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Comment by raldi | Hacker News Reader

This is a pretty misleading headline.

    s/drive/park/

That said, self-parking ability is still a big deal. Imagine when, say, 35% of the population gets them. You could have super-dense, extra-cheap parking lots for self-parking cars only. They could be packed extraordinarily tight, with no need for human valets.

Your car's boxed in all the way in the back? It'll just tell the ones in its way to please get out for a moment. One car breaks down? That's probably rare enough that you can move the ones around it and bring in a tow truck or human driver.

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Packed extra dense? They could no doubt shave a few inches here and there, but the basics of parking remain.

(1) They would have to have lanes, else every car have to move every time someone wanted out. And these lanes would have to be wide enough that the car with the largest turning radius could still get out reasonably.

(2) There would still need to be some standard width for spaces, else a thin car leaving would leave a 3-4' wide space that nobody else could fit into. And a thin car moving into the gap left by a wide car wouldn't be very efficient.

(3) Accommodation would still be needed for humans/pedestrians to deal with issues or rescue stuck cars.

(4) The new nightmare of the loading area outside stores as autodrive cars line up like cabs at the airport pickup up passengers. At least in a parking lot everyone can load/unload without forcing everyone else to wait.

(5) The fire safety rules would still apply. Deep in building codes are provisions for exactly how much of various dangerous things are allowed inside parking lots. A bunch of tightly-packed, battery packed, teslas in a big concrete box is a firefighter's nightmare.

Imho far more space could be saved in north america if parking lots had better accommodation for motorcycles. Everyone who rides a bike rather than drive a car effectively saves 3/4 of a parking space if spots are made for them.

Not to mention you wouldn't be able to box cars in. You still need to be able to pull the car ou, with or without a driver.

This is just a personal valet service which is still exciting.

Why can't you box cars in? When I park in an attended lot in NYC and Philly, my car is often boxed in because space is so tight. I either tell them when I expect to be back or wait for them to jockey cars around. With self driving cars, it could be straightforward to program them to move around to extricate a boxed in vehicle.

And also win big at Rush Hour: http://www.amazon.com/Think-Fun-5000-ThinkFun-Rush/dp/B00000...

(1) They would have to have lanes, else every car have to move every time someone wanted out.

Which is no longer necessarily a problem.

Why? Are all of these cars going to automagically cooperate in some sort of parking ballet every time the guy at the back wants out?

Why not? Valets do this all the time.

Eventually, why not?

Because the human valet is effectively a common control system. To get all the cars to do this without humans they would need to be networked and agree some common communication standards. Cars aren't cellphones. The chances of a few hundred random vehicles, covering perhaps 20 different model years, all dancing together is a pipe dream.

They're not random vehicles. The special lots would only be for the cars with this feature. If 100% of Teslas, BMW's, and Apple Cars supported it, you'd quickly see a bunch of other automakers get on board (Why not? If the car can already self-park, this isn't much harder from that point.)

At first, it would just be a few lots in the densest parts of cities. Within, I don't know, seven years, you'd be seeing them all over the place. Every shopping mall would have a special area for them, right near the entrance.

Oh, and don't forget: Cars of the near future (and Teslas today) can have features like this added years after leaving the factory, as an over-the-air software update.

Ah. Teslas Apples and BMWs only. The rich man's lot. And this is going to be cheaper?

Software can be updated, but not the cameras and position sensors needed for cars to properly squeeze next to each other better than humans can. That tech will need hardware updates as the technology evolves. Unless of course those sensors will be integrated into the parking lot, as Honda did a couple years ago, but they weren't going for space efficiency.

Supercharger stations are Tesla-only today. Remind me, are they cheaper or more expensive than gas stations?

This is about parking, not powerplants.

I cannot think of any service that limits itself to an exclusive client list yet is cheaper than the same service that is open to a wider client base. Exclusivity always come at a premium. And I haven't seen any gas station charge anyone for parking. So yes, supercharge stations are not more expensive than gas stations. It's still a ridiculous comparison.

There already exist parking spaces that are for extra-small cars (like Smart cars) only. These will often be cheaper than alternate parking, or at least much more convenient. It's basically the exact same thing - a parking advantage offered because a feature of the car allows for it. In one case, size; in the other, automation.

Some local authorities in the UK provide free or heavily subsidised parking for electric cars.

https://www.westminster.gov.uk/electric-vehicles

Including the the cheap ones! ( http://www.goingreen.co.uk/product-category/g-wiz )

>I cannot think of any service that limits itself to an exclusive client list yet is cheaper than the same service that is open to a wider client base.

Exclusivity doesn't have to make a service more expensive. It may be possible to reduce operational costs by only allowing self-driving cars in a parking lot. The upfront costs might be higher (but not necessarily). If there is enough demand, it could be economically feasible.

Imagine a future where Level 4 self-driving cars are ubiquitous - the car would drop you off, choose the best parking lot (closest, cheapest), drive to it and park itself automatically.

