Your car is only “mobile” 5% of the time

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Sousaphone
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Post by Sousaphone »

londiniumperson wrote: Tue Oct 20, 2020 3:01 pm By then, shops and offices will no longer exist with everyone working from home, so they'll be loads of land that can be repurposed.
As for looking after the car's (or whatever they're called in future) there'll be robot cleaning and camera systems to inspect the vehicle after every use and bill damage accordingly.
My personal favourite when that time comes will be the avian bacon.

Larbor
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Post by Larbor »

The fact that a lot of change is required, is no arguments against change.

These changes will also happen gradually. It’ll start with less and less cars. Then councils will change infrastructure gradually.

It all starts with a vision and then implement it step by step. Same as running a marathon.
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Sousaphone
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Post by Sousaphone »

It has started a long time ago.

Trams, light rail, and commuter rail lines are reopening, expanding, and improving all over Europe. Cities are becoming increasingly walkable and bike friendly. This is, I suspect, both where it starts and ends.

The future is bright, and I can’t see self driving robot cars being any less than five years away in my lifetime (which should be at least 40 more years). Much like fusion power, they’ve consistently been ready “real soon now” for decades.
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keithr
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Post by keithr »

londiniumperson wrote: Tue Oct 20, 2020 3:01 pm By then, shops and offices will no longer exist with everyone working from home, so they'll be loads of land that can be repurposed.
Not everyone can work from home. You can't manufacture things from home. You can't build a house from home. You can't fix sombody's TV, computer, washing machine, etc. from home. You can't repair a road, or power lines, or leaking gas/water pipes from home. You can't work as a policeman or soldier or doctor from home. You can't play in a football game or tennis match from home. Etc., etc..

As I see it, self driving cars that you can summon will just increase the miles traveled by cars, so they will consume more energy and resources than if most people had their own vehicle, and increase traffic congestion. The only benefit of self-driving cars is that it may reduce the cost of using a taxi, which doesn't bother me because I've only used a taxi two or three times in my life so far. It probably won't reduce the cost much anyway, and cars that you can summon and drive yourself will probably cost more than a self-driving taxi because they'll charge for insurance cover.

The only sensible argument for self-driving cars is that they may reduce the number of accidents, and I believe that's the main reason that they're being developed. But it's not necessary. There can be safety equipment which can step in to prevent collisions, but there's no need to have fully automated cars. Then again, no safety equipment or self-driving vehicle can overcome the laws of physics and prevent accidents when there's black ice on the road, and other similar hazards (e.g. spilt diesel, or other slippery substances), or if a deer bolts out in front of the vehicle, etc..
As for looking after the car's (or whatever they're called in future) there'll be robot cleaning and camera systems to inspect the vehicle after every use and bill damage accordingly.
That sounds like pure fantasy to me! You'll still need people to fix problems on cars (and vehicle recovery drivers for when they break down). I remember a car I had that broke down 1 day out of warranty, with an obvious electrical problem that resulted in the engine cutting out. The mechanics confidently said, "We'll plug in our computer and it will instantly tell us what the problem is." Several days later, after they had 3 mechanics working on the car for many, many hours, they fixed it. It was a wire in the wiring loom that had been damaged during manufacture and it eventually shorted out. Their computer was no help to them and no computer or robot could have found and fixed that. (They said it was unreasonable to charge me the full labour cost, so they charged me £300 [this was around 25 years ago] - the parts used was just pennies, just some heat shrink I think.)

Personal, manually controlled vehicles make more sense to me. Will elderly people have to use self-driving mobility scooters too? Will there be self-driving bicycles too?!
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londiniumperson
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Post by londiniumperson »

@keithr, you must have missed my original statement:
I think that my children's generation will see this happen, but I can't see it happening over the whole of the UK even then, there are just too many rural/semi-rural areas where it won't be financially viable.
I was commenting on when physical work will no longer be done by humans. Actually on reflection, by then humans will probably be plumbed into the grid and won't need transportation.
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milligoon
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Post by milligoon »

Working with software driven machines for decades, I think you may find that is a long way off, just look at the Honda app how marvelously stable that system is, do you really want to solely rely on machines or more to the point software, phantom braking anyone?
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londiniumperson
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Post by londiniumperson »

milligoon wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 4:07 pm Working with software driven machines for decades, I think you may find that is a long way off, just look at the Honda app how marvelously stable that system is, do you really want to solely rely on machines or more to the point software, phantom braking anyone?
I fully agree with you that it won't be in my lifetime but I suspect that my children will see the embryonic beginning of the transition to that state.

I can't even see personally owned self driving autonomous vehicles (possibly it could happen in city centres under strict conditions) in the next 2 decades because they we don't even have driverless trains across the UK network and the majority of those run with automated signalling on one way tracks as it is.
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rickwookie
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Post by rickwookie »

keithr wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:00 pm Not everyone can work from home. You can't manufacture things from home. You can't build a house from home. You can't fix sombody's TV, computer, washing machine, etc. from home. You can't repair a road, or power lines, or leaking gas/water pipes from home. You can't work as a policeman or soldier or doctor from home. You can't play in a football game or tennis match from home. Etc., etc..
Yes, but you're forgetting the majority of "workers" that commute to an office every day to do nothing useful for a living. :lol:
As I see it, self driving cars that you can summon will just increase the miles traveled by cars, so they will consume more energy and resources than if most people had their own vehicle, and increase traffic congestion.
That would be an unfathomable amount of "summoning" miles to offset the millions of vehicle no longer needed so that people can just have them parked outside their houses for 95% of the time.
Personal, manually controlled vehicles make more sense to me. Will elderly people have to use self-driving mobility scooters too? Will there be self-driving bicycles too?!
Hmm, maybe you're right. I wonder, do you think these new fangled talking pictures will last the year? 😜
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