271–280 of 322 posts
In Amsterdam, I'm a big user of car2go. These are little electric smart cars which you can rent by the minute. For times when I don't have my bike nearby, or the public transport is not handy. These are basically little smart cars which drive themselves, which would be perfect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about something simple like telling the car, "back up 10 feet" or "move to the spot across the street". This is dead simple short range routes...
There also needs to be a 'pause for others' button so that a motorist in a side street can be let in to a congested road or for a motorist on the opposite side of the road wanting to turn can make their move. This is the usual scenario where a motorist flashes their lights to let someone through. As a cyclist/pedestrian I am always amazed by this altruistic side of motorists and it would be a shame if 'the computer s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
About cleanliness, taxis and rental cars are clean because there is someone there to clean it between each customer. That doesn't work for carsharing, where cars go directly from a customer to the next. My experience with these systems is that you don't find anything really dirty in the cars, but you tend to find empty bottles and things like that in them. Not a deal breaker if you just want to get somewhere, but not…
Car sharing services in Japan ask you immediately (via the navi) what the state of the car is. I imagine it negatively impacts the previous rider in some way. A simple social pressure like that can work wonders.
So would variable pricing based on how often you leave the car a mess (with appropriate filters to mitigate against the trolls).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is (indirectly) to me. I often visit the US, and I'm always amazed that I can't seem to go anywhere walking. The distances to go anywhere are huge. It seems to be that way because cities in the US where designed / build with cars in mind. In Europe cities were obviously not build with cars in mind, and as a result I enjoy here a much higher density of amenities (and suffer much worse driving conditions / parking t…
> It is (indirectly) to me. I often visit the US, and I'm always amazed that I can't seem to go anywhere walking. The distances to go anywhere are huge. It seems to be that way because cities in the US where designed / build with cars in mind. Huh, why would you think that? I'm not sure there's a major city in the U.S. that wasn't already a major city pre-car. And cities weren't redesigned post-car, that's why a lot…
LA Houston Phoenix San Antonio San Diego Dallas San Jose
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does one "tell" the car what to do without controls ? I hope you're not suggesting voice recognition because anything less than 100% accuracy will guarantee accidents and possibly deaths.
I'm pretty sure current cars with controls guarantee accidents and deaths
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. This has been discussed on the Internet quite a bit. Not sure if exact reason has been determined. I'm not young but I sold my car years ago because it's expensive, inconvenient, and seldom used where I now live on the US east coast. Here's one article, you can Google hundreds more. http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/5-reasons-young-people-are...
I would love to see an actual study on this. There are only a few cities in the U.S. where public transportation is good enough to get by without one and while those are typically big cities they aren't big enough to compensate for the number of cities with poor public transportation.
This is why cars will never disappear. The solution is self-driving cars. Cars are a menace when operated by humans. Reducing the danger, traffic problems, and parking issue with cars is the answer, not removing them entirely (although I do support banning them in dense urban areas and business districts -- people can always park on the outskirts and take transit in).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is (indirectly) to me. I often visit the US, and I'm always amazed that I can't seem to go anywhere walking. The distances to go anywhere are huge. It seems to be that way because cities in the US where designed / build with cars in mind. In Europe cities were obviously not build with cars in mind, and as a result I enjoy here a much higher density of amenities (and suffer much worse driving conditions / parking t…
> It is (indirectly) to me. I often visit the US, and I'm always amazed that I can't seem to go anywhere walking. The distances to go anywhere are huge. It seems to be that way because cities in the US where designed / build with cars in mind. Huh, why would you think that? I'm not sure there's a major city in the U.S. that wasn't already a major city pre-car. And cities weren't redesigned post-car, that's why a lot…
The comments here are rather disappointing. It doesn't have manual controls? Well thats the point! I want to leave my crap in it and paint it some ugly color? Get with the times, young people already opt to not own cars. I can't double park in the city? Why are you imposing your steel box on people living in cities, many of which do not own cars and want walkable streets? I mean, this is the news website for a startu…
Are you saying that if my opinions are unlike yours, then I should not be visiting HN, or even voice my opinions? Not everyone on HN is from the US - US has a massive car problem, because Americans had a very strong car culture for 7 decades now - so for them, not having a car is "new". I come from a country where 25 years ago pretty much no one had a car, because you had to have a permission from the government to o…
This is going to change the world. No more car insurance. Vastly fewer driving fatalities. Shared cars. Less parking problems. I can't wait. Just take my money already.
I bet you'll still need insurance (or the provider will need it, in a service model). It should be much, much cheaper though. Most vehicle accidents are caused by human error -- the insurance would just need to cover accidents caused by mechanical or software failure.
The comments here are rather disappointing. It doesn't have manual controls? Well thats the point! I want to leave my crap in it and paint it some ugly color? Get with the times, young people already opt to not own cars. I can't double park in the city? Why are you imposing your steel box on people living in cities, many of which do not own cars and want walkable streets? I mean, this is the news website for a startu…
Are you saying that if my opinions are unlike yours, then I should not be visiting HN, or even voice my opinions? Not everyone on HN is from the US - US has a massive car problem, because Americans had a very strong car culture for 7 decades now - so for them, not having a car is "new". I come from a country where 25 years ago pretty much no one had a car, because you had to have a permission from the government to o…
The upshot of this is that this probably won't happen until after you become unable to drive yourself. I'm sure there will always be a market for enclosed driving courses/racetracks anyway.