Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Your nice car is expensive and unused 90-95% of the time (if you're an average driver).

So, what are reasons not to own a car in the age of self-driving cars?

- it could be cheaper for a lot of people

- you'd be more flexible: use a small car to commute, a big car for shopping etc.

- there would be enough self-driving shared cars available so you never have to wait a long time to arrive

- it saves a lot of resources if less cars have to be built and their utilization is higher

- you can drive new cars as soon as they are added to the pool of shared cars

- you don't have to deal with car maintenance

- you are more likely to use your bicycle / ebike

Here are some reasons against using shared cars:

- mass surveillance - monitoring the movement of almost every citizen

- shared cars may not be as clean as your own

- can't store items in shared cars (baby seats!)

- favourite car may not be available all the time

- there may not be enough shared cars avaialble in your area, especially if you don't live in a city

- you have special requirements such as baby seats, 4WD or you want to drive a particular car model all the time

- prestige



You left three out:

- Being able to get where you need to go without requesting a ride. - Your own car will wait with infinite patience. - Kids


> - Being able to get where you need to go without requesting a ride.

If your car has parked far away from your location you need to "request" it just like a shared car.

> - Your own car will wait with infinite patience.

That could be useful every now and then. But not very important on my list if the waiting time is small enough.

> - Kids

I mentioned baby seats. But the availability of shared cars could mean that you can drop off multiple kids at multiple locations using multiple cars all at once.


> If your car has parked far away from your location you need to "request" it just like a shared car.

Sure, but you'd be the only one requesting it, as opposed to a bunch of other people requesting it, too.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: