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Comment by teach | Hacker News Reader

This is a really interesting article, but I still haven't heard a convincing argument why people will suddenly want to share/rent rather than own cars.

Can anyone sketch the logic for me?

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If you live in the city, the compelling use is that you never have to park. And on long enough timeline, if a enough people were doing this, much of the parking footprint of the city could be liberated.

"The right to access every building in the city by private motorcar, in an age when everyone owns such a vehicle, is actually the right to destroy the city." -Lewis Mumford

I feel like a lot of people suggesting that everyone will pass on personally owned vehicles in the near future has never lived outside a city. I definitely see the benefits inside major cities (where I always opt for public transportation anyways), but I don't think you'll see the same transition in suburban or rural areas.

What is the practical difference between owning a vehicle, and having access to one whenever you need it?

For many people, a car ends up storing a good variety of things they would need for very few trips, but only on said trips. e.g., if you only need your gym clothes on days when you stop by the gym on the way home from work, you don't need to have planned that stop before leaving for work in the morning if you keep a set of gym clothes in the car.

It's like having a really, really big purse or backpack.

Additionally, if I spill something in my car, oh well, maybe I'll steam clean the upholstery after a few months of such spills, but if I spill something in a shared vehicle, that seems worse to me--letting the mess build up for a few months impinges on others.

It also sucks trying to get things back that you forget in a shared car. I know a driver who let her wallet slip down the side of the passenger seat. After a bunch of failed attempts to tell her the location of the vehicle so she could check herself, the company went to look, a week later, but they didn't check the side of the passenger seat. Then the car got shipped 500 miles away for service. Six months later she received a call that they'd found her wallet, but of course everything had been replaced by then. And even then it was a hassle to get it shipped and picked up.

Exactly. In my case, I keep a ton of handy tools and emergency supplies in my car, that do occasionally come in handy, but would be impossible to lug everywhere myself. I would have a hard time imagining the benefits of giving up having a car, even if it was a bit cheaper not to have one.

lower insurance cost, not paying for parking, shared maintenance fees, no car loans, not getting stuck when the car is broken, lower transaction costs surrounding buying / selling.

Basically all breaks down to capturing more utility from the vehicle. 95% of the time my car sits in a parking spot, 4% of the time I am driving by myself. There are upsides to owning a car but underutilization is not one of them.

It does depend fairly heavily on the shared service provider doing it right though. Those cars are going to have to be spotless when they turn up, because there's a big difference between the stain I put on the upholstery and know the history of and the one which was there when it arrived.

Innovation in quick remove interiors seems like it'll be needed.

It bothers me less when I don't have any equity in the car. When I get a rental car and it isn't in perfect condition it really doesn't bother me so much, or when the uber driver shows up and it isn't a nice car it doesn't bother me so much. I agree though that by and large companies will have to get it right. If the car shows up dirty every time that would get old. How will they handle users who are more likely to leave the car dirty (ie have a bunch of young kids) and will there be "premium" levels where you are guaranteed a certain brand/level of quality?

Then again I am driving a 99 volvo so not exactly living in the lap of luxury. My view on this might be skewed.

Do you own a car? Do you realize how big of a pain in the ass it can be to own one (maintenance, parking, cost, etc.)? I live in a suburban area in the Midwest and even I would love to ditch my car if there was a reliable alternative.

To me the hope is that you can access a vehicle at roughly the same cost per mile as you can with ownership. Except you only need enough money in your pocket to cover the miles you want to go today (compared to the next 5 years or whatever).

So basically, people are assuming (or hoping) that the per mile charges on autonomous vehicles will be a lot lower than current per mile options.

Also, just plain convenience. You want to go into the city center for a date, e.g. wife and I want to go have dinner at the Hayes St. Grille and hear a concert at SF Jazz. Today: drive into the city, deal with stressful traffic, also stress at finding somewhere to park which will often be blocks from the restaurant. After, walk some blocks through the dark streets, drive home.

Tomorrow: driverless Lyft. Request a Lyft, hop in, ignore traffic entirely while talking or reading; step out at the door of the restaurant. After, request a Lyft while walking out of concert, step out the door of SF Jazz and hop into car(1), read/chat on the way home. The reduction of stress is huge, the whole date is much more enjoyable.

(1) This scenario does reveal a future problem, what happens when a whole bunch of people call for a driverless ride after an event? Does this happen now, are bunches of people competing for Ubers and Lyfts after concerts today? How will we identify ourselves to a _driverless_ car as being the requesting party?

What happens is that in order to request a lyft, you'll put in your destination and if a bunch of people put in a similar destination, the option will pop up to take an auto-scheduled van/minibus.

Also, lyft will download the Giants schedule.

what happens when a whole bunch of people call for a driverless ride after an event

They will pay more.

To your point (1). Uber and Lyft have already figured this out with surge pricing.

Owning a car has huge drawbacks.

It is a $20k to $30k investment that you leave on the street each night. Major risk. Then you need to find parking. In a crowded city you may even need to pay for parking. You must pay for insurance. If you want to change cities every few years (think across the nation or world, not next town over) you have to sell the thing at a loss or take a road trip over a much faster flight.

Now why would I want any of that when for a small premium I can effectively have a car only when I need it (ride share).

It doesn't have to be like that. None of my cars are less than 12 years old nor worth more than about $5K. Insurance is pretty minimal. Nobody bothers them on the street (though I don't generally leave them there overnight). If I had to move and sell them I'd get pretty close to what they are worth, and I'd buy something similar at the next place.

Parking is a pain, that's always been the case in urban areas.

I'm already on board with the idea of not owning a car, but I'm just waiting for it to become practical.

For me, the biggest obstacle is that there isn't a car sharing service near me, so I'd like an autonomous car to deliver itself right into my driveway on 5 minutes notice.

Ultimately, just the breakdown of the price and convenience for each individual person.

What's interesting though, if auto-cars really end up easily affordable and accident free - and maybe tech industry lobbying encouraging.. Imagine a future where human driven cars are forbidden!

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