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How Much Americans Could Save by Ridesharing Driverless Cars Over Owning
An anonymous reader shares a study: Self-driving cars promise safer roads, less traffic and increased mobility. Some autonomous vehicle proponents also maintain they will save time and money. But will they really save Americans time and money? And even if they do, are Americans ready to give up driving? Online insurer Esurance surveyed consumers, analyzed trends, and spoke to experts to find out. "Like with most new technology, we'll see consumer perceptions evolve and adoption accelerate as the promised benefits of self-driving cars are realized," said Haden Kirkpatrick, head of strategy and innovation at Esurance.
The reality is that the first fully autonomous cars will be very pricey and beyond the reach of most Americans. Manufacturers expect the early buyers will be businesses and the very wealthy. One developer says prices won't start coming down enough for most families and individuals to buy them until 2025 or beyond. Until the price of ownership of self-driving vehicles comes down, most people will experience driverless vehicles through ridesharing, according to researchers. According to Esurance research, in the best-case scenario, a family that gives up its car in favor of driverless ridesharing could save $4,100 in annual transportation costs. Other research confirms that a 20 percent improvement in efficiencies of the personal transportation system, would generate a five percent increase in household incomes.
The reality is that the first fully autonomous cars will be very pricey and beyond the reach of most Americans. Manufacturers expect the early buyers will be businesses and the very wealthy. One developer says prices won't start coming down enough for most families and individuals to buy them until 2025 or beyond. Until the price of ownership of self-driving vehicles comes down, most people will experience driverless vehicles through ridesharing, according to researchers. According to Esurance research, in the best-case scenario, a family that gives up its car in favor of driverless ridesharing could save $4,100 in annual transportation costs. Other research confirms that a 20 percent improvement in efficiencies of the personal transportation system, would generate a five percent increase in household incomes.
There are lots of ways to cut costs. Stop paying rent and live in a trash bin. Use found items as clothing. Eat trash, drink dirty fracking contaminated water and die young. Save tons.
Excellent job taking averages and making it look like it will work. I would love to see data for how many people could actually share. There is nobody besides myself going from close to my home to my odd work location at my random schedule.
So long as companies like Uber ignore users privacy and Gorvernments insist on tracking our every move. No. If this worked so well why don't they do it in high population dense locations like China or Dubi? Because it doesn't.
It will however make a very select few people extremely rich.
How Much Americans Could Save by Taking Public Transit
FTFY - If you live in city with a robust transit system, you can live without owning a car.
Goodbye, Slashdot!
Seems very optimistic to even have real safe autonomous cars on the road let alone have these features down to standard cars. The first cars with collision avoidance braking were available 15-years ago and its pretty much only in the last year where they have been standard on typical cars from some manufacturers.
Yeah, right. Increasing efficiency no longer gets passed on to employee incomes, it just gets captured as profit by the 1%.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Car sharing is perfect for those who enjoy the smell of vomit, and like getting chewing gum on their butts.
That's great when everything is going smoothly. What about when a hurricane comes and blows the town down? Ridesharing options will vanish, and no I don't want to be waiting for a bus out from a city eager to decimate its indigent population. I'll stick to having my own vehicle TYVM.
The real path to male liberation
If you live in NYC or Europe where there are buses, trams, trains, trolleys, Puppeteer teleport pads, and plenty of other public transportation mode, then ride-sharing makes sense. However, US cities refuse to do proper policing and rather blow their wad on new sports stadiums than basic protection (it is common for non emergency calls to take 8-12 hours before they are bothered with.) So, Americans are forced into the suburbs if they value the safety of their family, and so their kids don't step outside to see a wino passed out on their doorstep, or get impaled on a syringe from some crackheads the night before.
With everyone going to work at the same time, ride-sharing an autonomous car isn't really feasible. Especially with employers demanding everyone do the 8-5 junket daily.
Instead, what needs to be done is actual police protection in cities, incentive for work at home days, and getting employers to allow for earlier/later shifts.
....and you're won't have to spend even that amount.
Share a ride but you're the only person in the car.
Well, words don't matter anymore.
Well, for you the calculation is quite simple. For others, it's not so simple. For instance, most of my usage is at peak commuting hours - an Uber currently costs me around $10-12 each way. 5 days a week 48 weeks per year this is around $8000. My van cost around $27000 and I'll get at least 10 years out of it, so my annualized capital cost is around $3000 (including interest payments). Annual maintenance averages around $1000 or less per year. Fuel costs are under $2000 per year. Insurance is another $1500. So for just my commute I'd be looking at almost break-even: $8000 vs around $7500.
BUT, I have kids. They need to be ferried to sports, before-school activities, certain friends' houses, etc. The kids blow the calculations out of the water. Kids are expensive. Then add in weekend travel and shopping/grocery trips and it isn't even close.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I spent on average 1/24h in a car, and for this I must pay more than 10$ a day + gas. If I could have a reliable and cost efficient driverless taxi service available, I'd certainly never own a car ever again. I live in a small rural town where public transportation is almost inexistant and taxi fares are expensive. I wish I could just use a car when I need to and let it go elsewhere when I don't need it. In my mind, fully autonomous cars will have a very big effect on car ownership for individuals. If a business were to own such cars for a taxi service, there would be no much maintenance costs, just the acquisition price and power (for electric cars, and where I live power is cheap), so I think they could come up with a price that is very competitive and have a good profit margin. They would have no taxi drivers to pay and I hope the taxi licencing would be adapted to this new reality and that governments won't try to slow this revolution with heavy taxation. They should instead have a contingency plan (buying back licences, facilitate career change, etc.) for these drivers that normal technological advancement pushes out of a job.
How is it that more miles driven (car drives to pick-up, and then to destination) will reduce traffic?
I guess the assumption is there will be a lot more walking since there will be less parking spaces, so things will be closer together?
Seems like a real stretch to me. I'd think they'll increase traffic.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
owning a car == freedom
This seemed pretty wacky, so I looked at the actual "study". It's a fluff piece with no grounding in reality.
The first major assumption is that a family pays $500/month to lease a car every month. Most sensible families have a $30k car paid off in 5 years and drive it another 5.
A second major assumption is that the cost of ride sharing currently covers the full purchase price, maintenance, and depreciation of the driver's vehicle. I do not know that this is the case.
So if you ignore the cost of owning the ride share car, and you inflate the cost of owning a car, it's cheaper to ride share!
Fucking genius!
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
You've got the money part covered but notice the headline includes saving time. This is the real comedy; waiting around for a ride share is supposed to save time somehow?
It's like sharing lawn tools with the neighbor - it never works out. He keeps them too long, returns them dirty, uses up all the gas, doesn't check the oil... If you're going to get cranky over a $300 lawn mower, you're going to go ballistic over a $100K "shared" vehicle.
Freedom makes big city folk scared.
I will always own my own cars. Period.
Depending on location, door to door service could outweigh a 5-10 minute wait.
How Much Americans Could Save by Ridesharing Driverless Cars Over Owning
In my particular case the answer is a good approximation of zero with a hell of a lot of added aggravation. I don't live in a dense urban area so pretty much any place that isn't a densely populated city doesn't make much sense for "ride sharing". I would need the vehicle at roughly the same time as everyone else (work commute) so using it when I need it most will be a competitive bidding situation and probably not save me a penny. Plus I have to schedule and/or wait for the ride to arrive.
Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to have access to driverless cars but it's going to be a good long while before they make any kind of practical sense.
The reality is that the first fully autonomous cars will be very pricey and beyond the reach of most Americans.
So what? That's true of every new technology. As production ramps up the costs will naturally fall. The rich get the fanciest toys first just like they always have.
Manufacturers expect the early buyers will be businesses and the very wealthy. One developer says prices won't start coming down enough for most families and individuals to buy them until 2025 or beyond.
They think autonomous cars will be a widespread thing as soon as 2025? HAHAHAHAHA... cough, sniff... Ummm, no they won't. I have confidence they will become a thing eventually but it just isn't going to happen that fast. The legal framework and insurance alone is going to take longer than that even if the technology was ready today. And the technology is no where near ready for the General Public today. Best case I'd imagine you'll see rollout start at the earliest sometime in the 2030s with lots of testing and pilot programs over then next 10-15 years. Then it will take a few decades to really start gaining large amounts of market share presuming everything goes well up to that point and there are no showstopper technology or political problems.
According to Esurance research, in the best-case scenario, a family that gives up its car in favor of driverless ridesharing could save $4,100 in annual transportation costs.
Maybe if you live near NYC where the cost of owning a car is prohibitive, travel distances are short, and where the infrastructure is set up already to support using vehicles you don't own. Basically if you live in a place where taxis are a routine thing it probably makes sense. Doesn't really work for the majority of the US and in places like Europe which already have decent public transportation there really isn't so much added value. As much as I'd like to have a driverless car (or decent public transit) to take the wheel for my morning commute I don't see it as a likely thing before I retire.
I am not interested in this model, because at its core is renter model. You don't own the car, as such you don't have any say in how it operates. So things like mandatory in-car advertising, sub-optimal routes to save fuel, or even whims of corporate policies and posturing (e.g. shuttle man last, because everything is a fault of patriarchy).
You are also foolish to think that costs will be lower in the long term. Once alternatives (i.e. personally owner car) are rare you will pay exactly as much as market can support for personal transportation. So you will still have monthly payments that are comparable to what you pay now.
I only need a car once or twice a year, so I just rent one. Seems pointless to own a car.
Well, for you the calculation is quite simple. For others, it's not so simple.
Exactly. The value of owning a car varies tremendously depending on where you live and what you do, and the value of owning a self-driving car will vary even more.
Having a car that can drive by itself will make it a lot more valuable in some locations. I would really find it valuable to have a car that can drop me off and then go park itself, and then come pick me up when I need it again.
So I'm not at all sure that people will buy fewer cars if the cars are autonomous. I'll say that the cars will be more valuable, at least to people who travel a lot to places where parking is hard to find, and hence a new segment of people who previous didn't want to own a car will now want one.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Fewer cars on the road at peak periods = shorter journey times.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
The numbers in this article look wrong, to me.
It ignores downtown parking costs, which easily amount to another $1,000-3,000 a year in the city I live in. Ride-sharing would at least halve that for each involved party. It also ignores garage space, which in many cities (including mine) is an additional cost for an apartment rental... and most people are not home-owners here. That's usually another $1,000.
So that $7.5k vs $4.5k starts to look more like $10.5k vs $5k, in return for all of the inconveniences and last-minute problems of ride-sharing.
Of course, public transit costs me $996 per year, and I spend another $200-300 per year for the occasional car rental when I really need one, and there are fewer inconveniences than ride-sharing.
I only need a car once or twice a year, so I just rent one. Seems pointless to own a car.
If you live in the US then I'm guessing you live somewhere in or near NYC because that's one of the few places in the US you can actually get away with not owning a car. In fact owning a car there is actually kind of pointless. There are a few other places in the US where a car doesn't make sense but not very many of them.
owning a car == freedom
It is and it isn't. It gives you freedom of mobility, but it also ties you down. And, of course by paying money to maintain and park a car, you decrease your freedom, in that you could use that money to do other things.
So, like many things: it depends.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
and when there an crash the eula says you are at fault and that log access starts at $250 per event.
As a European where the public transport is availabl to go to and from work fatsre than I could drive and that trip is paid 100% by the company, I do have car sharing.
They advertise that if your drive less than 15.000 KM per year, car sharing is cheaper. However you do need to have a car nearby available and it take some planning.
Most people will not be willing to walk 5 minutes and plan it in advance. And if you trive 14.550 KM per year, the gain is so small that it is not worth it.
So what it can be is a great alternative to a second car for many people. e.g. at leats one person goes to work with public transport and the other might as well. Just sometimes you will need a second car because reasons. Why have a car that is standing there costing money all the time.
Having a self driving car that comes to you would lower the treshhold of the 5 minute walk and make it even possible for those who would have to walk more, It would increase the availaility as well.
As extra information: I mainly use it to do shopping one per week. This months monthly bill was 75EUR and that inclused insurance, fuel, miles and the rent. That was abit on the high side as I normaly pay around 30 EUR per month. I also have paid 150EUR a month when I did a trip.
I save on average 250 EUR per month comparing of when I had a car.
And all this is in Europe where not having a car is not a real issue. I know many peope who do not have one. I also know people who have one, yet do not need it.
Before I sold my car, I tried it for two months to be absolutely sure that it was the right choce. http://www.cambio.be/ if you live in Belgium and want to get more info.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The cost is irrelevant and will adjust to still being a car payment for us all, but we won't have the car or rights against search because it isn't our property.
At first it will be cheaper to lure people in but eventually be just as expensive. They will have logs within reach of a subpeana.
Just say no now.
Can't wait to get one of these cars after the last user wacked off in it or took a dump on the seat.
Don't live where there are hurricanes, problem solved.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Strange, I find a monthly cost that you can't really get out of, constant maintenance and regulations, etc to be the opposite of freedom.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Here in the good old US of A there are a few cities that have a public transit system that is good enough to get by without having a car. New York city comes to mind. If you live close to the BART line in San Francisco it works well for the daily commute. Maybe Chicago. The T-line in Boston is pretty good.
After that it is a very steep drop off. Public transit really only works if you live and work right downtown of a major city. If you are in the suburbs then forget it. Rightly or wrongly, having a car is seen by some as a symbol of success. In America there is a stigma attached to taking the bus. Most people would prefer the freedom of having their own car and setting their own schedule.
Where I work there is a ride share program but almost nobody uses it. Why? Because I don't want to be sitting in front of someones house waiting for them to get their shit together while my car idles away. Or standing in the hot sun waiting for my ride to show up. Yes, I would probably save some money but for me the freedom is worth more than the few dollars I might save.
The handful of times I've used Uber to get for work the waiting time wasn't a big problem. As I ate my breakfast I checked out the wait times and they were around, for example, 10 minutes, so I scheduled it 10 minutes before I wanted to walk out the door. Same thing on the way home - I just called it to roughly coincide with my normal leaving time at work.
But yeah, you have a great point - it's the same mode of transport so how could it be faster? Maybe they are including time paying bills, taking it in for maintenance and repairs, etc.?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Why do you think there will be fewer cars on the road once we have driverless cars? We could possibly remove freight traffic by moving it to operate at night. However, this will be offset by empty cars moving to pick up people.
I can see while there will be fewer cars total. This doesn't mean there will be fewer cars on the road, especially at peak commute hours. For example, in the morning there will be cars dropping people off at work (what we have now) and empty cars returning to pick up next wave of people (what we don't have now, as cars are parked outside of offices and are not on the road).
Cool. Now just imagine you're someone else, and instead of 1-2, it's 20-40 times per year (but still way less than 360). Then suddenly: tada! back on the same topic as TFA!
Whatever it is you think you'll save, I PROMISE you, sales people have already figured this out. They'll provide the option at 90% of the existing cost to maximally "get their benefit" from you. (Of course it will cost them 10% or whatever, and they'll eat the 80% difference as profit.) This is what a company does.
Ah, parking. Parking could be a huge time sink depending on your job and home locations. I've cruised around San Francisco looking for parking near my girlfriend's apartment for easily 45 minutes. The parking garages downtown in some cities can be a few blocks away and expensive as hell.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
saving time parking ?
Yeah, you can always move to tornado country, brush fire areas, and tsunami islands.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
You've got the money part covered but notice the headline includes saving time. This is the real comedy; waiting around for a ride share is supposed to save time somehow?
Dunno how it is where you are, but here in LA I can call up an Uber and have one arrive at my door pretty reliably within 5 minutes.
Or, I can drive my car, and often spend more than 5 minutes trying to find a parking spot.
So yeah; in certain environments, ridesharing is faster than driving.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
So for just my commute I'd be looking at almost break-even: $8000 [for Uber] vs around $7500 [for car ownership]. BUT, I have kids. They need to be ferried to sports, before-school activities, certain friends' houses, etc. The kids blow the calculations out of the water. Kids are expensive. Then add in weekend travel and shopping/grocery trips and it isn't even close.
And then after you add in the cost savings for autonomous Uber vehicles compared to human operated Uber vehicles, it likely isn't close (but in the other direction). If you cut out the driver, your average Uber trip drops to $5-6 each way, making it closer to $4000 for Uber vs $7500 for car ownership. As for all of your kid activities, perhaps you will still need one car in your household but could likely get rid of your second (average cars per household is 2, and average for families with kids is > 2).
