Comment by danhor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danhor | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

In that case you'd probably have a lot of empty trips, dropping the average occupancy of cars below 1. I think it's unlikely we'll see a lot of 2-4 person ride sharing (dislike of strangers, longer trip times due to needing to pick-up and drop-off more people). If you don't have higher density, the time for a vehicle to get to you will also be an issue.

It'd increase car-miles (likely increasing congestion) and likely lead to a move away from public transit in denser regions, akin to uber.

I'm highly doubful a large sharing economy for cars will happen anyway. Conventional car sharing (not uber) isn't popular and one reason for that is that people like having a personal car as a second "living room" (leaving personal belongings) without strangers and for the instant and hassle-free access it provides.

Thus I believe that self-driving will just lead to people driving more with their own personal vehicles, since it's becomes easier to do something else while driving and feels like less of a time sink.

> In that case you'd probably have a lot of empty trips, dropping the average occupancy of cars below 1

Not sure. Think about people driving others somewhere and then have to drive back, e.g. their children, drunk people or a friend to the airport etc.

In addition, to reduce the price, people could share a car dynamically - that would essentially be a mix between private and public transport. I think overall those points would probably rather reduce the number of rides. If anything, it would be the convenience that increases the rides - but at least that comes with a real benefit.

And for congestion - it would probably be the total opposite. Look at cities and much percentage of the road is blocked by parking vehicles. Imagine 90% are gone. Roads gonna be bigger - that alone would be a huge pro.

> Not sure. Think about people driving others somewhere and then have to drive back, e.g. their children, drunk people or a friend to the airport etc.

I think the point was people will own their own self driving car instead of sharing with the unwashed masses.

Send it to go pickup the kids, get the groceries at the curb loading station, drive you home from the bar &etc. With good scheduling one car could run around all day picking up and dropping off the family members while running the errands in between.

Of course this is a US centric view because people from other parts of the world are used to having efficient mass transit and not needing to own a car.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com