
Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate? - octaveguin
It seems inevitable that self driving cars are coming. When they do, they will change housing dynamics in a fundamental way.<p>Will this change make city living more or less desirable?<p>A few forces could be at work here:<p>* Parking lots in major cities are free&#x27;d up because they no longer make sense creating more housing real estate. City living is more affordable.<p>* Traffic Congestion is reduced so commutes are shorter creating more demand for suburb living.<p>* Distances feel shorter because they are no longer inconvenient so living outside the city makes more sense - more suburb demand.<p>* City living gets even more desirable because of the abundance of cheap self-driving cabs not available in more rural areas - city prices go up.<p>* More?<p>I&#x27;m sure some of these things will have a very little impact while others will have huge impact. I just wonder about the net result. Any speculation?
======
cwp
I see two opposing forces:

Self driving cars could encourage sprawl by making commuting long distances
more practical. If you could be working during your commute instead of
driving, and didn't need to find parking once you arrive, a 2-hour commute
could become practical. That would intensify the "car culture" that currently
drives municipal planning, but would reduce the harmful effects. As you
mention, less space wasted on parking, less congestion etc.

On the other hand, driverless cars will be a big boost for Uber, Lyft, Zipcar,
GetAround and the like. That could make city living more desirable, because
car-on-demand only works well when there are lots of available cars nearby.
Folks that live out in the boonies would still have to own their own cars, and
so wouldn't benefit as much from the technology as city-dwellers. Also,
spending less space on parking has a bigger effect in the city where space is
already tight, so we might see even higher density in the inner city.

~~~
ghaff
I think that's about right. To your "on the other hand" though, I'm inclined
to think that where density is already high, robo-driving doesn't change the
equation of car + $10-20/hr driver all that much. (Especially given that some
of those costs--cleaning, etc.--have to be shifted to a non-driver.)
Therefore, I expect easier driving = more driving (which is more or less basic
economics.)

~~~
_up
Some no frills car sharing companies make their users clean the car. And if
you get a dirty car you can order a new one and the previous driver gets
billed. And small one person Robo cars could also be build much simpler and
cheaper.

~~~
tdylan
Correct, you'll be rating the previous passenger in your Uber's once we have
self driving vehicles. Same mechanics will apply.

~~~
jordanchan
There could well be discriminatory billing - clean conscientious passengers
pay less than drunk party goers.

------
__Joker
While lot of people are thinking about how the self driving cars will effect
commute specially to work. We really don't know how the workplace is going to
change. I think the conventional workplace is ripe for change. Will there will
be more need to commute to work as opposed to more remote working with say
virtual workplace with better virtual reality. Obviously some of the jobs
can't be done unless you are physically present, but I am would like to think
these jobs will get lesser and lesser. If I have to go to workplace lesser, I
as well might leave far off from workplace. Also with self-driving cars will
be lot as stressful as driving. I would assume self-driving cars will give us
the chance to work farther from workplace. And less dependent on near to prime
location.

~~~
legulere
Programmers are the prime example for a job that can be done remotely, and yet
there are tons of articles about the problems it causes. The problem of
staying in contact with your workplace hardly can be solved with virtual
reality.

~~~
bolchevich
Remote work can only function if the teams have both the communications
tooling to support it and the team and organisational culture aspects to keep
it up. I find most fail at the latter, because they don't know how to be
sufficient enough in communication with the tools they have. Talking to face
the face has much more communication bandwidth than anything else out there.

~~~
collyw
Personally I would have expected to see a 4 or 5 times imporvement n
productivity from not being in an office where I was interupted maybe once an
hour on average. Saying that a more competent manager could have probably
elimiated a lot of that (instead he caused way more interuptions).

~~~
deelowe
Study after study says otherwise. For various reasons, small teams working in
a huddle together for short sprints is the most effective way to organize a
development team.

~~~
collyw
I was a team of one constantly getting pestered by end users who were to
stupid to fill out an excel sheet properly. Or incompetent managers who were
completely unorganized.

------
diego
Why would self-driving cars reduce traffic congestion? If my car drove itself,
I'd be less incentivized to use public transportation. I'd probably be willing
to put up with a slightly longer door-to-door time than if I used public
transportation because it would be more convenient: I'd rather surf the web in
my own car than have to pay attention to stops, schedules, transfers, etc.
Congestion would probably be different: it would be less stop-and-go and more
uniformly slow speeds.

~~~
irixusr
Because they could be better drivers. For example a "perfect" driver
communicating with one in front of him could, eventually, tailgate with an
inch at much higher speeds. If we approximate (for arguments sake) traffic as
a fluid, by bernoulli's principal there will be more capacity for a given
lane.

Said in another way, if the car can get there quickly it'll be off the streets
sooner and another one will take its spot.

Also a "perfect" driver wouldn't make the stupid mistakes ppl do all the time,
the most annoying one staring at gory accidents. And even accidents wouldn't
occur as often.

But this all assumes that the AI gets even more sophisticated.

~~~
ctz
You're covering the available efficiencies in the use of existing road network
capacity, and assuming that demand is static.

In fact, I think that if car ownership is cheaper, journeys can be made by
anybody, and the experience is less stressful, many more people will travel by
car.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if autonomous cars produce even worse
congestion than today.

~~~
irixusr
Well that's the theory. What ends up happening is always up in the air.

I did read somewhere that the average "commute" has stayed constant throughout
history - about 45 min - be it walking, omnibus, trolley or car. So you're
probably right, things will shift to fill up the free time

------
jcadam
Well, here is something that recently occurred to me:

I'm a member of a typical 2 car suburban family. I work and my wife is a stay-
at-home mom. Truthfully, I only need a car to get myself to and from work,
while my wife needs a car for ferrying kids to and from school (and
activities), shopping, errands, etc. Thus, we need two cars.

My car spends most of its day sitting in the parking lot at my office
building, unneeded. However, if I can drive myself to work and then order my
car to drive itself home for my wife to use (who would hopefully send the car
to come and fetch me at the end of the workday), we could easily become a one
car family. Which would be nice. Of course, I live about a half an hour from
my workplace -- this might not work as well with a 2 hour commute.

~~~
kbob
If you own or hire SDCs, does your wife still ferry the kids around? Or do
they ride alone to the destinations you've approved in the car's parental
controls?

I expect the "Soccer Mom" occupation to disappear.

~~~
jcadam
Well, with older children I might allow this. Young kids would need to be
accompanied by a responsible human. Robots haven't earned that level of trust
yet.

In any case, these technologies won't come along in time to help my current
situation. I do hope SDCs become generally available in time to prevent an
elderly jcadam from plowing into a farmer's market sometime in the
2050s/2060s. Hey, I guess 'senior mobility' would be another good application
of SDCs.

------
lordnacho
From my perspective, the annoying thing about either driving or using public
transport is it feels like wasted time. Sure, you can listen to some Great
Courses while you're on a long drive, but apart from that you're trying
carefully not to get in a crash. If you're on a subway or bus there's barely
any space, so most kinds of work are out of the question. So the self-driving
car will be a massive improvement because it frees up your time.

Net, everyone gains an hour or two each day.

Assuming the SDC is reasonably cheap to run:

\- The school run changes significantly. You don't need to live quite so near
school any more. Yes, there is such a thing as the school bus, but that ties
everyone to the same schedule and some parents are not comfortable with
sending smaller kids on it. Depends a lot on the culture where this SDC lands.
(Where I live, kids walk themselves to school. I lived in places where you
sent kids on public transport, too. Or a school bus.) In any case, it means
you don't have to be with the kid as they go to school. And they can do
whatever after school activity they like, it doesn't need coordination with
public transport.

\- You can get drunk anywhere, not just where there are cabs/trains/buses
nearby. You can keep partying until you literally faint in your car.

\- You can live quite far away from work. An SDC with a bed could be a comfy
commute. You can get things done while commuting. Heck, someone will build a
house where the bedroom moves (or just park in your garage, but someone will
build it in). Brush your teeth, get into your car, wake up where you need to
be.

\- You don't even need a fixed address if your SDC is a camper van. Combine it
with a remote job and you are on a constant tour. I reckon someone will do
this reasonably soon and show us.

\- Think of all the things that are limited by having to go home afterwards
(clubbing), or are normally quite remote (eg race tracks). They can all be
made more attractive if nobody feels they're wasting time getting to them.
It's possible there will be extra rush hours during each day.

------
ilamont
* For some families, it's no longer necessary to have two cars -- the car can drive itself back home for the other person(s) to use during the day. Or neighbors could even share cars.

* Centralized parking at the neighborhood level for cars to be out of sight and charging while not needed. Services could be built off of this concept to handle cleaning, maintenance, etc.

