Mark Stone

All the talk, science, $$$, in regards to self-driving cars is simply BS.

People, at least in the USA, love driving. Their cars are both status symbols and where drivers exercise their power and perceived freedom. The way they drive is an extension of their personalities. Does anyone honestly think that the American driving public is going to give up their perceived "right" to control their cars?

Remember "New Coke" (Wikipedia link here)? The original recipe came back pretty quickly. Self driving cars are a similar thing because driving and power are too important to "mostpeople" (an e.e.cummings reference)

Self driving cars will disappear because of poor sales.

Some of the tech is cool - the lane-change warnings, self-braking to avoid collisions, back-up sensors. But to think that American drivers will give up their control over the way they drive is folly.

As a cyclist I'm not losing any sleep over the possibility of Tesla taking over the world.

noisebeam

There is already a thread about this with an OP that is actually cycling related unlike yours.
https://www.bikeforums.net/advocacy-...clists-47.html

Ninety5rpm

You don't get it. Self driving car sales won't be poor, they won't exist at all. At least not to individuals. The owners of self driving cars will be car hailing services and taxi companies.

No one is going to give up any rights, perceived or otherwise. They'll just prefer to get chauffeured in a cheap and efficient ride so they can work or play while in traffic, and not have to deal with parking and walking to/from their car, and suddenly one day will realize they never use their own car any more. Oh sure a few will remain aficionados who actually enjoy washing and servicing their car on weekends, just like we still have a few horse owners today, but most people will be relieved to ditch the responsibilities of car ownership.

Milton Keynes

I really see that as no different from "cloud" computing. Someone said that the future trend in computers will be like smartphones and tablets, having all storage online instead of in a hard drive or flash drive. Eventually nobody will have their own storage, and likely will end up paying for online storage.

Face it, there's no such thing as "the cloud." It's just keeping your files on someone else's computer.

Maelochs

Reminds me of this time I was sharing a beverage with these guys who made buggy whips .....

ThermionicScott 

Spoken like the generation that wasn't going to be interested in self-driving cars anyway.

Ninety5rpm

Except the older ones will benefit the most initially as they're no longer able to drive themselves anyway.

ThermionicScott 

Yeah, they just don't seem to be as vocal as the "back in *my* day, cars meant freedom and fun and independence, etc" crowd. I also don't think Americans enjoy driving as much as the TV commercials depict.

tyrion

There certainly is "a cloud". I still keep tons of local storage (backed up "to the cloud") but I'd wager most people (worldwide) don't keep local storage, just use "the cloud".

unterhausen

I think cruise control is going to get better and better. Sort of "augmented reality" for cars, where a driver isn't the last arbiter of safety. The pipe dream of autonomous cars really posits the destruction of the current road system and construction of a new one that is only for robot cars. Nothing else would be safe enough. And all the advantages of these cars would be delivered by significantly better bus service for less money.

DrIsotope

My wife has a 26 mile each way commute five days a week. Depending on traffic, it's anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour and a half. She would take a self-driving car in an instant. I'd be willing to bet the typical 15k miles a year commuter does most of their driving out of necessity and not out of a love of driving. I've been modding cars for almost 30 years, have done car shows and clubs, and would take a self driving car.

I-Like-To-Bike

Your wife's car commuting distance of 26 miles each way be more less typical of those who use a car to commute to work on average 30 miles each way (15,000 miles for 250 days a year) but just how "typical" are those 15k miles/year of commuting to work by car commuters in the national scheme of transportation?

DrIsotope

Well, I know a guy that does smartboard installation on the East Coast and drives over 60,000 miles a year. Despite the per-mile reimbursement, he does not love driving for work. If he had a car that would drive him the 300 miles he needs to cover on a Tuesday while he sleeps or watches movies, I'm pretty sure he'd take it.

My father-in-law used to work for a place that repaired airbrakes/compressors, and he he did pickup/delivery for all of SoCal. Also +60k miles a year. he retired a few years back, and doesn't miss it at all. No person wants to drive that much. There are plenty of car enthusiasts out there-- the guys in their garage tinkering on old muscle cars, etc. But the "average" person, driving that "average" commute, they could care less. I've spent my life as a car enthusiast. Modding, cleaning, polishing, attending/entering car shows. I know a handful of others who have a similar mindset. But to 95% of the car owners out there, a car is little more than a mode of transport, a means of getting from point A to point B. You know, the people with trash filling the footwells and a trunk full of whatever.

I haven't done anything to my car (mod-wise) in almost 8 years now. I try to keep it clean inside and out, and it gets it's routine maintenance, but I don't need to commute, the show scene is dead, and I'm now happily averaging 2,500 miles a year. A self-driving van would be nice, so I could go pick up building materials with even less effort.

You want to know the real coming problem with the future and self-driving cars? How does the car know who is "driving" it? What will stop an 8-year-old kid from getting in and telling the car to take him to Mexico, because mom won't let him play X-Box? Or better yet, awful parents having the car take the 12 year old to the store to pick up some bread because they can't be bothered to do it.

I-Like-To-Bike

Those could be coming problems. The real problem for the future of self-driving/driver less cars is lack of any serious demand for driver less cars to replace their currently owned vehicles. Certainly appears to be little demand (other than by techno fan bois and promoters' PR departments) from the public for a large supply of driver less cars to replace their human driven vehicles.

