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Comment by pfarnsworth | Hacker News Reader

I had to stop reading because the blog poster's level of thinking is really superficial.

If you're going to think completely autonomous self-driving cars, why the hell would you bother with things like parking? Why would I even bother "owning" a car? What the more reasonable approach is time-sharing of multiple vehicles, like Uber.

So instead of worrying about parking, you order a car, and it picks you up, and then you get dropped off. It drives off and services other customers. Then, when it comes time to get driven home, you order another car that comes and picks you up. You only pay for the car while it's driving you, not while it's sitting there doing nothing.

Or, if you did own the car, when you are not using it, it could go off and service other people and earn you money, and then return to pick you up.

And why would you go to Starbucks to pick up your own coffee? Why not send a self-driving car through the special self-driving car drivethru to pick up the coffee and return it to you? It could wireless transmit the order and payment details for you, and have a special slot for the coffee or food order.

Seriously, the article is really superficial thinking when it comes to self-driving cars.

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Two reasons to own a car, even if level 5 autonomous is available.

1. Storage. As a family with little kids, the car is a mobile storage for diapers, toys, and other stuff. This was the main reason, why we got our own car. We used car sharing before.

2. Customization. Cars are still a status symbol and for heavy commuters also living space. Car manufacturers already provide more and more options to customize.

The second reason is not that strong. I can imagine that cars lose the status symbol appeal, because economic reasons always win. Eventually, only rich people own their cars.

The first reason is difficult. My prediction would be that many people will switch to car sharing. It is already happening even without autonomous cars. Families with little kids still want their own cars. Effectively, it becomes more expensive to have kids due to autonomous cars, relatively.

I think you could have a transferable storage unit for people who need it, especially if the cars were specially built. So once you get out, the car goes somewhere (probably nearby) and drops off your stuff, and then the next car picks it up again. It would probably be more expensive, but potentially still worth it compared to storing the whole car for people who need that capability.

That said, I don't think self-driving taxis will completely replace car ownership, at least in the medium term.

That requires the stuff to be in the storage unit rather than randomly distributed across seat cushions, door cubbyholes, cupholders, and so on.

(Cheap robotic guaranteed theft-free car valeting might change this, I grant you)

Some people will still want to own a car, some won't. However, parking is going to be a lot less of a problem.

1. Some people will used shared ride services, so the shared car rarely needs to park.

2. Cars will be able to much more densely park. Autonomous cars that can communicate with each other can pack themselves in on the side of the street bumper to bumper. In parking lots with rows, spaces can be much narrower since people don't need to open the doors, the car can just pull forward itself. Even the rows between cars can be filled up. You see this at the facebook campus now because they don't have enough parking, but it takes an army of valets to move all the cars around.

3. People will own and drive smaller cars on average. Even for people who do own a car, the ability to have a larger vehicle available on demand will tend to make them buy smaller cars.

4. Even when it's hard to find parking in an area, the car can drive itself to areas where parking is less scarce.

Overall my guess is that all of these are going to effectively increase the amount of parking available by 4-5x. Parking simply won't be a problem anymore, unless of course this induces demand, we build higher, and without parking garages...

I keep hearing this rhetoric and one could say that this superficial thinking because it's very out of line with how people all over the world use their cars today.

I don't feel comfortable renting out my car to strangers while it's not being used. I'm afraid of it getting dirty, them not operating it properly and causing mechanical damage that won't be seen for weeks.

On the other hand, having an "on demand" car service as my only option would increase my transportation costs. My car is paid off, insurance is almost free and gas is dirt cheap in the US it might as well be free. If I had to Uber around with self driving cars my costs of getting around would skyrocket.

Are you suggesting having your own car as well? That's the only way I could see this working.

> On the other hand, having an "on demand" car service as my only option would increase my transportation costs.

I've done some of the math on this; here are some very conservative figures.

- $50/mo for reasonable high deductible coverage.

- $100/mo gas

- $100/mo parking at the office

- $x /mo parking at home (not realized in my case)

- $80mo misc expenses (tires, wiper, diy synthetic oil change, taxes, car wash)

$330/mo pays for a lot of $5 uber pool trips.

And while our cars are paid of; The average American does not and is increasingly spending more. This adds an additional $300 to the amount I can spend on trips.

This says nothing of the current liability of driving a car. Where an accident with a > $50k car with over $100k of medical costs creates a gap in coverage for the average American.

