I don’t think self-driving cars, no matter how capable they are, will eliminate private car ownership or change the world nearly as much as people seem to think, because they don’t really change the economics of cars that much. Cars are expensive to operate, and self-driving cars won’t be any different.
Lots of people in this thread seem to assume that, rather than own your own car, people will just use an app like Uber and get driven to their destination by whatever self-driving car happens to be nearby, and that the reason they’ll do this is because this will somehow be much cheaper than owning and operating their own self-driving car.
I don’t think these cost savings really exist. This is same “rent vs. buy” choice that people make with regard to all sorts of products. Renting is usually more expensive, not less, because you not only have to pay for the financing, use and depreciation of whatever item you’re renting (which is the cost that you would bear as an owner anyway), but also the overhead required to manage the rental operation, and profit for the owner.
If your lifestyle requires driving 12,000 miles per year, you still have to pay for that much fuel and that much wear and tear and depreciation on whatever car is driving you, it doesn’t magically go away just because it’s not your car. The cost of insurance is irrelevant, since it is reduced no matter who owns the car.
Since you have to pay these expenses anyway, I think most people will choose to own, not rent, their self-driving car, because of the numerous advantages of owning a car for your private use:
- Convenience - the car is always immediately accessible for your use and yours alone, and is always available.
- Budgeting - you can predict exactly what the car will cost you. The cost of using the car does not change with demand, on holiday weekends, etc.
- Customization - you can pick a car that meets your exact needs. Amount of storage, number of seats, ride comfort, “luxuriousness” of the interior, etc.
- Cleanliness and comfort - you are not using a car that hundreds of other people of unknown hygiene have been in. Ever been in a cab where all the surfaces where plastic to easily wash off the vomit? Why would a self-driving “cab” change the economics that lead to that decision? (who cleans the vomit out of a self-driving cab anyway?)
Cars are expensive because the production and operation of a machine that transports you safely across long distances at high speeds is expensive. The fact that the machine is able to steer itself won’t fundamentally change that expense.
People complain that buying a $30,000 car is a huge expense and it sits idle for 97% of the day and think that this is a waste of money and resources. Actually, it’s not. The $30,000 car can last for 10 years precisely because it sits idle for 97% of the day. If you instead assume that a self-driving car could be active for 50% of the day, it would cover approximately 200,000 miles in one year. Instead of having 300 million cars in America that last for approximately 10 years before being worn out, we’d have 30 million cars that last for only 1 year. This might save some money overall, but it won’t be an order of magnitude change in the economics of manufacturing and operating cars.
For these sorts of reason I disagree with many of the other posters in here. I don’t think parking will fundamentally change. Stores will still need parking nearby because most people don’t spend hours and hours doing their shopping - you might spend 20 minutes inside a store. The parking lots could certainly be more densely packed, and less conveniently located for shoppers than they need to be now, but there will still have to be parking quite close to any area where people are shopping.
Even businesses, which might assume that their workers arrive and leave at a fixed schedule and stay inside for 8 hours, will need parking lots. Land in the US is still cheap, and parking lots are cheap. Energy (and CO2 emissions) are not. Having cars drop people off at work, and then drive themselves halfway across town (or back to their owner’s garage, or whatever) to park every day, is not economical in terms of energy consumption and wear and tear on the car.
The idea that people will carpool to their destinations using self-driving cars also seems unrealistic. People could save lots of money by carpooling already, and they choose not to because it is inconvenient and it costs them time. I don’t see how self-driving cars change that dynamic dramatically.
Lots of people seem to think that self-driving cars will lead to the ultimate decline of the automobile. I think self-driving cars will make cars a more fundamental and integral part of American society than they are already, and will actually make us more dependent on cars, not less. The combination of cars, mobile devices, high-speed wireless communications, and virtual reality will mean that the act of “driving somewhere” is no longer a waste of time.
Today, most people who drive to work consider their commute a waste of time, so they try to live close to their office. If you could actually get work done on your commute (or leisure), then it will actually be easier for people to buy homes in sprawling suburban developments far from their office (though obviously the cost of the commute will still be a limiting factor).
Traveling for leisure will change dramatically as well. I live about an 80 minutes away from a major metro area with lots of fun things to do. On the weekends, I hesitate to make the trip up there because it takes about 3 hours out of my day roundtrip, and while I enjoy driving, driving on the interstate isn’t anything special, and driving back while tired after a long day is kind of a pain. If I could just hop in my car and read a book, watch TV, or play video games on the way, I’d probably make that trip every weekend!