* Reduction in need for street parking in busy areas. Cars can drive themselves away to "orbit" or be parked while the owner is shopping/eating/etc. This allows for alternate uses for the space ... bike lanes, or just better pedestrian zones.

* Smaller lot sizes are possible for homes if driveways and large garages are not needed/downsized. Smaller parking lots for apartment/condos are also possible. This makes denser real estate developments possible, especially in suburban areas.

------
puredemo
I would think real estate will become more spread out.

Personally, I wouldn't mind a 1.5 hour commute each way if I could code the
whole time rather than drive, and if my car was electric.

~~~
joezydeco
If you ever choose to start a family, this number might not be as appealing.
Just speaking from experience.

~~~
puredemo
Paying a million dollars for a house in SF isn't an appealing number either,
compared to $350k in Santa Rosa.

~~~
eachro
That 350k might go up once we have self driving cars.

~~~
puredemo
That was my original point.

------
danso
This may derail the discussion but it's hard to discuss this question without
first wondering the impact of self-driving cars to _mass transit_. At least in
New York, being near a subway stop is a very nice amenity and commercial
development typically flourishes around each stop regardless of neighborhood.
If stepping into a self-driving car is as easy as walking 50 feet to the
nearest subway stop, will real estate around subways command less of a
premium?

I guess the bigger question is, will subways have as much demand once self-
driving cars become big? Obviously, no, if the cost for hailing a self-driving
car becomes almost as inexpensive as a subway. But there are things the city
of New York could do to impact that, such as reduce street capacity (i.e.
increasing pedestrian and bike capacity).

But that's just New York. Everywhere else in the U.S. where mass transit is
not a daily option, automated cars will be a daily habit. Inevitably, as more
and more people migrate to New York and expect automated cars to be the
default option, it's hard to imagine subways (and buses) winning out, absent
some major limitation in self-driving car production or capability.

New York will always be an anomaly...but yes, I'd have to agree with your
speculation that suburban living would become much more attractive without
having to worry about car ownership or driving. And this would most definitely
impact commuters to New York. But if self-driving cars become a ubiquitous
option, will there be the political appetite to continue subsidizing mass
transit rail, such as the kind that is currently used to bring in upstate
workers to the city today?

~~~
PaulHoule
A royal commission did a study on "Traffic in Towns" in 1963 and concluded it
would be impossible to serve a city with London-like size and density with
cars even if you put the buildings up on stilts and built multiple levels of
roads an highways -- the problem is that you can't support a high enough level
of traffic on highway offramps.

New York City is pretty close to the maximum limit of car capacity it can
support. For one thing there are only so many cars that can travel on so many
lanes through bridges and tunnels. If you tried to add more lanes, you'd have
the same kind of problems connecting those to surface streets that you get in
the "Jetsons in London" scenario.

Robert Moses did have some plans for urban removal on the southern side of
midtown to accomodate more traffic (and destroy traffic demand) but it didn't
happen.

(Note the response to the car in most American cities was urban removal -- you
can often find a big empty space in a second or third tier city that has a
'civic center' plopped down on it.)

Manhattan looks pretty much the same today with all the cabs that it would
look like with self-driving cars.

~~~
mdn0420
The cars don't necessarily have to come back to surface streets just like the
subways don't.

------
issa
I'm going to play the spoiler and say that I think everyone here is on the
wrong track. In the short term, yes, I think it will business-as-usual, with
some of the ideas being discussed here happening.

But think of the transition from horse to automobile. If you didn't predict
the invention of the airplane, your guesses about transportation in the future
would have been pretty far off.

I think the questions to ask are: -why will anyone commute to work in the
future, when telecommuting becomes more and more lifelike? -what will "work"
even look like? We can't be that far away from most service jobs being
replaced by computers/robots. -Why would anyone go shopping, when anything
they want can be delivered to them instantly or even printed on-site?

~~~
kawera
Yes but in the same vein we can't really predict why people will want to go
from point A to point B in the future. Today the main reason is to go to work
or go shopping but we may have much more free time and simple want to go to
different places/activities.

------
yason
By making automotive transport easier and more convenient, the obvious
consequence is a general increase in automotive traffic.

In city centers the worst externality of cars is the space they hog. Self-
driving electric cars won't fix that; instead they are likely to increase the
utilization of that space: unlike with humans where congested traffic suggests
the drivers to look for alternative options such as mass transit, an empty car
doesn't mind waiting in traffic by itself.

Suburbia is likely to expand further because if you can work a few hours in
your car that means you can afford to live further away in a cheaper location.
And school kids can get to school in a car by themselves, so the total number
of automotive miles is likely to go up.

------
paulsutter
Self driving electric cars mean that tunnels are more cost effective (no
fumes, closer tolerances in tunnel sizing, greater capacity), so we can go 3D
(no need for stop lights, we just have cloverleaf interchanges underground
with sloped ramps so that passengers feel no lateral acceleration which means
higher speeds are ok). Now the surface can be for pedestrians (like Venice)
and of course no need for parking lots at all.

This means greater density is possible increasing the value of central real
estate. But also means that further commutes are much faster, increasing the
value of outlying real estate? Or does it, what does this suggest for real
estate investing?

