
GM’s Former President Calls for the End of Car Ownership - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-11/gm-s-former-president-ammann-calls-for-the-end-of-car-ownership
======
orko42
I'm a big fan of reducing traffic and doing stuff that's good for the
environment, but ..."Hey, everybody! Let's stop doing stuff that I used to
tell you was a good idea and make money off of and do this new thing that I
think is a good idea so I can make money off of it. Also, you should stop
owning things because those don't provide me with a constant revenue stream,
and for the good of the planet you should pay me all of the time. Public
transportation is bad, mmmkay?"

~~~
imgabe
I don't think there's anything wrong with making money. Consider the average
personal car is only in use 5% of the time. People are paying an enormous
amount to own, house, and maintain a car that they are barely using.

If they could instead just pay for the 5% of when they are using it and have
it go off and be used by other people the rest of the time, it would probably
ending being less expensive overall. There would also be fewer cars around.

Yeah, maybe the GM president once told people to own cars. Maybe that was the
right thing at the time. Now circumstances have changed and something else
makes more sense. Updating your views to account for new information is not a
bad thing.

~~~
snarf21
It would be less expensive but that isn't why we own cars. It would also be
less expensive to buy cheap fuel efficient cars.

We buy these cars because we are buying flexibility and time. Even public
transportation can take lots of extra time if you aren't in the center of
dense service. With my car, I don't have to wait for an Uber, I don't have to
plan, I can just go whenever and wherever I want. It also doesn't get
exponentially more expensive if I want to go somewhere 1+ hours away.
Obviously if you never leave a three block radius, a car would be pretty
silly. I'm just trying to say car ownership isn't generally about cost.

~~~
imgabe
Jeez, it seems every time in these threads there's someone who comes in like
"Hey I live 40 miles from the nearest paved road, I need my own car!!!"

Nobody is saying it's going to be illegal to own your own personal car or
anything. Sure, if you want to live in the middle of nowhere then you'll
probably need your own transportation. For a lot of people it's not going to
be as necessary to bother owning your own car when you can call one whenever
you need it and it will be there in 5 minutes.

If you can get 90% of the flexibility and time for 10% of the cost that is
going to make sense for a lot of people. Not owning a car at all is a much
larger difference in savings than owning one that gets 30mpg rather than
20mpg.

~~~
AlexandrB
I think you're missing the point. For the last 70 years American politics has
promoted a set of policies that have made cities hard or impossible to
navigate without cars. You don't have to be "40 miles from the nearest paved
road" to experience this.

Now a lot of the same people that promoted and lobbied for these ideas are
trying to sell a "quick fix" in the form of car sharing and other recurring
revenue models.

 _There is no quick fix._ The US needs a lot of public infrastructure
investment before not owning a car is viable for the majority of people. Uber
is _not_ affordable compared to buying a $500 used car from Craigslist if you
commute every day and does not solve the problem of navigating big box store
"shopping centres" as a pedestrian.

~~~
imgabe
We don't know yet what the cost of something like Uber is going to be if the
car can drive itself.

I don't know what city you live in, but where I live the city is pretty
difficult to navigate _with_ a car. This is because of all the _other_ cars
clogging up the road.

And besides, the entire point here is that you _still_ have access to a car.
You are not facing the problem of navigating a car based infrastructure
without a car. The entire idea is that there are cars available on-demand!

I guess we could do nothing and hope that at some point governments figure out
to build public transportation in a reasonable time frame for a reasonable
amount of money, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that. There is zero
reason we can't simultaneously work on more efficiently using the
infrastructure we already have.

~~~
AlexandrB
> I guess we could do nothing and hope that at some point governments figure
> out to build public transportation in a reasonable time frame for a
> reasonable amount of money...

Non-US governments already have. This isn't incompetence, it's intentional
policy.

> This is because of all the other cars clogging up the road.

Ride sharing has only made this problem worse[1]. Is there any evidence that
_even more ride sharing_ will improve the situation? The basic problem is that
everyone needs to get into or out of a few central locations at around the
same time (typically 9am/5pm). Solving this requires moving people more
efficiently (as in more people/m^2 of roadway) than cars, even ride sharing
cars, would allow.

