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Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

>Tesla's not trying to reduce the number of cars, it's trying to replace the existing fleet with electric.

This isn't completely accurate. A big motivator for self-driving cars is to increase the efficiency of their usage. Currently cars sit unused some 90-95% of the day. Once cars are driverless, they can be delivered quickly and automatically to users on demand. This removes a big motivator for individual ownership and can help usher in an era in which most cars are centrally owned. This is exactly what Tesla is planning to do with a fleet of self-driving vehicles. I have no idea when or even if they will get there, but it is a goal that is closely aligned with reducing the number of cars.

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All public transit initiatives from Elon Musk seem to show that he's entertaining a vision where everyone keeps their own car, with their own Tesla tunnels to get home. I find this idea that people would be willing to share a car with the whole world pretty naive, majority of car owners are likely to want to keep their cars for themselves.

> majority of car owners are likely to want to keep their cars for themselves.

I can bet that in most big European cities, relying on public transportation + renting a car whenever you need is cheaper than the maintenance costs of car ownership (parking + insurance + gas).

Making the car rental more efficient on a global scale will reduce the need and the utilitarian value of car ownership. There will be of course those that will want to have their own car, but that will be more and more considered a luxury item or status symbol than a need for anyone living in urban areas.

> I can bet that in most big European cities, relying on public transportation + renting a car whenever you need is cheaper than the maintenance costs of car ownership (parking + insurance + gas).

That's already the case though. Having self driving cars doesn't really change the equation on that.

It changes the amplitude of the difference, it makes the contrast more and more clear and it expands the dimension of what we can consider a "city center".

I could live carless in Boston when I was living in Cambridge or downtown Boston. I could not make that if I wanted to live in Medford, even though that is a bare 10-minute drive from Cambridge. A fleet of self-driving cars could be spread around more efficiently in metro areas and suburbs.

>All public transit initiatives from Elon Musk seem to show that he's entertaining a vision where everyone keeps their own car, with their own Tesla tunnels to get home.

I'm not a fan of most of his public transit projects, however there is nothing about them that dictates who owns the cars. It isn't likely that Tesla would block a Tesla owned Tesla vehicle from using those tunnels in favor of a privately owned Tesla vehicle.

>I find this idea that people would be willing to share a car with the whole world pretty naive, majority of car owners are likely to want to keep their cars for themselves.

Will everyone participate? Obviously not. However, the Ubers, Lyfts, ZipCars, Turos, and even the Enterprises and Hertz of the world show that many people would happily share a car given the right circumstances. There doesn't need to be 100% participation to reduce the number of cars in existence.

People who say that we are moving away from individually owned to centralized ownership on-demand vehicle usage obviously don’t have families.

For many years my family had one car instead of two because we were able to use a shared car co-op for the occasional need for a second.

I bet a good car share service raises the average duty cycle of cars in the city by a useful amount.

That’s fair. In a two car household both cars aren’t typically used for hauling the kids around.

Wouldn't it be easier to not own a car with family?

Everyone older than lets say 13 years old could go their own way as needed when needed.

No need to leave work earlier to pick up kids or to send them on after school activities.

As more people switch to not owning the need for parking spots disappears.

Cities can be more dense, real estate cheaper.

Cars may sit unused for 90-95% of the day, but does the density of its usage change how many miles it will drive over its life?

Aren't most cars unused for 90% of the day because that is when everyone is working? In that case won't we still have to have around the same number of cars to take people to and from work?

I can actually see self driving making this worse. If the cars can drive themselves there is less need for parking in the city. Cars can drive themselves out of the city for cheaper parking. So on top of the trip in and out taken by the passenger to get to/from work, there is a second round trip for the car to park all day while it isn't needed by anyone.

I'm not a fan of Musk and am very skeptical of his vision of the future and self-driving cars in general but assuming these vehicles all have a low carbon footprint this seems like a possible net win considering the improvements to cities this could help drive.

Parking needs are a scourge on city density since office buildings and the like require parking structures increasing sprawl as well as the ability to build things like safe bike lanes, wider sidewalks, or pedestrian thoroughfares since street parking is needed for shorter term trips. Reducing parking inside cities would help make them more livable for those of us who do not own vehicles and would hopefully make that type of lifestyle more appealing to more people reducing the number of vehicles on the road.

All that of course would require a level of city leadership I'm also skeptical of but taken on its own the idea of cars being able to self-park further from city centers doesn't immediately strike me as a bad one.

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