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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

I'm guessing it would impact airlines minimally. I'm in California and my family is in Illinois. Even the best route, speeding the whole way, it takes me twenty hours. Hell, just to go to San Diego from San Francisco is 7 hours minimum (took me 12 last Friday).

People fly to save time, and if youre going to a hub city (I.e. Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, etc.) It will likely be cheaper to fly as well, I just booked a flight from San Francisco to Chicago for $148 (driving would easily be $250).

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If you are going from one non hub city to another non hub city, the overall air travel time goes up substantially (as well as the cost). It will still be a good deal faster than driving cross country, but if driving is relatively stress free and I can do it through the night, I'm going to be far more likely to skip the stressful lines, running between gates, delays and high prices of air travel. I don't think I'll be alone.

So, like taking a coach bus? In Europe it is very common to do so.

In areas of the US with high population density, bus service is pretty okay (more or less the Northeast Corridor).

The bus service from Houston to Miami is a little less okay, but it's because it's 1900 kM and won't have a lot of users (Google suggests public transport would take 34 hours, a train and a couple of buses).

Air travel is per-person, vehicular travel becomes more attractive (price-wise) for families or larger groups.

Plus you have a car to use at your end destination (because you've brought it with you).

Well, how about you flyin' there and the car gets there all by itself the next morning so that you can drive around without renting one? Now that would be cool.

I don't know if it makes sense to pay for both driving there and flying there. For some people, maybe.

Would be interesting though - I can imagine a Mad Max-like future where roving bandits set traps for autonomous cars being sent on errands by the wealthy elite.

Not sure what you're paying for in the electric car. Charging at the Tesla stations is free. If it can plug itself in to the charger, it's completely feasible to drive itself across the country.

Miles on the car. Given how the article states that the tires alone are good for 5k miles and cost $1600 to replace, that's 32 cents per mile just for the tires. If you're going somewhere far enough away that it's worth your money to fly instead of drive, it'll also be worth your money to rent a local car rather than have your Tesla drive to meet you.

I am not a Tesla owner, so please correct me if I got the cost/mileage of the tires wrong.

That's true for the 21" wheels. The tires on the 19" wheels last much longer.

> tires alone are good for 5k miles

Are you sure about this? Tires usually last 30-60k miles.

> I'm guessing it would impact airlines minimally

Maybe by itself, but when you factor in how awful air travel is getting, it might have a bigger impact than it otherwise would. I'm planning a flight from Austin to Chicago later this summer and I'm seriously considering driving because my last two experiences flying have been so awful thanks to the TSA.

7 hours is a good night sleep. Combine self driving cars and coffin hotels and SF to LA would be enjoyable.

Sleepbus is exactly that (with the self-driving car replaced by a bus): http://www.sleepbus.co/

Of course you have to pickup and dropoff at their location, and you don't have a car to use at your destination.

To be fair not $250 in an electric car

Probably not if you factor in depreciation on an expensive self-driving electric car. Looks like SF to Chicago is at least 2000 miles.

(Which also makes me wonder how you can do that trip in 20 hours. Speeding indeed :)

I can only assume as autonomous travel increases and incidents decrease, the speed limit would increase. Obviously battery technology still has a ways to go to be able to last more than a couple hundred miles running 100 MPH+

Speed limits depend more on the road (banking in corners, surface conditions, imperfections) and the car (what happens to the vehicle if an accident does happen) than the drivers, so I wouldn't expect major increases in speed limits.

I doubt that or else you wouldn't see the same stretch, and grade of road get two different speed limits depending on what side of the state border that you are on.

Additionally, on the intrastate highways, the speed limits are set by local districts so local districts who like making money will often change their speed limit for any highways that go near by them so they can speed trap people.

I dunno, In newer cars I have some sense of dislocation like I'm not really going as fast as the speedometer says.

Clearly, I'm mistaken on the exact times.

Last time I drove it took me four days, but I only drove 8 hours a day and took a long way around.

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