How the Electric, Self-Driving Miracle Car Will Change Your Life
I am really excited about self-driving cars. I would immediately, directly benefit from them, but aside from the selfish reasons, I’m legitimately excited by what they’ll do for us. People who can’t drive because of age or medical reasons will have easy personal transportation. The millions of hours spent commuting every day can be reclaimed. I can ramble about this for quite a while.
Steven Kopits of Foreign Policy wrote a piece about the economics of electric cars, with a heavy emphasis on what autonomous driving can do for their value. In the piece is an idea I never thought of: self-driving cars don’t need passengers at all:
Many Americans only drive their cars to work, park, and leave them until they drive home at night, making them essentially unavailable for use by others for most of the day. But if the car could drive itself, it could return home to take the children to school, members of the family shopping, and seniors to visit friends or keep appointments. …
If transportation could be purchased as a service, however, this constraint would be lifted. Localities could have a fleet of electric vehicles on call for local trips, allowing EVs to operate within short distances only — just as the typical taxi does.
Can you imagine a fleet of self-driving, municipal taxis? A car sharing system like Zipcar, except that the cars come to you.
Exciting times ahead.