That’s Car Sharing, not autonomous vehicles, no? Car Sharing is a good thing, definitely, but we really need to get rid of cars. Not completely, but to a point where it’s not the default.
With autonomous cars, you don’t need a driver to bring it to the next person who needs it. That’s a big limitation of current car sharing, it prevents a lot of possible sharing from happening as cars spend 95% of their lifetime parked. Indeed, we need less and smaller cars, and I think autonomous car would help with that by increasing sharing and usage time.
But you can do car sharing with any kind of car. In Germany there are cities that run a rent service for their citizens who only need a car occasionally.
Obviously this only works in the context of a robust public transport infrastructure and in cities built for humans rather than cars, so that the need for a car becomes a rare occurrence.
American cities don’t generally fit that description and until they do the type of car they use won’t change a thing, because it’s not addressing the core problem.
It could reduce the need for individual cars by increasing car sharing.
That’s Car Sharing, not autonomous vehicles, no? Car Sharing is a good thing, definitely, but we really need to get rid of cars. Not completely, but to a point where it’s not the default.
With autonomous cars, you don’t need a driver to bring it to the next person who needs it. That’s a big limitation of current car sharing, it prevents a lot of possible sharing from happening as cars spend 95% of their lifetime parked. Indeed, we need less and smaller cars, and I think autonomous car would help with that by increasing sharing and usage time.
But how would I flex my wealth to the peasants then? /s
Easy, buy a $15,000 dollar bike.
But you can do car sharing with any kind of car. In Germany there are cities that run a rent service for their citizens who only need a car occasionally.
Obviously this only works in the context of a robust public transport infrastructure and in cities built for humans rather than cars, so that the need for a car becomes a rare occurrence.
American cities don’t generally fit that description and until they do the type of car they use won’t change a thing, because it’s not addressing the core problem.
Same answer as the other similar comment: https://jlai.lu/comment/3237143