I want a self-driving car so badly it hurts.
But there’s one frequent claim I often see from proponents of self-driving cars: That they’ll usher in an era of autonomous taxis which will cause the personal ownership of automobiles to drop off a cliff.
That’s possible. But I think it very unlikely. I think we’ll see a dramatic increase in the number of single-car families, but it won’t be because they’re ordering autonomous taxis (although they may from time to time). It will be because they’re able to time-share a single vehicle without needing to physically be in the same place.
The argument for autonomous taxis and the abandonment of personal vehicle ownership hinges on the appealingly simplistic vision of “cars waiting in parking lots”. Since each of us only need our cars for a narrow slice of each day, it would make more sense to essentially share vehicle time with other people. The economic logic of this will mean that using autonomous taxis will be so much cheaper than owning a vehicle that people won’t do it.
What this analysis ignores, unfortunately, is that a significant majority of vehicles are used to commute to and from work. And the majority of those commutes happen at the same time for the vast majority of people. The fleet size required to support those commuting needs will be large enough that the businesses involved won’t see any substantial economy from the communal model, which means the costs won’t be significantly lowered compared to owning your own vehicle.
If you’re looking for what the tack-on effects of autonomous vehicles will be, my prediction is the second great suburban sprawl: When commuting means napping or watching TV or reading or working or otherwise being entertained/productive, the commuting times people will be willing to accept will increase significantly. That’ll push development further out from the city centers.
Traffic in many cities is already bad enough without a bunch of empty cars driving around because they are being sent to their next pick-up point. Even if energy costs decline in the future, I expect more cities will start charging for entry into congested areas, as Singapore has done for decades.
I hope to see the rise of car-sharing associations. Like the bike-sharing in some places, we could have pools of cars available for reservation and use.
I think city centers are doomed. I haven’t worked in one for 20 years. For a little over a decade of that time I worked in the “Boston Area” but I was still 15 milles outside of the city.
one of my biggest annoyances was work time lost to unpredictable traffic. If I could have worked in my car traffic wouldn’t have mattered much at all. Which of course makes me wonder why a business would waste time on large offices in a city anyway if a portion of the workday could be done remotely.
Cities are spreading out and becomin less centralized and eventuall will be pointless.
Will one even need a license to opperate a vehilce that drives itself?
Commuting by self-driving car makes part-time home offices much more appealing to bosses, though. When you can be writing continuously on your way to and from meetings, the barriers are significantly lower.
Re: James Jarvis
Well of course you hate cities if you’re experience is from Boston which has the worst road system of any major US city I’ve ever seen.
I’d agree about the need f or congestion pricing if empty cars become too popular.
This column is utterly antithetical to the freedom that cars represent.