Why do people what self driving cars at all? I certainly hate the thought of having to pay for any of this. Even if the end product is subscription based, all these feature cost money up front making new cars super expensive.
I'd love to get in my car and go to sleep for a couple of hours or read a book whilst it drives me somewhere. Imagine if it could even pull over and charge up without any kind of intervention too. You could get in your car, and get a full nights sleep whilst it drive you somewhere 500 miles away.
Also, at some point, I'm probably going to be too old to drive safely, which will restrict my travels. Not if self driving gets to the point where that doesn't matter anymore.
Yeah. The tech isn't there yet. The question I was responding to was "Why do people what self driving cars at all". I responded why I want a self driving car.
Cool and all, but up until companies started putting this stuff in cars they cost $30k. Now the average car is 50k. The average car is now more expensive than my BMW 3 series with the premium package from a few years back. I don't want to pay for your fantasy of going to sleep in your car and waking up someplace new. I dont want to pay for the ability of my car to self park or be summoned to me. Most new features of cars dont interest me in the slightest.
You're suggesting that the only alternative to autonomous self-driving cars is public transit?
By the way, I do vote with my wallet. I won't buy a car that has these features. I won't buy a car that serves me ads. I won't buy a car that charges a subscription fee. However, this is becoming increasingly challenging. Most luxury vehicle manufacturers want to pad their bottom lines by charging a premium or worse a subscription for things I (and I suspect many people) don't want.
These premium features ultimately trickle down so every new car must have a rear-view camera and many have LED lighting. Examples of two premium features that now everyone must pay for. My eldest daughter failed her driving test because she used the rear view camera when parallel parking. Yes these cameras are mandated but you fail if you use them. The tail light on an F-150 can cost upwards of $3,000 to replace. A tail light!
My first car, a jeep, came with a bikini top, no doors. the windshield actually folded down without a special tool, and I used a kerosene heater in between the seats when it was cold. Now wranglers come with touch screens, heated steering wheels and cruise control. Apparently they are difficult to find with a manual transmission. I loved mine back in the day but as you say I'll vote with my wallet and will not buy from Stellantis.
I'll happily get my kids a Slate. Of course your mileage may vary and if you want to pay for these premiums then power to you. I just don't want to subsidize your choice.
> You're suggesting that the only alternative to autonomous self-driving cars is public transit?
No. But hopefully one day. I don't mind if you want to subsidise my choice or not. I want self driving tech to get to the point that it is safer than manually driven cars, and I then want people who want to still drive manually to be slowly priced off the roads and then outright banned from doing it.
My preference is that you stop being allowed to drive manually, and as far as I can see, that's the future, as long as the technology works out.
Average includes trucks and other stuff which are very above the average and pull it up, because god forbid the avg joe from getting a Honda civic instead of a f150 or above.
Also, inflation is a thing.
You can get a new Honda civic for less than 30k$ today, as well as other sedans and small cars.
If you don't like sharing space with other people, you want a private room on a train.
These cars and their supporting infrastructure should cost more than a private room on a train because they are less efficient and have more negative externalities than a private room on a train.
A train can't take me to the beach. It can't take me camping away from civilization. It can't haul lumber from a hardware store so I can build a treehouse.
I love trains, but let's not pretend there is a perfect Venn diagram of overlap between what their use cases are.
Trains can take you to the beach and away from civilization. Build a station where you want to go. At one point trains were the most practical way to get to national parks.
How often are you building treehouses that you need to pay hundreds of dollars extra a month to justify the cost, versus a one-time delivery fee?
You must be an American, because plenty of trains exist to bring people to nature elsewhere. You know, when you drive a car to a nature place, you put it into a parking lot, then you are no longer in the car, right? Same works for trains.
Man I love this silly debate. The original comment just wanted to travel 500 miles to "somewhere" and most instances of "somewhere" that people travel to could be accessed by train.
Also no one has said that no one is allowed to drive ever again anywhere. I'm trying to be generous but the victim complex is crazy.
> but let's not pretend there is a perfect Venn diagram of overlap between what their use cases are.
I never said anything of the sort and I'm not pretending that at all. You're creating a strawman. The comment I was responding to said this:
> I'd love to get in my car and go to sleep for a couple of hours or read a book whilst it drives me somewhere. Imagine if it could even pull over and charge up without any kind of intervention too. You could get in your car, and get a full nights sleep whilst it drive you somewhere 500 miles away.
