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.
Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?
51–60 of 82 posts
Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 sp…
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.
They will be networked, making demand pricing easy. So congestion becomes a political choice (if people refuse demand tolls in the name of fairness...).
Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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).
Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?
#54Some 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).
Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?
#55I'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 ar…
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.
Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?
#56Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 sp…
People that are too defensive on transit tend to cause congestion, not avoid it. Of course, that's dependent of the streets being full of people a bit more violent, but until we have all cars driving themselves, that condition will be true, what may take decades. Also, if the car is self-driving, people will be want to make more trips. For example, if we send their cars back home once they got to work, we'll save on…
>People that are too defensive on transit tend to cause congestion, not avoid it.
Have you any proof of that? I would guess that both "agressive" and "defensive" drivers cause problems in different ways.
For example when I am waiting at a pedestrian crossing to cross, if a driver comes up fast and brakes hard close to the stop I won't start walking until I am sure he is stopping. If another driver slows down well in advance it indicates to me that he is inteding to stop, I'll start crossing earlier, and consequently he will start again earlier. I have also read articels about traffic waves being caused by people basically driving faster than the car in front then needing to slow/stop when they catch up with the one in front.
Idiots not moving from the middle lane must cause a lot of congestion in busy motorways, as they are effectively reducing 3 lanes to 2 for others around them who want to use the road properly (though I wouldn't class them as either defensive or agressive).
Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?
#58Why 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 differ…
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 sp…
You missed my point: of course they will be more sophisticated, but if they increase the demand for road resources then there will be more cars out there. They will move efficiently but as slowly as people are able to tolerate before switching to alternate means (e.g. trains, biking, etc).
Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?
#59Self 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 a…
We did tunnels like you mention in Boston 15 years ago. The results have been great, but the costs, schedule, and construction hassles were a massive challenge to public consensus.
Tunnels unlike most structures can last for very long timeframes so city's that devote a small fixed portion of there budget could slowly build extensive underground networks on the 100-200+ year timeframe.
Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?
#60Until self-_fueling_ cars are a thing, all of your points, which are predicated on "never stop moving" are moot.
It's just a prototype but Telsa made an automatic refueling snake-thing that is super cool! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut3sELMOyTM
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.