I'd love to get in my car and go to sleep for a couple of hours or read a book whilst it drives me somewhere. Imagine if it could even pull over and charge up without any kind of intervention too. You could get in your car, and get a full nights sleep whilst it drive you somewhere 500 miles away.
Also, at some point, I'm probably going to be too old to drive safely, which will restrict my travels. Not if self driving gets to the point where that doesn't matter anymore.
Yeah. The tech isn't there yet. The question I was responding to was "Why do people what self driving cars at all". I responded why I want a self driving car.
Cool and all, but up until companies started putting this stuff in cars they cost $30k. Now the average car is 50k. The average car is now more expensive than my BMW 3 series with the premium package from a few years back. I don't want to pay for your fantasy of going to sleep in your car and waking up someplace new. I dont want to pay for the ability of my car to self park or be summoned to me. Most new features of cars dont interest me in the slightest.
You're suggesting that the only alternative to autonomous self-driving cars is public transit?
By the way, I do vote with my wallet. I won't buy a car that has these features. I won't buy a car that serves me ads. I won't buy a car that charges a subscription fee. However, this is becoming increasingly challenging. Most luxury vehicle manufacturers want to pad their bottom lines by charging a premium or worse a subscription for things I (and I suspect many people) don't want.
These premium features ultimately trickle down so every new car must have a rear-view camera and many have LED lighting. Examples of two premium features that now everyone must pay for. My eldest daughter failed her driving test because she used the rear view camera when parallel parking. Yes these cameras are mandated but you fail if you use them. The tail light on an F-150 can cost upwards of $3,000 to replace. A tail light!
My first car, a jeep, came with a bikini top, no doors. the windshield actually folded down without a special tool, and I used a kerosene heater in between the seats when it was cold. Now wranglers come with touch screens, heated steering wheels and cruise control. Apparently they are difficult to find with a manual transmission. I loved mine back in the day but as you say I'll vote with my wallet and will not buy from Stellantis.
I'll happily get my kids a Slate. Of course your mileage may vary and if you want to pay for these premiums then power to you. I just don't want to subsidize your choice.
> You're suggesting that the only alternative to autonomous self-driving cars is public transit?
No. But hopefully one day. I don't mind if you want to subsidise my choice or not. I want self driving tech to get to the point that it is safer than manually driven cars, and I then want people who want to still drive manually to be slowly priced off the roads and then outright banned from doing it.
My preference is that you stop being allowed to drive manually, and as far as I can see, that's the future, as long as the technology works out.
Average includes trucks and other stuff which are very above the average and pull it up, because god forbid the avg joe from getting a Honda civic instead of a f150 or above.
Also, inflation is a thing.
You can get a new Honda civic for less than 30k$ today, as well as other sedans and small cars.
If you don't like sharing space with other people, you want a private room on a train.
These cars and their supporting infrastructure should cost more than a private room on a train because they are less efficient and have more negative externalities than a private room on a train.
A train can't take me to the beach. It can't take me camping away from civilization. It can't haul lumber from a hardware store so I can build a treehouse.
I love trains, but let's not pretend there is a perfect Venn diagram of overlap between what their use cases are.
Trains can take you to the beach and away from civilization. Build a station where you want to go. At one point trains were the most practical way to get to national parks.
How often are you building treehouses that you need to pay hundreds of dollars extra a month to justify the cost, versus a one-time delivery fee?
You must be an American, because plenty of trains exist to bring people to nature elsewhere. You know, when you drive a car to a nature place, you put it into a parking lot, then you are no longer in the car, right? Same works for trains.
Man I love this silly debate. The original comment just wanted to travel 500 miles to "somewhere" and most instances of "somewhere" that people travel to could be accessed by train.
Also no one has said that no one is allowed to drive ever again anywhere. I'm trying to be generous but the victim complex is crazy.
> but let's not pretend there is a perfect Venn diagram of overlap between what their use cases are.
I never said anything of the sort and I'm not pretending that at all. You're creating a strawman. The comment I was responding to said this:
> I'd love to get in my car and go to sleep for a couple of hours or read a book whilst it drives me somewhere. Imagine if it could even pull over and charge up without any kind of intervention too. You could get in your car, and get a full nights sleep whilst it drive you somewhere 500 miles away.
That's a train. Most instances of "somewhere" can be accessed by train. Or by a train to do the long miles and then other modes of transit once you're closer.
My overall stance is that there's a lot more overlap between why folks want a super expensive self-driving car and more robust public transit and better support for multi-modal transit. I've not pretended anything like you've claimed.
> Or by a train to do the long miles and then other modes of transit once you're closer
Of your many points in various posts, this is maybe the only point I'm really on board with. Amtrak already supports this, even. My car can drive me to the train and then the train can do the long haul, and at the other end my car will drive me off the train and to the destination.
Still need waaaay more rail routes than we have now, though, so this is a dream for a century from now, not something in my lifetime.
This isn’t strictly directed at you, but I’m saddened that HN is immediately ready to dream big when it comes to solving hard problems and making the world a better place in spaces like AI, crypto, and technology in general. But suddenly shuts down over things as simple as trains, buses, and bike lanes.
There’s plenty of examples of guerrilla urbanism that I think align closely to the hacker ethos. Even more these problems are very solvable and can net huge gains in metrics without having to “dream for a century”.
> waaaaay more rail routes
It’s actually much simpler, Amtrak just needs right of way along with some other straight forward regulations to help balance freight and transit on America’s railroads.
Amtrak has also been doing great at incremental expansion and brining back (or increasing!) ridership just in the 5 years since the pandemic in a number of areas like Chicago to Milwaukee, and in the PNW.
The defeatist attitude isn’t what I expect from HN. You already found the best piece of actionable advice which is to look for incremental ways you can adjust your life to be different. My wife and I hardly drive anymore. Most of our trips: her work, groceries, restaurants, most leisure activities, etc are now by bike. We live in the suburbs too, a full 10 miles (20-30min drive and across an interstate) from the city’s downtown.
Cars are only perceived as necessary in America bc it is assumed that they are. There are many small and safe ways to shed the car dependence and they’ve all been huge positives to my life. We’re happier, healthier, building more community, spending less money on gas and maintenance. It’s nice.
I live in Manhattan, and don't own a car, so I get where you're coming from. The reality here is that America doesn't like trains and isn't going to build trains in any kind of a timeframe that's helpful to me. I'm about to move to Westchester, but I need to get to the Upper West Side every day. Yes, I can take the train from Westchester, but it goes into Grand Central, so then I need to take another train from there. And I'll have my kid with me.
So my options are:
1. Drive, walk, or bike with my kid to the train station in Westchester, ride to grand central, switch to subway, drop her off at school, then take the subway to my office. Total time about 90 mins.
or
2. Drive 35-45 mins.
I'll be driving.
There's talk of having one of the train lines go into Penn instead of Grand Central, with stops on the Upper West Side! But that'll be a decade or more, if it ever happens, and it won't be relevant to me anymore at that point.
Also, at some point, I'm probably going to be too old to drive safely, which will restrict my travels. Not if self driving gets to the point where that doesn't matter anymore.