re: Self driving cars of the future

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hope there's enough room for his imaginary girlfriend.

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Must not watch the show because, "This guy definitely fricks."

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Driving is freedom, how lazy can the USA get that they can't even drive their own f*ck*ng cars!. Unless these things can do 80 mph in the city and 240 mph on the highway what is the advantage

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Idiots not driving? Keeping drunks from driving?

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This concept is very cool but I can't get past the infrastructure requirements vs the potential payoff. Sure you can get from LA to SF in 30 min, but your talking 6-10 people at a time. Not to mention the extensive network of "tubes" needed. Just doesn't seem worth the effort or gov subsidiaries that'll be used to make it happen

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Depends on how much time must pass between each pod's take-off.

Suppose 8 people can fit into a pod, and there must be a 1 minute break in between each pod takeoff. That would mean that 480 people could shoot from LA to SF in a single hour. I assume there would be a tube for each direction, meaning 480 people could shoot from SF to LA during the same hour as well. That would mean a total of 960 per hour.

The hyperloop would only have to operate about 10.5 hours per day in order to satisfy the current number of people who fly commercially between LA and SF each day.

The initial cost would be very expensive.... but the cost of flying roughly 125 commercial flights between those cities every single day compounded over several years is also extremely high. Over time, it would pay itself off.

Perfect road rage targets. No fatalities lol

Honestly, I wouldn't buy or use something like that but I can see the efficiency of using one. I just don't trust a computer long term. When my car fricks up, I want to be in control not some smart car. I bet they will cost like 100k anyway. There's no way they will be affordable for the common man anyhow.

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I just don't see how they could be used on construction sites and back roads.

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They won't be, at least not for a very long time. They'll be used for commutes in urban areas and for commercial shipping. Which is an outrageous amount of mileage. You can't yell at an AI to back up a certain amount of feet on a construction site. So from that perspective, the transformation will be slow and gradual. The real key will be the infrastructure expansion that will have to take place to make self driving vehicles even more efficient. How quickly do states and municipalities throw down that money, and at what point does is investment in infrastructure expansion for self driving cars undercut by investment in high speed rail? The economics factors at work here are pretty easy to identify, but what it will look like when the dust settles will be interesting to see.

This is about something much larger than automated cars.

Think Wall-E.

Think Brave New World.

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Dude, i travel very heavily for business. If I had a self driving rental car, it would be fantastic. Especially in shitty traffic, where the car would decide via a waze app etc, alternative routes. Would leave me to work, be on the phone, do whatever. Much less stressful than navigating in strange cities. Even better, what if the rental car dropped you off at the airport curb and returned itself?

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Wall-E says hi.

For one, the way we currently travel is not even close to how we should.

There shouldn't be so many individual cars in cities. That's 100% a product of the the oil/auto industry.

We used to have great group transportation infrastructure in cities over 100 years ago, and that would have been improved upon -- instead it was ripped up by the oil/auto industries (they were fined mildly for this).

The individual automated car thing is a complete joke and more of the same from the for-profit, not for common-sense narrative that we've built the world on.

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Trump could bring it back.

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Unlikely. He's in bed with big oil/auto. And anyway, a president isn't going to create a paradigm shift.

As good as long range bullet trains would be, which I think he's talked about, it's not really a way to solve the need for most people to have their own vehicle.

There is a lot of info about how a fleet of autonomous cars such as an auto uber could cut down on parking spaces in cities, make transportation more efficient, and basically come down to calling a car when you need it. Probably on some form of subscription model. If you travel in cities like London or New York, or Mexico City etc, where parking is a nightmare and traffic can be as well, this would be great.

I travel in London and never rent a car. its all public transport or uber. I dont even use London taxis anymore and they are the best in the world.

I don't doubt there is a lot of info on that.

The industries in power will make sure the solutions involve them.