patrick.net

HeadSet says

Patrick says

Yup, tracked and controlled from some central location

I believe we are now in the golden age of personal driving. In the future, I believe private cars will be prohibitively expensive and the common folk will get around by using an app to summon a shared use vehicle. Too bad if you want to pull a trailer or boat, and no more leisurely country drives.

That will and should definitely be the future in smaller cities, especially in downtowns, in zones where the necessary tech and infrastructure can be rebuilt, retrofitted, and regularly maintained. And like the "last mile" concept, I'd love to be able to drive and park my own car somewhere close by, then be able to get around by completely autonomous tech like buses, trams, cars, etc... Some future looking governments in places like Singapore, Tokyo, Dubai, etc... are planning for this. Some are being tested.

But, it'll be a long long time if at all possible outside of these zones for folks living in rural and secluded places. Even then I really do not think it's feasible at all, biggest issues being low usage, negative ROI, difficulties with maintainance, harsh weather and terrain related issues, etc... There are many more of these folks than city people realize. Try autopilot through a winding forest road to a secluded cabin or camp site. It is an arduous adventure, to say the least, on some roads even in the summer.

MolotovCocktail says

Doesn't answer my question to your Tesla liability bullshit. Who over at Tesla is going to serve hard prison time when a Tesla is at fault for vehicular manslaughter?

The exact same people who served time for the opioid crisis made by Perdue.

floki says

But, it'll be a long long time if at all possible outside of these zones for folks living in rural and secluded places.

I am saying cars will get prohibitively expensive, not that automated travel will be so convenient that people will give up cars. The country folk will just have to limit the times they come to town since they will pay per mile for each shared ride trip. Just like the pre Ford Model T days.

HeadSet says

floki says

But, it'll be a long long time if at all possible outside of these zones for folks living in rural and secluded places.

I am saying cars will get prohibitively expensive, not that automated travel will be so convenient that people will give up cars. The country folk will just have to limit the times they come to town since they will pay per mile for each shared ride trip. Just like the pre Ford Model T days.

Well, your assertion of cars becoming "prohibitively expensive" part needs more details. Does that include what will surely be added fees for various local govermental policies to pay for the autonomous infrastructures, or just the costs of cars? No way it will be (MUST NOT) applied across the board for everyone. If you meant for cities folks, I'd agree that would be more likely, and should, like anything else in the cities but for rural folks, the costs will likely be not much different from the prevailing market prices (just the cars) without those added costs. Things being more expensive in cities compared to rural places has always been the case for almost everything, in some cases prohibvitively. And rural folks MUST not be forced to subsidize those added costs.

For example, it is prohibitively expensive to OWN a car (whether ICEV, hybrid, or EV) in small and or dense cities like Singapore and HongKong. A mid-range camary in Singapore costs around SG$ 200-250K (around $150-180K) as one example. That total cost includes various added fees, the most expensive being a 10-year permit of around SG$120-150K depending on models and prevailing demands which is ironically always high!!!! because those permits are capped at around 1mil and there are always people with lots of money to spare.

So yeah, I can imagine cars becoming too expensive like you put it but only in various locals where their local goverments doing what they always do: increase policies, costs, and restrictions while limiting supply in the name of some novel idea such as this.

floki says

Well, your assertion of cars becoming "prohibitively expensive" part needs more details

Yes. I mean that cars in general will become too expensive to own regardless of any support infrastructure. Once the government ( or a gov supported enterprise) deploys fleets of on demand self-driving vehicles, they will tax the hell out of any private vehicles. Add to that extreme liability for any private car that gets in an accident, thus driving insurance cost through the roof. As a precedence, I refer to General Aviation. In the 1970s, small private aircraft from Cessna, Piper, Bellanca, and Rockwell were affordable by working people. Small airports were common by even small towns, and each airport had plenty of single engine planes parked at them. How much more expensive is a plane to build than a car? A Cessna 150 was a simple air-cooled engine attached to an aluminum frame. A brand new C-150 in the 70s cost about as much as a higher end car, and used planes were much cheaper. Then came along a clown who crashed his Cessna 150 will trying to take off with 40 degrees of flaps. The 100 horse power engine was not up to that, so he stalled and crashed. Clown won a huge lawsuit, which if a jury of his peers were pilots, that lawsuit would have been tossed out because of the obvious pilot error. As a result of the lawsuit, Cessna made the follow on Cessna 152 limited to 30 degrees of flaps (which hurts short field landings) but worse, Cessna added $20,000 onto the price of each plane to cover lawsuits. You see, after that lawsuit, Cessa was liable for every plane they made since 1947. Those high prices meant far less planes sold, and increased liability and fixed costs added to those planes that did sell. Today the cheapest single engine Cessna will cost well over $300,000. This is how private cars can be made unaffordable, allow Chevrolet to be sued for every crash and the added-on liability cost tacked on the price will make private cars a plaything for the rich, just as what happened with general aviation. When a basic car costs $150,000, plus $500/mo to insure, along with road use taxes, it will not matter whether you live in the city or countryside, the car will be unaffordable.

Ahh HeadSet, I understand you're trying to make a point but I disagree with the car/plane analogy. And every point you made about these said issues with cars, accidents, etc... already exist, understood, and the costs, policies, and processes already factored into our daily lives.

Specialized EVs won't affect private owners as much as you think, except in places they're deployed at scale, for this particular tech needing massive overhauls to existing infrastructures there. We all know buses, trains, ferries, ships, etc... all manner of publicly and or privately managed and operated modes of transportation (putting aside quality issues for now) have not made private cars obsolete nor too expensive. Even the largest scale autonomous EVs (assume possible) fleet would not come close to the volume of these other modes available. I foresee the same non-affect with large scale autonomous EVs deployments.