- To be fair here (and I say this as someone who's had a spinal fusion as the result of being mowed down by a distracted driver) car ownership is so incredibly subsidized from an insurance perspective that any increase in prices should be described as the removal/reduction of a subsidy.
If the damages/externalities caused by cars were internalized by the system car ownership would already be unaffordable for most. We just choose to sacrifice/maim X-number of humans every year so folks can continue to zoom around and structurally increase sprawl/pollution (which in turn have their own massive un-internalized costs).
All of us pay for these subsidies via significantly higher healthcare prices.
Look up what happened to the Michigan laws/policies that required drivers to actually pay for insurance that would compensate accident victims for their death and suffering. It was lobbied/voted out of existence almost immediately because the costs are simply too high, and we love our cars.
- I think the author is significantly underestimating the technical difficulty of achieving full self-driving cars that are at least as safe and reliable as Waymo. The author claims there will be "26 of the basically identical [self-driving car] companies".
If you recall, there was an explosion of self-driving car efforts from startups and incumbents alike 7ish years ago. Many of them failed to deliver or were shut down. [1][2][3]
Article about the difficulty of self-driving from the perspective of a failed startup[3].
Waymo came out of the Google-self driving car project which came from Sebastian Thrun's entry in 2005 Darpa challenge, so they've been working on this for more than 20 years. [4][5]
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/business/ford-argo-ai-vw-shut...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...
[3] https://medium.com/starsky-robotics-blog/the-end-of-starsky-...
[4] https://stanford.edu/~cpiech/cs221/apps/driverlessCar.html
[5] https://semiwiki.com/eda/synopsys/3322-sebastian-thrun-self-...
- Generally not a fan of geohot, but this is pretty possible, especially once self driving tech becomes available through suppliers like mobile eye / Bosch/ continental etc. (it’s possible it will stay a Tesla / Waymo duopoly but I doubt it)
by EdwardDiego
1 subcomments
- > Our robotaxis are all cleaned by Black Women who were diagnosed by Licensed Therapists with PTSD from the ICE raids, so we should be first in line to get a license.
I was wondering why the author was writing like a giant piece of shit, and then I googled him, and turns out that the author is that guy who begged Elon Musk for a chance to work fore free to fix everything and failed, and it really explains a lot.
> In 2022, shortly after the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, Hotz announced that he had joined the company for a 12-week internship, with the task of fixing Twitter search as well as removing the pop up log-in screen displayed to users scrolling without being logged in to an account. On December 20, after less than 5 weeks at the role, he resigned, stating “appreciate the opportunity, but didn’t think there was any real impact I could make there”.
- I simply don’t see the problem. What’s bad about a future with fast, door to door, automatic, public transit? That’s how every scifi movie showed the future to me and this guy is against it for… for what actually? A car maintenance hobby? Comma.ai stock value? I’m not sure.
It all smells very “they’re coming to take away our guns” to me. A rambly incoherent argument in favour of worse times.
by robertclaus
1 subcomments
- The automotive industry is huge. It seems unlikely that they would lose lobbying efforts to startup tech companies - so it seems far more likely that cars get more expensive due to government mandated self-diving "safety" features, but just enough that Americans still buy them.
by bobbleheads
1 subcomments
- Supposing full self driving becomes available, surely this will become available in the cars consumers purchase.
Furthermore, I don't agree with this articles assertion that the existence of robotaxis would lead to an increase on insurance premiums.
- Not just car, ownership of homes might go even earlier. Just pay rent as long as you are earning, have easier mobility, and then when you are not working, move to a state-provided accommodation.
by lazylizard
0 subcomment
- from a pedestrian's point of view. as soon as the self driving car is like safer than the most dangerous bottom 20% of drivers..i want those drivers off the road. and i believe, from google's numbers, we might be there already, if not better.
by nephihaha
1 subcomments
- I don't think it's coming, it's already here and has been for a while. (The war on car ownership, not robotaxis.) Many towns restrict or even ban cars from their centres. This os all fine and well when there is a decent public transport system but that does not apply in all cases. It's also difficult if you live in the countryside (the rewilding rhetoric has a subtext relevant to that).
- This blog post is going to age like an 18th century chinese vase in perfect condition decades later.
by hiddencost
2 subcomments
- God what a garbage human being. Starts off with the stupid racism in the first two paragraphs.
- Wtf is with the random racist diatribe in this?
- Classic enshittification loop
- This is such a dumb idea. I thought this would be about subscription-based options in cars, of course this was about something much dumber.
Hey: if you never lived outside your city, let's avoid talking about car ownership? Robotaxi make no sense in 80-90% of all locations.
by omnicognate
0 subcomment
- I want car ownership to end. I want the road network to eventually become a giant, fully automated public transport system. I don't want it to be owned by silicon valley, though.
- Fun read, shame it's flagged. The midwits in this joint don't appreciate transgression.
- When you have federal agents going around murdering people* in the US, the biggest problem you feel to write about is some kind of fear that private car insurance will be more expensive in the future. Good prioritization!
* I know you can have two thoughts at once, but the timing says a lot IMO.
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