wolfchild

It makes people disconnected from everything around them...Smartphone zombies are everywhere today.

KraneXL

The Borg may not have been the best example since their connectivity is designed in the pursuit of perfection. I highly doubt the majority of phone owners bought them to enhance their intelligence. Rather, most of the use is dedicated to finding out who's sleeping with whom, or trading other irrelevant and useless gossip.

That's sad, since the device has the potential to make us the smartest generation that ever lived. Maybe that's should be a thread topic: Are we smarter today than we were 30 years ago? You probably can already guess what my answer would be.The phone may be smart but that's not the case with the people that use them. The truly smart people I know are rarely seen with cell phones.

mconlonx

Once driverless cars are legit, there will indeed be less call for regular cars... but I fail to see how demand for cars in general -- driverless or otherwise -- will diminish. Instead, you'll have major car companies making a shift from cars which people drive, to autonomous vehicles, just as there's a current shift away from gas-powered cars to hybrid and electric vehicles.

Anti-transit forces are now using autonomous vehicles as another avenue to oppose public transit projects. This is hardly anti-car...

If you have an autonomous car parked in your driveway, are you LCF?

Aston Martin is right in some respects -- car manufacturers are going to have to make the jump to autonomous vehicles as the tide changes, or fail. Also, that there will always be a niche market for those who want to and actually like to drive, no matter how much manufacture of autonomous cars takes over mass market production and increases percentage of presence on the road.

tandempower

You're right. The car-overpopulation problem is caused by marketing and business strategy, not because there's no potential to reduce car ownership and pavement in favor of public transit. Autonomous vehicles will make it easier to improve transit routing and scheduling, but the auto industry will continue to market cars in all sorts of ways to boost sales. That's what they do. It's why every media conduit is stuffed full of auto ads, sales, dealership promotions, etc. They want your signature on the dotted line because that's their source of revenue, i.e. your contract-bound future. The automotive industry doesn't deal in vehicles, it deals in people and contracts. The vehicles are just a means to that end.

350htrr

I'm talking about the vast majority who live in a big city when they need a truck they can rent one, when they need a motorhome they can rent one, if you need a vehicle for a business then you NEED a vehicle for that business that is specialized anyways even today…

Mobile 155

Walter S

Nope. Simple supply and demand. And reducing car ownership is not a goal that most of society embraces as a goal in and of itself. It would more be a side effect or not.

tandempower

This issue is disturbingly complex and I get tired of discussing it with people who just deny the monumental effort that was put into making car demand as inelastic as possible for the sake of using people as money printers.

350htrr

They kind of need a car today, but things can change because of...

Money, saving money spent on private car ownership and doing other things with it will move things along, and also the hassle of parking, or two Hrs of "driving" moving at 10 MPH will get people out of owning and driving their own vehicles if and when thing are to the point of driverless cars operate like Taxis/12 passenger vans that are on demand but are cheaper... That is the way I see things unfolding but who knows... I have been wrong before... New York City seems to exemplify my thoughts on how and why it would go that way in the bigger centers.

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KraneXL

Car ownership isn't going away anytime soon for two fundamental reasons:


1) People in the U.S. consider their cars an extension of their homes.

2) No viable alternative exists. Public transit in major cities outside of NY is abysmal.

Unless and until you can change the public's mindset and infrastructure, all other factors are irrelevant.

I-Like-To-Bike

From my reading of All the News that is Fit to Print, public transit outside of Manhattan isn't that great either.

350htrr

Ah, No, money talks and dogs bark... as my mother used to say...

350htrr

ePeople with money will ALWAYS find a way to show they "have money" and.... cars " are, have been a way of doing that for the last 100 years or so, even with people with just "normal" amount of money... My point is "most" people are not moneyed... so the "next best "way of getting around is "good enough" for most people... . and we are talking of lets say 80% of the people. IMO and... it's only that high because "they" are willing to go into debt over their heads to show how "prosperous" they are even tho "they" just aren't... IMO