~~~
irixusr
I agree that a narrower tunnel costs less (displaced rock is quadratic with
tunnel diameter), but is it cheap enough to offset capital costs for all but a
few extra worthy projects?

I'd love to have underground streets.... But $$$....

~~~
paulsutter
Look at the rate of subway construction in China[1]. Self driving cars +
tunnel means the subway comes to you, the riders don't need to go to the
station. In the US tunnels seem like a rare and expensive thing, but they're
very commonplace.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/why-china-is-tunneling-a-
mind...](http://www.businessinsider.com/why-china-is-tunneling-a-mind-
boggling-800-miles-in-2-years-2013-3)

The difficulty of public works projects in the US is a legitimate question.
But it's a separate question from what self driving cars will make possible
(especially for the 90%+ of people who live outside the US).

------
oakenclast
I have been thinking about this as well. One idea I've been wondering about:

* Will more remote vacation destinations, including owning a second home in these areas, be more in demand? Buying or renting a vacation house that's a 5-6 hour drive away may not be as ideal if you have to drive yourself there. If you own or can rent a self driving car though, the trip may not seem quite as far. Longer road trips may become more popular, and geographical far places may feel closer than they used to. Demand in coastal or mountainous locations currently far removed from cities may increase.

~~~
thrill
I think robocars will soon lead to robolandyachts. It'll be pretty tempting to
rent a comfortable autonomous land vehicle that you tell the scheduling
package that "I can leave after 1800 and I want to be at the Grand Canyon at
0800" \- it tells you back the available vehicle systems and their amenities
and what view the reserved parking spots at the endpoint have, and you and
your family travel overnight without further attendance.

~~~
puredemo
Are you just talking about RVs?

~~~
tdylan
You can't go to sleep in an RV and wake up at a predefined destination.

~~~
puredemo
So... you're talking about self-driving RV's right?

------
gregoryw
I think it gets worse before it gets better. Early generation self driving
cars will move slower than human piloted cars, who take greater safety risks
in the name of speed.

------
mhandley
I live in outer London and commute into the centre most days by bus then train
then tube. Most people around where I live do the same. I could drive, but it
costs too much to park and the time is wasted time, whereas I can read on
public transport. If I had a self-driving car, the downside of driving would
be removed, so I'd be much more tempted to drive. I guess many others would
too, but London wouldn't cope. The upshot of this is that London's congestion
charge zone would inevitably be expanded and the charge to drive into London
increased still further to keep congestion manageable.

I suspect that most cities that have good public transport would suffer
similarly as commuters are tempted back onto the roads. The inevitable
response would be London-style congestion charging becoming widespread,
because few large European-style cities would cope with any significant
fraction of the population switching from public transport to self-driving
cars. In the end, due to such charging, I suspect we'd end up back in a
similar status quo once the dust had settled, with most people still taking
public transport.

On the other had, my kids would probably love to be able to get around the
suburbs without me needing to taxi them.

~~~
_up
Parking spaces could be tranformed to roads. And streets or even whole cities
alloted to Robo Cars only and then used much more efficiently.

------
VLM
I grew up in an older, mixed suburb; a common complaint I've heard from young
people who grew up in other circumstances is they grew up in huge multi-square
mile monolithic subdivisions with nothing to do within walking distance as a
kid. One interesting social effect of self driving cars would be "mom" (it
always seems to be mom stuck with the job) no longer has to taxi drive their
kid everywhere... Essentially every little kids has private limo service.

So if the closest public library is 5 miles down the interstate, a kid living
there can get a similar life experience to my burb where the library was about
10 minute bike ride away. Wanna go to the park, fine. Wanna go to the library,
fine. If kids still hang out at the mall, they can go there too. Friends house
is 7 miles away? The self driving car won't care.