> I cannot think of any service that limits itself to an exclusive client list yet is cheaper than the same service that is open to a wider client base

When approximately the same number of people had cars as had horses, how did the price of leaving the car somewhere overnight compare to the price of leaving the horse?

Awesome. "Can't afford a new car? You get to park at the back of the lot and walk."

I can afford a new car, but always park at the back of the log and walk, because I don't want anybody parked near my car. :)

I agree that standards are needed. However, a common control system is still an option. Just a robot with a radio instead of the human.

Cars aren't cellphones, but Teslas have both cellular and Wi-Fi transceivers in them.

Yes, that's exactly what they would do. If your car wasn't part of the 35% with that feature, you'd have to park in some other lot.

Now there are two parking lots? One by definition will always fill before the second, leaving people on the street while spots in the other lot sit empty. So much for any efficiency gains.

Incentivizing the people on the street to upgrade to self-parking cars. That's a giant feature, not a bug.

If you are selling a service, you want to be ahead of the demand. A parking lot, a business, isn't going to get far by lecturing to customers as to their car choice. That would be like me shutting my office to any client I though needed a better business plan. You have to take the customer as they are.

Sure, but not every business needs to accomodate all the needs of every consumer. Customers who are looking to purchase a tube of toothpaste probably wont be coming to your office in the first place.

No, you absolutely do not. Have you not heard of, "No shirt, no shoes, no service", or "You must be at least this tall to ride", or "This event is open to anyone 21 years of age or older" or "This software requires Windows 98 or later"?

It's very easy to imagine this happening, mainly because the economic incentives line up for everyone involved. If you are a garage owner, you could create a "networked self-parking car only lot" - benefit for you is that you can park a lot more cars into the same space, benefit for the driver is they have more options to park, and benefit for the manufacturer is they can upsell you.

The self-parking car is the hard part. The algorithm to get a bunch of cars to move out of the way seems quite easy by comparison.

And whose responsibility is it if something goes wrong ?

As a driver I am not going to invalidate my insurance just to save a few dollars in parking. Especially when the person managing this orchestra may not be capable of keeping everything in sync.

Those problems are bureaucratic problems that will be solved with the money at stake. You're already protected with valet parking, through a combination of your own insurance and the valets. This wouldn't be any different, you'd pay a few more bucks per year in insurance to save a large percentage in parking -- it would make economic sense in densely packed cities.

It is very inefficient, if not anything else.

What's inefficient is devoting large swatches of useful real estate to parking lots, when the same number of cars could be accommodated in much less space.

I'm thinking 3D. A cuboid parking area where the car rests/charges, stacked high, wide and deep of cars. No need for regular staff access. When a car is needed it disengages, connects with a ramp/lift loading/unloading platform, and drives itself to you.

That's getting much more complicated than the concrete slab that is a parking lot today. Cars on lifts/ramps hauled by robots has been done many times, but its far from cheap and has never caught on. It just requires too much maintenance. Valets are cheaper.

Isn't that a very common sight in Japan? The cost of land in metropolitan areas easily overshadows a bunch of hydraulics and elevators produced at scale.

Many companies already make similar products for parking, e.g. [1]. The autonomous, unoccupied drive to the parking structure and being connected to power without human intervention are the more pressing problems.

1. http://www.parkmatic.com

> A bunch of tightly-packed, battery packed, teslas in a big concrete box is a firefighter's nightmare.

That's certainly moderately concerning, but I can assure you a firefighter's nightmares are far darker...

Pretty much. Confronted with a parking lot of burning electric cars, I might point some deck guns and aerials at it, but it'll be more "watch it burn". Risk a little for a little. It's insured property, not savable life(s).

Unless this is an underground lot and there is a worry that the heat of 300 burning teslas might do something to the building above. It would at least give off some nasty fumes. Someone will want that one car put out before it propagates.

And is water the correct thing to throw on a few hundred pounds of burning lithum batteries? I really don't know, but I suspect not.

  the heat of 300 burning teslas

"300 Burning Teslas" sounds like a band name.

Or a "Hollywood Undead" song...

Obligatory https://xkcd.com/1025/

We had a Tesla fire in Norway a couple of weeks ago, happened when fast-charging a fortunately empty car. It burned down completely. In the aftermath, there have been statements indicating that people won't put charging stations in underground car parks. But I also believe (lots of) water is the recommended way to put it out.

Lithium ion batteries don't actually contain that much lithium by mass. Lots of water is indeed the recommended approach to dealing with Li-ion battery fires.

The lithium in the batteries is far less of a concern than the magnesium used elsewhere in the car. If that gets hot enough to ignite, then you're going to have a very hard time putting it out (though the approach to burning magnesium in car fires (which is actually pretty common) is still water, water, and more water).

Water is the correct thing. There's not much lithium, and there's a lot of misconceptions around hybrid vehicles, for both firefighting and for extrication:

http://www.firerescue1.com/fire-products/Extrication-Tools-C...