[1] [https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/report-ride-sharing-
inc...](https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/report-ride-sharing-increases-
not-reduces-traffic/528659/)

~~~
imgabe
Nobody is saying not to invest in public transportation. I'm for that 100%. I
sincerely hope the US develops the political will to do it.

But even if everyone agrees to do it tomorrow, we're talking decades to
completely rebuild infrastructure of major cities.

I don't know why this is framed as an either/or choice. Build better public
transportation, sure. How about we also use cars more efficiently. Why are you
against that?

------
esotericn
The 'electric' part of the article here is fluff. Electric cars already exist
and will take over the market within a similar time frame to any proposed
self-driving car takeover (it's primarily a matter of manufacturing capacity,
which affects this company too, and waiting for older cars to die out at this
point).

Aside from that, there are three main ways I can think of that a self-driving
car could reduce pollution.

a) More people fit in the same car and an intelligent mechanism can pair
riders. This exists today in the form of things like Uber Pool. Without a
driver you might get one additional passenger in a car.

That's the main mechanism. In the best case it can reduce energy use per
passenger by around 20-25% - in a realistic case it would be more like 10% or
less.

b) Cars can drive closer together and with more intelligent traffic lights. I
think this is incredibly overblown - pedestrians exist and cars are already
pretty close together in cities.

I doubt this will make much difference especially given that electric cars use
~zero energy at idle.

c) Over a long time-frame, cities are redesigned such that parking spaces
don't exist and so things are closer together.

This is both a multi-decade (possibly even a century) change, and likely to
just result in people commuting further - the 1 hour sweet spot isn't going
anywhere, all people won't stack in cities unless they're forced, if we're
being charitable, say, 50% of people actually prefer that lifestyle.

It also works for taxis.

Basically, the whole thing is nonsense.

What I see as being more likely if self-driving takes off is crackpots sitting
at desks in the back of their van, or chilling on a sofa watching movies, and
doing multi-hour commutes, offsetting the savings.

I've not even mentioned here the fact that a significant amount of people just
like to own their own car and have the funds to do so. Particularly if you're
in a rural area, the idea of some SV startup self driving to your ranch is
absurd, you're almost certain to either be priced out or just directly
geofenced out.

~~~
naasking
> a) More people fit in the same car and an intelligent mechanism can pair
> riders. This exists today in the form of things like Uber Pool. Without a
> driver you might get one additional passenger in a car. That's the main
> mechanism. In the best case it can reduce energy use per passenger by around
> 20-25% - in a realistic case it would be more like 10% or less.

And it would reduce the number of cars on the road, the number of mechanics
shops needed to service those cars, the number of insurance companies, most of
the infrastructure around licensing, etc. Lots of knock-on effects that would
also impact emissions, and a fleet of self-driving cars permit a lot more
vertical integration, which reduces TCO.

A fleet of self-driving cars will simply be more cost effective _and_ reduce
emissions. Car ownership becoming a luxury is probably inevitable. It will
become a collector's hobby, like old sports cars are today.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> A fleet of self-driving cars will simply be more cost effective and reduce
> emissions.

How? I drive from point A to point B in my car. I'm there for a while, then
drive from point B back to point A. Meanwhile, someone else drives from point
C to point D, is there for a while, then drives back to point C. Total trip
legs: A->B, B->A, C->D, D->C.

Now a self-driving car takes over. It drives me from A to B, goes to C, drives
the other person to D, gets me at B, takes me back to A, goes back to D, picks
up the other person, and takes them back to C. Total trip legs: A->B, B->C,
C->D, D->B, B->A, A->D, D->C.

There is no world in which the second set of trips emits less than the first,
given equivalent vehicles. It's simply not possible.

(Note that this is different from the have-everything-delivered scenario. The
old way was you drive from A to the store at S, then drive back home to A.
Someone else drives from B to S, then back to B. Delivery drives from S to A
to B to S, which can be more efficient.)

~~~
naasking
> There is no world in which the second set of trips emits less than the
> first, given equivalent vehicles. It's simply not possible.

Firstly, you completely neglect to consider ride _sharing_ , where multiple
people are heading in roughly the same direction and so a portion of the trip
reduces from 2 legs to 1, ie. the simplest case from your examples would be
A->C->B->D(wait)->B->C->A. The more people that use the service, the more
likely this is to happen, and the more emissions are reduced. It's the exact
same aggregation argument supporting the use of transit.

Secondly, you're only focusing on specific local effects rather than systemic
effects. The number of cars on the road would be dramatically lower [1], so
we're manufacturing, maintaining, licensing and insuring fewer cars, all of
which counts towards reducing emissions.

Then the marginal reduction in convenience means some people would _change
their behaviour_ , ie. travel less and/or plan their travel better so they get
more done in a single trip.

Frankly, it seems clear that there is no world in which people owning their
cars would be superior or even equivalent to a fleet of self-driving cars when
it comes to environmental impact, traffic or efficiency.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21783531](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21783531)

------
account73466
Historically the trend of things we don't/won't own: land, house, data, right
to have kinds, your body.

Why? One argument that is cooking right now: "you don't know how to properly
manage these things to support sustainable progress of humanity (and because
you are broke)"

~~~
me_me_me
Increasing rent seeking was always a sign of decaying system.