And a second-level social effect is the self driving car may eliminate
helicopter parent attitudes toward kids being unsupervised... Well, maybe.

Another social effect people have not discussed is employers love sick
employees to show up to work, cough on everyone to demonstrate their devotion
to the cause, not to mention primate dominance (I can make you work when
you're near dead, not vice versa). Often when I call in sick its not because I
can't sit quietly and appear to be busy, similar to sitting on my couch, its
because I literally can't safely drive when I'm this sick or medicated or
sleepless or vomiting or whatever. Self driving cars mean workplaces are going
to be even more like a sweatshop from centuries past at least WRT illness. The
lower classes packed cheek to jowl sneezing and coughing on each other while
moaning in pain... There are people who get off on other people suffering like
that and they're going to really like self driving cars.

------
zeteo
Some of the sensors involved cost $8000+ a pop [1]. The immense R&D expenses
will need to be recouped from the vehicle price too. Expect sky high prices
and little market penetration while the patents are in effect (20+ years).

[1] [http://articles.sae.org/13899/](http://articles.sae.org/13899/)

------
kawera
I think the impact of self-driving cars on real estate will vary wildly by
geography as well as their adoption rate.

Urban roads in the US and Canada are quite wide and probably make it much
easier to make an effective and safe transportation solution out of this
technology. This isn't the case in Europe where urban roads are considerably
narrower, regardless of city size. The same can be said about Japan as a whole
and other large asian metro areas - Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing,
Seoul. Much tougher.

Europe and Japan also have a much denser rail networks than most of the US,
which in turn will cause a different impact on real estate.

Driverless urban buses will probably be adopted much earlier as there are
exclusive bus lanes in most medium and large metro areas throughout the world
but I don't see it changing the dynamics in a fundamental way.

------
elchief
Scenario: Long-term, everyone switches to using robo-taxis and doesn't own a
car. The robo-taxis can communicate and co-ordinate.

You're looking at an ~85% drop in the number of cars required (today only ~15%
of cars are on the road at peak times). The cars are used heavily in the day,
but still need to park somewhere at night. Either way, 85% less parking
required. This can probably be fulfilled without street parking. Easier to
have centralized charging without street parking.

With intelligent driving, you can probably get away with single-lane streets
(each way), with either an expanded turning lane at the corners, or preferably
round-abouts.

