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Comment by notahacker | Hacker News Reader

I've been on long distance buses with large, comfortable reclining seats and convenient pickup/dropoff points for 8 hour plus journeys more than most sane people

I assure you it's not the human driver which means that most people strongly prefer other methods of transport.

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I feel like a car has greater potential for comfort than even a "comfortable" reclining bus seat.

For example, right now the idea of a folding bed in a car isn't something you'll ever see as an option, since it would only really appeal to people trying to live in their cars, which probably don't overlap much with the "people who buy fancy cars with fancy extras" market segment. However, in a future where a car can auto-drive you on a long-distance trip, why not offer an actual bed mode in the car as a purchasable option?

A bed. With seat belt :)

Imagine something like a modern first class cabin with the concept of 180 degree flat bed-seats.

In the future cars might be so safe you don't need a seat belt. Another thing that changes with autonomy is a reduction of crash-related features.

Improbable, unless you can handwave terrain away. (And deer. And malfunctions. And...) There's so many things a car can impact besides other cars that a non-seatbelt in a car is far less likely than cars being replaced by some other form of transport.

A closer analogy (rather than a bus) would be human-driven limousine: not bunched up with strangers, door-to-door service (not just "convenient" location). Even that considered, I am yet to encounter a limousine designed for long-distance travel (but that might just be because I'm not rich). Also, the human driver and the associated control interfaces takes up interior space which would have been put to other uses.

It's not about the driver for me - I would hire such human-driven limousine today (for a reasonable cost). I think the costs of finding the driver a place to stay and planning their trips in order for the driver to get home frequently makes such a service impossible today. This problem would go away if the car was self-driven - the service becomes scalable.

Not being rich, I believe from folklore that the rich have this in the form of custom luxury buses. The furnishings seem to be about the same level as those of an RV or yacht but there is more space and a professional driver.

I don't think the comparison is as apt as, for instance, a 1st class intercontinental seat on Singapore airlines.

https://www.singaporeair.com/saar5/images/navigation/flying-...

Road travel is very rarely smoother than air travel though. I've actually been to Singapore on BA's lie flat beds, as well as bus seats that weren't far off in basic comfort, and train beds which were much more comfortable and generally smoother than both yet remain a very niche form of budget transport. Taking an order of magnitude longer than air travel means the overland options are still rarely a better fit (the sort of road trip that can be done overnight without interfering with schedules is also a nice short evening flight, and I'm happier emailing on the plane too). I can see the appeal to some demographics for some itineraries, but can't see people preferring a series of road trips amounting to 40hrs over a 4hr flight being a mainstream market.

I've taken sleeper train services before from Scotland to London. It's cheaper than a hotel and the service leaves at 11pm and arrives at 7am. You get a room with a real bed (and lockable door, sink, toilet, etc.) and a pretty decent restaurant and bar to avail yourself of. You also get to leave from the city center and arrive in the city center, without messing around with security and arriving 1-2 hours before the flight.

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