You cant have inverted wealth pyramid growing indefinitely, It will eventually
crash, especially when instead of creating wealth you erode the bottom.

~~~
account73466
The technological revolution is going to make the top appear to be gods while
the bottom, well, the bottom will prey :\

~~~
me_me_me
I have similar outlook at the future, we already have poor voting on people
that have clearly no interest helping the poor.

I used to be really excited about tech prolonging life, but now i think it
will be artificially made prohibitively expensive so the rich cast can hold on
to their power even more.

Currently the power was lost when next generation was bad at managing their
parent's empires... well I think we are quickly approaching techno dystopia.

------
JoeAltmaier
I'm curious - how many cars does this guy personally own? How did he get to
that interview? Take the bus?

~~~
noobermin
The article explains that this is somewhat motivated for his self-driving
electric car start-up.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yes of course. As a spokesperson for this company, he'd be remiss if he didn't
press the company line energetically.

But its trivial to see the irony here. This salesman is too shallow to
actually walk the walk, and is gonna get laughed at a lot for it.

------
mark_l_watson
Right on. Car sharing and gig economy ride services make sense to me.

I no longer own a car. I gave my last car to my granddaughter last spring. I
do “cheat” a bit because I can use my wife’s car, but I find it liberating to
not have a car. Living in a small town in the mountains of Central Arizona
(Sedona), I can walk to our beautiful library in 25 minutes, to our local food
bank where I volunteer one day a week in 15 minutes, and to our local movie
theater and a grocery store in 10 minutes.

Except for writing I am now retired, so I can afford “wasting time” by
walking.

My generation has done a horrible job living in an environmentally sustainable
way. I want to take a 110 day around the world cruise, and roughly not buying
a new car might offset the environmental damage of taking that cruise. Anyway,
that is how I see it.

------
OnlineGladiator
> Meanwhile, Cruise will miss its original goal to launch a self-driven ride-
> sharing service by the end of this year, something the venture now plans to
> introduce at an unspecified date.

They don't even know when they're going to launch after missing their public
deadline (and certainly several internal deadlines). This is just more self-
driving hype in a space where companies need to constantly raise money. Cruise
has already raised billions outside of GM and will need to continue to do so
since they have no revenue.

EDIT: In case it was unclear, GM's Former President is now the CEO of Cruise.

------
stakhanov
I guess what he has in mind is to follow the example of the software industry
and use "car as a service" as a market disruption that will allow him to jack
up prices.

~~~
heyflyguy
This is what I thought the article was going to be about. The John Deere /
Meraki licensing model.

------
samwhiteUK
Fuck off and let me buy what I want.

~~~
Grazester
You don't live in a bubble. What you do affects other people. I don't even
mean your next door neighbour.

Large scale carbon emitters like the u.s. can have a global effect. It global
temps continue to rise it will have major negative effects on smaller
countries. It has already started with my home country.

You don't pay a tax that goes towards mitigating that... unfortunately. I am
not saying taking away cars but we should be more responsible where it comes
to owning or making the decision of owning one.

------
ng7j5d9
I think the ability of Americans to drive privately-owned cars in terrible
states of repair will prevent this future.

I've known folks who limp along old cars for years, dealing with potentially
dangerous issues with the transmission or suspension. And don't get me started
on people who don't keep tires with sufficient tread.

But all these terrible cars are cheap to continue driving in a just-barely-
works state. Folks are able to get to their jobs working daycare or fast food
in a beat-up 15 year-old car because many places in the US don't require
safety inspections, or if they do, only when the car is transferred to a new
owner.

If individual car ownership ends, and all the cars are instead owned by large
drive-share corporations, that's obviously going to be heavily regulated, cars
will all be maintained on a best-practice schedule, etc. Similar to how rental
car companies or Uber/Lyft today only use newer, reasonably-maintained
vehicles.

If that becomes the reality for all cars in America, we might see a market
sort of like Japan. They have a rigorous periodic safety inspection called
Shaken, so cars in Japan mostly tend to be newer. Once cars get older and
require more work, they're often seen as fairly worthless in Japan and
exported to poorer countries with more lax vehicle requirements.

I personally like the Japanese system - it seems to make sense that cars on
the road should meet a rigorous level of roadworthiness. But that's so
different from the current reality in the US that I'm not sure society would
go along with the higher costs that would come with these well-maintained
shared vehicles.

------
dghughes
> the chief executive officer of a self-driving car startup...

No bias there!

I'm sure someday it will be a thing but the infrastructure is not there. Or
not here in my neck of the woods yet. We only have two maybe three EV charging
stations in my entire province. Not that autonomous vehicles are all EV but
I'm sure that's the direction they industry is heading and wants.

But to realistic, on this -13C day with icy roads I am not looking forward to
an autonomous vehicles. I can't see an autonomous vehicle driving me on
slippery narrow winding country roads. Half the time maps don't have the roads
correctly mapped here, the road lines are covered in snow, no paved shoulder,
roads are infrequently plowed and salted.

------
bryanlarsen
If car-sharing is cheaper & more convenient than car ownership, that means the
demand is higher for it than private usage, which means that there will be
more cars on the road rather than less. A significant majority of the
environmental damage a car causes is in it's operation rather than it's
creation & disposal, so realize that car sharing and autonomous cars are bad
for the environment, not good. As long as the norm is still 1 person per car.

Autonomous raises the prospect of cars driving around with no people in them,
doing even more environmental damage and causing even more traffic jams.

------
Shivetya
This solves many of GMs problems.

They don't have an easy means to rid themselves of an excessive number of
dealerships. However a sharing system can effectively do that; fwiw I have
little if any issues with the dealership model and i drive a TM3!

it also insulates them from having to make appealing vehicles, they have
already proven they cannot do so in the sedan market and have effectively
abandoned it.

snark aside, they are already experienced in selling to rental fleets and have
put together packages for cars that suit that market very well while not
appealing to regular buyers

------
mberning
Could he really say anything else given his current position? Car
manufacturers and VCs have pumped enormous cash into this space for over a
decade and have what amounts to vaporware to show for it. Assisted highway
cruise and crash avoidance are very good features, but we are perpetually “a
few years away” from the promise of significant autonomy.

~~~
sneak
To be fair, that was the state of speech recognition, too, until it wasn’t.
We’ll get full self-driving eventually, but it may take 5-15 years. It’s hard
but not intractable, like supersonic passenger air service.

I’m not patient either.

~~~
Jagat
"until it wasn’t" => After the AI winter, we had to wait for the phone
revolution which enabled data collection at scale, and google et al's big ad
dollars in order to fund speech recognition.

Moreover, speech recognition isn't a product you can't launch in a faulty
state. You can sell a bad product, make a profit, and iterate without any
consequence.

It's not the same with self driving cars, which won't be profitable till you
get rid of the driver entirely. And you can't launch a ok product and iterate.
It has to be almost perfect when it comes to safety.

Barring geofencing or legislative changes, you have to get it in a perfect
state before you roll it out.

When the VC money dies down, and when such big companies are no longer
optimistic at having a viable self driving car, the research is going to slow
down drastically, till a new wave of funding comes along from some other boom
to resuscitate the research.

~~~
xoa
> _It 's not the same with self driving cars, which won't be profitable till
> you get rid of the driver entirely. And you can't launch a ok product and
> iterate. It has to be almost perfect when it comes to safety._

No, it merely has to be as good as humans, though it should be mildly better.
The massive economic and feature advantages it will bring to the table mean
that regular people will paper over problems real quick, just as with, well,
current cars. In fact if anything I wonder if a higher rate of fatalities and
accidents would actually be psychologically _better_ than "almost perfect",
because in the modern environment things that are super rare and low risk tend
to get inordinate media attention and political response vs things that happen
with a certain frequency and thus people become habituated to. I mean, again
cars themselves are the big example of that. In America alone, estimates are
around 40,000 died last year, which itself was actually around a 1% drop from
the previous few years. Which means hundreds of fewer deaths. But that didn't
register remotely like a handful of high profile super unlikely dramatic
deaths would.

But the bonuses are the main things vs any negatives, because humans are good
at motivated reasoning to deal with risk when it's something they want. And a
reliable included always available personal chauffeur that means things like
car access for kids without disruption of parents' schedules, continued car
access for the elderly (note, one of the most powerful and reliable voting
segments of the electorate), elimination of issues due to
drinking/tiredness/phone usage, just plain letting people do other productive
things or flat out sleep on trips, etc etc etc., is a powerful set of
incentives to quickly move past someone else's "bad luck".

------
purplezooey
Dude. This is just never going to happen, maybe ever. Car ownership is baked
into a core part of our identity, culture, and social norms. It's like saying
we'll start renting toothbrushes instead of owning one.

------
taylodl
It all depends on what the lawyers say. What happens when a self-driving car
gets into an accident and possibly seriously injures someone? Who's
responsible? The manufacturer of the vehicle or the owner? If it's the owner
then yes, I'd prefer someone else own the car since I have no control over it.
If it's the manufacturer then I'd prefer to own the car.

------
GiorgioG
No thanks. I like that my vehicle is ready to go when I get outside. When my
son had a seizure we were on the road within 5 minutes and on our way to the
hospital. I don’t want my ability to get a ride to be based on the
availability and proximity of an Uber-like service vehicle.

~~~
abyssin
Did you choose the location of your house based on its proximity to the
hospital?

