Apple Car supposedly features no steering wheel or brakes, has inward-facing seats

[BadThad]

Or in next life! Thing looks like a f****ng terminator. I don't want to get in there with no steering wheels or brakes!

Especially when a haxor takes control, locks the doors and drives you off a cliff!

 

[JKnight]

The steering wheel and brake pedal will cost extra in future models.

 

[netman]

"Designers are also discussing letting passengers lie flat and sleep."

Moving Bed for Sleeping & Screwing while taking a trip...! That alone sells this car to overloaded wealthy...!

 

[waclark]

Of course that's the winning design once fully automated driving is mature. Most people will want a comfortable mobile living room, or office, or bedroom, not a traditional cramped car experience.

Pretty gutsy of Apple thinking they could start with that for version 1.0 though. Personally I'd guess we're a minimum of 20 years away.

When we get there, I want something like those well done converted vans you see all over YouTube, just fully self driving.

Also, for certain trips, no need for me to even be in the car. If it's a Starbucks run, I want it to pick up from drive-thru on its own.

Once we get fully autonomous cars I suspect we will move away from individual transportation into mass transit. Why waste all the energy moving 1 or 2 people around when you can move 10-20x as many people for a slight uptick in energy cost. It also makes the autonomous part easier to deal with when you have several large capacity vehicles versus hundreds of single or dual occupant vehicles.

 

[wiyosaya]

Once we get fully autonomous cars I suspect we will move away from individual transportation into mass transit. Why waste all the energy moving 1 or 2 people around when you can move 10-20x as many people for a slight uptick in energy cost. It also makes the autonomous part easier to deal with when you have several large capacity vehicles versus hundreds of single or dual occupant vehicles.

As I see it, the problem is that all the other passengers in that vehicle are not going to want to wait for everyone else being dropped off first. It would be a grand waste of time and money if you happen to be the last passenger dropped off on its "optimized by A. I." route.

IMO, individualized transportation is here to stay.

 

[brucek]

As I see it, the problem is that all the other passengers in that vehicle are not going to want to wait for everyone else being dropped off first. It would be a grand waste of time and money if you happen to be the last passenger dropped off on its "optimized by A. I." route.

IMO, individualized transportation is here to stay.

I think the on-demand model will still mostly be one passenger (or family or group) at a time. The reason Uber pushes groupshare now is more about having enough drivers than enough vehicles and full AI solves that problem.

I agree with waclark that in areas with sufficient density, this is likely to be the mainstream option. You will be able to get a car on demand (within several minutes), it will be less expensive than owning a car now, you'll get back your garage for interior use, won't have to maintain or insure it, it can be the type you need for your present purpose (sedan for travel, truck for hauling, minivan for large group), and it can work for everyone including children, elderly and disabled. It has a lot of compelling advantages.

That said some will still prefer their own personal vehicle so they can decorate to taste, keep stuff in it, not share germs, etc. Others may feel they have no choice if they travel mostly at peak times and that's when there's not sufficient cars reliably available (commute times), or if they live in low density suburban or rural where there's just not enough volume to make it work.

 

[QuaZulu]

Once we get fully autonomous cars I suspect we will move away from individual transportation into mass transit. Why waste all the energy moving 1 or 2 people around when you can move 10-20x as many people for a slight uptick in energy cost. It also makes the autonomous part easier to deal with when you have several large capacity vehicles versus hundreds of single or dual occupant vehicles.

The thing is...we have mass transit now. Mass transit was around before individual transport was. For mass transit to become more popular than individual transport, we (the world) need a change deeper than simply changing our power source for such transportation. We need a change in value. We need to value the benefits of mass transit over the independence of going from exactly where I'm at to exactly where I want to go at exactly the time I want it.
Looking at things now...I think the switch to green sources of energy is going to be the easier of the two changes.

 

[Endymio]

Mass transit was around before individual transport was

I must point out that individual transport was available many thousands of years before mass transport. One might even say the desire for independent motion is hard-wired into our DNA, courtesy of evolution.

We need to value the benefits of mass transit over the independence of going from exactly where I'm at to exactly where I want to go at exactly the time I want it.

Why? There's plenty of energy here on earth; we simply need to produce and use it a little more wisely. And regardless, from a standpoint of pure physics, mass transit is no more efficient than individual transit. If one considers technology like dynamic-coupling, a national fleet of fully-autonomous EVs has the potential to be as efficient or more than mass-transit solutions.

 

[waclark]

The thing is...we have mass transit now. Mass transit was around before individual transport was. For mass transit to become more popular than individual transport, we (the world) need a change deeper than simply changing our power source for such transportation. We need a change in value. We need to value the benefits of mass transit over the independence of going from exactly where I'm at to exactly where I want to go at exactly the time I want it.
Looking at things now...I think the switch to green sources of energy is going to be the easier of the two changes.

The problem with mass transit is that it is not everywhere and even places that have some form of mass transit, it's not convenient to utilize. We have light rail coming to N. Seattle. Frankly, I would love to use it to get to the airport, but the time to get there would be significantly longer than just driving, by almost 2x. Time is money and that's why I don't take mass transit.

Fast forward to high speed transit because we don't have individual cars on the highway and maybe mass transit makes more sense. The point is that once we have truly autonomous, self-driving cars you're essentially a "rider" and therefore you might as well be on mass transit. I"m certain that the government will address this with legislation that restricts individual car use in densely populated areas like cities and suburbs.

Transit has to address the needs of the people and being slow and not readily available is not addressing the need. Once we have true autonomous vehicles, the ability to go anywhere, anytime will still be there. We will eliminate the traffic snarling, single passenger cars and move people far more efficiently. You just might not be in a vehicle you own and you may be sharing a ride with someone else.