That's a train. Most instances of "somewhere" can be accessed by train. Or by a train to do the long miles and then other modes of transit once you're closer.
My overall stance is that there's a lot more overlap between why folks want a super expensive self-driving car and more robust public transit and better support for multi-modal transit. I've not pretended anything like you've claimed.
> Or by a train to do the long miles and then other modes of transit once you're closer
Of your many points in various posts, this is maybe the only point I'm really on board with. Amtrak already supports this, even. My car can drive me to the train and then the train can do the long haul, and at the other end my car will drive me off the train and to the destination.
Still need waaaay more rail routes than we have now, though, so this is a dream for a century from now, not something in my lifetime.
This isn’t strictly directed at you, but I’m saddened that HN is immediately ready to dream big when it comes to solving hard problems and making the world a better place in spaces like AI, crypto, and technology in general. But suddenly shuts down over things as simple as trains, buses, and bike lanes.
There’s plenty of examples of guerrilla urbanism that I think align closely to the hacker ethos. Even more these problems are very solvable and can net huge gains in metrics without having to “dream for a century”.
> waaaaay more rail routes
It’s actually much simpler, Amtrak just needs right of way along with some other straight forward regulations to help balance freight and transit on America’s railroads.
Amtrak has also been doing great at incremental expansion and brining back (or increasing!) ridership just in the 5 years since the pandemic in a number of areas like Chicago to Milwaukee, and in the PNW.
The defeatist attitude isn’t what I expect from HN. You already found the best piece of actionable advice which is to look for incremental ways you can adjust your life to be different. My wife and I hardly drive anymore. Most of our trips: her work, groceries, restaurants, most leisure activities, etc are now by bike. We live in the suburbs too, a full 10 miles (20-30min drive and across an interstate) from the city’s downtown.
Cars are only perceived as necessary in America bc it is assumed that they are. There are many small and safe ways to shed the car dependence and they’ve all been huge positives to my life. We’re happier, healthier, building more community, spending less money on gas and maintenance. It’s nice.
I live in Manhattan, and don't own a car, so I get where you're coming from. The reality here is that America doesn't like trains and isn't going to build trains in any kind of a timeframe that's helpful to me. I'm about to move to Westchester, but I need to get to the Upper West Side every day. Yes, I can take the train from Westchester, but it goes into Grand Central, so then I need to take another train from there. And I'll have my kid with me.
So my options are:
1. Drive, walk, or bike with my kid to the train station in Westchester, ride to grand central, switch to subway, drop her off at school, then take the subway to my office. Total time about 90 mins.
or
2. Drive 35-45 mins.
I'll be driving.
There's talk of having one of the train lines go into Penn instead of Grand Central, with stops on the Upper West Side! But that'll be a decade or more, if it ever happens, and it won't be relevant to me anymore at that point.
It remains to be seen, but there is reason to believe that self driving cars will be enough safer than regular cars that I as a citizen want everyone to have them if you have a car.
I have kids who walk, ride bikes, and I do the same. There are a lot of terrible drivers out there - the average driver who thinks they are better than everyone else is still terrible (yes this includes me - I'm one of the few honest enough to admit I'm not good, but I'm about equal to everyone else)
One day, all personal transport will be AI, and lunatics like me who enjoy performance driving will have special vehicles we drive at a track. Self driving cars are great. That you can’t afford one is just a matter of time.
Could happen. But we still allow horse-drawn carriages on some roads. I think I'll be long dead (and I wouldn't be surprised if everyone in this discussion will be long dead as well) before we kick human drivers off the road.
If we really gave a shit about driving-related fatalities, there is a lot of fruit hanging way lower than replacing the average sober driver.
I like approaching it from an accessibility standpoint. I don't need it and I enjoy the act of driving. That said, if I had vision impairment and wanted freedom to travel further from home with no assistance self driving cars make a lot more sense.
The product isn't necessarily "for me", but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.
I'm extremely visually impaired. I'd rather see (ha) good public transport. I also sincerely doubt (and hope so) that I'd be legally able to drive a car simply because it has "self-driving" - what if I need to take control of it? What happens if someone gets hurt because of it? Am I liable, even though I don't have a license?
Driving can be annoying. I like it in some cases, but it's no fun when there's a ton of traffic, lots of stop lights, etc. I'd love to be able to push a button and let it handle the grunt work in those cases.
