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Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?

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Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?

#71

Post by kbob »

jcadam wrote: post #62

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, unne…

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.

Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?

#72

Post by shalmanese »

elchief wrote: post #33

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 parki…

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.

Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?

#73

Post by deelowe »

collyw wrote: post #53
bolchevich wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

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.

Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?

#74

Post by irixusr »

ctz wrote: post #32
irixusr wrote: post #14

Earlier 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.

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

Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?

#76

Post by jordanchan »

ghaff wrote: post #68
_up wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure. My basic point though is that, given high utilization, $15/hour doesn't really change the economics of ordering a car on demand though. It still makes sense in the cities where it already makes sense unless services like Uber are already being blocked for regulatory reasons.

Cities where Uber and the like are being blocked with oppose robo-cars even more vigorously. Like the revolts against steam engines and factories we read about. Uber-opposition will seem like a practice exercise.

Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?

#77

Post by jordanchan »

tdylan wrote: post #66
_up wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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

Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?

#78

Post by jcadam »

kbob wrote: post #71
jcadam wrote: post #62

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, unne…

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.

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.

Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?

#79

Post by rnet85 »

legulere wrote: post #28
__Joker wrote: post #24

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 physical…

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.

Life like virtual office with occulus rift

Re: Ask HN: What will self driving cars do to real estate?

#80

Post by collyw »

deelowe wrote: post #73
collyw wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

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.

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.
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