[Racer X 69]

True, but people who don't follow rules in groups that they are part of often find themselves kicked out of said group.

Then it will be a small group.

[Racer X 69]

So you have 40,000 people with 40,000 cars but never all 40,000 arriving at the same time. Some people are leaving as others are arriving.

In fact, all the people getting off the night shift can probably ride in all the cars that just delivered the day shift. And when those cars drop off the night shift folk, then can pick up the 20,000 workers for the next factory down the road that has it's shifts at a different time or maybe take 20,000 office workers who don't start till 8AM. Then the cars can pick up several thousand fast food workers who get to work at 10AM for the lunch rush, then ferry the factory workers to and from the food places, etc. A single car might drive 24 hours a day taking workers from different shifts and different factories to and from work, lunch, etc.

There's still more than 60,000 people riding alone in each car but maybe only 20,000 cars in the total fleet. And the icing on the cake is that no one has to compete for parking spots any more. Everyone now gets dropped off and picked-up right at the door. There's no more driving around the parking lot looking for a space or walking across the parking lot in the ran and cold.

It would be great if it could work that way.

But we all hold on tightly to our indivualism.


Oh, and there is only one employer in my region that employs such a large number of people.

The next largest employer only employs a small fraction of that number. And none of them have all of their employees at the same location.

[PDL]

The internal combustion engined motor car did not gain prominence during the early years of the 20th century because society ran out of horses. So, in the same way, electrical- and/or autonomous vehicles will become the prefered choice not because regular cars won't be around, but because electrical and autonomous vehicles will at some point, be cheaper and more convenient to own. Cars rarely cause accidents - people cause accidents. And so, autonomous vehicles will likely be safer than ordinary automobiles.

Electrical cars are not a new concept. But, until now, battery technology has not been advanced enough to enable mass market penetration. And long after cars become predominantly electric, will airplanes still use fuel.

It wasn't running out of horses, it was having a place to put the manure from 150K horses in New York City in the 1800's, each horse producing 30 pounds of manure a day. - from an snipit -

The Horse Manure Problem | Big Picture News, Informed Analysis

"In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure. One New York prognosticator of the 1890s concluded that by 1930 the horse droppings would rise to Manhattan’s third-story windows."
Add into that the flies and health concerns, food for the horses and yes - housing for the horses. Just like horses cars need fuel (gasoline or electric) and a place to stay when they are not being used.

Feeding and housing of autonomous vehicles is not going to change. You have to store them and you have to feed them one way or another.

---------- Post added 07-09-18 at 08:39 PM ----------

Hi Onlineflyer
Electric cars will be everywhere once the oil runs out
Who are making most of the electric cars and who are making oil realiant cars ?
That is why it has been slow for electic cars to be implemented.
Economics as you say well really profits

Dave

dbs
You still need petroleum products for lubrication. Go back and understand why the spaceship in Alien was way out there. Hint - it was a refinery.

[PDL]

Why do they call it rush hour anyway?

The drive I take to work everyday during rush hour, I can do in half the time when it isn't rush hour.

Maybe we should call it slow hour or crawl hour or something.

<mansplaining>
Because every one is in a Rush to get home?
</mansplaining>

Sorry, could not let that one go by.

---------- Post added 07-09-18 at 11:56 PM ----------

Yes, peak time determines the number of vehicles required in the total fleet. But it's never all of the people once because some people work different shifts. And even the people working the usual day-time office work vary in their schedule. Some people want to be at work by 7 AM, some at 8 AM, some at 9 AM, etc. And some people are flexible -- they'd willingly leave a bit early or a bit late if it meant a better or cheaper commute.

Pick any minute of the day and there will be tons of parked cars somewhere -- the cars of the early birds will already be at the office and the cars of late risers will still be sitting in the garage. The average commuting time in the US is a bit below 30 minutes but "rush hour" seems to be two hours or more in many cities. That suggests that even if everyone has a commute during rush hour, that at most only 25% of the cars are needed to handle the peak. Put another way, a single car could provide up to four 30 minute commutes in the two hour period or more if some people commute before or after the official rush hour peak period.

So the autonomous vehicle will pick me up and take me home according to my hours.
What does the vehicle do when it drops me off? All of my neighbors are home too and do not need to use a vehicle.
Does the vehicle head back to the city - empty? Does it go back to the shop to be refueled (a car can not be in use 24 hours a day since it needs to get fuel and if it is electric it takes a while to charge) and maintained? Or does it follow the jogger down the road waiting for the jogger to climb in?

---------- Post added 07-10-18 at 12:03 AM ----------

There's no need for any communication between the vehicles at all beyond brake lights and turn signals.

