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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 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