DrIsotope

These new-fangled "motor vehicles" will never replace the horse! They're trying to give people something they don't want or need! -- the same exact argument being presented about 100 years ago

I-Like-To-Bike

You forgot to mention the smartphone argument.

Everyone knows that every new invention or idea will be guaranteed a future financial success, just look at smartphones!

Can't miss, line up right here for our IPO, or, for members of the techno/financial press, line up for the free lunch and goodies on the tables on the left !

ThermionicScott 

You misspelled "strawman".

Airplanes were a financial disaster for many initial corporations and investors, but they still caught on.

CliffordK

Perhaps initially.

But, once a single company starts selling to individuals, the flood gates will open, and all the companies will be forced to follow, or perish. Some of the effort to make driverless cars is with independents like Google, but other effort is being put in by the car manufacturers like BMW who likely will decide they wish to sell their cars to whoever will buy them.

Mom's now in her upper 70's. She still is doing fine, but it is hard to say what she'll be like in 5 or 10 years. She has already bought a Prius with all the lane sensor gizmos, but I have no doubt she will be an early adopter of self driving cars.

How much will taxi rides cost? She likes to make periodic 350 mile drives (700 miles RT) to visit my brother and his family, but never to stay too long. I've been going up with her some, but she also likes her independence. Would that be a $2000 driverless taxi trip?

She has looked at public transportation, but it is never quite right. It might be improved if Amtrak would upgrade their system and build a convenient web of rail lines/schedules. Hopefully not driving off of too many bridges.

Ninety5rpm

Yes, initially, and I don't doubt there will be direct sales to some individuals, but it will be a fraction of the current auto sales.

It's hard to know what a taxi will cost, but I've seen estimates of around 35 cents a mile. So for 700 miles we're talking $230 bucks or so. However, I don't see why you couldn't rent one for your exclusive use for day/week rates comparable to current rent-a-car rates. I would expect initially Avis and Hertz to add AVs to their fleets at premium rates, but surely prices will drop with time.

But Level 4 cars, fully autonomous but limited to a given previously mapped geographic area (initally Phoenix, Bay Area, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, etc.), will come first, and I'm not sure how soon before fully Level 5 will be available - that would be necessary for most 350 mile trips... as well as for direct sales to private owners.

Marcus_Ti

People are changing. Lots. Cars are no longer personal statements or objects of freedom. They're money pits. A majority of adults, and basically all kids see it that way now.

Gas, regular maintenance, emergency maintenance, licensing, fees, insurance, citations, oh yea and parking, nvm finding somewhere to park....oh yea--and paying off the car loan, because most people don't have the discretionary income to outright buy a car anymore. Even my older coworkers don't enjoy the contraptions anymore. They aren't so much emblematic of freedom as being pseudo slaves to the things. It only takes me 10 minutes to drive to work but another 20 to find parking--and 40hr/week for work parking translates into $2,500+ per year in parking in a garage with minimal convenience. That is a brand new (nice) free bike every year.


Sure there are some fringe motorist hobby types. But they are a fringe.

Over ther holiday lots of "car as an XMas gift" commercials...I had to laugh. Who wants a car payment for 2 or 5 or X years as an XMas present?

tyrion

Whenever I give new cars as gifts I give them the whole car, completely paid for.

I-Like-To-Bike

What does your Oijia Board say about the viewpoints of the majority of adults, especially those responsible for the welfare (including transportation) of somebody other than themselves, about those enamored with the lifestyle and earnings/savings opportunity of living without owning a car.

Do your proverbial "kids see it that way" once they leave the comfort of the dormitory and/or their parent's home and have to support themselves and/or a family? Are they planning on taking cabs/rental vehicles (human drivers or not) to and from work, shopping, their singles pad, dates and/or entertainment venues, clubs, medical appointments, restaurants and shows and for personal travel for the rest of their unattached life?

Marcus_Ti

Around here they view it as at best a necessary evil.

...car ownership is most certainly not a "right of passage" or gateway to adulthood (FREEDOM!) like it used to be. Kids IME care a ton more about their phone (what it is is and ZOMG I left it at home!) than about having a car. You want to cause punish a teen today-lock their phone in a safe and cut their internet connection. Taking their car keys doesn't elicit much of anything of a reaction.

My nephew is about to go to college, only grudgingly has a car. He knows they're money pits, and plans to take the train as much as possible. In the Denver area he can do that though.

It isn't that I'm making this up or that I live in an area of unique snowflakes....driver's license rates for younger folks have been falling:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...icense/425169/


Simply writing off self-driving EVs with "People, at least in the USA, love driving." is very not realistic outside of motor sports enthusiast clubs. I don't know anyone at work who enjoys losing $500/month in car payments and $2,500 per year in parking, nvm all the lost life time stuck in traffic, crappy streets that are falling apart and in constant rotating closure fixing them....nor the stress of defensive driving on an Insane Asylum of reckless/distracted drivers.

Like flying airlines, driving isn't "fun" anymore.

f4rrest

Haha, my "terrible parents" sent me to the store on my bike. I was 8.

genec

How about the lack of a credit card and a parent "user code?" Plus there is a good chance that Uber style taxies will have interior cameras.

Can your 8 year old access your smartphone?