This leads to a lot more real estate available in cities. Something like 20%
more, due to single streets and less parking. That's a big increase in
quantity supplied, leading to a big price drop.

~~~
shalmanese
Since cars in motion take up strictly more room than cars at rest, you could
accommodate all cars via dynamic street parking. At night, 6 lane
thoroughfares could become 2 lane streets with the other 4 lanes devoted to
parking.

------
firebones
Negligible impact on real estate.

If you live in the vast majority of the landmass that has no public
transportation, your commute isn't long enough for a self-driving car to
register on the factors in where you live. If you live in places with great
public transportation, then it seems like it matters less--you now inherit
issues (and cost) with parking and maintenance you didn't have before.

If you're looking for real estate impact, consider the aging population and
the ability of self-driving cars to keep people in their houses longer than
they normally would. Along with the factors above, I see the big beneficiaries
being the service providers (anything from Uber to grocery stores to
healthcare providers) who can now optimize location and distribution
differently.

------
sloreti
This might seem minor compared to the other real estate trends that self
driving cars will bring about, but it's interesting to think about what might
happen to all the land in urban and suburban American that is currently on-
street parking. Hopefully we'll see some creative uses for it, such as
gardens, bike lanes, or outdoor seating for cafes, instead of just letting it
lie underutilized. Maybe on some streets we'll get something similar to the
woonerfs [1] in the Netherlands, with streets being shared by cyclists,
pedestrians, and slow moving self driving cars.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonerf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonerf)

------
markbnj
The impact will be very wide, and certainly not limited to real estate,
although there will be huge effects there to be sure. It's a transformation
not less significant than the development of the Internet itself. Cars will
not have to be heavily built to withstand collisions, we will not need
controlled intersections, highways will be able to have fewer lanes, roadways
and bridges will be able to be of lighter construction because of the
reduction in vehicle weight, speeds will be able to be much higher than they
are now, enabling fast travel between cities, etc. It's going to be huge.

------
mschuster91
> Parking lots in major cities are free'd up because they no longer make sense
> creating more housing real estate.

Buildings will continue to exist, this will only have an effect on large
parking lots which will be torn down and replaced by housing, but these are
already rare enough in cities.

> Traffic Congestion is reduced so commutes are shorter creating more demand
> for suburb living.

If you have to travel 30-50 km to the city centres, even autonomous cars will
not solve the issue that this distance needs time for travel.

------
TTPrograms
If self-driving cars make Uber or similar even less expensive, then people
could just as easily prefer to live in the city without a car because it would
be easier to get one on demand. Then they can have increased "walkability",
which appears to be increasingly desirable.

On the other hand if transportation is more transparent then they may prefer
the lower cost of suburbs and travel more.

There's different forces pulling in different directions, so it's hard to pick
which way it will go.

------
jessaustin
Everyone seems to assume that robocars won't work in less densely populated
areas, but I'm not so sure. In areas of little traffic it's possible to
schedule trips further ahead of time. In addition, much greater speeds might
allow a given number of robocars to serve a much bigger area. I'm sure there
is a cutoff somewhere, but I think eventually it will be at a much lower
population density than many expect.

------
zkhalique
I think what's going to change is parking lots. There will be less demand for
parked cars. Also, eventually entire streets will have less parked cars,
leading to nice-looking streets like there were before the 20th century. I
consider all the cars akin to "garbage" since they are not being used.

What will really change real estate patterns is increased support for
telecommuting, both with tools and cultural acceptance.

------
3pt14159
I've studied transportation network design in university. Here are some
knowns:

1\. You can, literally, not build enough highways for the demand. As you rack
up lanes buildings get further away from each other. This means more drivers
and more driving. Attempts to elevate or bury highways are only cost effective
in very specific circumstances.

2\. Peak flow (cars per minute) is at around 80km/hr, although sometimes
increasing flow further is only a temporary salve, as exit points (the city
downtown streets) block.

3\. People are likely to respond to incentives. For example, dynamic pricing
on the 407, higher rates during rush hour have pushed out enough traffic to
maintain a high flow, even during rush hour. (Though some argue that this has
resulted in more spillover to the 401, the closest competing route. I've yet
to see a competent paper proving this either way.)

Consider that Uber _already_ has ride sharing code in test markets. With
algorithms that work together to minimize driving friction, and with surge
pricing to deal with supply and demand at peak rush hour here is what I
envision:

1\. Way more capacity to get _close_ to the city.

2\. Much more expensive to get _into_ the city, as capacity increases to the
perimeter. With surge pricing, only the very rich will be able to afford a car
alone. The poor will either get to the downtown core with a denser option
(like a self driving bus) or they will get into the city at an earlier time,
even if it means waiting around for work to start. Also, I see "surge
insurance" being popular with the poor, since a 10x commute on a single bad
day (due to weather or a unexpected road closure).

So where does this leave us? In the short term the core get's more expensive.
The closure of a few parking lots is not going to make up for the built in
surge pricing of self driving cars. When the price goes up, some companies
move to the edge of the core. Leading prices to go up there as well.

The people that really get hosed are the people in the zone just outside of
that. Suburban homes no longer command a large premium, since what would have
been an unthinkable distance previous years (say, 175kms from core) is now
completely reasonable. A software developer can sit alone in a self driving
car that drives 150 km/h for an hour, get some work done, then pick up some
co-passangers for the last 25kms to offset the cost. Get in work by 10:30am
leave by 4:00pm, get some work done on the way home. Maybe watch a show. By
5:30 he's on his hobby farm.

Now all of this is in a relative context. If the Canadian housing market is
too bubbly, and across the board it goes down then I'm just arguing it will go
down more in the suburbs than elsewhere.

------
JWLong
Until self-_fueling_ cars are a thing, all of your points, which are
predicated on "never stop moving" are moot.

~~~
octaveguin
It's just a prototype but Telsa made an automatic refueling snake-thing that
is super cool!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut3sELMOyTM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut3sELMOyTM)

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JWLong
Nice find! Pretty much what I was looking for.

There may be a bit of overlap with self-driving ICE cars, though. I'm
wondering if that would be more difficult to handle.

Either way, I had been looking for this story, ever since people started
talking about modern self-driving cars. Don't know how it slipped through.

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afarrell
I suspect that shopping centers will tax their member stores to pay for a
self-driving bus that can pick people up in the neighborhood. They'll have to
be at least close to wheelchair accessible so people can take carts on them
rather than carrying their heavy groceries and home goods.

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maverick2
HN discussion from a little more than a year back.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8059480](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8059480)