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Also to add, self driving cars will not be that much more expensive. The hardware isn't that complicated and most of it is in software. Software is a write once and use many times type of thing. Unlike hardware parts, you don't need to do expensive QA on each and every instance of an installation. Even if software development is 3x hardware development, there is negligible manufacturing, deployment, & installation costs.
The feature will cost what the market is willing to pay. To amortize the development & investment costs, it needs to have mass deployment. Thus, in less than 5 years, the price will be affordable by the general market, probably a 10-20% of the vehicle's MSRP ($3k-$10k). Worst case, another year on a 5 year car load.
Exactly. More cars driving around with nobody in them. Also, people may not try as hard to avoid rush hour if they can sit and browse the internet or watch a movie.
translation: joke's on you if you thought our rates would actually go down with self-driving cars. we will just charge higher monthly (and per-mile and per-passenger) commercial rates to fleet operators of self-driving cars, while insisting that the manufacturers themselves be liable for any malfunction-caused accidents. we've already done the math and our shareholders will absolutely love this.
But will they really save Americans time and money?
Maybe. Right now in the U.S. there is a culture where your car is a status symbol. Because of that people spend way more on cars then they need to. With an autonomous ride sharing vehicle the economics are different and more akin to commercial trucks. They need to be reliable, repairable, and go 1 million or more miles. Because of this you can't compare it to the cost of using Uber or owning you own car.
And even if they do, are Americans ready to give up driving?
Some will, some won't. As with all technologies it will be a slow progression. If a car manufacture released a fully autonomous car today at a reasonable price it would still be years before I would buy one because a) I don't buy new cars, b) I don't buy "first of" anything, c) my cars are still working fine and I won't replace them until they die.
What I expect will happen is that families will move down to one car and use ride sharing to fill in the gaps. People who drive sports cars or big boat towing trucks will still drive those vehicles. It'll be the small commuter vehicles that will be the first to be replaced.
Luckily, I live in a land of earthquakes, where the roadways buckle and bridges and overpasses collapse! Transportation problem solved! There isn't any!
That is all.
let the government run it like we do with the Post Office.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You've got the money part covered but notice the headline includes saving time. This is the real comedy; waiting around for a ride share is supposed to save time somehow?
The number of times I need a car with only a moment's notice is very low. Even when my child was screaming with an ear infection last weekend it still took 5-10 minutes to get everything ready and packed to get out the door. A few clicks on your phone is all it will take to hail an autonomous car.
It takes less than 5 minutes to hail an Uber in major cities now, and that will be go down with automated cars and wider adoption. People living in rural areas will likely continue to need at least one car per household for longer, but the need for 2 or more vehicles will go down dramatically.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Yes, basically a valet would be quite convenient. OTOH, everybody leaving the office waiting for their car to pick them up at the front door at the same time brings its own problems, as would all those cars driving back downtown at the same time to pick people up.
You don't have to have a car in the shop many times before the time you're spending gets significant (waiting for it to get towed there, calling them back on the phone when they call you to give repair estimate but it went to voicemail, going to pick it up, etc).
Uber customers don't spend time performing oil changes, waiting for fueling, and never spend time eating popcorn and drinking coffee in the mechanic's waiting room. They don't spend time at carwashes. They don't spend time at a store waiting for their wife to pick the "right" air freshener. They don't spend time figuring out "is this car old enough that it's time to drop the comprehensive part of the insurance policy, going liability-only?" Uber customers don't spend time looking for parking spaces (or at this time of year, looking for shaded parking places) and then maybe even parking a few blocks from destination and having to walk.
Those things take time. I agree that they seem like less than the amount of time you spend waiting for every ride, though. But it's something. And the parking thing can actually catch up pretty fast depending on your situation. Right now in the summer, I probably spend as much time on parking alone, as an Uber customer spends waiting. (But that's only in the summer; at other times I'm less picky so it takes less time.)
OMG, I left out another part of the time: the travel!! When I'm driving, I'm only driving. A train passenger or an Uber passenger doesn't need to keep their eyes on the road, so .. looks like driving just lost big time from a time perspective, if you're into books or internet surfing or gaming or anything else you can do in the back seat of a car. That might be a lot of people.
Exactly, the less traffic only makes sense if the cars are communicating with each other to optimize traffic flow and reduce human induced traffic issues such as sunshine delays, rubbernecking accidents, and stupid driving. But even then your points are completely valid.
So, like many things: it depends.
You mean YMMV?
A decent LIDAR unit costs significantly more than a car.
Cheap LIDAR (today) is cheap because it has few beams and is effectively useless.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You've got the money part covered but notice the headline includes saving time. This is the real comedy; waiting around for a ride share is supposed to save time somehow?
There are three time sinks in my commute:
1) Waiting to get on the road. It takes ten minutes with Uber. I can do this instantly with my own car.
2) Time in the car. When riding in an Uber, I can do work (my job involves reading and marking up documents). When driving, I can't be productive for 20-40 minutes, twice a day.
3) Time hunting for a parking spot. This takes no time with Uber. It can take five to thirty minutes a day, when you count the 10 minute hike from the parking spot to the office on days I get to work after 8am.
For me, Uber is cheaper.
Free beer != Freedom of movement and association.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Self-driving ride-sharing would work for me if I could schedule a ride and then a '78 Trans Am shows up at my door and let's me drive that bitch.
Other than that, no thanks. Self-driving ride sharing is not for me. I'll leave that to you youngsters, with your technology and blueteeth and lip piercings.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Why does the cost of riding in a ride-share car go down over 25% between 2025 and 2030?
Why is the cost/mile to own so much higher than the cost/mile to hail? Don't the share companies need to make a profit?
Based on the IRS deduction the cost to operate a vehicle in 2018 is $.545/mile. This chart says by 2030 a rideshare company will be charging $.25/mile, so their expenses must be well below that
None of this makes sense to me.
As a simple example: Lets compare Federal car allowance $0.55/mile with costs for off-peak Uber in my neighborhood.
If I drive the 2 miles to go shopping the total cost for the car is $2.10.
If I Uber there it is $8.00 each way = $16.00.
Except you don't evacuate in an Earthquake, Einstein-san.
For me, if I take Uber it means walking 5 miles from the guard gate to my office since Uber isn’t allowed in the secure area. Vs my car were I can just drive to empty parking spot directly.
Owning a car is cheaper.
You mean, like, with STRANGERS?!
Ok, so explain to me how this is different that (horrors!) taking public transit.
When it works in villages of fewer than 1,000, national forests on unpaved or unstriped roads regularly frequented by deer, elk, cows, and the occasional owls that like the residual heat, and when they can handle winters that can have upwards of 12' of snow: THEN I might consider giving up my Subaru with snow tires. Handling areas that are unmapped by Google or Apple street views is definite bonus. Even GPS doesn't know exactly how to get to my house, I have to send a map of Google directions and then a Google satellite view and tell people to ignore the last bit of the Google directions and look at the satellite view.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Also, people may not try as hard to avoid rush hour if they can sit and browse the internet or watch a movie.
They can do that already... it’s called public transportation.
I take the train to work, so I am free to read, watch movies, listen to podcasts, or nap during my commute.
#DeleteChrome
owning a car == freedom
Not unless you also own the roads you drive on. Otherwise your freedom is limited to others consent.
Self-driving cars promise safer roads, less traffic and increased mobility.
{Citation Needed} -- and not from marketing departments or from SDC fanbois.
Oh yeah? I'll take two self driving cars, please. Who is selling them?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yeah, sure.
"Tragedy of the Commons" is a thing.
Ever seen collective spaces used by lots of people? Worse, used almost anonymously?
Yeah, no thanks - I don't want to hop in my 'driveshare' car at 0700 in the morning to go to work and slip on a pool of cum and vomit from the last user(s).
-Styopa
Decent LIDAR currently costs quite a bit of money. There is a huge drive to create cheaper LIDAR: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2...
Besides that, decent LIDAR is probably not even really needed to exceed human driving capabilities. After all, we don't use LIDAR data whilst driving.
And when you factor in the higher probability of life lost by poor software, it's an even greater value because then you won't have to pay taxes anymore and your family can actually get a lot of money I'm sure. Win win really.