$100/mo gas is ~1600 miles/month. That's 20,000 miles/year. Where are you commuting from? The moon?

I don't know what kind of car you drive, but my wipers cost $40, and don't get replaced every year, my oil change is ~$50, my tires cost me ~$400, but last for 60,000 miles.. At some point in my car's life, I will probably throw a few thousand dollars into repairs - but its cost of maintenance is not going to be ~1,000/year.

There's also various licensing and registration fees, which are, essentially, roadway and driving taxes. You're going to pay your share of them, regardless of who owns the vehicle you will be riding in.

These are not conservative figures, unless you're driving an M1 Abrams, or, like my partner, a 20-year-old junker...

And, of course, if you're driving 100 miles/work day, I doubt those uber trips are going to cost you $5.

> $100/mo gas is ~1600 miles/month. That's 20,000 miles/year. Where are you commuting from? The moon?

UK example here. During the course of my work career I have driven 700,000 miles, which is to the moon, back to the Earth, and most of the way back to the moon again. Or about 28 laps of the equator.

I live in a semi-rural village 65 miles from my place of work (a town about an hour away from central London) and visit clients scattered around the south west of England. Several of my colleagues live 30 to 40 miles from our main site, but far enough from me that we can't car-pool. This pattern of commuting is quite common in the UK for people living outside major cities with approx 3.7m workers having a commute of two hours [1] (including trains as well as cars).

By the way, I am really bored with the M3 motorway.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/nov/09/million-people...

My current commute is about $90/month. I eat about two galleons round trip, every work day so around 20 days, gas is ~2.30 from the right place, but it's been rising. Excludes commute for social activities though so it ends up higher.

I guess it beats $25 Uber rides though

- Gas is $2.50 A gallon (in Atlanta, the average commute is 33 miles in traffic, so a weekly fill up in relatively ordinary, this is not a uber compatible number)

- Synthetic Oil parts cost $26 for 6 quarts + $10 for a premium filter.

- A Car Wash Once a month is $20

(I didn't list any surprises, alternator, cooling system, ac, blower, emissions, brakes, suspension, oil leaks, wheels, etc - and I can assure you that plenty of people spend over $1000 on many of those when they go to designer car shops or dealers.

I definitely forgot that I was talking within the context of trips that are your typical uber trips.

> some very conservative figures.

While autonomous cars will definitely deflate prices downward and make it more practical to not own a car, comparing to Uber pool is ridiculous for most people's personal car usage. I live in a relatively dense city for the US with a large Uber presence, and I've completely stopped taking Uber pools because they take twice as long as a direct Uber at a minimum. And then account for the fact that you now have special considerations for grocery shopping or any other type of hauling, children with car seats, out of town trips, etc.

Uber and public transportation has made it extremely easy for my family to get rid of one car, but not both. Maybe if I were a light-packing 20-something single person in SF I could get away with Uber pool all the time, but for most people it's a non-starter.

I don't commute to work by car so for my occasional use of getting groceries, going out to eat, getting a haircut or doing the occasional shopping, I don't spend anywhere near that much.

- $40 for insurance

- $30 gas

- $5 (Maintenance)

$75/month on my end. If I were to UberPOOL everywhere, besides the fact that it would be inconvenient because it would take longer and I would have to share a ride, it would cost more.

$5 in maintenance sounds low. $5 a month in maintenance is $600 over 10 years, a new set of tires would cost around $600 and you should replace your tires before 10 years no matter the tread depth(1). I believe you are probably doing more maintenance to your car than new tires every 10years.

You also can't just totally discount the initial cost of the vehicle like that as "free."

(1) https://www.edmunds.com/car-care/how-old-and-dangerous-are-y...

But at $40/month for insurance, you likely have liability insurance only and a gap in coverage if you hit a car > $50k or significant medical costs.

Most states have tax depreciation/deductions per mile that are considered by most to be much lower than accurate. In GA, it's $0.55/mile (real costs were estimated $1/mile at $4 gas); so, at $30/gas, you're being very "efficient" because it should be costing you at least $150/mo for that kind of mileage.

You'll have to calculate how much it costs to buy the car and the loss of value when you estimate to sell into that as well to get a fair comparision.

If you don't drive much the fixed costs of buying the car factor in much more negatively compared to the variable costs. Every trip you make costs much more than someone who drives a lot.

