It would be widely adopted if it provides a better service at a lower cost.
It’s much tougher to make money in rural communities with something like this, but I think it can be done. May take another couple years for prices to drop further.
I don’t argue that it is probably the future. But I think we are looking much farther out than you seem to think we are. I also wonder (as Nesrie said) about the huge fleet of cars required for this.
It’s a very small fleet compared to the numbers from by average households of 4 people owning 2.3 cars, which sit idle for the vast majority of the time. Only edge-case is the commute when everybody needs to be at work at 9AM, and ride-sharing addresses that.
So let’s say mom and the kids are going out for the weekly groceries, with a stop by grandmas and maybe somewhere for a quick lunch. Maybe even the mall to get little Jimmy some new pants.
How many rides are they calling?
Nationally, autonomous trucks may be more likely, sooner. A lot of states/cities will drag their feet because autonomous cars are new, and things need to be dumbed-down first.
- Home -> grocery store
- grocery -> grandma
- grandma -> taco bell
- taco bell -> JC Penny’s
- JC Penny’s -> home
Of course, in reality they would do groceries last so they don’t have to lug them around.
The fleet size isn’t an issue I think. People will buy self-driving cars to own for themselves and then rent them out to give rides on some app when they aren’t using them. I can easily imagine alot of people doing this to make money, there’s no point in having a car sit in a garage 20 hours a day.
Haha. You’re cute. You think everyone is that organized?
I went out to lunch with a co-worker once… lunch was the only stop, we had 4 stops on the way and one back because of her family calling her with… needs.
Oh speaking of which if I drive by a sale, can I tell my car to stop at the new store. That looks good, never saw that building before… or is it on some kind of schedule?
I think once you find yourself dealing with two kids and 4 bags of groceries once, you probably won’t make that mistake again soon.
Some people will absolutely buy their own autonomous vehicles and rent them out to recoup some of the costs, sure. It is even more convenient to have a car in your garage. But ultimately most people won’t own a car at all.
Sure, you can tell the car to go wherever you want, just like an Uber driver. They just charge you for it at the standard rate.
So a call and wait 5 different times.
While I agree it is the future I don’t think it will happen until people are economically forced to do it.
Meaning what, mom locks the kids up in her room with the robot nanny and does things by herself. :)
It’ll work even better than Uber in a big city-- you call and the car is there like a minute later. You just don’t have to have a conversation with the driver who’s being kicked out of school for cheating on a test and give him advice about whether to stick to his guns or come clean.
I think this is a stretch, and I will tell you why. In many areas of country, they can do this now, and they don’t. Cars are not just a utility to take you from A to B. We wouldn’t need all those fancy gizmos if that was the case, and you wouldn’t need someone in a 4x4 SUV in the flattest part of the country where they drive solo 90% of the time but need that big one just in case they wind up with 7 kids in the car… someday.
Cars are a luxury and a necessity, and you’re trying to replace that with a bare necessity.
Five years, not a chance.
No, I said anyone who enjoys driving, or is a car buff who enjoys a certain style, will still own their cars. People who look at them as utilities like me, we won’t.
I live in NYC, so I’m a step ahead of most of you on this-- I haven’t owned a car for most of my adult life. It doesn’t feel weird to take car services everywhere. Just expensive. But not for long.
You can’t base the rest of the country on what happens in NYC. You guys have taxis on your roads like rivers have water.
It takes 20 minutes for a taxi to even show up at my house and 30-50 dollars no matter where I go. Uber showed up here a couple of months ago.
Human drivers are super expensive. That’s the problem being solved. Uber, Lyft, etc, pay around 80% of their fares to the driver.
You’re approaching the problem from a standpoint of someone living in a city with a massive amount of public tran on hand, that has massive traffic, seas of taxis… I mean NYC. You even have apartments sky high and parking lots that cost the same as a mortgage in several parts of the country.
I am talking about the burbs. The burbs are designed for automobile commuting. If they have mass tran, it’s often buses or the large systems at a lot less capacity.
Lyft, Uber… these are big in the cities too, not the burbs. A co-worker asked me once if I would ever consider going to someplace without a Yelp review. I just laughed. I just upped and laughed because him living in a large city is night and day to what the rest of us live in.
You’re not taking cars from the burbs in five years, and that’s even if they can get up and dance for us, on cue, per song request.
I think that will happen. Lets revisit this thread in 2023.
Why do I have to call for it? Why can’t I own a self-driving car? I own a car now. I’d be happy if my car took me to work while I read or did whatever. I’m tired of driving.
We have 263.6 million cars in this country. Mine sits in a 2 car garage, most houses around here have two car garages. We have two parking garages that I can think of. There’s no place to put these cars outside of the garages at the moment or any time soon. They’d have to pave acres to house them, and no they won’t build up… it;s cheaper to destroy the fields than do multi stories.
We might have some self-driving cars worth a hill of beans in five years, but most people won’t own them. We’re talking about the same group shifting to LED lights, still right?
But yes, we can revisit in 2023 and return to the make sure your teen doesn’t text and never, ever admit fault in an accident topic.