Ed Self-Driving Cars: Pros, Cons, and Predictions

Evaluate Self-Driving Cars on a scale of 1-5 (1 = Terrible, 3 = Meh, 5 = Great)

  • 1

    Votes: 10 6.6%

  • 2

    Votes: 11 7.2%

  • 3

    Votes: 24 15.8%

  • 4

    Votes: 28 18.4%

  • 5

    Votes: 79 52.0%
  • Total voters
    152
  • Poll closed .
Orphia Nay said:
So long as urban designers also take greenery, pedestrians, cyclists, public transportation, the disabled and 15 minute cities into account, I don't see that is bad.


We need fewer cars AND autonomous cars (if they are green and work safely).
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We don't need autonomous cars. We do need fewer cars. Urban designers need to prioritise people not cars.
 
jeremyp said:
If we all had self driving cars then, we wouldn't need as many car parking spaces, but the roads would be twenty times more crowded than they are right now. Imagine peak rush hour but 24 hours a day.

And the worst of it is that many of those cars driving around creating the worst rush hour ever will be empty because there isn't the demand for transport at times when people are not travelling to and from work.
I'd love a car that could safely and legally drive me home when I'm drunk, but such cars are not going to improve most of the problems that car culture introduces. In fact, they'll probably make them worse. We need fewer cars of any stripe, not different ones.
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It's this is why I keep saying that robotaxis and the likes will never work. The market for taxis, given human living patterns, is at the saturation point at the moment. Putting another half million cars into that market is not going to generate any more business but depress prices until the number of taxis come down.

And the people who will lose out will be those who buy their primary car thinking they can turn it into taxi when they're not using it, likely at very off peak hours.
 
I've already talked about what happens at a major event.

Now. People park somewhere near the facility and everyone walks to and from their cars. As they get to their cars, they leave from various parking locations.

Future. After the event, everyone summons their self-driving cars (or taxis) at the same time.
All the self-driving cars fill the streets near the venue and go into panic mode. Instant gridlock that lasts for three weeks.
 
novaphile said:
I've already talked about what happens at a major event.

Now. People park somewhere near the facility and everyone walks to and from their cars. As they get to their cars, they leave from various parking locations.

Future. After the event, everyone summons their self-driving cars (or taxis) at the same time.
All the self-driving cars fill the streets near the venue and go into panic mode. Instant gridlock that lasts for three weeks.
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Or, cities and public transport are designed so that public mass transit transport is accessible at major events and self-driving cars are available at outer stops.
 
Self driving cars can only work efficiently if all the cars are self-driving. As soon as you introduce human drivers into the mix, it would be chaos.
 
arthwollipot said:
Self driving cars can only work efficiently if all the cars are self-driving. As soon as you introduce human drivers into the mix, it would be chaos.
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How about human parking on narrow roads?
Just south from me my road narrows a lot, with parked cars on one side. Cars approaching each other judge whether/where they can approach or duck into a gap. If they yield they flash their headlights to say 'go!'
In one stretch, on a bend, there's a very low kerb so cars can pull onto that slightly to allow passing the other way.
Without this 'protocol' you'd see chaos down there pretty often.

If all the cars round here were autonomous I wouldn't like to be in one.
 
arthwollipot said:
Self driving cars can only work efficiently if all the cars are self-driving. As soon as you introduce human drivers into the mix, it would be chaos.
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Well, considering just this morning I saw a learner driver pull out into the road without looking and make a 4WD slam on the brakes, I might ask if what we have now is any better.
 
self-driving cars are just an inferior, more dangerous, more wasteful, more expensive version of public transport.

It's amazing how much effort is being put into providing something that already exists.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
self-driving cars are just an inferior, more dangerous, more wasteful, more expensive version of public transport.

It's amazing how much effort is being put into providing something that already exists.
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At one point in his 10/10 presentation, Elon Musk called his Cyberrobocabtaxiv'ns "individualised mass transit". If you didn't know he was full of crap before he said that, you should have afterwards.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
That means that Chinese self-driving cars might have a hard time in the US, but they will do fine in Europe.
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Are you sure? NJB (in the vid several people have posted) postulates that it's the other way around: many US cities are basically Easy Mode for driving, with car-centric infrastructure, wide roads, few pedestrians and bikes compared to Europe, etc. The latter has kept way more of its old cities with their narrow, winding roads.

