Imagine a vehicle that’s fully autonomous, always connected to power, and can carry more than 4-6 people at a time.
You could allocate lanes specifically for it, too, so it could go super-fast.
We wouldn’t need nearly as much parking, so you could push things closer together and be able to walk to places, and have parks…
Man, that’d be cool. I bet if it ever becomes possible, America will be the first to do it at scale. It would be such a technological and societal advantage, we’d be dumb to not use it to its fullest potential.
Edit:
If only it existed! We could call it a RAIN, for how it cascades people upon a location like rainfall. Or maybe to clarify that it’s for transportation… a T-RAIN? Man, if only… /s
The logistics would be quite cumbersome. How are cars going to go faster than normal car driving speed and safely share the road with other cars? Assuming these are public taxi like vehicles there would also need to be stops to get on and off them like a bus. Or else they would have to come to your house specifically and then you would have to go to someones else’s house to pick up them which would be a privacy / stalking nightmare.
The worst problem of all for autonomous vehicles is the non-standardized road infrastructure across states, the country and the world. Unless we build everything the same it is never going to work in all places.
If we want to get rid of parking lots and transport people automatically and quickly there is a well tested solution that has worked for 100s of years and they are called trains.
At first read I thought you meant swap vehicles while traveling. With how auto manufacturers are moving towards subscription-based models, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that becomes an option. $700/month hot-swappable Ford Fiesta EV’s. Drive one in, take another out, carry on your route.
Roadways that charge your vehicle as you drive on them would be even cooler
Imagine a vehicle that’s fully autonomous, always connected to power, and can carry more than 4-6 people at a time.
You could allocate lanes specifically for it, too, so it could go super-fast.
We wouldn’t need nearly as much parking, so you could push things closer together and be able to walk to places, and have parks…
Man, that’d be cool. I bet if it ever becomes possible, America will be the first to do it at scale. It would be such a technological and societal advantage, we’d be dumb to not use it to its fullest potential.
Edit:
If only it existed! We could call it a RAIN, for how it cascades people upon a location like rainfall. Or maybe to clarify that it’s for transportation… a T-RAIN? Man, if only… /s
The logistics would be quite cumbersome. How are cars going to go faster than normal car driving speed and safely share the road with other cars? Assuming these are public taxi like vehicles there would also need to be stops to get on and off them like a bus. Or else they would have to come to your house specifically and then you would have to go to someones else’s house to pick up them which would be a privacy / stalking nightmare.
The worst problem of all for autonomous vehicles is the non-standardized road infrastructure across states, the country and the world. Unless we build everything the same it is never going to work in all places.
If we want to get rid of parking lots and transport people automatically and quickly there is a well tested solution that has worked for 100s of years and they are called trains.
I was sarcastically arguing for trains. I think maybe I needed to be a bit more obvious. :P
Probably my fault. My apologies. 😅
I’ve seen people make this argument before that we should have pod like autonomous cars do everything.
It’s definitely my fault. I realize after re-reading that it’s exactly what a pod-person would write.
At first read I thought you meant swap vehicles while traveling. With how auto manufacturers are moving towards subscription-based models, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that becomes an option. $700/month hot-swappable Ford Fiesta EV’s. Drive one in, take another out, carry on your route.
Or just turn every road into a railroad and switch out cars for trains.
Choot choot!