The comments here are rather disappointing. It doesn't have manual controls? Well thats the point! I want to leave my crap in it and paint it some ugly color? Get with the times, young people already opt to not own cars. I can't double park in the city? Why are you imposing your steel box on people living in cities, many of which do not own cars and want walkable streets?
I mean, this is the news website for a startup accelerator. If you are on here, have some appreciation for new ways of doing things. To disrupt the status quo is the very goal. If you ask for perfection from day one, we will never get anywhere.
These cars have the potential to massively reduce traffic fatalities (one of the biggest remaining killers) and make cities useful again to the people that actually live in them.
Stoll was one of the first to hop on the Internet bandwagon, and he thought he could get lucky twice by hopping off the fad before it became passe.
As for the crazy from the other side, read anything by Nicholas Negroponte at the same time.
A lot of young people, especially young hackers, think like authors of science fiction novels, where there is some grand society that they have designed, and how everything is happy. Why don't people get on board?
First, they don't trust you to be right about all the trade-offs. This mistrust only increases when you tell them to get with the times; it's clear distaste for their preferences, so it only signals that you don't value their input.
Second, even if your new society model is better, you have to get people to use it. And if the way you transition is "everyone give up your old thing, then we will all move to the new thing, trust me," they will do the opposite of trust you.
Self-driving cars are a very nice transition, because no one is forcing them into use. You can have one if you want. You can hear your friend talking about how useful they are. You can try it out, and if you don't like it you don't have to use it.
"No one owns a car" is not a nice transition, no matter how awesome you think it is in the latest novel you read about able-bodied and pretty 20-somethings. Public transportation really sucks in a lot of places precisely because making public transportation awesome gets less priority than a bunch of other things, like demanding that people get to bring their pets or bikes on board, or the homeless people using it as a place to sleep.
You can make a very good case that social justice requires letting the homeless sleep on the buses. That's fine. It may even be the right call. But it means that no one else will want to use the buses. (NYC has cops every block to keep the homeless moving along, and their public transport is pretty nice.)
Buses could be awesome, if they were managed like Google buses. I would love to take one of those to work. But look at all the grief they get from the left. Grand ideas for re-imagining society will face opposition from places you would never have imagined.
> "No one owns a car" is not a nice transition, no matter how awesome you think it is in the latest novel you read about able-bodied and pretty 20-somethings. Public transportation really sucks in a lot of places precisely because making public transportation awesome gets less priority than a bunch of other things, like demanding that people get to bring their pets or bikes on board, or the homeless people using it as a place to sleep.
...
> Buses could be awesome, if they were managed like Google buses. I would love to take one of those to work. But look at all the grief they get from the left. Grand ideas for re-imagining society will face opposition from places you would never have imagined.
I think this is all a bit over the top. Many cities already exist that function very well substantially without private cars. Central London, although rather a pleasant place, is not a science fiction utopia exclusively filled with nubile twenty somethings, but nevertheless it functions overwhelmingly on other means of transport - buses, cycling, the underground, and taxis. I'm not aware of it being particularly unique, either. What you're suggesting as difficult or intractable problems are frankly rather minor. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've only ever come across the occasional over-chatty drunk.
Even taking into account the whole of London, including the much more suburban outer sections, where you really do need a car to get around, 40% of households do not own cars [1]
The real issue with public transport isn't the homeless, it's that it tends towards a hub and spokes model which works very well for commuting, but quickly becomes awkward for non-standard journeys. Driverless cars would add an excellent complementary element to the combined transport system. I expect that in a couple of decades the number of households that don't own cars will have gone up to 60%, meaning pretty much universal in the centre, and I don't anticipate that will create a dystopia.
As someone who has ridden those buses, I spent a long time trying to figure out why the left was giving them so much grief as you astutely point out. I can't see it. I put myself in their shoes, read the rants, and the platform just doesn't make any sense to me.
