[LINK] Why you may not own, or drive your vehicle in 10 years time

[Paul Bolger]

It's interesting that the fact that people like driving is being almost
completely ignored by proponents of self drive cars, with dissenting views
restricted to statements in the comments like "If I'm going to buy a state of
the art electric sports car I'm damned if I'm going to let a computer drive."
or "People are born to drive." (from my local paper last week).

  

I'm not sure a passion for cars is going to save the person driven vehicle
though. If you currently pay $30k per year for a family of four's local
transport needs and are offered the equivalent for $20k - with the added
advantage that the minors don't need to be picked up or dropped off - it'll be
tempting. Add the inevitable rise in insurance costs for those who choose to
hold out and you may end up not really having a choice.  

  

It'd be good to see a bit more recognition of exactly why people like the
current situation, and why they see the advantages: convenience, privacy,
enjoyment of driving outweigh the disadvantages: deaths, noise, pollution,
large areas of cities devoted to car infrastructure (picture Parramatta Road
minus the car yards, panel beaters and accessory superstores).

  

I think one problem now is we are seeing a failure of imagination. The current
human driven cars don't have to be replaced by the same thing driven by
computers - either privately owned or shared. One possibility is that people
could own the private space - the cabin - and the drive mechanism could
detach. Maybe someone could devise a system where individual pods could be
docked together so you could share the travel space with family, colleagues or
friends. Personal cargo would travel in separate transport. Splitting the
cabin from the mechanism would also mean journeys could seamlessly select the
best method of travel, your pod could ditch the local individual wheels and
load you onto a train for longer journeys.

  

If you really want to the experience of driving yourself you may end up having
to ride a bicycle. Although it's unclear what sharing the road with vehicles
which are absolutely pedantic about traffic laws, and which will record
everything, will be like.

  

  

Paul Bolger  

On Jun 6 2016, at 8:22 pm, Ivan Trundle <ivan at itrundle.com> wrote:  

> I detect a distinct lack of passion for cars in people who write these
stories. Why don’t the people who write these stories talk to people who drive
cars and ask them WHY they are happy to use a car for less than an hour a day,
or why a utilisation rate of 4 per cent or less hasn’t changed in a century?

>

> There’s undoubtedly a market for ride-sharing, otherwise buses and taxis
wouldn’t have been invented. What makes a difference here is that people have
a multitude of reasons why they own cars in the first place. And it seems as
though the stories that get traction (pardon the pun) originate from places
where car ownership is minimal (large cities), hence the thinking that if it
works in a city, it works everywhere.

>

>  
> On 6 Jun 2016, at 3:36 PM, David Boxall <linkdb at boxall.name> wrote:  
>  
> <http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/may-not-drive-vehicle-10-years-
time-59005>  
>> ... while there might still be some human drivers in the system for
commercial functions like trash, mail, ambulances, and package deliveries, you
could probably ban all private vehicles ...

>

>  
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