There are YouTube videos of consulting companies throwing battery packs into fishtanks with nothing more than a fizzle.

It used to be "There are two voltage systems in a hybrid. You can cut the lines on one, but not the other". Not the case.

Really, the most dangerous aspect of a modern vehicle is HID headlights, and leaning in on a bumper where the arcing happens.

Our current system of packing litres of gasoline in a tight space can't be any safer, could it?

Those gas tanks are never very close together and are wrapped in about 100years of safety regulations. But it isn't the tank that catches fire. It normally starts in the interior (cigarettes) or with an electrical problem in the engine compartment. In that respect, electric car's aren't very different.

This happened just the other day:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-06/100-cars-destroyed-in-...

Once that happens, it wouldn't be just tesla's that will be auto parking densely. Any other car is equally susceptible to cause fire as all cars have batteries and most have inflammable fuel. Its not yet here, but auto parking densely probably meant cars can be tightly packed as you don't have to leave enough space for you to open doors. As the car is self driving, it can go to the garage and park next to some other car. Its doable now, if those garages have some sort of beacon to notify unoccupied space and if all cars have beacons to notify/detect its edges. Its not hard to implement at all.

It's funny because dense packing is also a problem for Tesla batteries. They had to leave gaps for security.

Only thing about all the self parking stuff is it's a bit too slow. I live in SF, and so far it's been difficult to use self parking in practice. If you take too long you get people pulling up so close to you in the back that you can't reverse, or endless honking. Especially with the Model S auto park since you actually have to pull up a lot farther than a normal person would before you can engage it

Of course it is. It's another TC article.

Packing tightly is efficient, but not always desirable. Sometimes you need a little more clearance in the rear for loading or unloading large cargo from the trunk or hatch. It's not going to work in a mall parking lot or a supermarket lot where you want to unload into the trunk from a shopping cart.

The ideal would be the car drops you off, parks itself somewhere nearby in a high density area, then returns itself for loading in an open area when you need it.

I like that idea, but that's basically how they park in many cities around the world already. It's not uncommon for drivers in for example Rome or Brussels to nudge cars with the bumper, to get an almost airtight fit when parallel parking. Underground carparks in Europe are also enormously tight, I don't think robot parking will make it that more packed. The bar is just lower here when it comes to using space efficiently. It's more of a mindset problem than a technological one.

But in those places, you still need to leave enough room for a driver to open the door and get in or out. That's a lot of wasted space.

Ok we made the title say 'park'.

It wouldn't be that much of a win using the feature as it currently stands. You could park them a bit closer together since you don't have to worry about getting the doors open, but that's it. A decent win, allowing maybe 20-30% denser packing, but not huge.

High density automated parking is a solved problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system

Why even care about it being your car? How about just a car? At your bidding when you need it and no other time.

Because I got stuff I want to keep in my car. When I go shopping I sometimes hit more than one store and don't want to carry everything from Costco with me into Home Depo.

Also dogs.

In that case you'd indicate you need the same car on your return from Home Depot, and have to wait a while for it to show up from the parking lot, whilst people who don't need a specific car just grab the first one in the waiting area outside.

And no computer has ever failed to properly hold a reserved car. "See, you know how to take the reservation. You just don't know how to hold the reservation. And that's really the most important part."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2GmGSNvaM

"When your reservation is over or you are finished with the vehicle, please place this key-like device into steering column where the traditional key would."

A manual lockout would be a smart thing here. There's all kinds of solutions to the "computers are dumb" problem.

I feel like a simpler solution would just be to store anything left in the boot when the car returns to the depot, and put it back in your next car. There could also be a safe for security and privacy. It's slightly less flexible, but for most cases it's much more efficient.

I also think it's slightly less error prone, as there's no user input required, and since the stuff gets removed from the car, it's much less likely that anything will end up being sent to another user. At worst, they forget to put your stuff back automatically, and it's relatively easy for them to send another car, or even send your stuff to your house. Indeed, that might even be a service people are interested in if they're doing a lot of shopping, or they take public transport for part of their journey.

That's like asking why do you even care about it being your home? How about just a home? When you come from work, you will pick one at random and only pay for the time you spend there.

You might look at a car as a transportation vehicle, I look at it as an extension of my private space. It's my car, so I can customize it, I can make it comfortable for me, I can keep my stuff in it, I know it's always available, I know what state it is in, etc.

Because of gun-free zones, sometimes it's necessary to secure one's firearm in one's car.

Regardless of where I live, I keep a toolkit, trauma kit, and emergency supplies in the trunk… just in case. I also will have region specific stuff:

- When I lived in the great white north, I used to keep a snow shovel, cat litter, etc. in my car during the winter months.

- While I live in an arid desert, I keep extra gallons of water and a solar blanket in the car.

I really like knowing exactly where my car (and by extension) stuff is. Also, I hate having to readjust my mirrors and seat.

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