I'd rather spend more money and more time and drive my own vehicle so I'm 100% in control of where I'm going, how I get there, and not mow down pedestrians because I actually know the difference between a living being and an inanimate object. Furthermore my travels won't be tracked by GPS and what's going on inside the vehicle won't be surveilled, either. You fools can entrust your life to some shitty machine if you like, but if it crashes into me I will sue the living daylights out of you for it.
The old 80/20 rule applies here. The first 80% of the usage will be by people that don't live in or need to drive in any of the conditions you describe. And for the 20% of the people that do the existing solutions will work perfectly fine.
There is simply no reason for the 80% that can use it as soon as available to wait until it can also be used by the last 20%.
Except it doesn't. Point to an example of a self driving car without a "safety driver" that has to be at the wheel and alert to legally drive. No, the example where uber mudered a pedestrian because their safety driver was texting doesn't count.
Actually Uber's profit will go up $5-6 per ride. They are ride sharing company not a profit sharing company :)
Tornados don't require mass evacuations.
Ah, well if you are going to use a silly definition of the word exist you ought to have a disclaimer lest reality will collide with you. There are enormousness amount of things which aren't on the market yet still exist. Driverless cars have existed for nearly 2 decades by my estimation. This isn't about flying cars which an entirely different story.
brandelf -t FreeBSD
And then it only makes sense only if all vehicles on the road are automated. A mix of human and automated drivers is likely to increase both congestion and accidents.
Except that Uber is currently highly subsidizing their service in an attempt to establish themselves as the predominant provider.
It is likely that they will have to reduce their subsidies in the long run, and most likely they will do that simply by moving more people to autonomous rides where (possibly) the existing fare structure could cover their cost of providing the service.
Of course, there will be bumps and ups and downs in pricing all along the way as other services jockey for market share (some of which will be well funded, e.g. Lyft.)
Parking could be a huge time sink depending on your job and home locations
Just wait until you see how much of a time sink the queue to be dropped off/picked up ends up being.
Currently cheap LIDAR sucks. 4 beams. Useless.
As to the later claim, you're pedaling vapor. We have no idea what it will take to exceed human driving capabilities, having gotten nowhere near it yet.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So you don't think that LIDAR will follow the example of other consumer electronics? E.g. the smartphone you have in your pocket? What do you think an iPhone X would have cost to build in 2008?
Once it starts getting into high production prices will start to fall and functionality will increase. There has not been any electronics based product ever that did not follow that pattern.
You'd be wrong. Roll out started back in 2017
That's not a roll out in any meaningful sense. I cannot call it to where I am, give it an arbitrary destination and have it take me there safely. That system is nothing more than a glorified airport shuttle on a fixed route and fixed destinations. Not even close to something that could replace my car and certainly not a replacement for a taxi.
What we have here is a group of people like wwphx who either don't realize , or least communicate like they are a member of that 20%. This is a common human problem, where people from tiny subsets pretend like their niche issue impacts the world at large.
While that's true, it is also true that earning money requires giving up some degree of freedom of movement and association.
That said, the idea that car sharing is going to ever be preferred over personal ownership is not grounded in reality. We already have car sharing services like Hourcar - and it's a niche market. Automating the driving only adds a small amount of convenience, and that comes at a higher price. There's no reason at all to expect that it's nearly enough to alter the market to any notable degree.
That is a made up fear as it has not been true so far. Even with the majority of cars being human driven cards, automated cars have a negligible rate of accidents.
They can do that already... itâ(TM)s called public transportation. I take the train to work, so I am free to read, watch movies, listen to podcasts, or nap during my commute.
Well obviously, with all the limitations of being on a fixed route on a schedule in a shared vehicle and if you need a car for other reasons it's mostly a sunk cost. It's not feasible for most car drivers to switch to public transport to get that, but if they could get it in their own car they'd be more willing to spend time there. I know I would, leisure time is precious and if I could move my "TV" time to my commute that'd be great. If I could get that in my own car, with a big screen and real speakers instead of earbuds/headphones that'd be excellent. Luckily I don't get carsick...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In SF there's scooters on every corner just waiting to be used... and most aren't.
So in the driverless model, to make it so i'm not wasting time waiting for a car to take me to the store, and then another one to pick me up and take me home. Is someone going to foot the bill to have thousands of cars just sitting around waiting for someone to click "i need a ride" button on their phone?
Who cleans up the driverless car if the previous rider gets sick in it or spills their drink? If the car shows up and their a slurpee spilled on the seat, I now have to reject it and wait another X minutes for another car to show up. Not exactly something I'm willing to do if I need to get somewhere. Also, how do you budget your time when you need to take into account the variable availability of one of these cars?
I can't imagine trying to haul kids around in these things in the case when you've got a child seat. Or, you want to take your bike somewhere, and you've got to attach a bike rack to it.
This is part of the new progressive mentality - encourage complete dependence in every aspect of life. Rent an apartment. Ride share a car. No ambition. Once you don't own anything, it's only a small step to having everything you "need" issued by the state. Also, when you don't own, you don't need to feel connected to anything ... no country, no community. That'll make it easier to accept the idea that you're prohibited from defending anything, including yourself and your loved ones.
Actually, several studies have shown that having as few as 30% of the vehicles on the road being autonomous will have a "moderating" influence on traffic patterns. (think perfectly spaced and paced rolling roadblocks)
I suspect that will boost autonomous usage even more, as it takes all of the "fun" out of "driving" for some people. (i.e. those who love to "drive" and dart across 5 lanes of traffic just to move up one space in the traffic flow).
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I need a car about 4 times a day. so I bought a used one.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That's a good point - perhaps one of us could commute with ride-sharing and the other could get kid duty. A little more planning would be necessary (who is on kid duty today?), but it seems like a reasonable accomodation to save serious money.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Sure, but isn't your situation an outlier, like a fraction of a percent of what is typical for the rest of us?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This is all science fiction: speculating what the future will be like based on technology that doesn't exist yet.
You say that as if it's a bad thing.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
deer, elk, cows, and the occasional owls
SDCs have better night vision, don't get distracted, and have WAY better reaction time. They can handle "animals on the road" better than humans.
I really wish people would spend the extra fixe seconds needed to consider solutions to the roadblocks they love to throw in front of new ideas.
So... if you had to solve the problem of "all those cars driving back downtown at the same time to pick people up", how would you do it?
Hint: The answer lies in the way the quote was phrased in the first place.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
This doesn't mean there will be fewer cars on the road, especially at peak commute hours.
No. It means there will be double the number of cars during these times.
Normally, you drive to work and park there. One way trip. Now the automated rideshare drives you to work, then drives back to your neighborhood to get someone else, and repeats that cycle.
If people happen to be headed opposite directions, this is mitigated somewhat, but most cities have pretty one-way traffic flows that go in in the morning and out in the evening.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Companies that dump products or services on the market at a loss to put competitors out of business break antitrust laws, Uber should be prosecuted.
love is just extroverted narcissism
And if enough people start doing it then maybe your employer will be forced to start letting autonomous vehicles in. Or setup a secure path for them to follow. Or start running shuttles to the gate. Or, I don't know, start enticing new hires with free shuttle rides to and from work.
We'll work it out, since some people know how to actually solve problem.......
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Depending on location, door to door service could outweigh a 5-10 minute wait.
When I Uber to downtown, I save 15 minutes by not searching for parking and then walking to my destination.
When I Uber to the airport, I save 30 minutes by not driving to long term parking and waiting for the shuttle bus.
Also, driverless ride sharing will be cheaper than current driven ride sharing, since there is no driver being paid.
As parking lots shrink, there will be more room for businesses and housing.
Like the human on the road that was recently killed?
You can keep your magic box.
I drive for Lyft from time to time. What surprised me is how many people use ride sharing to get to and from work. They are usually short trips that end up costing them ~$20-30 per day. I did some quick back of the napkin math, and spending ~$400 a month for transportation to and from work is a lot less than my car payment + insurance + gas + repairs.
At that point, I started extrapolating. If one person is spending $400, then three people are spending $1200 or four people are spending $1600. Given that kind of capital, I could see enterprising friends all pitching in to purchase an autonomous vehicle. Where it really starts making sense is when you can send the vehicle out to do ride share while you are working.
The article even mentions that the initial market for those vehicles is businesses. I can easily imagine a business of ride sharing with AVs. That's the low hanging fruit right there.
Granted, most people do more than just go to and from work with their cars. But again, what really surprised me was how many people in college and their mid-20s have no interest in owning a car. For some, it's a luxury that they cannot afford on top of student loans and all the other costs of starting up a life after moving out of their parent's house. For others, they just have no desire to own a car. They see it as an unnecessary expense.
They can do that already... it’s called public transportation.
Public transit use is declining in almost all developed countries. People abandon it for better alternatives as soon as options are available. Driverless ride sharing will be the next nail in the coffin.
Assuming that everyone else shares your preferences is what's not grounded in reality.
Anecdotal, but my stepson would LOVE autonomous vehicle ridesharing. Especially if it meant he never had to buy a car and never, ever had to learn to drive it.
He can drive, but he hates it. (You might notice that driver license registrations are down in the 16-20 age group nationwide.)
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
And then it only makes sense only if all vehicles on the road are automated.
Not true. There are significant benefits at even 10%. For instance, SDCs try to minimize braking at traffic lights by slowing early so they arrive at the light just in time to coast through as it turns green. This saves time (and gas) not only for the SDC, but also for the cars behind it.
Also, people may not try as hard to avoid rush hour if they can sit and browse the internet or watch a movie.
They can do that already... it’s called public transportation.
I take the train to work, so I am free to read, watch movies, listen to podcasts, or nap during my commute.
Well then, I guess we don't even need autonomous cars at all, public transportation meets the needs of all those people in rush hour traffic.
I really wish people would spend the extra fixe seconds needed to consider solutions to the roadblocks they love to throw in front of new ideas.
So... if you had to solve the problem of "all those cars driving back downtown at the same time to pick people up", how would you do it?
Hint: The answer lies in the way the quote was phrased in the first place.
I really wish people would tend to oversimplify every solution they like the sound of. I threw no roadblock, I threw a potential issue. Its people like me that think of potential issues so they can be resolved that are critical to success. Touting great promise only to find disappointing results because nobody thought ahead isn't always so wonderful.
I didn't cause the present 'roadblocks' that are preventing us from moving forward at a faster pace with autonomous driving. I predicted some of them and got similar responses at the time.
Like the human on the road that was recently killed?
The sensors and software detected the pedestrian just fine, but had automatic braking disabled, since the human "driver" was expected to handle that.
So this is not an example of an SDC failing, it is an example of a human failing (by not paying attention).
I live in a rural area outside a city of 30,000 people. Any time I go to town it costs me an hour going up and down the mountain, time that I would appreciate recovering in an autonomous vehicle or ride share, which does not exist. Therefore, why shouldn't these cars be tested up here? There are many other small towns all over the place up here that would likewise benefit from AVs and such up here.
Even when I lived in Phoenix, my friends were spread out all over the valley, so ride sharing and public transport and unpredictable scheduling would make it difficult for either to be viable. I'm not sure how well AVs stand up to the summer monsoons in Phoenix as I've been gone for over a decade.
I think the article is biased in favor of large population centers, as is autonomous car development. I think AV car development would have been better off on highways where the environment seems to me to be more predictable.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
The human was watching TV on her phone, more specifically. I can't figure out why the automatic braking was disabled. My dad, who lives in Phoenix and is in his 80s, always mentions that the driver is a convicted felon. I can't imagine what that has to do with the accident in his head. I guess once you're a felon you should never have a job again?
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
'And even if they do, are Americans ready to give up driving? '
New Yorkers already did, years ago.
Buttfuck, Idaho? Not so sure.
Can we stop with the driverless cars fantasy already? It is a phony dream, that technology will somehow create a perfectly obedient machine, in the form of a car, and allow us to live lives of ever increasing leisure. Why not just revive slavery? For the simple cost of food and housing, we could use slaves to drive our cars, and implement the same types of car-sharing ideas that the article proposes.
We just have to learn how to schedule our trips and coordinate with our neighbors, "Does anyone need the slaves on Thursday? We are planning a family outing." Either with slaves or with driverless cars, the coordination problems are the same, and we have NEITHER THE TOOLS NOR THE SOCIAL STRUCTURES TO MAKE ANY OF THIS WORK ANY TIME SOON. One thing is pretty clear: the "driverless" technology will need to have the equivalent of a human intelligence in order to accomplish any of the things that have been promised - something that can watch the road, with situational awareness, and also analyze and adjust the route to the final destination, and monitor traffic reports, and make sure there is enough gas. We could use slaves for this and save a lot on microchips.
Regarding the former: You did not read the article and more or less just reiterated your irrelevant claim. Useless.
Regarding the latter: The point is that the human sensory array is easily (and cheaply) outmatched without using LIDAR. Sure, the processing part is a very different story, but that is not the point.
Now, please have the decency to respond properly or go away.
Brought to you by We Don't Want Them To Own Cars, part of the We Don't Want Them To Own Property project, in partnership with We Don't Want Them To Move Freely and We Want To Track Everything They Do as part of the Citizen Slavery Coalition.
I predict the annual costs of driverless ridesharing would in that case increase $3,900 higher than in the best-case scenario.
Please stay in the overpacked cities so we can continue to enjoy life in the country and off the concrete
My 2015 Subaru Crosstrek has the Eyesight system, which I absolutely love and is amazing. It provides adaptive cruise control, automatic braking, and lane drift notification. Two weeks after I got the car a baby deer ran down off a mountain right in front of the car while I was on a sharp curve. At 35-40 MPH I had no time to react. The Eyesight system didn't see it as it was just barely over the hood, and the baby deer literally exploded in the collision.
Now, Eyesight is not a complete sensor suite. It's optical-only and sees straight ahead in a limited cone, a full suite with RADAR/LIDAR etc. should have seen the deer coming down the hillside. It's an unusual environment and I'm curious if it would have reacted correctly in an environment where a mountain slope is almost touching the road.
THIS is one of the reasons why I'd like to see autonomous vehicles tested up here! Sooner or later someone is going to buy an AV when they go for sale in the general market, and they're going to be brought up here by vacationers, and they probably won't work well because they weren't tested up here extensively.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
The factory automatic braking was disabled because they were testing the Uber self-driving system, including its' automatic braking.
GFYMuthaVM
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Therefore, why shouldn't these cars be tested up here?
Because it's only 30,000 people? And the problem is fairly difficult to solve.
I grew up in a town of 4,000 people, much smaller than yours. But our house was only 15 minutes away and a fairly boring drive (a bit harrowing in the winter though, daily thaws with nightly refreeze turns the roads into spotty sheets of wet ice). My area is more rural farmland rather than rough terrain. The roads are paved and well marked so it seems more likely that my little town gets AV than yours. I hope that autonomous cars come around soon so my elderly parents won't have to drive themselves anymore. Mainly AVs need some good cameras to the sides to spot deer. That said even a human driver is in peril when it's dark or foggy and there are deer near the road.
The article is not really biased, it's reporting on the current state of affairs. The investment effort in AV is in multiple areas. In the media the popular topic is in solving the commute problem for travel between suburbs to big cities. But also important is the short haul and long haul trucking industry, which are two distinct problems for AV.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
For you it IS pointless. Bully for you. If you live in the city in an apartment stack, down the block from a grocery store, across the street from a bus stop, I'm sure you could get to a place where owning a car was simply not necessary.
But I don't want to live in an apartment in the city. To me, your life completely sucks. I don't want to commute in a bus, even if everyone else is the same color as me and meticulously dressed and perfectly behaved. I want to be "in public" as little as possible. And I don't want to "take an Uber" for basically the same reasons on a smaller scale. The fact is, I like to drive, and I like to drive in a car of my choosing.
Lots of people here are saying "I can dig it!" for whatever scenario they are picking and implicitly suggesting that if they can dig it, everyone else should, too, because their way is "superior," whether it is for economics or social engineering or some other reason they champion. I don't have a problem with you doing it your way. What I do have a problem with is you coercing me into doing it your way and I feel very sorry for people who are basically forced into this kind of life because they have no other choices. And that sucks.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
I predict the annual costs of driverless ridesharing would in that case increase $3,900 higher than in the best-case scenario.