Which is too bad, really, I have a feeling there is an important issue there that I should see.
I think the idea is that San Fran should be for people who work in San Fran. If you work in Mountain View, go live in Mountain View. Rent is high enough in San Fran without people who commute out of the city for work.
Yes, I realize that, and live in Mountain View. I've also lived on the east coast, where it's common to live in north Jersey and commute to NYC. People live where they want, and attacking a supply and demand issue by starting with the demand seems like the wrong approach.
I'm not prepared for this debate, just pointing out why I can't understand the position.
>The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.
Are you saying that if my opinions are unlike yours, then I should not be visiting HN, or even voice my opinions?
Not everyone on HN is from the US - US has a massive car problem, because Americans had a very strong car culture for 7 decades now - so for them, not having a car is "new".
I come from a country where 25 years ago pretty much no one had a car, because you had to have a permission from the government to own one, and even if you did, there was a 5 year wait to be allowed to purchase it. For us, having a car and embracing the car culture is "new". Not having cars is a sign of the older, poorer country, which we want to have little to do with now.
For me personally, driving is like the second favourite activity I do during the day, even if it's just going to work. I dread the day when self-driving cars become mandatory - I will be incredibly unhappy and I do not want that to happen anytime soon.
Is it ok to voice my opinion here? Or will you tell me that I should go away from the "startup accelerator; new way of doing things" website that I have grown to love? Can you not like both startups AND cars? Is that too complicated?
This isn't even about cars (self driving or not) per se. It's about someone doing something different and all the comments amounting to this isn't how I'm used to things working, and I don't like change anyway. As Elon Musk puts it, you can't necessarily ask people what they want because the answers will be incremental updates to the status quo.
Since you insisted on cars: the short answer is that theres lots of evidence humans can't drive cars. It goes well 99.9% of the time and the rest ends up being 30000 people dead every year, many of them not in a car at their death. So they died for somebody elses convenience, and that turns out to be a rather common occurence with cars and all the things they bring along (just look for the free parking debate below). So the sentiment in countries that have had cars for a long a time and have seen the effects of that is shifting to no longer put up with it, certainly in cities where suburbia descends every morning.
You are blowing the post you are responding to far out of proportion. (Who said anything about self-driving cars becoming mandatory?) Your whole comment seems to be spoiling for a fight where none was sought, which is much more disagreeable to me as an HN reader than any of the other behaviors you mention.
Even if they don't lobby for them, insurance will very quickly make them the only option. Eventually, insurance cost for manual cars will be many times greater than the one for self-driving cars, making all manual cars prohibitively expensive to drive - and then after another decade or two of that, the percentage of manual cars left on the market will be so tiny,that they will be banned altogether, restricted to race tracks and private property.
What is your reasoning for why insuring manual cars would be any more expensive than it is now? If anything, it would be less expensive since those cars are sharing the road with safer self-driving cars.
If manual cars were comparatively more expensive then psychology might come into play and people would be reluctant to go for the more-expensive manual option.
I propose that the polarization of the opinions on this thread are due to the relationship between the relevance of the announcement and the time it'll take to become a mainstream polarizing issue. I tend to lurk on HN, mostly because I'm not on obsessively enough to have any relevant comments before a thread is mature. I think many lurkers share my interest in the subject matter, but are storing it away as a data point to be considered in the future rather than a policy discussion generator now.
I've broken out of my normal mode in case you actually believe that HN's general opinion on this technology is a consensus that entirely disagrees with you. Personally, I'm excited for the technology to become mature enough to become a consumer product, but I'm unlikely to remand control of my personal vehicle to automation if I don't plan on drinking.
I know that retaining my vain control obsession over my vehicle will eventually make me one of the more dangerous vehicles on the road (as the share of quality autonomous vehicles increases in the future), and I know that I'll buy one for my family (whenever that happens). Until my body fails me or I don't have enough time to drive, I'm going to ride my motorcycle and drive my car myself, while sincerely encouraging literally everyone else to get an autonomous vehicle. I know that there will be others like me, and I know that these people will either evolve into very good drivers or angry teenagers. Regardless, the road will be safer for all, and our collective time will be less wasted on piloting tasks.