The Great Zaganza said:
self-driving cars are just an inferior, more dangerous, more wasteful, more expensive version of public transport.

It's amazing how much effort is being put into providing something that already exists.
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More dangerous how?
Also, no matter how much of a fan you are of public transport and trains, there is always the last mile problem, and roles that pretty much only cars can fulfill.
 
Public Transport is always safer per person and distance, simply because more people are in on vehicle going a predestined route with an experienced driver - statistics are unambiguous.

And there is no "last mile" problem if you are wiling to use public bikes or scooters. Also, if you spend a fraction of the money people spend on cars on increasing public transports, coverage can become much denser.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
Are you sure? NJB (in the vid several people have posted) postulates that it's the other way around: many US cities are basically Easy Mode for driving, with car-centric infrastructure, wide roads, few pedestrians and bikes compared to Europe, etc. The latter has kept way more of its old cities with their narrow, winding roads.


More dangerous how?
Also, no matter how much of a fan you are of public transport and trains, there is always the last mile problem, and roles that pretty much only cars can fulfill.
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The "last mile" would be a twenty minute walk. That said, it is my experience that, in British cities, it is rare for any point to be that far from any public transport access point.
 
Oh, if you meant more dangeorus than public transport, then I agree with you of course.

jeremyp said:
The "last mile" would be a twenty minute walk.
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Not sure what your point even is here. My point is that no matter how much new urbanism catches on and we manage to make cities for people, not cars... We still need cars, and self-driving cars are going to be safer than regular cars. And even if you were to somehow make the point we don't need private cars... Deliveries? Emergency vehicles? Mail? People living way farther than 20 minutes from the nearest bus stop or train station? The list goes on.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
Are you sure? NJB (in the vid several people have posted) postulates that it's the other way around: many US cities are basically Easy Mode for driving, with car-centric infrastructure, wide roads, few pedestrians and bikes compared to Europe, etc. The latter has kept way more of its old cities with their narrow, winding roads.
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Story time! My taxi ride from the hotel in Prague to the airport was interesting. I was watching the driver's navigation app as he was driving. 25 minutes to destination, 23 minutes, 20 minutes... then he suddenly dived off the main road and into some tiny winding (and hilly) suburban streets. Time to destination: 29 minutes. "Uh-oh," thought I, "he's taking me on a ride for a higher fare, or worse."

At one point the car we were behind pulled up at an actual road block. The driver got out of his car and moved the roadblock before driving up onto the kerb to get past it. We, of course, followed this decidedly dodgy path, and the driver half turned and gave me a thumbs up. Time to destination? 12 minutes. He knew what he was doing after all. At the end of the ride I gave him all the Czech crowns I still had. I may have overtipped, but I would have no further use for them anyway.

A self-driving car wouldn't have been able to do that.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
A self-driving car shouldn't have been able to do that. But with the 'right' programming it would do it.
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It would get out of the car and move the roadblock so that it could then get back into the car, hop the kerb, and drive around it?

ETA: I see an unclarity in my story. The driver of the car we were following was the one who moved the roadblock. When I referred to the driver turning and giving me a thumbs up, that was the taxi driver.
 
future self-driving cars will of course come equipped with machine guns and grenade launchers, as well as reactive armor, to navigate through the post-apocalyptic hellscapes, break through roadblocks and battle it out with other self-driving cars for our amusement.
 
The fact that you have to park your car means that you have the same "last mile" issue as with any public transport, probably more so.
 
I live in an area that will be very tricky for self-drive cars unless many, many roads and lanes are removed from their navigation systems. Currently lots of people even those more familiar with the area won’t use satnav if going somewhere new as the satnavs treat many of the one lane roads as “fast” roads as the nominal speed limit is the national speed limit I.e. 60mph, whereas you’d be pushing your luck to even go to 30mph and probably at some point have to reverse back to a “passing place” which is usually a small section of the road where it has been made wider by cars constantly brushing against a hedge. There is zero probability these roads are going to be converted for self-driving cars.
 
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