Companies in competitive markets cannot just arbitrarily raise prices. Ride sharing is very competitive (and thus not very profitable), and has few barriers to entry. When Uber and Lyft pulled out of Austin, several upstart competitors were operating within a week.
"At 35-40 MPH I had no time to react." "... and they probably won't work well because they weren't tested up here extensively."
So... at worse it would do exactly what you did and plow into the deer?
Further, I have an Outback with Eyesight, and you're definitely supposed to be paying attention to the environment. In fact, you should be able to pay even MORE attention to the environment around you, as you're not constantly micromanaging speed and distance to the preceding vehicle.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
You have a very weird and unrepresentative work situation.
shmlco already made some sensible suggestions. I would add: can't you wait by the station for a minute or two until a co-worker comes through and picks you up?
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Issue / roadblock / tomAto /tomAHto. It's people like you who love to bring up "issues" and "problems", believing that they're somehow smarter than most of the people already working on the problem.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Like Uber you know when your ride is approaching. That time spent being ferried from A to B is time available to you. Look at people now, they would much rather be on a bus/train/ferry/... and bury themselves in /. or whatever rather than have to push through traffic and find/pay-for a carpark; and that carpark probably won't be at that pick-up/drop-off point outside their source/destination. And unlike a train/bus/ferry/... you can totally immerse yourself or even fall asleep as you wont overshoot your destination (assuming the car can rouse you ;).
Issue / roadblock / tomAto /tomAHto. It's people like you who love to bring up "issues" and "problems", believing that they're somehow smarter than most of the people already working on the problem.
Never said I was smarter than anyone. I don't assume you are either. You can go ahead and believe they've got it all figured out. I am sure they aren't as averse to talking about the challenges as you are.
In a rideshare setup like this, who is responsible for upkeep and maintainance on the car? Who cleans it when another ridesharer's kids leave cookie crumbs and spilled juice on the back seat? It's a sad fact that when someone doesn't actually own something, they aren't motivated to treat it properly.
Oh, I most definitely do pay attention! It was one of those situations where you see something out of the corner of your eye and then it's in front of your car in the next instant, that deer was running down that slope full-tilt boogie. Every other time we've had a deer or elk encounter we've had plenty of time to come to a stop, not this time. If there's one thing that I hate it's my car being damaged because it means 2-4 weeks of it being out of service, so I drive aware and paranoid. If my car is damaged in the winter, which this wasn't, I can't get another Subaru as a rental.
I absolutely love my Outback, sweetest car I've had in the 3+ decades I've been driving. But recently I've been driving a new Forester loaner from the dealership when I've been getting work done on my car or my wife's, and that might be our next car. Mine is the 4th Subaru in our family.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Companies in competitive markets cannot just arbitrarily raise prices.
Right; they usually collude to raise them all simultaneously, a la cell phone carriers.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Even with the majority of cars being human driven cards, automated cars have a negligible rate of accidents.
Not when you consider total numbers; 5,000 human driven failures out of 10,000,000 vehicles on the road is a drop in the bucket compared to 500 self-driven failures out of 10,000 vehicles on the road.
(yes, those are made-up figures, but they still make the point - you can't reasonably compare self-driven accidents with human-driven accidents without considering the total number of each type of vehicle on the roads)
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Actually, several studies have shown that having as few as 30% of the vehicles on the road being autonomous will have a "moderating" influence on traffic patterns. (think perfectly spaced and paced rolling roadblocks)
So who gets the ticket for riding in the left lane without passing? The occupants? The car's owner? The manufacturer?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If you cut out the driver, your average Uber trip drops to $5-6 each way
CORPORATE GREED DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!
GOODNIGHT!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Neither do hurricanes. In fact, mass evacuation is in almost all cases counter-productive.
My town is actually classed as a village of 800, not to quibble, my nearest city is 30k. The nearest GOOD cities are 100k and close to a million, but those are 90 minutes and 2 hours away, respectively. I can appreciate that it's easier to test such vehicles in well-defined cities and best to start there, Phoenix is nigh ideal with good (albeit hot as hell) weather and its grid layout and flat terrain. San Francisco is great for all its tech incubator resources. And cities certainly have their challenges. And big cities have a greater need for AVs than my little city much less my village. They've been in those cities for a few years now, and sooner or later AVs WILL appear in my village, and if they don't test up here, including all-wheel drive where they'll need to make decisions whether should they circle 3/4ths of a mile around a block or attempt an unpaved pothole-filled road? Locals know to not use one road next to my house during the winter going up or down if there's the least chance of ice: will an AV be smart enough?
I think they should have additional test groups in tougher areas. GM says it's going to start selling AV delivery vans next year. Clearly those will be going to high-density cities, but they indicate that GM is thinking towards selling AV passenger cars. Those cars will eventually be driven in to rough areas: they had better have been extensively tested in those areas under all sorts of conditions! I see people trying to drive 2WD vehicles up this mountain during snow storms without chains! Lots of people are fundamentally stupid and ill-equipped and place unjustified faith in their cars: AVs aren't going to fix this. As is sometimes seen on this site - Social Engineering: Because there's no patch for human stupidity. Maybe we'll get lucky and an AV will say "I'm sorry, Dave, I cannot do that" if some idiot tells it to drive up to the ski area during a snow storm when the car has 2WD and no snow tires or chains. I hope so.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Also, you guys have failed to mention that the very "attractiveness" of SDCs will mean that there will be more of them on the road. For example carrying non-drivers who currently use the train, bus or just don't do the journey. Then the fact that the SDC can drop you off "at the door" of the shopping mall or theatre and then you send it off empty to drive to some arbitrary destination and back in time to pick you up again.
Of course, TFA said sharing, but it is unlikely that someone else in your circle will happen to need it from only a short drive away from where you leave it, and anywhere near the same time. I've tried sharing things with others in the past (tools, driveways, vehicles) and I'm through with it - The Tragedy of the Commons kicks in. If you are not sharing with people in your circle, but with strangers, it's called a taxi.
This guy gets it. Savings often don't get passed to the consumer.
Sure, I could take public transportation to work. The local metro area has a public transportation network that would only cost me about $1,000 per year. And the bus to get to it would cost another $4,000 per year. The total trip would take an extra 2-3 hours each way. I think I'll pass.
Oh yeah? I'll take two self driving cars, please. Who is selling them?
Just because no one is selling them doesn't mean they don't exist jackass.
Do you think nuclear weapons are "science fiction based on technology that doesn't exist" because you can't buy one?
A lot of autonomous cars are (famously) getting tested outside of Detroit, precisely because the winter roads are so challenging. And the cars really have trouble in the non-winter months because there are so many pot holes and the lines have been scraped off by plows and eroded by salt. There are already plans in place to disable self-driving under certain conditions, and on certain roads (GPS), this is especially true of Level 4 and 5 autonomous systems. They will not be driving up to your town at all. You've likely already seen Level 2 and 3 in your area, as they are not fully autonomous and likely the human driver was in control at the time.
I don't think we can fault businesses for going for the biggest bang-for-the-buck. If you think you can do better maybe start your own AV business?
I've got chains for front and rear on my 4WD so I don't get stranded at my Tahoe cabin for a season. The snowfall there would destroy my truck with the snow load. (I can hike out in about 8-10 hours)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I'll stick to having my own vehicle TYVM.
Why not just stock up a basement with food, guns, and traps like every other prepper out there. Why always default to having to own a car for all those super regular disasters that don't seem to ever affect nearly the entire population of your country?
waiting around for a ride share is supposed to save time somehow?
By not waiting around crawling at snails pace on an overfilled highway where every person is using up 15 square meters of space for themselves.
Car define certain people. Sports cars, 4x4, etc. By making all cars look and act the same, then, tell people to ride share instead of owning one, you continue to chip away why America is unique to the rest of the world. Another way to destroy it from within. Make America, like every other flippin' European country. Cars are always being made to look "more European". Hey, get a grip! We flippin' left that hell hole for a reason. Maybe in large cities this would be good, but some of us out here in flyover country actually ENJOY getting behind the wheel of a car and taking it for a spin!
Unless, of course, there are no ambulances due to bad weather and your loved one needs to get to medical help as soon as possible.
perhaps (though double is a worst case; you're assuming that the people per car remains the same as self-driving), but note that they will only be driving empty in the less commonly-used direction. The number of cars on the road may increase, but the number of cars in the heavily trafficked direction will not.
