[ExI] self driving cars again

[Charlie Stross]

On 11 Aug 2012, at 23:29, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>  
> Woohoo!  Way to go, Thrun! 
>  
> Work quickly lads, please.  I have six parents who need this technology riiiight nooooow.  Between all six, they own 11 cars, and will gladly give you all of them for three self-drivers, one for each couple.
>  

Assuming they live in reasonable proximity, they don't even need one car/couple. I ran across a news report a year or two ago from a trade body -- something like the British Association of Car-Park Operators -- who'd established that, during peak rush-hour periods, 96% of the UK's private vehicle fleet was parked up at any given time.

If you discount the psychological issues associated with ownership and territorial exclusivity -- attributes of the automobile that have been inculcated by decades of high-budget advertising by the auto industry -- there shouldn't be any problem with being part of a ZipCar-like scheme where, when you whistle, a pool car comes for you. (Charge by the hour for use; charge extra for valet service if a use leaves a mess for the next user.)

Think of it as doing for automobiles what time-sharing operating systems did for computers. One side-effect: if we only need a tenth as many cars, we can make the individual cars much nicer than the average tin box on wheels.


-- Charlie