> A robot-driven version of my personal car (and how I use it today), is moderately appealing.
Really... you wouldn't find never having to park again very appealing? Having your car pick you up somewhere, or go get serviced while you're shopping?
Moderately appealing. I guess I'd better give the context... I ride my bike whenever I can, which is >90% of my journeys (I live in SF; the same was also true in London). I've only ever commuted to work by car for a brief period of time, and I plan on avoiding it in the future. I prefer to combine train (CalTrain) and bike for commuting. I occasionally use my car to do a big grocery shop - it's 5min each way, so I can take or leave a robot there. The reason I own a car (Subaru) is to get to very remote places in the Sierra Nevada mountains, to go white water kayaking. The drive across the Central Valley is very boring, and for that I would love a robot. The bits on hairy mountain roads (often broken dirt roads), I'd be amazed if we see a robot car capable of that in my life time (we're talking reading individual boulders to figure out the line through). What I really need is a helicopter, and pilot..
So that's why I'm only moderately excited for my personal car - I just avoid using it so much that its not a big deal.
Now, if we could remove SF's rude and navigationally challenged taxi drivers* from SF'd taxi's, then I'd be happy..
Interestingly, I frequently heard the idea of not needing parking because your car would drop you off at work, drive home, then pick you up at the end of the day. But since almost all cars on the road right now are gas or gas hybrid, you are doubling your miles driven, thereby halving your effective fuel economy. You are also doubling the amount of time on the road, so now rush hour lasts twice as long. From 7-8 in the morning driving everyone to work, and then 8-9 empty driving home. This may potentially have infrastructure issues--road capacities, paving, etc.
I didn't say you don't need parking, I said you don't have to do it. The car can drop you off and then go park on its own. Driving home would be stupid.
Take a trip down to the nearest suburban elementary school to see whether "getting dropped off and picked up at the door" necessarily translates to "never having to park again".
In many situations, you won't have to hunt for a spot. And that'll be great. But for an awful lot of trips, you'll wind up walking just as far due the line-up of cars. Or waiting an awfully long time.
Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely sold on an autonomous car for its other benefits. But the auto-parking/pickup bit is ... overstated in its applicability.
Kids getting out of school is a special case. Most things I do don't involve mass arrivals or departures. When my car drops me off at the mall and then parks, then picks me up at the door, I don't think I'll run into that problem.
At the mall, probably not. But going to or leaving work? Or a theatre? Or restaurants [1]? Or a party? Or your beer-league bowling/darts/softball games? [2]
Pretty much anything with a predictable schedule would be quickly swamped and delays will compound quickly.
Which isn't to say it's a non-feature. It's just to say, again, that it's being oversold.
[1] Fixed schedules alone won't be in trouble. Anything with a 'busy period' will manifest this.
[2] To say nothing of professional sporting events, concerts, tourist traps and things like theme parks -- precisely the places where parking is such a bummer in the first place.
Really... you wouldn't find never having to park again very appealing? Having your car pick you up somewhere, or go get serviced while you're shopping?