Well, you are approaching this from the standpoint of somebody living in the burbs. 80% of the U.S population lives in cities (although I’m unsure if that counts suburbs, but I would guess not). Europe hovers at about 78% in most countries, and here that definitely means multi storied building cities where an automated (and non polluting) car sharing solution would be godsent. Even in backwater regions.
I mean, when it comes it might not be 100% of people ditching their cars, just 60-70% percent of them (giving a margin for the enthusiasts).
Stuff like this has the potential to make cities way more livable and move people into them from the suburbs again (but again, I live in a country where so many people live in cities that living in a place here I would need a car is feels like hell and totally unnecessary -you might need a car to go to work, if your work requires mobility, but not to live anywhere-).
Yes but how many NYC’s are there, now look at how many burbs there are… in terms of land mass, the country is filled with burn style settings and a few giant cities.
The people in 2 bedroom apartments in NYC aren’t the ones with 3 cars. A lot of traffic into NYC, from burbs and other nearby area… many of them commute on public tran but drive at home.
Markets don’t think about land mass. If 80% of the population is a target market and 20% isn’t, even of they buy twice the cars (or trice) it’ll happen. 80% is the statistic of people living in a city (apparently, again, I would love to know the definition of city).
But again, a moot point. Europe is as big a market and here the 80% urbanized population is definitely a target.
I come from a region with 21 people per square kilometer (that’s three times Siberia). Most of us live in cities.The US suburbs are an exception in the developed world.
Autonomous cars, if and when they happen, will be electric. Specially non-owned autonomous cars. Cheaper maintenance and cheaper costs per Km for trips that fall well within the range.
This is part of what makes the idea tantalizing to me. Madrid is somewhat polluted.
Yep, all the downsides of electric cars, largely range, simply don’t apply to autonomous vehicles. And the upsides are huge, cheaper to operate and maintain. Very simple compared to gas-fired engines.
That’s not the point. All the manufacturer’s cater to one states requirements. It’s easier to do. And we’re not just talking about convenience here. I drive a car because there is literally no other choice here. There is no public tran here and there is no place to put a mass fleet of auto cars somewhere else.
The cars that exist today are largely on private land and on public streets. What are you envisioning happening, we walk outside and all the cars that used to be in garages now line all the streets because they can’t be parked in private driveways and garages anymore?
And I’m telling you the potential market for autonomous vehicles is 80% of the people living in countries that can afford them soonish. Sure, there’s about 20% people who won’t buy them and will keep the old cars for a while until everybody moves to the cities.
That’s not going to stop the development of the business.
And Europe is a WAY bigger market for cars than the US. Even in Spain we have more cars per person than in the US.
I am not disputing that. Stusser says these will be mainstream in five years. I am disputing that. Maybe one day we’ll redesign the entire country in ways I can’t even imagine to accommodate a brand new way to travel… it won’t be in five years.
There will be dramatically less cars lying around. Where to put them when not being used will not be an issue, given our infrastructure is currently built to hold so many more cars. You live in the burbs, go to a Wal-mart or your local mall and take a look at that ridiculously enormous parking lot. That sort of monstrosity will be going away.
I personally think 5 years is too little, but I do think in 10 years more autonomous cars will be sold in the developed world than non-autonomous cars.
We have 3% buy rate from 30% of people who would consider buying electric cars. it goes up a bit with hybrids, and we still don’t have a great way to handle those batteries. What makes you think even in 10 years not only will we have safe and reliable drive themselves cars but they will be… the majority? What are the plans for the cars we have in circulation now? People buy and sell cars all the time, but it’s not always a new car. Just new to them.
Yes, i realize the new auto cars aren’t necessarily electric. We are talking about an industry that hasn’t seen a lot of extreme changes outside safety and some other things, but the concept is the same outside the electric/hybrid stuff.
Wow, this turned into a completely different topic. Not to pull the I work for a large auto insurance company gambit again, but I do have thoughts on this topic in part from my work.
