The potential for car-sharing and an attendant rise in utilization rate has existed for a long time. (There's little reason something like Zipcar couldn't have been organized by telephone years ago.) Yet it has only caught on in a small way, and only in places where there are other overwhelming advantages to that scheme, in cities where car ownership (parking) is terribly expensive.
I think he's overlooking something regrettable but true: the low utilization rate, great expense, wastefulness and general economic insanity of private cars are critical parts of their appeal to consumers. Many people who could commute by train or bus choose to take a car instead, even though it's hugely more expensive, more stressful, and often not much faster. They'd rather feel like they had some control than no control. They'd rather sit in a seat no strangers have been sitting in. They like knowing the glove compartment is crammed with their own crap and not someone else's. They like the fact that their car will be waiting for them and for them alone in the parking space where they left it, with no need for waiting or a call-ahead reservation.
And of course there's the fact that parking an enormous, expensive, gas-guzzling monstrosity in the office lot or the driveway has a genuine (shallow, materialistic, emotional, and pitiably simian - yet still genuine) effect on your friends, neighbors, minions, and yes, on yourself.
He's supposing that driverless cars will somehow finally yield to economic pressures that have been present (and irrationally resisted) all these decades.
I don't see the points you mentioned as the primary benefits of a car over a bus or train. A car requires no waiting, and takes you directly to where you want to go, with no stops or detours. A bus or train requires waiting, makes various stops, does not take a direct route to your destination, and drops you some distance away from where you want, perhaps with a couple of transfers required for long distances.
Car sharing programs eliminate some of the drawbacks (no detours or stops), but several still apply (no guarantee of timely availability, one or both endpoints does not coincide perfectly with your destination). On top of those, you also pay more than mass transit, and you still have to do the driving.
Give me a transit mechanism which picks me up from my house at the time I want to leave, and takes me directly to my destination with no stops, and I see no reason to ever drive a car again.
I certainly believe that some car enthusiasts exist who actually driving, rather than just doing it to get to a destination. However, I don't believe those people make up the majority of drivers, or even a significant fraction; I think most people just want to get from point A to point B, and driving sucks the least for them.
A car requires no waiting, and takes you directly to where you want to go, with no stops or detours.
I think that after a moment's thought about this you'll have to agree that this is completely wrong. The roads don't even go directly where you want to go, most of the time; there are stop lights and stop signs and police checkpoints and emergency vehicles and slowdowns and gridlock and accidents and construction detours and traffic detours and "stops on the way" that aren't, really, for your spouse and on and on.
Which I think is really telling. The feeling of being in control that a private vehicle gives one changes one's perceptions and evaluations a lot. A driver-less car will probably not offer that illusion, and we collectively love that illusion.
Interestingly enough, the article attached to this other current HN post (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3329676) points out how much we humans hate passive, helpless waiting, and how we tend to exaggerate its severity.
Mass transit mostly fails to avoid all the same things you mentioned; to the extent it doesn't (trains) it exaggerates the other problems (drops you off far from your destination). Also, half the problems you mentioned go away with driverless cars.
Mass transit mostly fails to avoid all the same things you mentioned...
But... so what? This isn't about private cars vs. mass transit. This is about unthinkingly exaggerating the virtues of private cars. We all do it, all the time.
...half the problems you mentioned go away with driverless cars.
That's what was claimed about parkways, thruways, expressways, and later about the interstate freeways, and none of those problems have in fact gone away at all.
The main point is convenience. Limos are shared resources, but no one complains about not having access to their glove box when riding in one, because they're so awesomely convenient and the level of service is spectacular.
This is where car-sharing services of the past didn't go. They went with the cheapskate (why have a car payment?) enviro-friendly (share cars) route. I think of a driverless pod service as on-demand limo service, with the potential to be at a price that's cheaper than owning your car.
Still wanna hear the roar of your motor on the open freeway? Sure go ahead! There are plenty of people who enjoy riding horses too! I don't think either of these "hobbies" are going to go away and I wouldn't ever want them to either.
My point about the glove box was regrettably unclear; it's not about "access to my stuff" so much as it's about "insulation from other people's stuff." In a shared car, the dirty Kleenex you find under the seat will be someone else's dirty Kleenex, not yours or your spouse's or your child's.
I'm not standing up for cars here. I'm not a motoring enthusiast. I simply think that the reason cars have been adopted so widely is because of the way their particulars fit together with human psychology, specifically with issues of control and self-esteem.
I agree with your points, except I don't agree with 'irrationally resisted'. If we take it at face value that someone does something (ie, own their own car) with clear alternatives available (ie, using shared cars) the behaviour is rational. It mightn't seem right on a cost-per-mile basis, but then it just shows that people place value in other things above and beyond cost-per-mile.
Wanting to own your own car even though it is more expensive than the alternatives is no different to wanting to buy designer clothes at 10 times the price of wal-mart offerings. You might call them irrational, but clearly the person making the free choice finds value in the proposition, thereby, as far as they are concerned, it is rational. In fact, we hear people rationalising it all the time.
The potential for car-sharing and an attendant rise in utilization rate has existed for a long time. (There's little reason something like Zipcar couldn't have been organized by telephone years ago.) Yet it has only caught on in a small way, and only in places where there are other overwhelming advantages to that scheme, in cities where car ownership (parking) is terribly expensive.
I think he's overlooking something regrettable but true: the low utilization rate, great expense, wastefulness and general economic insanity of private cars are critical parts of their appeal to consumers. Many people who could commute by train or bus choose to take a car instead, even though it's hugely more expensive, more stressful, and often not much faster. They'd rather feel like they had some control than no control. They'd rather sit in a seat no strangers have been sitting in. They like knowing the glove compartment is crammed with their own crap and not someone else's. They like the fact that their car will be waiting for them and for them alone in the parking space where they left it, with no need for waiting or a call-ahead reservation.
And of course there's the fact that parking an enormous, expensive, gas-guzzling monstrosity in the office lot or the driveway has a genuine (shallow, materialistic, emotional, and pitiably simian - yet still genuine) effect on your friends, neighbors, minions, and yes, on yourself.
He's supposing that driverless cars will somehow finally yield to economic pressures that have been present (and irrationally resisted) all these decades.