You could save money riding public transit. Today! Why don't you?
Oh, yea! You don't like sitting in/smelling other people's piss.
I'm eager for self-driving cars to get the fucking morons out from behind the wheel. But, I'm not even vaguely interested in our sharing/subscription everything present and future. Piss on that business model and every cocksucker that encourages it.
Yes you too, cocksucker. Did I stutter?
Ten years ago, you used to post decent posts with good information, decent talking points, which all in all made you worth reading even if we differed in opinion. Now, you've turned into a MAGAtard like ever other conservative on this site and so your posts are pretty well equalivalent to droolings on the keyboard. The howling rabble just love your drool and they mod this dumb shit up. It doesn't make you correct.
You know damned well how many companies have cars they could sell to you right now (you bitch in the stories /. posts about them). You know damned well the reason they aren't for sell is all due to everyone worrying about who is the bastard who's gonna get sued. It's the American Fucking Way(tm).
If this is the crotchety bullshit we have to deal with from old ass baby-boomer phantomfive, just die already and give a young person a turn to thrive. Your old defeatist thinking is holding everyone else back.
not if Lyft is willing to accept a 3-4 dollar profit...
I think of driverless cars in terms of less vehicles i would have to own. I own 3 vehicles but if (in the future) i could purchase one family autonomous car the cost savings is pretty high.
Assuming that everyone else shares your preferences is what's not grounded in reality.
I'm not assuming anything. I'm noting that car share services already exist, and comprise only a very tiny share of all trips. That's not a matter of me projecting my preferences - it's observing the actual market as it exists. I just don't using autonomous vehicles would make depending on a car share service any more appealing [in relation to owning an autonomous car] than current car sharing services are [in relation to owning a human-driven car].
Anecdotal, but my stepson would LOVE autonomous vehicle ridesharing. Especially if it meant he never had to buy a car and never, ever had to learn to drive it.
Ownership is one issue, and autonomy is a separate one. Today, you can own a non-autonomous car, or you can use a car share to use a non-autonomous car. In the future, assuming autonomous cars don't end up being so much vaporware, those same options ill exist with autonomous cars. I don't see, nor has anyone proposed, a mechanism to explain why introducing self-driving capability to cars (both private and shared) will shift the existing balance in preference from ownership to sharing.
Self-driving cars promise safer roads, less traffic and increased mobility. Some autonomous vehicle proponents also maintain they will save time and money.
Yeah, and they made all sorts of promises of heroin solving the morphine and laudanum problem, too. And opiods are non-addictive, too.
The sensors and software detected the pedestrian just fine, but had automatic braking disabled, since the human "driver" was expected to handle that.
No. One set of software and sensors (the ones installed by the manufacturer) detected the pedestrian just fine, but had automatic braking disabled because the OTHER set of software and sensors (the ones installed by Uber) were expected to handle that. The driver was just a backup for the Uber sensors/software.
There's no question that the driver was criminally negligent, but the Uber software/hardware failed as well.
These soy boy cuck faces justify the impotence by saying it is their choice. Youâ(TM)re a helpless faggot if you donâ(TM)t have your own car.
These asshole munchers only dwell in the cities and have never been anywhere else in America or the world - they believe what they do is the only right way.
Fuck you, Uber cock suckers. Sure, youâ(TM)ll catch some stupid beta makes into improving their helplessness more, while guys with cars take the girls they stalk for a drive and fuck them silly.
Even Uber assholes need to own a car. See how utterly stupid this is? Faggots.
Now go watch some dude bang your âlady freindâ(TM) Fagots.
Lets face it. Those 15-30 minutes are worthless. You arenâ(TM)t billing those hours.
This is why assholes tailgate and drive like maniacs. They believe their time has some high value. It does not. They get off their shitty low wage job, rich recklessly home, drink or smoke weed, fight with the spouse, and then watch tv.
Meanwhile the people whose time is really worth something understand itâ(TM)s ok to wait a little bit, to not drive reckless, to let that person turn in your lane, and act civilized.
If your time is actually worth as much as you think, you do the opposite- you do not rush and enjoy it. On average. There is always exceptions (I have to say that because retards discount intrinsic common sense)
There have to be autonomous cars, first. There aren't, currently. This is pure conjecture, and it is boring.
We value our freedom and out lives. Keep this crap out of the way.
What it really means is that both directions would have heavy traffic, whereas now only one direction is packed. I wonder what effect this would have on fuel usage?
My UID is prime and so is this number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
Why is it an either/or?
BUT, I have kids. They need to be ferried to sports, before-school activities, certain friends' houses, etc.
I used to be a kid and I had a bike. There was nowhere I couldn't get on my bike...
Uhhhh.... Tell that to Wichita, Kansas.
I've seen a town removed from existence. Those who didn't flee died.
Getting to where I need to be when I need to be there is too important for me to trust to anybody but me. Businesses will always put their interests ahead of mine, and that's unacceptable for my mission critical need.
for the same reasons I don't take a Taxi, Uber, the bus or a GD train.
I go where I want and, more importantly, WHEN I want. I'm not going to wait around for someone / something to come pick me up. Did the bus and / or Bart thing for years. Will never do it again.
IF a self-driving car is on par price wise with the current offerings, then I have no issues with owning one as I can get in it and go without someone / something else dictating WHEN I can go.
Until then, I'll just keep on driving.
Nope, he outclassed everyone and rose to the top of the pile. At this point, he can be an instructor for future classes, a bad example, or a crash test dummy. The good news is that NONE of those jobs have been outsourced.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Can I ride share a pickup truck when I want to get a load of manure? I wonder if I can hire my Toyota Tacoma as a ride share to haul a load of manure for someone else.
Nah. SAE level five cars don't exist yet, and that's what people normally mean, and what this article is talking about.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Nah. SAE level five cars don't exist yet, and that's what people normally mean.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You have a very weird and unrepresentative work situation.
I could say the same about the people who live in such high density areas that they complain owning a car is too expensive and too hard to park.
Not for the car behind you turning right.
Lucky you. Not everyone lives in the worlds most bikeable town with perfect year-round weather and safety.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Girlfriend, sure. I am sure you were expecting Grammar Nazi or Car analogist or Mr Pedantic, but now you've just been blindsided by Maury's old polygraph
Normally people say what they mean.
brandelf -t FreeBSD
No they don't haha. From the context of the article, they are talking about at least level 4.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Car driving needs a lot of infrastructure that will break down in most natural disasters - hurricanes, earthquakes, landslides. Most cars would run out of gas within hundreds of miles. Hurricanes might deposit debris , trees etc. on roads making it impossible to drive, or might take away roads where the cars could have driven.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
LOL, but old nerds - avoided by the fairer sex in youth - become a valuable marriage commodity. Girlfriend is now Wife.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The US "justice system" punishes people *for life*. Cruel and unusual punishment indeed. Fuck you guys.
Here's a recent column/rant from a long time columnist in the greater NY area. A few years ago he had written a column begging for Uber to be allowed in his area so that he could go out for dinner and get drunk. Well, be careful what you wish for applies here. Uber's been in the area since last June, promptly killing the cash cab business. https://indyeastend.com/news-o...
The people in the video you linked to seemed to survive just fine. What's the big deal? Tornados are pretty small, let's look at hurricanes/cyclones:
Hurricane Katrina, category 5, Highest winds (1-min): 175 mph (280 km/h), Lowest pressure: 902 mbar (hPa); 26.64 inHg.
Cyclone Yasi, category 5, Highest winds (1-min): 250 km/h (155 mph), Lowest pressure: 929 hPa (mbar); 27.43 inHg.
Very similar storms in size and magnitude. Yes, Katrina hit a large city (greater area population 1.2m) and Yasi crossed over smaller regional centers such as Cairns and Townsville (estimated population affected 0.5m), but the death toll is hardly proportional at all.
Yasi: 1 dead.
Katrina: 1,245–1,836 dead.
You've got problems America: fix yourself, or GTFO.
