One thing that interests me is how there is such a vastly divergent set of opinions and relationships with vehicles even in just the HN community. When autonomous vehicles were getting a lot of press a few years ago, there were utopian articles predicting the banning of manually driven vehicles by 2025. On the other hand there are a lot of people absolutely convinced that these things are snake oil.

I can see part of the gap being location. When I lived in Philadelphia 20 years ago, I had already “cut the cord” on cars, and simply lived on public transit. I suspect many/most city residents in dense major cities have lived car free for decades.

The current optimism for leaving cars behind may be confined to suburban residents of those same cities. The density and lifestyle in those areas may be suited to these predictions. But there are a lot of parts of the country that conditions like density preclude these things, or at least make them a less valuable proposition. I live in a city of 200k. I know there is Uber here, but I’ve never known any person I know to use it. Cars and insurance are cheap, parking is free, and everything is spread out. The Uber proposition makes much less sense here.

But I also imagine lifestyle can have a big impact on how convenient you see the idea of Uber or the autonomous vehicle subscription fleets that have been discussed in the past. A number of other posters have brought up these things that are more problematic in shared vehicles. But if you don’t repair your leaking roof yourself, you may not see the value in owning a vehicle where you can carry a few sheets of four by eight for home maintenance.

I wonder if there are other factors that influence what side of the divide you fall on. (If my comments seem like I favor the car-owners, I do, but I certainly see how non-car-owner ideal can work for some people, though not me.)