Stusser, you are flat out wrong here. At no time in human history has making driving easier resulted in fewer cars on the roads. Fewer horses, sure, but not cars. Make a road wider, more people will start taking that road. Make gas cheaper, well, more people can afford to drive. Make parking very expensive, and THEN people start walking, carpooling, and taking public transportation.
When self driving cars are available, the transformation is going to be a lot more cars on the road. The most basic requirement of having a car on the road, a driver behind the wheel, will be removed. Sure, this will be a boon for the disabled in our society. But, you have to admit that is another car on the road. It will also allow the otherwise predisposed to just send a car to the grocer to pick up their groceries. And if there is “cheap, driverless” uber, well, a family can use that service to drop Johnny off at practice. In order to service these requests, companies are going to need a slack in supply. Even worse, a lot of people aren’t going to mind longer commutes, because they spend them napping, watching televsion, or even getting work done instead.
Sitting in a driveway means the car isn’t losing value, requiring gas and maintenance, and isn’t getting into accidents. I can’t figure out why anyone would think the time a car is spent NOT driving is lost value. The first wave of these cars will be expensive life improvements for the wealthy and upper middle class. They are not going to loan their expensive cars out for fares. When the cars become affordable enough, professional taxi companies will specialize in this kind of service and I suspect remove the need for cottage industry self driving taxis. It could happen, but it is kind of a weird balance for someone to need to own a self driving car, and then need money from renting it out. Because the first time the car comes back damaged from an unfortunate fare, will be the last time most would rent out their car for minimum wage returns (albeit returns without work).
I also don’t think people will stop owning cars, with the exception being dense, expensive cities like New York or DC. What autonomous cars give you that the traditional taxi cannot is reduced labor costs. I do not see reduced labor costs being an enough of a change what we are doing now.
Oh, great idea. Does anyone have any actual experience with dashboard cameras? I’ve wanted one for a while now but haven’t bothered to shop around.
I agree with Stusser. It’s all my 24 yr old son can talk about - we live in portland and I can see what he’s talking about. He hates having a car and only does it because it’s cheaper than using Uber right now for his commute. But if we get rid of the driver, it becomes a lot cheaper & he’ll abandon his car quick.
Or, he’ll buy a car, use it to drive it to work and then let it lose to drive others around during the day & come back to pick him up in the evening.
Most households will still have the 1 vehicle for going on long trips, but for the 95% of all trips that are < 40 miles, you can just go Uber.
A few months ago I was in San Jose, CA and used Uber. The first day I did a solo ride ($15), the next 3 days I did ride share ($4), a huge savings and to be honest, I didn’t even feel that they were going out of the normal route but a few blocks.
Driverless cars in the largest sense (hail from anywhere, go anywhere, no geofencing, no human watching the dashboard) are 20 years away. The sensor technology to make a fully-autonomous option on a mass-market car for $5k is five or ten years away.
I did just buy a house with a two-car garage that I’d eventually love to turn into living space, but I really doubt it’s happening before I sell the place.
Those two statements are contradictory. I agree that fully autonomous cars will be available in 5-10 years, but I think it’ll be towards the lesser of those times.
Greatatlantic, you’re applying hard-learned horse+buggy lessons to automobiles. They both get you from point A to B, but they’re completely different technologies. Most people don’t drive because they enjoy driving, they drive because it’s the only way to get around cheaply and (and this is important) conveniently.
There’s a distinction, in my mind, between market availability of solid-state lidar and market availability of autonomous cars which rely on it. The former is a precondition of the latter, and I think there’s a substantial gap between when it shows up and when it enables proper autonomy.
At the same time, I live in pretty suburban Pittsburgh, and yet if I drive twenty minutes north, east, or west, I can find roads which may never be autonomous car territory.
I agree that you need lidar for real autonomy, and solid-state is necessary to keep costs and maintenance down. That said, it only costs a couple hundred bucks today, but they’re still having trouble producing it in mass quantities.
Past that, it’s all software. Software iterates fast, particularly when you have multiple corporations spending billions on improving it.
Autonomous vehicles will get to the point where they work great in ~85% of all roads extremely quickly (like, 2019ish), then they’ll take a couple years to cover the long tail, where you truly don’t need a human behind the wheel. That’s my prediction.