Sometimes I want to do something else. Maybe adjust my music, or send a text. If the car can keep me going while I do that, it would be nice.
I live with two people who can't drive. Often I have to take them to things. Tonight I'm going to spend about 90 minutes going, waiting, and coming back, so one of them can do something. It would be great if I could just put them in the car and say, have fun, see you later, and stay home while the car takes them there and back.
Anecdotally, whenever I have to tote someone around who cannot drive, it is nearly universally true that they also cannot get in and out of the car without help, too. So that has to be arranged, a self-driving car won't be able to solve it.
There are reasons other than physical disability for people to be unable to drive. For example, the person I’m driving tonight can’t drive themselves because they’re too young to have a license.
Doing long highway drives is effortless. Think cruise control, but you can let go of the wheel.
The hardware necessary for level 2 autonomy is estimated to cost about US$400 in a Tesla. Much higher for companies using Lidar though prices are coming down as well.
I would like self-driving car for myself, but more so, I would like it for all the other drivers on the road who regularly try to kill me or destroy my car.
I don't think so. My financial situation isn't hers though, and I don't even own one. I borrowed a friend's for a 550 mile road trip this past weekend and then for a few days after. It's there enough to do the usual daily trips with minimal interaction, so while road trips is the obvious situation for it it's also really nice to have the rest of the time. It sucks that it costs so much when it could be free, but we still live under capitalism so that's just how that one goes.
The replies to this comment are very telling. Everyone is highlighting various desires and issues with cars:
- Cars are dangerous to people not in cars
- Cars require your undivided attention (and even that isn't fool-proof)
- Cars are inaccessible: age, eyesight, control operation, etc.
- There's a lot of traffic (iow there's a lot of cars)
What people are expressing a desire for is more robust public transit and transportation facilities that protect everyone: peds, drivers, cyclists, etc.
The best way to solve all of these problems, totally ignoring self-driving for a moment, is to reduce the total number of vehicle miles traveled. Reduce the number of car trips. Reduce the length of car trips. If there are less cars, there is less danger from cars. If there are less cars, there is less traffic. The only way to have less cars is to provide alternatives: street cars, bike trails, pedestrian facilities, sub-regional buses and trains, inter-regional trains (or buses).
Literally all of these problems get significantly better when there are less drivers on the road. Trains can provide the inter-regional travel that allows you to work, read, hangout, sleep, etc. without the constant danger of having to watch the road the entire time.
Self-driving cars will certainly be useful, but I think people are really missing the point that the root of the problem is cars specifically. They can (and will!) still be available for people that truly want or need them, but harm reduction is the name of the game. Even changing a portion of your trip from car to something else can make a huge difference! It doesn't have to be door-to-door, it could be that you drive to a park-n-ride. Or you stop driving to the local downtown in the spring, summer, and fall.
Most of the people in this comment section want better public transit. It can be made to work even if the goal is to go skiing or mountain biking once you arrive. Cars need to stop being the default and become the exception. It's cheaper, more efficient, safer, and healthier.
> What people are expressing a desire for is more robust public transit and transportation facilities that protect everyone: peds, drivers, cyclists, etc.
I'm going to take a guess here that you're in a bubble. Most people don't give more than a passing thought to protecting anybody else on the road but themselves and their own loved ones. You could say enlightened self interest means this should extend to random strangers, but I bet that as a practical matter it does not. I'd even go farther and suggest that the largest plurality of people who support public transit want it so that it will take other people off the road, not them.
There’s plenty of evidence that traffic is almost exclusively induced demand and that as you build other facilities and expand existing ones that more people use them. “Just one more lane bro”, etc.
America tends to be car-centric because that’s the only perceived option.
People that want more public transit probably never did public transit. It took me a few horrible interactions on a public transit and some disgusting experience in car share to never support anything “communist”. Specially when you get kids.
I think it helps you drive. It takes away the tedium of driving and reduces your workload.
Big wins are: 1) stop-and-go traffic 2) long boring highway trips
infrequent but just as important - emergency braking
That said I absolutely hate that this seems to give tesla the "courage" to remove physical driver controls (like turn signal stalks, drive select stalks, full controls for wipers, lights and defrost)
As an aside, IIRC they put the turn signal stalk back in a recent update. It saves them a few bucks per car to use buttons instead, but there are people who will not buy a Tesla without a turn-signal stalk -- and the loss on that is probably 500x what is saved by not putting in a stalk.