You're not alone.
*EDIT I should note that I'm a U.S. resident. My daily commute is >50 mi, though I'm looking to relocate. Public transit doesn't exist for my home and work destinations without significant (>4 hours a day) layover and transit times.
"I dread the day when self-driving cars become mandatory"
The upshot of this is that this probably won't happen until after you become unable to drive yourself. I'm sure there will always be a market for enclosed driving courses/racetracks anyway.
While I do love this and think it is going to mae for a fantastic future, why wait also, for this and ignore fixing two of the biggest blights in the SFBay area; train and bus service.
BART is a cancer, Caltrain and Amtrak have service schedules designed by morons and make, I think, literally TWO farking connections to BART.
There is a hell of a lot of improvement that could be done to fix public transportation in addition to working on this.
It's funny you should mention horseback riding as the fun driving I was thinking of involves driving a a truck with a horse trailer attached to it. :-)
Yes. This has been discussed on the Internet quite a bit. Not sure if exact reason has been determined. I'm not young but I sold my car years ago because it's expensive, inconvenient, and seldom used where I now live on the US east coast.
and seldom used where I now live on the US east coast.
Seldom used? Even New York City has lots of cars.
I think people are assuming everyone else is just like them.
As for universal car-sharing, it starts with the idea that "cars are idle 90% of the time" and ignores the fact that 80% of people want to use them at the same time: on their morning and evening commutes.
I live in New Jersey. Sure, lots of people spend $400/month to park so they can drive on the weekends. Anyway, so we can stop talking in generalities, here are some numbers.
I would love to see an actual study on this. There are only a few cities in the U.S. where public transportation is good enough to get by without one and while those are typically big cities they aren't big enough to compensate for the number of cities with poor public transportation.
I came from a car-dependent city to NYC, which is one of those cities where being car-free is less of a hassle than owning a car. However, I still want a car. No, I do not want to have one car for each person in my family. No, I do not want a massive SUV. No, I don't want to commute by car (hate traffic). I want a simple hatchback or wagon that I can use on weekends to haul stuff, I want to be able to drive to the beach or the mountains whenever I want. Renting / sharing isn't the answer. ZipCar sucks, to be frank, and is too expensive. Renting from the majors in NYC is a complete nightmare and is prohibitively expensive. No, I'm not going to use Uber or Lyft to get my groceries or go to Home Depot or to take a road trip.
This is why cars will never disappear. The solution is self-driving cars. Cars are a menace when operated by humans. Reducing the danger, traffic problems, and parking issue with cars is the answer, not removing them entirely (although I do support banning them in dense urban areas and business districts -- people can always park on the outskirts and take transit in).
If it's not too long you could try a (electric) cargobike to get groceries etc. :)
But yes, cars are necessary sometimes. We need a solution for people who only need a car a couple of times a month or less. A fleet of self driving cars you can rent perhaps? Like a taxi service without the driver.
I believe this is skewed to young people in urban areas, but I think this has always been the case. I lived in Chicago when I was a "young person" 25 years ago and I did own a car because I moved there with it. I soon wanted to get rid of it and had I stayed there longer I would have. In that setting it just wasn't worth the hassle and expense.
It is (indirectly) to me. I often visit the US, and I'm always amazed that I can't seem to go anywhere walking. The distances to go anywhere are huge. It seems to be that way because cities in the US where designed / build with cars in mind.
In Europe cities were obviously not build with cars in mind, and as a result I enjoy here a much higher density of amenities (and suffer much worse driving conditions / parking time).
Having all this space available for cars is not transparent to pedestrians.
