having a really good day, I might arrive a bit before 7. If I'm running really late, I might arrive a bit before 9. If I'm not outside immediately at 6:30, does the car leave to go pick up someone else? Would I need to reserve and pay for three hours of use every morning even though I only need to go 12 miles? Or do I just get billed extra on the days I'm running late? Or do I just pay per mile, because if they have enough it doesn't matter if it's waiting in my parking lot or theirs?
Maybe integrate it with my home automation system so it can know when I get out of the shower or something...?