So tell us about the autonomous vehicle that uses only brake lights and turn signals to go through the streets. Especially when there are human driven cars on the street that do not use turn signals and only know how to panic stop. The systems in place by Tesla and Uber can't seem to tell when there is something big and not moving ahead of them. (A stretch, granted, but tell the two dead people's families that these things only need brake lights and turn signals.

---------- Post added 07-10-18 at 12:14 AM ----------

The reworking is already happening one building at a time. And there's no need for any infrastructure investment. Smart signals and smart roads are a pipe dream and none of the autonomous vehicle makers are waiting for them to be built. In fact, the only viable autonomous vehicle is one that doesn't need smart roads because so many of the roadways and other cars on the road are dumb. And if an autonomous car can function without complex communications, then there's no economic incentive for the car maker to add that complexity (vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle communications) to a vehicle.

AH - no, it is not the buildings not at all. The buildings are not going to move (You don't move factories to make easy driving for robot cars). I worked for a company that did DoD work and I can guarantee you that no one outside of the authorized people and systems talked to anything inside those complexes.

And if you are only going to use break lights and turn signals, how are you going to get information about a wreck, weather related incidents, avalanches, closed roads, road work or local disaster. These autonomous vehicles are going to have to be able to get this information rather than sitting still on the road. If you suggest GPS and wireless communications, then you have contradicted yourself from your earlier statements.

---------- Post added 07-10-18 at 12:30 AM ----------

Places like Seattle and Boston are going to make parking so unpleasant and expensive that only the richest people will be able to afford it. In some of Boston's most expensive neighborhoods, buying a parking space can cost over half a million dollars. Even in more modest neighborhoods, the cost of space often runs $50,000. The parking space is more valuable than the car parked in it! City dwellers and commuters who don't want to pay huge sums for parking are going to find that sharing autonomous vehicles will be very attractive.

Seattle is making it very hard for all but the top 1% to have cars in the core downtown area. But not to worry, the working stiffs don't live there since rents are so high and climbing higher that to live downtown is to be rich. The transit system is overcrowded and the trains are running at a capacity that the scoffers said would not be reached until midcentury. Rents are as high or higher than Manhattan and the middle class is being pushed out to the burbs. Uber and Lyft drivers are working more and getting less and less money. It is almost as bad as San Francisco where $117K a year is not quite enough to have a "good" apartment/condominium within the cities boundaries.

Speculators are buying mid 1920 houses, tearing them down and putting up three story leggo structures with a shared kitchen so they don't have to qualify for parking or being labeled an "apartment". Those things are selling out before they are even being completed. So being a place that is expensive is right now not the near future. Many of the streets (infrastructure) downtown are torn up for new construction and the one transit line has been shut down due to cost over runs and is behind schedule. The extension of light rail is going on, but the federal money has dried up since WA did not vote for the correct person and it will be delayed a few more decades or so.

And not an autonomous vehicle in sight.

Sorry for the rant but optimism needs to be tempered by looking out the window now and again.

---

Last edited by PDL; 07-10-2018 at 12:32 AM.

[Racer X 69]

You still need petroleum products for lubrication.

Vegetable oil and animal fats can be developed for use as lubricants.

[RoxnDox]

Vegetable oil and animal fats can be developed for use as lubricants.

And there's already an industrial-scale process capable of taking waste products (literally, chicken guts, feathers, etc) and turning them back into petroleum hydrocarbons. I think the effort died off, but that was economics not technology. In years to come, when energy is cheaper than the increasingly scarce petroleum products, that will likely make it profitable to recreate our own new petrol rather than depend on extracting the dinosaur-era stuff Ma Nature provided...

[photoptimist]

And there's already an industrial-scale process capable of taking waste products (literally, chicken guts, feathers, etc) and turning them back into petroleum hydrocarbons. I think the effort died off, but that was economics not technology. In years to come, when energy is cheaper than the increasingly scarce petroleum products, that will likely make it profitable to recreate our own new petrol rather than depend on extracting the dinosaur-era stuff Ma Nature provided...

It's still happening. Biodiesel production in the US ran at about 2.6 billion gallons in 2017 with about 72% coming from seed oils (soy, corn, and canola) and the rest coming from animal fat and recycled cooking oil.

There's also people building factories to convert sawmill waste into jetfuel with contracts to sell it to FedEx, Southwest Airlines, and others.

The level of interest in this stuff in each country varies with oil prices, the country's political climate, and the public's interest in "green" products.

[RoxnDox]

It's still happening. Biodiesel production in the US ran at about 2.6 billion gallons in 2017 with about 72% coming from seed oils (soy, corn, and canola) and the rest coming from animal fat and recycled cooking oil.

There's also people building factories to convert sawmill waste into jetfuel with contracts to sell it to FedEx, Southwest Airlines, and others.

The level of interest in this stuff in each country varies with oil prices, the country's political climate, and the public's interest in "green" products.

Oh, yeah, I was not thinking biodiesel or the corn/canola oils. I meant the {googling interval here} Thermal Depolymerization process and the pilot plant in Missourah by these guys: Changing World Technologies - Wikipedia

Yep, it is economics in control. And if there's money to be made, the politics will follow, methinks...

[photoptimist]

So the autonomous vehicle will pick me up and take me home according to my hours.
What does the vehicle do when it drops me off? All of my neighbors are home too and do not need to use a vehicle.
Does the vehicle head back to the city - empty? Does it go back to the shop to be refueled (a car can not be in use 24 hours a day since it needs to get fuel and if it is electric it takes a while to charge) and maintained? Or does it follow the jogger down the road waiting for the jogger to climb in?

Well, some of your neighbors do need a car at night. Some are going out for a night on the town. Some work the night shift. Some need to do some shopping. Some are going to their child's school play or baseball game. Some or going over to a friends house for dinner.

But you are quite right that the intensity of car use does drop at night. That makes night a great time for refueling/recharging, cleaning, and maintenance. And, yes, many of those autonomous cars will sit parked someplace although the amount of required parking for autonomous cars will be a fraction of the required parking for dumb cars in which every household must have at least one car that requires one parking spot for the entire night.

Cars may well go back to the city empty if the expected demand for cars in the city is high. Overall, autonomous vehicles will mean an increase in vehicle miles travelled but a decrease in the total number of vehicles and a decrease in the required number of parking spots.

Notice that with current dumb cars, every household with a car needs more than TWO parking spaces: one at home for the night, one at work during the day, and some shared fractions of a parking space at various retailers, restaurants, friends houses, stadiums, etc. A suburb of 40,000 people that currently requires 40,000 cars and over 80,000 parking spots might need less than 20,000 cars and less than 10,000 parking spots.

The more people who use autonomous vehicles for door-to-door rides, the more that shopping malls and stadiums can sell off their parking lots to build more retail shops or condos.

So tell us about the autonomous vehicle that uses only brake lights and turn signals to go through the streets. Especially when there are human driven cars on the street that do not use turn signals and only know how to panic stop. The systems in place by Tesla and Uber can't seem to tell when there is something big and not moving ahead of them. (A stretch, granted, but tell the two dead people's families that these things only need brake lights and turn signals

Tesla is not an autonomous vehicle. It is only a driver assistance system. Calling Tesla's system "autopilot" seems like a dangerous fraud to me. Most Tesla crashes are human error due to driver inattention although some would rightly argue that Tesla's driver assistance system is unsafe by design. Uber's system most certainly did see that pedestrian a full 6 seconds before impact but the vehicle was configured to only record that sensor data and not act on it. Uber's crash also happened because the human driver (and possibly Uber management) was negligent.

Technically, autonomous vehicles won't need to rely of brake lights at all. Panic stopping is only a problem for human drivers because the human visual system sucks at judging relative velocity at distance. Radar uses both the Doppler effect to directly measure both relative velocity and the range to the object to instantly see if vehicle in front of them is slowing, braking, or braking hard.

As for turn signals, autonomous vehicle can use them to communicate but they won't assume they are 100% accurate. The funny part is that as the number of autonomous vehicles on the road goes up, human drivers are going to find that they must use turn signals to change lanes. Video of unsignalled lane changes will be uploaded to the police.

AH - no, it is not the buildings not at all. The buildings are not going to move (You don't move factories to make easy driving for robot cars). I worked for a company that did DoD work and I can guarantee you that no one outside of the authorized people and systems talked to anything inside those complexes.

And if you are only going to use break lights and turn signals, how are you going to get information about a wreck, weather related incidents, avalanches, closed roads, road work or local disaster. These autonomous vehicles are going to have to be able to get this information rather than sitting still on the road. If you suggest GPS and wireless communications, then you have contradicted yourself from your earlier statements.

How do human drivers get information about a wreck, weather related incidents, avalanches, closed roads, road work or local disaster? Or do human drivers sit by the side of the road if they can't get that information? Both humans and autonomous vehicles can benefit from mobile communications and GPS but neither requires these technologies to get places.

Seattle is making it very hard for all but the top 1% to have cars in the core downtown area. But not to worry, the working stiffs don't live there since rents are so high and climbing higher that to live downtown is to be rich. The transit system is overcrowded and the trains are running at a capacity that the scoffers said would not be reached until midcentury. Rents are as high or higher than Manhattan and the middle class is being pushed out to the burbs. Uber and Lyft drivers are working more and getting less and less money. It is almost as bad as San Francisco where $117K a year is not quite enough to have a "good" apartment/condominium within the cities boundaries.

Speculators are buying mid 1920 houses, tearing them down and putting up three story leggo structures with a shared kitchen so they don't have to qualify for parking or being labeled an "apartment". Those things are selling out before they are even being completed. So being a place that is expensive is right now not the near future. Many of the streets (infrastructure) downtown are torn up for new construction and the one transit line has been shut down due to cost over runs and is behind schedule. The extension of light rail is going on, but the federal money has dried up since WA did not vote for the correct person and it will be delayed a few more decades or so.

And not an autonomous vehicle in sight.

Sorry for the rant but optimism needs to be tempered by looking out the window now and again.

The rant is well deserved! I go to Boston about once a month where I have clients and friends. And my sister lives in the SF bay area. They rightly rant just like you do about parking, transit, costs, etc. Cities like Seattle, Boston, and SF are a mess which is why you could not pay me enough to live in them.

[Racer X 69]

Go back and understand why the spaceship in Alien was way out there. Hint - it was a refinery.

The ship in the first Alien movie was Nostromo, a commercial space tug.

[MarkJerling]

We're in no danger of running out of oil. However, running an electric car costs around 5 cents per km to run, while a petrol driven vehicle works out to an average of 71c/km here. Almost all our energy is from renewables (either hydro or wind or geothermal) so from an environmental point of view, electric is the way to go.

It's a quandary. I like V8's!

[lesmore49]

We're in no danger of running out of oil. However, running an electric car costs around 5 cents per km to run, while a petrol driven vehicle works out to an average of 71c/km here. Almost all our energy is from renewables (either hydro or wind or geothermal) so from an environmental point of view, electric is the way to go.

It's a quandary. I like V8's!

I'm the same. I like V8's ! Also Norton Atlas twins. Nothing quite like experiencing...the acceleration and perhaps more importantly the aural sensations of a high winding, healthy and breathed upon internal combustion engine, in my humble opinion. I know, not everyone shares that experience to the same degree as yours truly.

Where I live we produce both oil and electricity. We have huge hydro dams in the northern part of our province that produce enough to sell to other jurisdictions.

My concern is that although the cost of electricity is reasonable out here...so was oil production's eventual cost to the consumer, originally. But then politicians regularly increased tax on fuel, then advocacy groups got involved in a variety of areas related to the question of gas/oil and costs to the consumer increased there. Profit margins for companies that accessed the oil/gas, sold it, processed it, marketed it...well they needed to increase the cost to the consumer and the increase was ...I suspect ...not always an accurate reflection of their 'costs'. And countries that were oil producers formed oil production associations that dictated (invariably an increase) the price to the consumer. Etc., and etc.

If we all have electric or electric/internal combustion hybrids...where electricity becomes the main 'fuel' ...me thinks the process will be the same, probably is anyway in many places. A lot of people, companies, politicians, pressure groups, countries want their piece of the consumer .

You mentioned that we are in no danger of running out of oil I agree...new oil is found regularly. I'm an old guy and recall back in the 1970's pressure groups saying we had to get away from gas/oil as a source of energy as we were going to run out this resource very soon. That didn't happen of course and the fact that oil was not in short supply became clear to most. So a different rationale to get away from oil had to be found..some would say.

I wish I wasn't so cynical. Age and the observations that come with age will do that to you.

[dbs]

Hi All
I haven't seen Alien but synyhetic oils are used widely so oil based is not needed.
Unfortunately politics and profit undermine common sense.
OIl is a finite resource we won't be around when the next batch is ready (,what 5 million years )
The power we need in the future hasn't been invented yet ,so batteries as we know it will be obsolete

Dave

[lesmore49]

Hi All

OIl is a finite resource we won't be around when the next batch is ready (,what 5 million years )


Dave

A modern take is that oil is not produced by decaying fossils...but actually is a naturally occurring product that comes from vast carbon deposits...which may have been formed during the formation of earth. It is certainly food for thought as new oil seems to be continually discovered.

[MarkJerling]

....new oil seems to be continually discovered.

It's not new oil, but a new discovery. Thing is, it's expensive to do oil exploration, so nobody wants to explore for reserves that may not be needed for many years. Truth is, we have no idea how much of the stuff there is.