This is no easy function as it depends on your fixed costs vs. variable costs and trip lengh.

Especially for people going shot distances on rare occasions a rented car might be the better option.

Even if the car is paid off, there is still the opportunity cost for the value of the car being invested.

>On the other hand, having an "on demand" car service as my only option would increase my transportation costs.

I don't think anyone is suggesting it would be your only option, simply that most people would prefer it because it will be cheaper (since you're amortising the overheads of car ownership over many users).

And while owning a car might feel prudent, if taxis become cheap enough, it might not be the best investment for your money anymore.

The fact that your car is paid off does not mean it will last forever.

The on demand service will have well maintained cars, where the biggest costs (depreciation and insurance) are shared between a large number of people. There's just no way¹ private cars will be cheaper.

1 - Ok, there's government intervention and monopolies. Given a competitive market, there's no way.

> I'm afraid of it getting dirty, them not operating it properly and causing mechanical damage that won't be seen for weeks.

With level 5; this doesn't happen.

Level 5 doesn't mean the driver can't take over - just that they should never have to. The driver will always have the ability to take manual control; something that won't change within our lifetimes. Even if a company manages to legally release a "level 5" car in the next 50 years, it will really only be "level 4.5" - 100% automation under all conditions isn't in the cards for the very near future.

It astounds me how naive and over-optimistic we are seeing enthusiasts of self-driving cars behave. The industry is in its infancy, but people talk about it like our roads have been exclusively filled with them for decades, and all challenges and bugs have been conquered. Surely every person who talks about these cars like it's a solved domain can't all be prospecting, bandwagon investors.

> and bugs have been conquered

I can't get a bug free desktop OS after 40 years of development, what chance a fully automated vehicle?

Can you speak more to why you're so confident that this won't change within our lifetimes? I don't know how old you are, but my remaining lifetime is a pretty long time. It would have been impossible to predict the technological and legal conditions of today an equivalent number of years in the past. And I doubt we've gotten much better at predicting future advances.

So level 5 is supposed to magically stop people from barfing in the back seat, getting things accidentally wedged in door and trunk hinges, smearing dog poo on the carpets or scratching up seats with paws, opening car doors into traffic, or lighting up a massive doobie while riding?

Level 5 is a fantasy world as it is, let's not pretend it can do even more than is described.

Yes. It means that people who do those things often get their account suspended. If an Automated Uber arrives in an unsatisfactory condition, you could just reject it and send it back for maintenance/cleaning, and a new one will be on its way.

You can do all of that today in non-magical normal Ubers, and yet it still happens.

Or they get charged significantly extra for it.

I was focusing on "operating it properly"

While there were some interesting insights in the article, they are not the unintended consequences alluded to at the start with the reference to IMPs and the early Internet leading to the disruption of journalism.

An example of an unintended consequence of fully autonomous vehicles would be what might happen to where people want to live and hence the structure of communities and property values.

Based on the journalism example in the introduction I was expecting the unintended consequence to be for the professional drivers to lose their jobs. Which will be more impactful on the labor market than any changes in journalism so far and can completely eliminate "driver" (truck, taxi, etc) as job title. Moreover, this is a part of a broader trend of automation that is real but still left out of mainstream political discussion. If Trump hopes to bring back employment with traditional protectionism, he'll just incentivise faster replacement of human workers with robots and automatic systems. I believe this is a more important topic for discussion than the social and antisocial aspects of driverless cars.

Aside: not to be that guy, but the article says "unexpected"; the word "unintended" (or anything related to intention) isn't used in the article at all. At least not explicitly.

Just mentioning it as a bit of "expectation management" for what the article is about, since there's overlap between consequences one doesn't anticipate and consequences that are unintentional, but it's not quite the same thing.

That's certainly true for some drivers. But there are still plenty of good reasons to own your own car without sharing it. For one, sharing it won't earn you much anyway, because everyone tends use their cars at about the same time, travelling the same direction. Then, it is very convenient to keep some stuff in your car that you might need but don't want to carry around all the time, especially if you have kids. So I don't think exclusive car-ownership will disappear.

I don't think you can own a self driving car (or at least regulators shouldn't allow it). Safety updates and inspections need to be on the level of FAA plane inspections. I mean really, these cars should drive themselves to a service centre at least once a month. When you couple all those costs together, and the liability from car modification compromising self-driving hardware, I just don't see it as a viability safe option.