Mobile 155

tandempower

Car dealers are going to stop making obnoxious in-your-face TV commercials about cash-back offers, etc. and car companies are going to stop bullishly defining trends and steering people into fitting into the trends. They're also going to stop trying to make you a trade-in deal whenever you bring your vehicle in for service in order to lengthen your contract. The auto industry is just going to back off and let people come to them when they want a car. They'll save a lot of money in marketing costs that way, which they will need to keep their prices affordable for those people who continue to seek out cars in the absence of pushy bull marketing campaigns.

prathmann

It's going to take awhile given the current high cost of the sensors and other extra hardware required for autonomous vehicles, But I expect those costs to come down with improved technology and economies of scale. When that happens people will be able to enjoy major savings by using the autonomous vehicle instead of investing in an expensive car of their own that sits idle in a driveway or parking lot ~90% of the time just deteriorating and depreciating.

Currently most people don't really have an alternative to owning their own motor vehicle - mass transit only goes to certain destinations, has long wait times and frequently doesn't run at all during some hours and Uber/taxis are pretty expensive since you have to pay enough to make it worthwhile for the driver. And once you're already paying the fixed costs of owning a car for the trips where it's the only reasonable option you may as well use it for many of your other trips as well. An Uber or similar system using autonomous vehicles could offer a much more economical alternative that operates at all hours, shows up within minutes, and goes to almost all destinations (I expect off-road enthusiasts will still want to drive their own vehicles).

Rollfast

But I still have six bikes.

Mobile 155

So who will own the vehicles and who will make them? Who other than the auto industry will have to tooling to make the millions of vehicles necessary to get people to and from work every day. And then what about weekends and vacations? Uber only works because someone else because someone has already assumed the fixed costs. Can a Company like Uber replace 268 million cars on the road in the US today. And can they do it without cooperation from the Auto Industry? I am rather doubtful. Still I don't see if cost isn't the deciding force for most people today it will be that great once they don't have to drive. If people are willing to drop 50 60k for a BMW in Newport Beach now. Or Like my new neighbor who got a Tesla S, 75k to 135K depending on options to go with his Fiat and GM SUV. Or and two Italian style scooters.


Yes I know it is all wool gathering but I don't see a great spirit of sharing in the country right now. I also don't see a big decrease in vehicles if people are still covering as many miles as we do today. If that driver less car will be there in a few minutes there will have to be millions of them cruising around waiting to be called. If Uber and Lift and Tesla and Google are all looking to make a profit off of these cars there will have to be a lot of cars to cover the needs of almost 350 million people.


It will be interesting to see how these things work out. I just don't see Americans becoming frugal just because they "could" save a few bucks by sharing a vehicle. They tried it with car pooling and after a good start it fell flat in just a few years.

prathmann

I'd note that the autonomous vehicle service providers don't have to replace all 268 million cars, but only the number that are ever in actual use at any one time. I have three cars but none have moved out of my driveway in weeks. Even at rush hour I suspect that it's a fairly small fraction of cars that are in simultaneous use. And I'm sure that the transition will take place over an extended time period so the number of autonomous vehicles required would ramp up gradually.

I agree that quite a few people pay way more than they would need to for decent reliable transportation - our neighbor across the street has two Tesla X's. But I see far more Civics, Corollas, Focus's, etc. compared to the $50+K vehicles. So most people do pay some attention to the cost of their transportation. There's already some evidence that the young generation is less concerned with driving and the status symbol value of cars - I expect that this trend will rapidly accelerate when autonomous fleet vehicles become commonplace.

wolfchild

Even in places where public transit is very good, private vehicle ownership still dominates and will continue to dominate...There is just no alternative to the freedom that cars offer, public transit will never offer the same freedom and convenience as cars no mater how good public transit gets.

I-Like-To-Bike

IOW, you predict that your nightmare fantasies and obsessions about automobile marketing will no longer be one of your critical thinking issues when your imagined dreamy world of transportation in shared riding in autonomous vehicles becomes a reality.

tandempower

Basically you just think in terms of defining your enemies as 'unrealistic' and then ridiculing them using psychology concepts like dreams/nightmares and obsessions. Got it.

Mobile 155

KraneXL

Actually a lot will change. High-speed driving will become more efficient, and the "human" taxi driver will become obsolete. But none of that is likely to reduce the car sales industry. If anything, it will increase.