Item — HN Reader

> I hope they don't lobby against mass transit (of goods and people). But they probably will, making things worse for all us.

People in general are not fond of the experience of mass transit. They only do it because it's either (or all):

- cheap (no parking fees, car purchase/maintenance)

- less hassle (no need to find parking in busy areas and no need to have all attention to driving)

If personal transport can be made cheaper, less hassle and hands-free (all of which is possible by autonomous vehicles), then people will vote with their pennies and no lobbying will be required by Tesla.

How will this be worse?

1 comments

Companies have departments and groups meant to fight, shape, and push legislation in their favor, as well as shape public opinion, even against the public's own interest.

Do you know how carmakers literally paid to have tram lined ripped out of cities, in order to discourage public transport usage and get people to buy their cars?

This is not some weird thing and it's a literal, documented, conspiracy with actual indictments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

> If personal transport can be made cheaper, less hassle and hands-free (all of which is possible by autonomous vehicles), then people will vote with their pennies and no lobbying will be required by Tesla.

Secondly, physics and economics: you can never make personal transport as cheap as public transport, because personal transport will always carry fewer passengers per ride.

And personal transport, if you look at it, is going in the wrong direction for efficiency.

https://www.autoweek.com/car-life/classic-cars/a1860276/car-...

A 4.4m long Chevrolet Sonic 2017 weighs 1.3 tons, almost as much as the 5m long Chevrolet Chevelle 1967.

The most lightweight Tesla Model 3 weighs 1.8 tons, that's 50% more, on top of the existing ICE weight gain over the last 50+ years.

Adding more safety and comfort features will only make things <<heavier>>.

And people really want to ride in nice, clean, custom cars, plus they really don't want to ride with other people most of the time.

I guess we'll just keep burning the planet down, pumping out particulate matter, destroying wildlife, etc.

Oh, and fully autonomous driving could be 50 years into the future, banking on it is a very risky move. We're still at the basic research phase, our tech isn't good enough.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

> you can never make personal transport as cheap as public transport, because personal transport will always carry fewer passengers per ride.

Oh man, another "never" statement. An autonomous car that doesn't have a driver, doesn't need to take breaks to eat or sleep, that doesn't need to be parked, can in fact become cheaper than public transport. I invite you to do some research on that.

> And people really want to ride in nice, clean, custom cars, plus they really don't want to ride with other people most of the time.

That's exactly my point, and why in presence of a price competitive option such as a self driving taxi, no one would want to catch a bus or a train with many people and dirty seats.

> autonomous driving could be 50 years into the future

Not if you're in the know. It's far closer, but I'm not arguing for that. Wait and see.

> Oh man, another "never" statement. An autonomous car that doesn't have a driver, doesn't need to take breaks to eat or sleep, that doesn't need to be parked, can in fact become cheaper than public transport. I invite you to do some research on that.

I love how you sideskipped my phsyics argument like it was nothing.

You're still moving 1.5 tons (and constantly increasing!) of metal everywhere, to move 1 human being weighing 80kg.

The physics just don't work.

> That's exactly my point, and why in presence of a price competitive option such as a self driving taxi, no one would want to catch a bus or a train with many people and dirty seats.

Price competitive how? It's impossible. The only way this works is by offloading a ton of externalities on everyone else, including people without cars. Roads, parking lots, highways, high capacity bridges, tunnels, charging infrastructure/gas stations, exhaust pollution, tire wear pollution, road degradation pollution, noise pollution, light pollution, manufacturing and construction pollution, ...

By what logic can't you clean a bus for 100 people but you can thoroughly clean a taxi for 1, AND make the taxi cost competitive?

> I love how you sideskipped my phsyics argument like it was nothing.

My bad.

> You're still moving 1.5 tons (and constantly increasing!) of metal everywhere, to move 1 human being weighing 80kg.

True.

> Price competitive how? It's impossible.

OK, you can transport at least a factor of 10x more people with the existing number of cars on the road. People who drive to work and back use their cars for a fraction of time in a day. If those cars were out moving people around the clock, they would add a huge capacity to the taxi fleet.

Now, who pays for the car? The owner. They have paid for it whether it's sitting in the car park or driving people around. The only difference is running cost of the car: electricity and mostly tire wear. That becomes the cost of transporting people with margin added for Tesla and the car owner. That's it!

Now I just realized that perhaps in your hometown, cost of public transport may be so dirt cheap. But where I live, it cost $40 AUD a week to travel 2 stations back and fourth once a day. The same trips over the same period with my car costs me $2.40 AUD in electricity and about $2.80 AUD in tyre wear (assuming $2000 AUD per 25000km which is way too aggressive). That's a total of $5.20 vs $40. Even if you double the cost to account for margin, it's still 4 times less expensive than public transport.

EDIT: even if it's exactly the same as public transport, it'll still be the preferably mode of transport, because it's door to door and you don't have to deal with anyone. Imagine someone who's happy to share with one other person, now you have bonker economics.

How does an autonomous car not need to be parked? The vision that seems more realistic to me is that lucrative areas would have traffic jams full of empty self-driving taxis circling around waiting for fares.

> How does an autonomous car not need to be parked?

As in, they don't need to be parked after every ride in the current personal transport model.

> The vision that seems more realistic to me is that lucrative areas would have traffic jams full of empty self-driving taxis circling around waiting for fares.

They will be run as part of a coordinated fleet of robo taxis. Why would they be circling around waiting for customers in an area where there is no demand? Answer is they won't. They'll be directed to where people want rides much like Uber, but considerably more efficient, because they don't have constraints of a human driver they have to accommodate.

Say there's an area that will have heavy demand soon but doesn't yet, maybe someplace with a lot of bars on a Friday night. Where do all those cars come from? There has to be a holding garage sort of nearby, but land nearby is expensive, and if there's competition for the faster service, you get a race-to-the-bottom.

  How does an autonomous car not need to be parked?

It doesn't need to be parked because it basically can't park itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA