Autonomous cars will do more than drive you

The idea that the ideal future involves shared car fleets for shared use does not recognize the true nature of how humans interact with their personal transportation, nor the motivations of car manufacturers. Shared RTMs (Robotic Transportation Machine) make a lot of sense in dense urban areas, places where a high proportion of the population may not already own a car. This is an important market, and I'm sure there will one day be self-driving fleets to meet their transportation needs.

The idea that gtrs will result in the death of the possession of a private car is considered by almost as a given, including by many very serious media like the the Wall Street newspaper, who has published articles such as "The End of Car Ownership" or from the economist "Why driverless cars will be mostly shared and not owned", or Internal business, who cited a study in 2017 that predicts that in 15 years, only 20% of Americans will own a car.

I think these predictions are pretty. Do some of these people have children? Have they seen how much equipment, junk and random equipment that a human child is carrying? Have they thought about the logistics of transporting everything from one car to the other? No, of course that they did not do it. Half of the reason for owning a car is that it's a mobile base for you and all the things you do not know where to put. Of course, in some dense cities, not having a car means a lot less hassle and an easier life. But everywhere? No, no way. Even in some dense but large urban areas, such as Los Angeles, where a large portion of the population could be served by fleet cars, for logistical and cultural reasons, owning a private car will still be desirable. Have you ever had an awful job and had lunch or nap in your car because it was your only refuge? Do you have jackets, umbrellas and other useful real world objects in your car? Do you like to listen to your own music in your car? Do you sometimes do several things during a day involving multiple packages, packages or items and you do not want to have to carry them around on your back like a refugee?

Of course, you do it for all these things because a car is not just a means of transportation. It is also a space. A location. A car is one of the few things that can be a way to be a place and an independent place itself. Very often, for example, when we talk to a person on the phone while driving (using our hands-free options, of course, our hands firmly gripping the steering wheel at 9 o'clock and three o'clock) and the person asks where we are, a perfectly acceptable answer the answer is "in the car". No other elaboration is often necessary. You are in the car, and the space of the car is a sufficient description of your environment and what you are likely to do.

There is no reason why driverless cars can not continue in this position and, most likely, even expand considerably. This is something I will discuss in more detail later, but the idea that increasing the number of autonomous vehicles will result in the death of the private car is the kind of idea that only someone would have. who has never owned a car.

The truth is that the reality will probably be a mixture of shared and private cars, and the roads will be filled with a mix of cars driven by men and machines. And in this possible future reality, it will always be logical not to think of robotic vehicles as cars and accept the fact that they are robots.

Once we free ourselves from the constraints of designing autonomous cars as "cars", there are many possibilities open to us. These machines could be racing robots that can significantly improve our quality of life, once we realized that because they were robots, we do not necessarily need to be close to home. to use them.

Think about the number of boring, stupid but necessary errands you must do during a given week. If you have a vehicle that can drive itself, why bother doing these races yourself? Once robotic vehicles that have proven safe begin to arrive on public roads in numbers, and if there are laws that allow vehicles to operate completely unmanned, we will likely begin to see new business models emerge. fascinating.

The same process would work for any number of retail businesses. Why would you go back to a pharmacy to make a prescription in person? You can send your robot to pick up packages at the post office, or even use the vehicle to route parcels to any address within the range set by the user. Small businesses could buy fleets five to ten of them and be able to offer deliveries without hiring drivers (a mixed blessing, I know it).

Once you start thinking about it, what's stopping you from sticking your dog in the robot and sending it to the vet? Or, since we are already going in this direction, place your child there and send it to school? If you entrust your child's life to the car when driving the robotic vehicle with him, why should it be different if you are not there?

The real potential of autonomous vehicles is not related to the fact that we drive in, but to the fact that we can avoid boarding them. Of course, doing what you want while your car is stuck in traffic is way better than driving in intermittent traffic jams, moving forward at 5 mph with your painful clutch leg and your screaming boredom, but what's better than it is not in the traffic at all. Let your robot car move slowly to get a drum of cheese balls and a package of Costco underwear. You have better things to do. Or, if not better, at least more fun.

Reprinted with permission. Text excerpt and cover image © Apollo Publishers.