• vapeloki@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    The only way to solve the self driving cat issue is to ban all human drivers from the road.

    So, if some techbro wants self driving cars, just give everybody one. All electric of course.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      The only way to solve the self driving cat issue is to ban all human drivers from the road.

      …and cyclists, and pedestrians, and farm tractors, and horses, and wagons, and stray pets, and wildlife, and…

      • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        Cyclists and pedestrians shouldn’t be on the road.

        Unless you’re in the US (my condolences) you have a footpath/sidewalk/pavement for walking.

        Bikes should (but rarely do) have their own physically seperated infrastructure, so they’re not getting hit by cars/busses/trucks/etc and not hitting pedestrians.

    • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      Giving everybody a self-driving car completely defeats the purpose. Human-driven cars spend about 23 hours of each day just sitting around. A car that can drive itself doesn’t need to spend any time being parked - it can provide another ride! Liberally assuming a self-driving car would need to spend a full half of its time (12 hours/day) charging or being serviced, that would still mean that replacing all cars with autonomous vehicles could reduce traffic volume by a theoretical limit of 12× (12 hours/day/vehicle vs. 1 hour/day/vehicle).

      • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        Giving everybody a self-driving car completely defeats the purpose.

        Not really, battery-electric cars can double as your household battery bank.

      • gandalf_der_12te@feddit.orgOP
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        13 days ago

        you’re forgetting here that all people want to commute at the same time between 7am and 9am in the morning. so you can’t just operate 1 vehicle 24 hours around, you need the vehicles for these two hours especially and then some in the afternoon.

        • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          Elimination of personal vehicles would make public transit more attractive; with the previously foregone conclusion that one must own a vehicle gone, the choice is between a few dollars for transit, or several times more than that for a private vehicle. How many people currently choose to take an Uber or Lyft to and from work?

          Also, it’s certainly not all people, nor all commuters.

      • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip
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        14 days ago

        Is that realistic, though? A car is already a status toy, what’s to stop conspicuous consumption in the form of buying one’s own self-driving car? Or, say, moving to a cheaper house further from the city, because commute time can now be used as work time? Shared cars won’t work in that scenario.

        Also, rush hour is still a thing. There have to be enough UAVs to handle peak demand, and then most of them will be parked somewhere, idle most of the time. Or running errands. Traffic congestion is bad enough now, with average vehicle occupancy of 1.2 people; it’ll be apocalyptic when that number drops below one.

        Also, in cities with sky-high housing costs, i guarantee that people will live in self-driving RVs, because road space is “free.”

        In short, the only way to realize the benefits of the shared UAV future is to ban private car ownership, and cap the number of UAVs in a city. That sounds a lot like a train, except trains’ enormous capacity offers better service.

        • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          I doubt that we’ll be seeing UAVs for personal transport anytime soon. Terrestrial vehicles are significantly easier to manage.

          The main thing that will prevent people from purchasing their own AVs will be availability. Waymo and Zoox, for example, are running services, not selling their multi-hundred-thousand-dollar vehicles to the general public. (I’m not bothering to address Tesla as their autonomy stack is an industry joke.)

          Elimination of personal vehicles would make public transit more attractive; with the previously foregone conclusion that one must own a vehicle gone, the choice is between a few dollars for transit, or several times more than that for a private vehicle. How many people currently choose to take an Uber or Lyft to and from work?

          Also, trains don’t have curbside service.

          • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip
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            13 days ago

            UAV meaning Unmanned Autonomous Vehicle. (In contrast to rideshare services, like Uber. When they were heavily subsidized, it must be noted, they increased traffic congestion.) Availability of them will increase. The reason that we have an auto-dominated landscape today is that car makers wanted to sell more cars. There’s approximately 0% chance that car makers today will be satisfied selling a limited number of vehicles for ride services, when they could sell vastly more cars to individuals.

            • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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              13 days ago

              UAV already stands for “unmanned aerial vehicle.” Besides, using both “unmanned” and “autonomous” is redundant. Anyway, the standard abbreviation for autonomous vehicles is AV.

              Buggy whip salesmen gonna have to deal with it.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      13 days ago

      My hope has always been that if self driving cars are successful, almost nobody will own a personal car.

      Cars are massively wasteful. Put aside the idea you’re hauling around multiple tonnes of steel and glass frequently to just move one person. Ignore the pollution aspect too. They’re also wasteful because they’re used for maybe 2 hours per day, and the other 22 they just sit somewhere taking up space and getting rusty.

      Just think about how many stationary cars you pass when you’re out in the world. Nobody’s getting any use out of them, they’re just sitting there in case they’re needed, meanwhile they’re taking up useful space. There are other potentially expensive things you only use for a short amount of time each day: say, a good kitchen knife. But, most of them are indoors where they’re not exposed to the elements and deteriorating without being used.

      In a future with self-driving cars, owning a car could be a luxury that enthusiasts could pay for, if it was worth it to them, but everybody else who needed a car could just rent a car for an hour or two.

      • vapeloki@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        I think that is the difference of perspective. Living in Germany, I did my driver’s license with 22, didn’t need it before. I could live without a car.

        Yes, many would profit from shared, autonomous cars. But many would profit from public transport here in Germany to, and guess what. They want cars.

        I hate this as much as the next dude. But if they really really want them, at least make them electric