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Comment by rezashirazian | Hacker News Reader

Self driving RVs. It's the future of the hospitality industry.

Not just the future of hospitality... it's the future alternative to home ownership.

Think about it: You could literally wake up, do your morning routine, and then step out of the RV and into your workplace. You come back that night... and the next morning you step out into Yosemite Valley for some hiking. You just rent RV berths -- everything from campgrounds (Yosemite) to high-rises (in major cities).

> You come back that night...

... to a different RV. There's no reason for RV ownership; a self-driving RV can fulfill the sleeping / transportation roles for at least two people/families on different working schedules.

> There's no reason for RV ownership

Beyond storing your clothes, trinkets, computer gear, etc? Maybe we'll all end up renting permanent storage lockers instead, then.

As someone who lives in an Airstream and works from home, I would have to disagree. In the context of this idea of 'the future of home ownership', the RV becomes the 'place for my stuff' in the George Carlin sense. Having my house (RV) drive itself to the next beautiful state park or national forest I want to camp in while I work or sleep or watch a movie would be amazing.

I disagree with myself too :). I was going for dystopia on purpose here, as a way to criticize the whole trend. ;).

Perhaps self driving might change this, but currently it's illegal to ride in the "home" part of an RV while moving. Seat belts and all that.

> it's illegal to ride in the "home" part of an RV while moving

Two minutes Googling shows this isn't true in 28 US states, which only require seat belts for the front seat passengers:

http://blog.rvshare.com/things-need-know-rv-seat-belt-laws/

My dream is that this gets built in a different setting: offices. Imagine self-driving desks in a giant flat warehouse without a single wall. You could pick a travel program where your desk would slowly roll around the perimeter, or just hang out in the middle. You could program it to maximize distance from any other desk if you wanted privacy. And of course the desks would be networked and their position could be overriden by a master controller that had access to the company calendar, so when it's time for the mandatory standup meeting your team's desks would automatically get together in a single spot.

> Self-driving RVs

That is actually not a terrible idea!

This is actually an insanely good idea, since it allows you to maximize your awake time, for enjoyment. When you are sleeping, the RV can take you to your holiday destination. Since we sleep about 8 hours a day, you can use that to gauge how far you can travel.

The only issue would be road infrastructures. Road maintenance would become a serious issue, due to the extra strain of having potentially 10s of millions of RVs on the road.

Last time I looked into RV cost of ownership numbers--which was probably when that blog post hit HN from the guy who converted a van into a RV--the RVs are really expensive to move due to fuel and wear-and-tear on the drivetrain. So even if self driving, it's probably not going to be Grand Canyon one day and Florida the next any significant fraction of the time.

Not sure if this is a serious reply.

It's an Uber joke.

...right?

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