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Comment by whimsicalism | Hacker News Reader

in 10 years time self-driving will be all over LA, we should build with foresight

I think this is optimistic.

The idea that self-driving cars will be anywhere in any timeframe is actually very pessimistic to me.

really? i can already call a self-driving car in LA but the idea that this will scale up in the next 10 years is out there?

Waymo is not self driving. It’s remote operated, much more expensive. People will not give up their vehicle for an expensive taxi service. There are no self driving cars that actually work and there are none on the horizon.

it’s not remote operated and it is also not much more expensive and i have no idea why you assume costs will be constant.

i take waymos all the time, often replacing my car, i have never had a single issue

Literally so easy to find out that it’s remote operated with the operators taking over on average once per mile. That can’t scale in a cost effective way unless you only use it like once a week. People who need to drive everyday can’t afford it. Otherwise they’d just be ubering everywhere now instead of owning a car.

you literally do not know what you’re talking about, source me a number on the “once per mile” intervention - i’ve driven hundreds of miles in waymo and never had an intervention

of course they can scale in a cost effective manner, the operating costs are theoretically the same as just owning a car but they get to amortize it across many different users and don’t have to pay for human labor

They do have to pay the human labor because it’s not self driving.

source your claims. i’m pretty sure waymo doesn’t even support remote operation as such, just waypoint drawing

I don't see what that's got to do with city planning and increasing density.

feel like it has obvious salience around the necessity of parking requirements going forward just like if a rail line opened up near you

No need to wait 10 years, Waymo currently operates in LA.

In a service area that _very_ purposefully stops before the sort of narrow, hilly streets that covered most of the evacuation zones.

yeah i’m sure that’ll stay the same for 10 years, technology famously stays constant

I suspect you're right, I was pointing out the current limits.

But so what if they do have full coverage in 10 years? We can build apartments with no/fewer parking spaces, and therefore somewhat lower costs. Why do we build those sort of apartments on some of the most desirable land on the planet? Look at the One Coast development on the bottom of Sunset - denser than SFH, plenty of parking, and no trouble selling condos starting at $3-5m. At that's at the bottom of the hill!

why should we only build large buildings in places where poor people live? i don't see why these neighborhoods should be reserved for the wealthy rather than mixed income if the demand is there. generally the market pressure for larger buildings is going to be highest in wealthy areas and for good reason

They're not reserved for the wealthy, they're desirable. Self-driving and associated parking minimum reductions doesn't materially change those economics. If you had permission to build large buildings with an ocean view and beach access ... you'd build it with parking and start the studios at $1m like they do half a mile away on Ocean. Build 115% of the units by omitting parking, and you'd probably still sell a studio for $1m, honestly. The demand is deep, global, and pretty inelastic.

Does Monaco have apartments for $300k? Does the LES? West Palm Beach?

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