I think a lot of jobs would become flexible with self driving cars. Imagine 8 hour commutes being completely viable.

8 hour drive even as a passanger on a bus is a hassle. Self driving car will:

- still shake on bumps,

- make reading uncomfortable for many,

- not be quiet,

- be too small to stand up and stretch

- not have a toilet so you still have to stop somewhere

- not make eating on a run any easier.

It is certainly more comfortable than driving for few hours so it can extend commutes, but not by that much.

Nobody is going to buy a self driving car unless it has a bed in it ;)

Nobody can sleep in moving self-driving car. Sleeping in stationary self-driving car can work (somewhat) if it is connected to the grid, because of necessary climate control. Then it still will be worse experience than sleeping in a camping trailer.

You can't expect to be able to sleep comfortably in a moving car. It will be like trying to sleep while someone tries to wake you up - noise and constant erratic movement. Even if you can get over it, to maintain safety you will have to be strapped to the bed and make sure that nothing heavy (even your phone) would struck you in case of an accident.

I once had a great idea - a car that would drive backwards with complicated display system to show a road in the direction you are actually driving. The idea was that it would be safer than seat-belts. But there is a reason why seats (even passenger seats) in a car are front facing. In case of an accident everything will try to maintain it's momentum. If you would have a coffee or a phone in your hand it will struck you in your face.

That's a problem that makes sleeping in comfortable bed inside a car dangerous. You can't get around it for foreseeable future.

Cars won't be dangerous once they are all automated. Once cars are automated, my guess it'll take years, rather than decades, for regular driving to be outlawed.

Keep in mind: at no point has any manufacturer stated that a self-driving car - even at level 5 - would be allowed to drive itself around without a person in the driver's seat. The idea that people will avoid parking by having their car drive around empty is absurd, and completely out of touch with how self-driving cars would operate within the next 20-30 years.

Audi have already shown off something like that: http://www.zdnet.com/article/audis-self-parking-car-whats-st...

Elon Musk has stated that you'll be able summon your car from the other side of the country. It will even charge itself itself on the way.

I think not having to deal with parking will be one of the major benefits of self driving cars. It gets even better if you just rent a car for a couple of minutes instead of owning it.

Hopefully it'll be like a taxi at a much lower cost.

Considering that as of now, not having to deal with parking already is one of the greatest benefits of not having a car I think this is spot on.

Creeping to the next free parking spot while scanning online availability data could easily be the one task where robotic cars would be consistently safer than drivers.

With the development of high speed internet, I would have expect a radical change of nature of work where teleworking would be the norm. Maybe this change is happening, but at a very slow pace. IMHO, the changes caused by autonomous cars will also be progressive.

The internet has been fast enough for 10 years. Something else is preventing teleworking from becoming the norm.

Me too, why would you even drive to UPS if self-driving cars are the norm? UPS would drive to you, where ever you are and pick up the package...

I think self-driving cars and the ever cheaper cost of electricity will fundamentally change everything.

> Why would I even bother "owning" a car? What the more reasonable approach is time-sharing of multiple vehicles, like Uber.

A huge problem remains though : how do you avoid having dirty/smelly/broken cars all the time when everybody is sharing cars ? People are usually way more cautious with there own stuff than with others'.

The city bike-sharing systems around the world usually chose «indestructible» bikes to deal with this problem, but as a result you get a really heavy and uncomfortable bike and I don't think you could do this for cars anyway: no matter how robust is your car, spilled drinks or food on the seats are still a pain … This kind of system definitely needs a way to avoid the tragedy of the commons.

Elinor Ostrom[1] showed that there are mechanisms to regulate this efficiently, but you need to actively deploy them and it's better not be an afterthought.

If you do nothing and let people be toxic human beings, you'll end up with shared cars in worst shape than public transport (because in public transport you have a kind of social pressure that limits the bad behaviors)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom

They could put a button on the car to report dirty/smelly/broken car. When pressed, the button would let the car know that it should go to some place for cleaning/maintainance soon and also, depending on how comfortable we are with the required surveillance, fine the previous user of the car either for spilling the drink of for not reporting it.

I might want to own my self-driving car if it is my private space where I sleep, eat, work.

Owning a self-driving car may be cheaper and therfore move viable if they are safe (a few sensors instead of expensive construction and safety technology).