> It is (indirectly) to me. I often visit the US, and I'm always amazed that I can't seem to go anywhere walking. The distances to go anywhere are huge. It seems to be that way because cities in the US where designed / build with cars in mind.
Huh, why would you think that? I'm not sure there's a major city in the U.S. that wasn't already a major city pre-car. And cities weren't redesigned post-car, that's why a lot of them have road problems. U.S. cities are spread out because of suburbanization. It's only going to increase as the workforce becomes more remote-based.
> I'm not sure there's a major city in the U.S. that wasn't already a major city pre-car.
Los Angeles. Possibly more.
> And cities weren't redesigned post-car, that's why a lot of them have road problems.
Sure they were. Not from scratch, but incrementally. Its true that because it was incremental and not ground-up, and mostly affected new development and re-development, that cities that were major cities pre-car (like NYC) look very different than newer cities (Los Angeles).
> U.S. cities are spread out because of suburbanization.
"Suburbanization" is an effect, not a cause. Designing for cars is a (but not the only) cause.
New York City is the most obvious example, but most large east-coast cities were large pre-car. And many cities made major infrastructural changes in light of the car, mostly in the form of the addition of elevated highways, some of which are now being torn out again because of their negative effects on neighborhood continuity, urban fabric, etc. Examples of the former would include the I-395 underpass/mixing bowl into DC and chunk of I-5 that separates downtown Seattle from Capitol Hill, and examples of the latter include the ripping out of the Embarcadero freeway in San Francisco and (likely) the Alaska Way viaduct, also in Seattle.
I think you could make a reasonable case that at least 7 of the 10 largest US cities were not "major cities pre-car". Depending greatly, of course, on exactly what "major" means. Note that none of these cities resemble older, denser cities like NY in their layout.
LA
Houston
Phoenix
San Antonio
San Diego
Dallas
San Jose
Las Vegas. I know it isn't a typical case but it is definitely pedestrian unfriendly and largely if not entirely developed post-car.
Edit: Even along the strip itself it is hard to take a direct line and you need to go over bridges etc. Walking from the main part of the strip e.g. Bellagio to the convention centre is only a couple of miles but is a pretty unpleasant walk. Whether it is better than waiting for a bus/taxi from CES probably depends on the condition of your feet and the shoes you are wearing.
I do understand that in the Summer it would be a pretty unappealing walking any distance at all.
I visited orlando last year, and it was impossible to get anywhere on foot, mostly due to distance but often also because pedestrians had not been taken into account in the road planning process. In fact, there was a large shopping mall visible across the road from our hotel, but no allowances had been made for crossing that road in anything but a vehicle, so we had to take a taxi to get there, or 2 buses.
(I say this as someone who drives to work each day and parks on the street.)
Yes, think about the space taken up by parking, and the visual barrier it presents.
There's a shopping and restaurant strip between me and my office. The shop owners campaign for maximum street parking for the convenience of their customers, on top of the side-street and off-street parking behind most of their buildings. Yet at almost all hours, the entire strip is lined on both sides with cars to the point that anyone passing can't easily see shop windows, foot traffic, the social proof of people eating in a popular restaurant, etc. You just drive on through because it lacks appeal.
Think about a shopping centre and how open-air parking means that the complex takes up a huge amount of space and sets it all back so far from the road for anyone walking. If we took out parking allocations (or went with undercroft parking) and collapsed cities or filled in those areas with more "living" spaces, I think the result would be more appealing. Blocks could be more lively or smaller and more walkable.
A whole lane for parked cars each side of a street often means no dedicated lanes for public transit like buses or trams. Letting them get stuck in traffic is a huge loss for the many people that commute on them.
I mean, this is the news website for a startup accelerator. If you are on here, have some appreciation for new ways of doing things. To disrupt the status quo is the very goal. If you ask for perfection from day one, we will never get anywhere.
These cars have the potential to massively reduce traffic fatalities (one of the biggest remaining killers) and make cities useful again to the people that actually live in them.