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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Really? Is the need to get out and hook up the hose yourself really what's holding back electric cars?

There is certainly a cool factor with this thing, but think about how it will work at a real fuel/charging station. The driver will only ever see it in a mirror. And it looks like the range of motion is very limited, requiring the plug to be within a 30x30cm box. A later model will probably have a greater range of motion but I cannot see that be any less cumbersome. Give me a wire and a plug.

But maybe Tesla has done some market research. Maybe their target market is old people for whom getting out of the car is a real struggle. Maybe they fear large electrical cables more than rubber ones filled with gasoline. Or maybe they so distrust attendants that they prefer a mechanical octopus fuel their precious car ... until it misses the mark and does some actual damage to the paint.

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While most if not all "concept technology" has its roots in the "we can do it, even if we don't know why we should" school of thought, I imagine this will be valuable for self driving cars. Imagine a car that can drop you off at work, drive itself to the closest robo-charger, and return to pick you up with a full charge, all without needing an attendant.

Given the current limited range of EVs, tech like this will likely encourage behavioral change in EV owners, reducing one of the negatives of EVs (forgetting to charge/not having enough charge to make it to your destination/having to remember to plug in every night), and ultimately spurring wider adoption.

Then again, sometimes you have to say "I wonder if we could..." before you fully understand why in order to advance technology.

That's how we end up with inflatable bbqs. This really looks like a rich person's toy, of no practical use.

Many people have talked over the years about self-driving cars dropping people off and heading home. That sounds great in terms of the number of parking spots, and might make sense in cities where parking costs more than rent, but I cannot see how doubling the number of trips can reduce traffic congestion. The far simpler solution would be to install simple (ie cheap) chargers at each parking spot.

Many people have talked over the years about self-driving cars dropping people off and heading home.

Have they? I've just seen references to cars finding nearby charging stations, not just driving themselves all the way home.

Either way, I think the more likely prospect is that people stop outright owning cars at that point. Why invest in a complete vehicle when you can just pay for a service that has a car pick you up whenever you need a ride?

For the same reason some people invest in a whole kitchen, despite the fact that they can pay for a service that has food show up in front of them whenever they're hungry.

Some people like to own their own things.

Some people like to do things themselves.

There will always be locations where there is not enough population density to ensure wait times will be <5 minutes for a ride at all times.

There's no reason to expect that self-driving cars will instantly dominate the market once we get to some sort of tipping point. Certainly they will allow for new paradigms in transportation, and they will shift "manual"[0] cars into a less dominant position in the market. Keep in mind that not everyone shares your preferences.

[0] It is interesting that we already have manual and automatic cars. How will we readily distinguish these? Additionally, I'd imagine that there is a large venn diagram overlap between drivers who prefer stick shift and who will prefer to drive their own vehicle.

Don't ignore developing markets. The USA has plenty of roads to waste, but Beijing and Bangalore don't. You'll see self driving cars be first mandated in cities with serious infrastructure problems as a way to completely optimize traffic (e.g. No manual cars on the express ways). Then local western governments will see a chance to cut their own budgets, as an easy way to satisfy the anti-tax attitudes of those people who ironically would prefer to drive their own cars.

I think your post goes to support my point that there is great diversity in markets, and we can't expect a single individual's experience or preference to accurately represent such.

> the anti-tax attitudes of those people who ironically would prefer to drive their own cars.

I am curious as to why you think that there would be such a large crossover between those who would prefer to have a "manual" car, and those who have anti-tax attitudes?

Because self-driving cars are socialist to an extreme. The real benefit of them is not to free the human of the tedious task of driving, but to take the human out of the traffic system so it can be optimized for the greater good. The same could be said about taxes: they sacrifice individual wealth for the greater good.

There will necessarily be a lot of resistance to self driving cars...people like driving! But they are quite inevitable, not necause people will "prefer" them but for totally societal economic reasons. And that is why your argument doesn't make sense to me, it's as if we will have any choice about it, when the current system is so messed up and under funded that it's obvious we won't.

There's no reason to expect "enjoys the experience of driving" and "is opposed to taxation" are descriptions of an individual that must be found exclusively together. That's the issue I take with your original statement.

I also see no reason to expect that it is inevitable that self-driving cars become mandatory globally, but that is a different point entirely and not one I'm interested in pursuing right now.

Taxation is the redistribution of wealth to benefit society as a whole. Self-driving cars is about taking away the task of driving from humans, which is really a privilege, for the benefit of infrastructure optimization. If you believe in retaining personal wealth, you probably believe in retaining your driving privileges as well.

> I also see no reason to expect that it is inevitable that self-driving cars become mandatory globally, but that is a different point entirely and not one I'm interested in pursuing right now.

Your premise is just completely flawed: you see self-driving cars as providing the benefit of freeing humans from the tedium of driving themselves, when in reality they are more about optimizing limited infrastructure. The former is a "nice to have but not necessary" benefit, the latter basically drastically reduces the amount of resources needed to maintain a city, it is a serious economic benefit that will be very hard to ignore. Of course, your city could allow for manual driving, but at great cost in needing more roads and such, it would be a serious tax burden on your residents (and rich countries can afford it now, but will they be able to afford it as populations double, triple, and space becomes much more limited?).

So your premise is flawed, you are attacking the wrong thing.

A common argument against EVs I've heard repeated is "Sometimes I forget to plug in my cell-phone, and it dies mid-day. What happens if I forget to plug in my car?"

This will address that concern, as silly as it is.

So it will seek out and plug in without driver input? I guess that would only work if they are in everyone's garage. Isn't there a smartphone ap that can remind owners if they part at home without connecting?

So a heavy (perhaps diesel-fueled) truck can pull up by the side of the vehicle and charge it enough to get to the next station?

It's difficult to know the target space needed for this rev of the device. Also, it's probably less than 30cm vertically - I'm quite sure some engineers at Tesla know the height of the charge port, even given the differences with the air suspension.

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