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Comment by zweep | Hacker News Reader

The “cloud car” that Waymo and Uber promise is really cool... until you have kids. I think it will be big business for singles but as a parent I can’t imagine not owning a car. The car has the car seats, books, toys, snacks, diapers, etc in it at all times. I can’t imagine Ubering around schlepping all that shit.

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The classic response is "you'll just order a driverless cab with child seats" but you still have to lug all their toys and gear with you everywhere you go, and possibly more importantly, you'll have to put your kids into car seats that someone else's kid has already rubbed their diseased mucous all over.

It largely depends where you live. Singapore without car is no problem at all. Groceries is delivered, playgrounds are in walking distance. I have a house in rural Japan and would be dead without a car there.

That cloud car probably isn't all that interesting, cost wise. You'll only use it, if you don't want the contract of a lease car. Otherwise, it'll be quite expensive.

In Europe, we have a number of car sharing systems. They all have daily prices around 70-80 euros. As soon as you need a car for two or more days a week, you might as well lease it. Leasing is cheap, compared to the car sharing prices.

I think it has to do with the fact that a lot of the cost of the car is depreciation, which is highly dependent on the mileage driven. Which goes up if you share a car. Plus a shared car needs a host of care takers; app builders, help desk people, car cleaners, etc.

Everyone's betting big on cloud cars, but in fact they're expensive compared to the mass produced item that's called a car.

I wonder whether those urban car-sharing schemes have quite low utilisation rates overall, so have relatively high prices to attempt some semblance of a business model?

Two data points which might support this:

1. Consolidation. Drive Now and Car2Go (two big players) are merging.

2. ‘Traditional’ car hire can be way cheaper - we recently had a decent car for (an almost unbelievable) ~€10/day while on holiday. Now I know that we might be comparing apples with oranges here, with the car sharing companies already including features which you pay extra for with the traditional car hire, and of course there are differences in convenience... but that’s still a huge price delta.

There's a study that said people thought these car sharers would mean people would own fewer cars, but instead many car owning families used them as 2nd cars (I suppose that's better than having 2 cars per family).

I lived in a Drive Now city and used them a few times a month when I thought "I'm too lazy to walk to the subway and wait, and then walk home from the subway/it's too late and the subway is 15 minutes wait", without owning my own car. It would cost maybe 5 Euro to drive home.

Actually the business model seems very much in question, judging by the fact that Share Now, formerly Car2Go, is leaving North America [1]

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/18/21028517/sharenow-car2go...

They are supposed to be a cab replacement, not a personal car replacement. Since they are much cheaper than cabs, it makes sense to drive instead if you have a driving license.

When you can lease a car for 200 EUR per month, it does not make sense to use these services for daily use.

For one day, yes, it can cost €60-70 but the price per day goes way down once you rent it for a week. That's what I do (3 kids, no car, only renting for holidays).

Of course if you need a car for 2 days every week that doesn't quite work, and you're better off owning one.

But many people living in cities don't really need a car (can't find a reference right now, but I think less than half of Paris residents own a car).

I used to be a member of a car co-op when I lived in Vancouver. 99% of the time I could get anywhere I needed to go on a regular basis using public transit. For the times when I needed a car I could go online and book a vehicle that was close to me and matched what I needed the vehicle for. Being able to rent either by the day or by the hour made this even more convenient.

> The car has the car seats, books, toys, snacks, diapers, etc in it at all times.

Basically, your car is an extension of your home. And you are, rightfully, not inclined to share your home with strangers!

> The “cloud car” that Waymo and Uber promise is really cool

Not for me. One aspect I appreciate a lot of owning a car is that I KNOW it's available for me whenever I need it, as soon as I need it.

Yeah, the 24/7 availability of a car is a huge one.

There was this weekend when my old car was in the shop and I had to go clean up my old rental apartment before I handed over the keys. Since I had to get cleaning stuff there and carry some leftover stuff from there back, I decided to take a taxi. The distance one-way was about 4 km.

I spent an hour going between like 4-5 different taxi apps, including Uber, trying to get someone to come pick me up. It was such a stupid way to spend my time.

Or a dog / pet that sheds.

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