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Comment by xeromal | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, tech companies should spend their time building cars for the city. That's where most of the people are and that's where the congestion reduction will benefit the most number of people. Rural areas should be the last to update

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That seems backwards. Dense cities are where mass transit is a viable alternative to cars. It would make more sense to focus on that in cities and focus on self-driving cars where individual cars are unfortunately a requirement, like the suburbs.

(Ideally we would Upzone All The Things and the vast majority of Americans would live in places dense enough for cars to be unnecessary, but making NIMBYs stop NIMBYing is harder than just making better tech.)

Car culture is so engrained in the US suburbs that people will insist that they need to keep driving themselves. You see it if you ever bring up bicycling or god-forbid walking.

Cities are the only place where alternative transportation is somewhat normalized in the United States.

Exactly what I imagined when I wrote the comment

No, tech companies should do their best to get rid of cars in the city. Cities should be built for people, not vehicles.

You can never get rid of wagons in the city; the goal must be to reduce their use, and for that I think you must convince people that they don't need to own one, because if they do, they're more likely to use it, since the fixed costs are large compared to the marginal (per ride). And to convince them of that, you'll have to make them trust they'll have an available, affordable and comfortable alternative for those situations were they really need one.

Seems the opposite to me. Congestion and pedestrians present the greatest challenges for driverless cars. Also, they will only increase congestion both by increasing the number of cars on the streets and by being overly cautious.

Cruise does just that (in SF).

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