
Why you have (probably) already bought your last car - mooreds
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45786690
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lukev
So frustrating to me that otherwise smart people keep buying into this
narrative, including software developers and tech people who should know
better.

Here's the _actual_ status quo: after a decade of research into autonomous
cars specifically (not to mention the decades of AI and systems research
before that), we are _barely_ at the point where a car can function safely
with Level 2 autonomy, in good conditions.

These prognostications about eliminating traditional cars are assuming
reliable Level 5 autonomy in _all_ conditions. And unlike most software, you
can't just get 99% of the way there and call it done. If you want to remove
the steering wheel, it has to work ALL the time (or close enough to make no
difference.) They say that 80% of the work is in the final 20% of the project?
We haven't even finished the first 30% of the work yet.

Even more than that, nobody seems to be talking about the fact that to get
this to work reliably, you basically need full general intelligence (unless
you can manage to turn the road system into a closed system, like rail is).
For example: following verbal or gestured instructions from a police officer
or construction worker. We don't even have _theories_ on how to build
intelligence like that, yet.

Will it happen eventually? Sure, probably, eventually. Will we get a lot of
use out of Level 2 and Level 3 autonomy in the mean time? Already happening.
Will we be taking robotic taxis in the next 20 years? No way, not with current
approaches absent a breakthrough in general AI.

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jarfil
> following verbal or gestured instructions from a police officer or
> construction worker.

If they don't broadcast it with a valid signature, just ignore them, they're
not authorized to give any instructions.

> turn the road system into a closed system

You can turn it into a "closed enough" system, with every vehicle having a
radio locator, and everything else being treated as an unknown obstacle...
that someone could get fined for putting it on the road.

~~~
kbob
You've never encountered a citizen flagging down traffic because of an
obstruction just past a blind hill or curve?

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justinator
Honestly, I bought my last car a decade ago.

Cars aren't that great for a lot of reasons (my stress level, my city's
livability, the environment), and getting rid of the idea of car ownership was
one of those huge life decisions that I made that I've never, ever regretted.

I don't use car sharing services - that whole industry is toxic for the
drivers, I sometimes take public transportation, and every few years, I take a
flight.

Everything else is done by bike. I'm happy, I'm healthy, and I'm looking
forward to the rest of my life without owning another car.

~~~
rambojazz
But where do you live?

~~~
lucianf
Read the article in his profile, you'll find your answer in 10 secs. And yeah,
with _that_ profile, in _that_ location, I take his point. But not everybody
is _that_ lucky :)

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vidarh
I'm increasingly starting to wonder if the autonomous cars will get the chance
to "win" before being replaced by "flying cars". There's half a dozen
companies at least that are aiming for first flight in the next 2-3 years, and
Uber-like services in the 2025 timeframe. Some, like Lilium have demonstrated
flying prototypes.

Companies like Lilium are claiming they'll be able to compete with and
eventually beat Ubers current pricing, and fly you at speeds of 300km/h....

If that comes through, it will have a vastly more disruptive effect than
autonomous cars. E.g. I live about 10 miles from the centre of London, and
that's about a 1 hour commute. A one hour flight at 300km/h would make most of
England viable to live and work in and still have commuting distances similar
to what Londoners consider perfectly viable commuting time today...

It has the potential to change the dynamics of both the housing and labour
market dramatically. And who knows what it will do to e.g. downtowns when most
of the country suddenly is within 20-30 minutes or less of one of the half a
dozen or so largest city centres.

To a European used to seeing American sprawl as an example of emphasising the
car over public transport the prospect of something that can multiple
acceptable travel distances by a large factor over the car is a bit scary...

~~~
Carpetsmoker
Flying cars will always be less efficient (and thus, more expensive) than
driving cars due to the physics of it. I wouldn't hold my breath on flying
cars replacing driving cars, just as airplanes haven't replaced trains.

~~~
vidarh
> Flying cars will always be less efficient (and thus, more expensive) than
> driving cars due to the physics of it.

As it stands, for cars, the typical energy use is 3k-4k BTU per passenger
mile. Commercial airliners use 2k-3k BTU per passenger mile. Of course those
get their efficiency from packing more passengers in. But the point being that
a statement like the above only makes sense when comparing comparable vehicles
(the bad numbers for cars is in part because cars on average have less than 2
people in them; fill a car up, and it will do better per person than a typical
plane).

However the best reported numbers I've found from test flights of electric
planes is energy use as low as below 1300 BTU per mile (these numbers will
also vary wildly by number of people; most prototype models in progress are
for 2 people, including Lilium, though their next version will be a five
seater).

Part of this is due to totally different design constraints. Of the 12 in-
progress models I'm aware of, the heaviest is about 1/4th the weight of the
lightest Tesla. The lightest is about 1/6th the weight of the lightest Tesla.
E.g. the two-person version of the Lilium was 400kg without passengers.

Part of this again is that the cost of purchase vs. cost of operation
calculations are entirely different: Most of these are designed for the hire
operator market or as luxury items, and they're not even possible if they
weigh too much, so much more money gets spent on expensive materials to push
weight down. Their assumption is that they'll get the operational costs down
far enough to amortise the increased finance costs of buying it.

~~~
FabHK
Yes. The Uber Elevare white paper looks at this issue, and the stylised
numbers are:

Car: 1 mile/kWh

Flying car: 2 mile/kWh

Electric car: 3 mile/kWh

(Electric engines are much more efficient than combustion engines.)

So, it’s not too bad, plus ground based vehicles (according to the same study)
have to drive on average 1.4 miles for 1 mile distance “as the crow flies”.

However, the numbers above are for fixed wing flight, as far as I can tell.
Drone-like hovering flight is less efficient.

Still, I think that’s not the main problem. Regulation, battery specific
energy, ATC are bigger hurdles.

[https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf/](https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf/)

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kgwxd
One word, that I think/hope is becoming important to more people these days,
"privacy" (not mentioned once in the article). Unless these things can be used
without identification, I seriously hope they don't become the only, or even a
common, transportation option.

~~~
wl
With electronic license plate readers everywhere, you already lack privacy in
a private vehicle. I wish there were a way one could drive anonymously yet
still be held responsible for hit and runs, etc, but that doesn't exist.

~~~
kgwxd
Somewhat true, but is that data for sale on the open market? I mean, I
wouldn't really be surprised if it was, but I'm hoping it isn't, at least in
most places. I'm OK with government officials having access to data via a
system of checks and balances, not so much with just anyone that happens to
have a few bucks. Just because we've lost some privacy in one place, doesn't
mean we should just stop caring, that's how things have gotten as bad as they
are.

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Simulacra
I hate to say this but.. There will never be autonomous cars. Human
psychology, and unpredictability, will doom it all. We can build amazing AI
technology, but we will never be able to account for Jenny after six mudslides
in a Geo Tracker, or the random decision making of even the most well
intention human driver.

Furthermore, if you haven't read "Industrial Society and Its Future"[0] you
should. It makes a very good point that society as we know it today cannot and
will not support a car-less reality.

[0]. [http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf](http://editions-
hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf)

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acjohnson55
As a layman, I think this title is way off, even if the internal concepts of
the piece are reasonable. We're a long way from fleets of autonomous vehicles
being ubiquitous enough that I can expect a vehicle of the specs I require to
be available in the same amount of time as I could start one in my driveway.
Maybe this isn't fully informed, but my impression is that even an early
automobile was strictly better than a horse, for the riders in the moment.

That said, the average person may have bought their second-to-last car. But I
bet you we end up owning passenger/cargo modules that dock at our houses for
transport platforms to pick us up in.

~~~
vidarh
As someone who lives without a car: you don't really need to be able to just
start one. The big differentiator in my experience is whether or not the wait
is _consistent_.

I will ditch a cab company if the waits become too variable, but will happily
accept a few minutes longer wait, as it's not really a matter of whether it's
3 minutes or 5 or 10, but knowing that I need to think about it at least that
much in advance. If I regularly go to book one 3 minutes in advance and 25% of
the time it turns out to take 8, that's more annoying that if it's
consistently a 10 minute wait.

As long as it's consistent, it becomes habit very quickly to order at the
right time in advance.

~~~
craftyguy
That's also a great way to sum up the problem with many forms of public
transportation in the US too. The light rail and buses near my home are
reliably unreliable, sometimes they are right on schedule, sometimes they
arrives 10-15 minutes after schedule, and sometimes they arrives somewhere in
between.

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arentiright
I believe car leasing will become more popular than buying as automobiles
become more technology than machine. Who wants a gadget car with 3 year old
technology? People can't even keep phones that long.

~~~
runamok
There is a less favorable reason you are right. Cars are getting more
expensive and people can't afford them even with ever lengthening loan
lengths...

