Driverless cars will mean the end of mass car ownership

Self-driving cars have the potential to reduce accident rates, make commuting less stressful, save energy, and put a lot of truck and taxi drivers out of work. But it could also have an even bigger consequence: ending personal car ownership altogether. And that would be a good thing.

SELF-DRIVING CARS WILL FLIP THE RELATIVE COSTS OF OWNERSHIP AND RENTING UPSIDE DOWN

Right now most middle-class people own cars, in part because only rich people can afford to take a taxi everywhere they go. Self-driving cars will flip the relative costs of ownership and renting upside down, leading to a world where renting cars is the affordable norm and owning cars is the pricey exception.

We take consumer car ownership for granted because it's how things have always worked. That blinds us to how profoundly wasteful it is. Not only do our cars spend 90 percent of their lives sitting unused in driveways or parking lots, but we've designed our cities around this wasteful practice, setting aside several parking spaces for every car.
 
Himanshu rathee said:
Self-driving cars have the potential to reduce accident rates, make commuting less stressful, save energy, and put a lot of truck and taxi drivers out of work. But it could also have an even bigger consequence: ending personal car ownership altogether. And that would be a good thing.

SELF-DRIVING CARS WILL FLIP THE RELATIVE COSTS OF OWNERSHIP AND RENTING UPSIDE DOWN

Right now most middle-class people own cars, in part because only rich people can afford to take a taxi everywhere they go. Self-driving cars will flip the relative costs of ownership and renting upside down, leading to a world where renting cars is the affordable norm and owning cars is the pricey exception.

We take consumer car ownership for granted because it's how things have always worked. That blinds us to how profoundly wasteful it is. Not only do our cars spend 90 percent of their lives sitting unused in driveways or parking lots, but we've designed our cities around this wasteful practice, setting aside several parking spaces for every car.
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my car spends 90% of it's life parked. How is that wasteful? It won't be replaced until it (or me) is worn out.
 
Can't trust google to write good Android phone software, Sync my contacts correctly, so no I wouldn't trust there software to do a 100Mil x's more complicated the life threating task thanks.

In a time far far far from today, where we share and use any car that's sitting around doing nothing for a charge, still not sure I like this idea, I have things in my car, the seat and stereo is setup for me.

I think if I ownly did 15miles per month, I'd just get a taxi on those odd occasions, got to work out cheaper than maintenance, MOT's, insurance, tax.

So driverless taxi services great, unless your a taxi driver ofcourse.
 
loyek590 said:
my car spends 90% of it's life parked. How is that wasteful? It won't be replaced until it (or me) is worn out.
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My car is parked most of the time as well. My car is a 2003 and I have just over 40,000 miles on it.
 
The future is turning out to be quite interesting. The only exception I have is the statement that renting is expensive because of the human driver involved. I'd add that renting is expensive because cities create cartels where only those with permits are allowed to drive a cab, in effect restricting the supply.

Uber would be an example that is changing that. It's only a first step and might fail but the idea is out now. In developing countries without these permits, the costs are at time as low as $30 for the entire day of rental car with a driver (gas extra).

These cars for now only work better where there's no snow. In snow they can't distinguish road and other signs. So for those living in warmer areas it might be more suitable.

Cars are not the finest of investments and are quite a waste. Having more options means one has more choices. Just like when automated/assembly of nails, spinning yarn, and all developments initially scared many who but people adjusted. It's only increases in productivity that cause the standard of humans to go up and bring prosperity to people. A person sitting in car for hours when something else could be done is millions of people becoming available for leisure of productive pursuits.

All I need to figure out now is to move where it doesn't snow this much.

Gringo
 
My car cost £400, it's got 62K miles on the clock and in 4 months of driving has cost me 1 light bulb.

Ofcourse someone had to pay 20K+ for it at one stage and take a huge loss in the first year, I thank that person LOL
 
hfts_james said:
i dont trust computers. endless software updates. no such thing as bug-free software. not to forget security, another target for hackers to control your car. that is, you assume your car is not going to connect to the internet. when it does, NSA will track it.
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Cars have been computerized for many decades but you haven't had any issues with them so far have you? Being computerized is the reason they're so reliable nowadays. And cars can connect to the internet already, so I'm not sure what driverless technology has to do with this.

You don't trust computers but you'd rather trust the average boneheaded driver out there? Like the ones who slow to gawk at accidents on the other side of the road and cause 3-mile traffic jams, or who merge at 40mph on the freeway? Lol

You don't trust computers but you deposit your cash into a broker or bank that's run by computers, you fly on a plane that's flown by computers? What else don't you trust about computers? Maybe you should live like the Amish
 
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