alt Hacker NewsI would pay so much for my own SUV to self-drive as well as Waymo.
Keyword: my own SUV. Not a rental. With the possibility for me to take over and drive it myself if service fails or if I want to do so.
The significant unlock is that I get to haul gear, packages, family. I don't need to keep it clean. The muddy dogs, the hiking trip, the week-long road trip.
If my car could drive me, I'd do way more road trips and skip flying. It's almost as romantic as a California Zephyr or Coast Starlight trip. And I can camp out of it.
No cramped airlines. No catching colds by being packed in a sardine can with a stressed out immune system.
No sharing space with people on public transit. I can work and watch movies and listen to music and hang out with my wife, my friends. People won't stare at me, and I can eat in peace or just be myself in my own space.
I might even work in a nomadic lifestyle if I don't have to drive all the time. Our country is so big and there's so much to see.
One day you might even be able to attach a trailer. Bikes, jet skis, ATVs. People might simply live on the road, traveling all the time.
Big cars seem preferable. Lots of space for internal creature comforts. Laying back, lounging. Watching, reading, eating. Changing clothes, camping, even cooking.
Some people might even buy autonomous RVs. I'm sure that'll be a big thing in its own right.
It's bidirectional too! People can come to you as you go to them. Meet in the middle. Same thing with packages, food, etc.
This would be the biggest thing in travel, transport, logistics, perhaps ever. It's a huge unlock. It feels downright revolutionary. Like a total change in how we might live our lives.
This might turn big suburbs from food/culture deserts into the default places people want to live as they have more space for cheaper - because the commute falls apart.
This honestly sounds better than a house, but if you can also own an affordable large home in the suburbs as your home base - that's incredible. You don't need a tiny expensive place in the city. You could fall asleep in your car and wake up for breakfast in the city. Spend some time at home, then make a trek to the mountains. All without wasting any time. No more driving, no more traffic. Commuting becomes leisure. It becomes you time.
This is also kind of a super power that big countries (in terms of area) with lots of roads and highways will enjoy the most. It doesn't do much in a dense city, but once you add mountains and forests and streams and deserts and oceans - that's magic.
Maybe our vast interstate highway infrastructure will suddenly grow ten times in value.
Roads might become more important than ever. We might even start building more.
If the insurance and autonomy come bundled as a subscription after you purchase or lease your vehicle, that's super easy for people to activate and spend money on.
This is such a romantic dream, and I'm so hyped for this.
I would pay an ungodly sum to unlock this. It can't come soon enough. Would subscribe in a heartbeat.
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I very much hope that this doesn't happen. So much wasted energy for so little benefit. What's one to do in this world if they don't have the money to own a car that constantly drives them around? What's one to do if they like becoming familiar with a place, rather than watching place after place whiz by? What's one to do if they want to build relationships with the other humans in the world?
> no more traffic
How? There would be a huge increase in demand on the roads. You said it yourself, you’d have to build more roads.
Unless you meant, no more [suffering] traffic, since you could just take a nap.
The only way I see self driving to be a true win if it is so efficient that you can remove all the roads and they become part of the mass transit system.
I would demand personal vehicles to pay a premium (cost plus) as they take up more space per person and add to infrastructure maintenance cost
> People might simply live on the road, traveling all the time.
I think this is the plot of Kamakiriad.
This would be an absolute energy and efficiency nightmare. I hope to god this never ever happens.
> No sharing space with people on public transit.
If people really want their own private suites they should be paying thru the nose and ears for it. Cars are a worse version of this and the car-centric lifestyle is heavily subsidized by everything from taxes to people's lives (air pollution from ICEs yes, but tire pollution is actually worse in many ways and is made worse with heavier EVs).
This will not fix food deserts, it will make them worse. If your car isn't packed to capacity on every single trip, it is less efficient and worse than public transit.
Roads are awful. We should be trying to minimize them, not expand them.
Whatever ungodly sum you are prepared to pay, I'm certain the actual cost is yet higher.
I'm lost on why you fantasies this so much and don't just buy an RV or something?
Do you really hate driving that much?
I don't think this would change the world as you imagine it. I don't mind driving long i will just make sure i get entertainment for the purpose. Like an audio book. My wife doesn't say 'Lets go soemwere you can drive me around and i can finally do that many things in parallel'.
And plenty of family drive today with RVs while the parents are in the front and the kids are in the back. No one is showering while the parents drive. Do you know how slow Cars now would need to drive to make this suddenly that much more comftable than what we have today?
You would need to rebuild the car and streets to get to this point.
How much would you pay? Why not hire an actual human driver?
You must be a lot more comfortable as a passenger than I am, because that honestly sounds like my personal hell. I don't mind driving, but I hate being in any vehicle for extended periods. Have you considered a chauffeur?
Absolutely wild to me how a dystopian hell world scenario for me can be someone else's utopia.
Get a Model Y or even a Cybertruck. It's not there quite yet but holy shit it's almost there.
Your dream sounds like a nightmare for everyone else in America. I hope it never comes to fruition.
> This might turn big suburbs from food/culture deserts into the default places people want to live as they have more space for cheaper
This will certainly not happen. The reason these places are culture and food deserts is precisely because people drive everywhere and the driving infrastructure requires so much space that it is impossible to have density at the levels needed to support culture.