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Comment by minthd | Hacker News Reader

Poor car companies. Between the possibility of this technology available as retrofits for old cars, the common use case for this as a taxi without the need to own it(and the efficiencies that come with it) ,the possibility of car sharing using this tech(like uber-pool) , and the long life of many current cars - the future of car companies seems hard(maybe after some brief period of big demand).

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You're assuming there will be mass movement towards self-driving car pools. I don't think that's the case. I think personal car ownership will persist for quite some time, even with self-driving cars. Having a car in your driveway whenever you want is pretty convenient for just about everyone living in a suburb. Even assuming good cost-reductions from pooling, I'm not sure you can completely make the value proposition to offset convenience.

US cars are on average idle 23 hours a day. Sharing a car between two means roughly halving the fixed costs of ownership, and the more sharing the more reduction in fixed costs. Additionally running a fleet is cheaper because of economies of scale such as maintenance, insurance, charging/fueling. AAA has an infographic showing the biggest costs being depreciation and insurance: http://publicaffairsresources.aaa.biz/wp-content/uploads/201...

A pool also allows other things, such as pricing based on demand - ie being cheaper outside commute hours, spontaneous pooling (eg for a $5 discount can the car go 2 minutes out of its way to pick someone else up?) and being able to bring the right vehicle for each situation (eg a small efficient two seater for a commute, something larger for a family trip to Ikea etc).

Sure some people will continue to outright own their cars, but for most the pooled economics will be compelling, and companies will be able to instantly adjust pricing and convenience. Or to put this another way, how many thousands of dollars a year cheaper do you think it will take for the majority of car ownership to change to on demand usage?

It may also refactor distribution. People may not go to the grocery store, the store will come to them, or not. Just like in the old days, you'd get a morning delivery, and weekly/monthly too for different kind of products. Stores, if they stay 'material based' will look like IKEA, where you walk inside scenes and pick what you want, while something is loading an SDCar (npi) from a factory not too far away.

Damn I feel like a guy in the 60s drawing this http://imgur.com/vmOYZAl

I can't see many ways in which much of anything stays the same. For distribution my guess is that delivery companies will spring up (quite probably the same as the car pool companies during off hours) and deliver for anybody. By that I mean that my favourite Chinese restaurant currently has its own delivery vehicles and personnel, but I am expecting generic delivery companies for any/all business.

They just need lockboxes in the vehicle which the end user unlocks with their phone/pin/whatever. You could even do things like share your location with the service so that deliveries arrive as you get home, whenever that is.

The "city of the future" drawing is interesting. I'm expecting that commercial space will cluster together, optimised around foot traffic, and without vast swathes of asphalt between them, not too different than malls. Residential space is a bit harder to guess - decreasing density will be more manageable, but come at the expense of travel times and delivery fees.

What I like most about the driverless future is just how locally mobile it will let everyone be. No more licenses, no more having to have good vision, no more having to worry about age, intoxication, and even time of day.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that self-driving even without pooling is cheaper or not much more expensive than regular driving - and is sure as hell much more convenient. So i would expect suburb people to use it because they are reasonably wealthy.

As for pooling - that remains to be seen with regards to the suburbs - but it's possible that least some of the rides(especially going from/to work) might fit pooling.

It isn't a binary choice. For example you pay for an individual ride to work, and while on the way the system says "would you accept another rider for a $5 discount and an extra 2 minutes in journey time?" So many variations on this theme is possible making maximum utilisation of the fleet of vehicles, and trading off pricing versus convenience (and likely luxury) all the time.

I'm looking forward to "dining cars" where you get to eat a nice meal while in transit.

This is "the car companies". Car companies are largely systems integrators, buying pieces from companies like delphi and putting them in a nice box.

Delphi was even at one time a part of GM, it was spun out as an independent company in the 1990s (I guess the company and GM division would not entirely overlap, but whatever).

You say this like the car companies aren't developing self-driving technology too. They are - they just don't need or want to shout about it as they don't want to cannibalise the existing market until it's necessary.

Even if they're the developing the tech, they'll do everything in their power as to not cannibalize themselves , and that will also contribute to their downfall. classic disruption.

And you can see that in the way they talk: they believe that they should aim at partial self-driving(only on highways) while Google targets full self driving(including cities) which is a totally different challenge.

On thing not clear from this article about delphi - is their ride includes city driving ? because self-driving cars could also cannibalize Deplhi, as far as i understand.

If cars become more useful, they will be used more often and car companies will sell more cars not less. Obviously automakers that end up on the wrong side of this trend might struggle, but overall the industry will be larger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

All I see is that anything big will go dinosaur at one point.

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