Self-driving cars could be cheaper if they turn out to be domesticated nodes in a network instead of status symbols.

I wouldn't completely rule out car ownership just yet...

Are you suggesting car manufacturers should forego airbags and seat belts because self-driving cars obviously would not crash? You do realise that someone else could still crash into you? Like getting T-boned in a busy junction.

Assuming it's all self-driving and networked, why not? The next smartphone (or implant) could warn cyclists and pedestrians as well.

That's a little futuristic, but sensors and software could potentially be good and cheap to get things safe.

That's assuming it has somewhere to go, i.e. escape.

> Why would I even bother "owning" a car?

Talk about superficial thinking.

Half the time I get in the car it's for a spur-of-the-moment run to the store.

And while the bus stops 300 ft from my house I've never ridden it.

I don't want my car off earning money when I need it for something important like running up to Home Depot so I can finish whatever project I'm working on.

"The ideal state of a resource is idle and ready for work."

depends on where you want to go with the idea. Of course you can go all the way and say noone will own cars anymore and personal transportation will be ubiquitous everywhere, but it's much more likely that it will start slowly.

People owning cars like today that drive and park themselves, after that maybe people are willing to rent out those cars when they don't need it. Many people probably would not do this all the time because they don't want to risk the car not being present when they actually need it in some cases.

Only after that and only if enough of self driving cars are available at all times, would people really stop buying their own cars.

Your idea of the drive-thru for self driving cars will also take some time to actually happen, self driving will not happen from 0 to 100 with all possibilities a reality from the beginning.

I agree. But a lot of people want to own the car because they want it to be clean and not used but others in a way they wouldn't.

> I had to stop reading because the blog poster's level of thinking is really superficial.

And why would that bother you to the point of having to stop reading? Because if it causes rejection on an emotional level, I'm more inclined to think the discomfort is a consequence of it challenging your worldview. Which is likely one of driverless cars being the magical technological cure for all transportation problems. Especially since your suggestions, at least when formulated as briefly as this, are demonstrating quite a bit of superficial thinking in themselves:

> So instead of worrying about parking, you order a car, and it picks you up, and then you get dropped off. It drives off and services other customers. Then, when it comes time to get driven home, you order another car that comes and picks you up.

A the car is being shared without supervision, and somehow this will all magically go right, because vandalism doesn't exist in public spaces right now while we still have human supervision either, right? As Nathan Pyle once wrote about NYC public transport: "Beware the empty train car, it is empty for a reason."

http://also.kottke.org/misc/images/nyc-tips-etiquette.jpg

I mean, come on, the tragedy of the commons is ancient and well-established economic theory by now:

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

> You only pay for the car while it's driving you, not while it's sitting there doing nothing.

Except that in the scenario you suggested cars are never "doing nothing," they are constantly driving around. Even if they have no customers. You suggested we wouldn't bother with parking, remember? So we'll get into a scenario where swarms of empty driverless cars are clogging up the road waiting for customers.

And this can realistically happen if we don't pre-emptively regulate this, because we'd have competing different companies with swarms of cars who don't want to share their parking infrastructure for "resting" cars, so they'll use the shared free common infrastructure (the road). Tragedy of the commons again.

> And why would you go to Starbucks to pick up your own coffee? Why not send a self-driving car through the special self-driving car drivethru to pick up the coffee and return it to you? It could wireless transmit the order and payment details for you, and have a special slot for the coffee or food order.

People don't bother with food delivery most of the time right now, why would the presence of driverless cars change this? More importantly, why would sending an entire car for a coffee be a good thing? What you describe is a form of Jevon's Paradox, where increases efficiency (or in this case, convenience abstracting away (externalising) the real cost from the user) actually creates more wasteful use of a resource

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

But don't take my word for it, how about Mark Hallenbeck, who is the Director of the Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC)?

http://humantransit.org/2015/11/self-driving-cars-a-coming-c...

Or this Elseview publication on how automation likely increases reliance on cars, creating more traffic and energy consumption:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856415...

> Seriously, the article is really superficial thinking when it comes to self-driving cars.

This isn't an argument. You're just asserting that we shouldn't even bother reading it. You are basically shutting down opposing voices before they are being heard, because they go against your own preferred line of thinking. And I have serious issues with this attitude, since we have more than enough of that in [current year] as is.

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