Actually, several studies have shown that having as few as 30% of the vehicles on the road being autonomous will have a "moderating" influence on traffic patterns. (think perfectly spaced and paced rolling roadblocks)
This is a nightmare scenario. Rolling roadblocks only encourage drivers to constantly change lanes looking for a way to pass. More lane changes means more braking behind them, more risk to the nearby cars, and more traffic jams and sudden stops further back. That equates to more accidents. Intentionally creating rolling roadblocks is extremely irresponsible and reckless and may be illegal depending on the state. Good way to kill off the human drivers if that's your goal, I guess.
I skimmed your link. Lots of vapor, lots of arm waving. The fact remains that current efforts at making cheap Lidar is done by putting fewer beams in it, 4 is typical.
I've already addressed claim 2. You just 'doubled down' on 'vapor'.
You do have a point about the software being nowhere close to ready...5 years (your claim) is laughable. Software won't be ready, cheap LIDAR won't be ready, image processing won't be ready etc etc etc.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Chicken of egg. Won't see 'high production' until there is a technical breakthrough in LIDAR AND a breakthrough in strong AI.
They are slowly working on 1, the don't even know where to start on 2.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
yes, those are made-up figures, but they still make the point
Wtf? You don't get to just pull numbers out of your ass to make a point.
"After adjusting for severity and accounting for crashes not reported to police, the study estimated cars with drivers behind the wheel are involved in 4.2 crashes per million miles, versus 3.2 crashes per million miles for self-driving cars in autonomous mode." Source It's a bit dated though, I'm sure it wouldn't take too long to find something newer.
yes, those are made-up figures, but they still make the point
Yup, that's just about the dumbest thing I've read on the Internet today. Thank you for the laugh.
When I give up my guns. My testicles would have to be long gone.
Yeah, but which one of those situations is more common? The insignificant number of people that work in secure facilities that require walking 5 miles if you happen to take the bus, or the millions of people that live/work in a major metropolitan area?
Maybe your dad figures that a company doing potentially risky public testing of new technology would hire someone actually qualified to be monitoring the technology, and not the least qualified person off the street that they can get for just above minimum wage.
Get him a stick shift V8 and maybe his balls will drop?
Since I park about 20 ft from my office I wouldn't expect to save much time on parking.
"Mainly AVs need some good cameras to the sides to spot deer. That said even a human driver is in peril when it's dark or foggy and there are deer near the road."
My suspicion is that robodrivers will handle this better than humans.
"Actually, several studies have shown that having as few as 30% of the vehicles on the road being autonomous will have a "moderating" influence on traffic patterns."
Not that surprising: At around 10% of human drivers maintaining 2 second following distances, freeway snarlups evaporate in less than 5 minutes.
IE: the best thing to do when you encounter one is to ensure your following distance is adequate.and _DON'T_ let the asshole tailgating you force you to close that gap.
"The number of cars on the road may increase, but the number of cars in the heavily trafficked direction will not."
More interestingly the number of cars PARKED in the heavily targetted direction will decline dramatically and outfits which profit from parking will rapidly find their income stream being kneecapped as vehicles either stay working through the day or park in lower-charging areas.
This will result in less-cluttered, more pedestrian-friendly streets in most european cities.
" Currently cheap LIDAR sucks. 4 beams. Useless. "
The issue of "X sucks, useless" is about how they're used, not what they're capable of.
If output from N cheap LIDAR units can be stitched together to provide the same coverage as a unit costing more than N units, then the tradeoff is worthwhile - furthermore, it gives better depth perception. and those expensive units are somewhat vulnerable + mechanically complex, which is not a good thing in an automotive environment.
It's a good idea to read "Superiority" by Arthur C Clarke.
Wtf? You don't get to just pull numbers out of your ass to make a point.
"After adjusting for severity and accounting for crashes not reported to police,
"You don't get to pull numbers out of your ass, so here's some that I cherry-picked."
GTFO with that bullshit.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
so here's some that I cherry-picked
Or it's one of the first five articles that came up when I fucking googled "accident rates per miles driven driverless cars." The first couple didn't have anything that resembled statistics. Where's your source? Oh yeah, you pulled numbers out of thin air to support an argument, and are now butthurt because you got called out. Done wasting my time with this argument, good day.
Right now, I need my car. I drive to work, I drive to visit customers, I drive to pick up groceries and all the stuff I need on a day to day basis.
In a couple of years, I'll retire. THEN I might be able to get by with a car service. In theory, it sounds great; hail a little car to take me TO the grocery store, and a bigger one to bring me (and my purchases) home.
But the problems that I foresee aren't so much technical issues as social ones. In Seattle, in San Francisco and in San Jose, companies have deployed dozens or hundreds of electric scooters and bikes; lease the scooters with your phone, and use them as long as you like, and then drop them off anywhere. But vandals and locals concerned with the litter and cluttering of the scooters have been destroying them, throwing them down cliffs, into rivers and ditches, or befouling them.
Will the same thing happen with automated car service vehicles? I can almost guarantee it.
Lucky you. Not everyone lives in the worlds most bikeable town with perfect year-round weather and safety.
It was none of that, people were just less precious a few decades ago than they are now.
Isn't Ridesharing part of the philosophy behind Uber and Lyft? We see the indigenous Ridesharing folks, the Taxi company, fighting Uber and Lyft in the urban areas and Winning! Cities are restricting, taxing, and outlawing Uber and Lyft. Where is your Ridesharing then? The idea may be good, but since it moves, the Governments will tax it out of existence.
That's false nostalgia. I'm sure you can find examples of that if you are looking for it, but some places never were and will never be bike friendly. I grew up in a perfectly flat biking paradise, and I went everywhere on my bike until high school. In high school, my first school was 5 miles away on a dangerous causeway and my friends similarly placed. My second school was a 45 minute drive. Needless to say, biking went out the window when I turned 14, and it wasn't because I was spineless. Winter weather, summer weather, wet weather - all meant driving, even in the days of old. In a post-car-ownership world, those will be peak times and will cost more. I can say this with some confidence having lived in NYC and knowing when it is hard to get a cab.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Just because something is not useful to you, doesn't mean it isn't useful. And in this case you are an outlier and don't represent the general population. So telling us it isn't useful for you isn't informative, as anyone with half a brain should be aware that this won't suit everyone.
Typically during peak commute hours, most of the traffic is going in one direction, so any cars returning shouldn't add to congestion. But I think the key assumption is the ride-sharing part. Where you'll be sharing the car ride with some other passengers, that could easily halve the number of cars on the road. We'll have to see.if the sharing part actually takes off, as that will also affect the economics of it.
That's false nostalgia. I'm sure you can find examples of that if you are looking for it,
The example I used was mine. It was real, it was my actual childhood. I even said so in my comment
Exactly my point.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Exactly my point.
No your point was that my nostalgia is fake based on someone else's experience that isn't mine. And you got it wrong.
If that is what you got from my post, then I failed to communicate with you.
You made a point about how you could get anywhere on your bike as a kid. I countered with how this won't work for everyone. You countered with, no, it's because people have changed. I came back with a more specific example of how even in a relatively bike friendly location you may have need for a car as a teenager. I did mention false nostalgia, but that was not the main point of my post, and I'll try to be more concise in the future.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
If that is what you got from my post, then I failed to communicate with you.
That's positive, so let's go through this.
You made a point about how you could get anywhere on your bike as a kid.
Correct
I countered with how this won't work for everyone.
Not quite true, you countered with my nostalgia being false. My nostalgia might not be yours, but it is 100% true for me (and all the people I knew as a kid)
You countered with, no, it's because people have changed.
I didn't counter with anything other than to clarify that my nostalgia is mine and it it true for me.
I came back with a more specific example of how even in a relatively bike friendly location you may have need for a car as a teenager. I did mention false nostalgia, but that was not the main point of my post, and I'll try to be more concise in the future.
I do appreciate your response. These things tend to get emotional quickly and it's refreshing to see someone not do that.
Well, to clarify my clarification... :)
I used an ambiguous, or perhaps wrong phrase in "false nostalgia". I didn't mean to imply that your memories are not real - I take your word when you say that you biked everywhere as a kid. I meant that people weren't so different back then and your situation was probably more unique than you think it was. Granted, sprawl is a lot worse than it was 30 years ago, safety is more important to people now (bike helmets? who needs em!), etc. But I don't think kids are inherently whimpier now or anything like that - that's what I meant by false nostalgia.
Thanks for the discussion and kind words.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.