BadThad
Posts: 1,304 +1,587
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!
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!
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.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.
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.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.
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.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.
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.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.
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.Mass transit was around before individual transport was
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.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.
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.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.