Author Topic: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?  (Read 24219 times)

swampwiz

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I was reading/watching this, and it got me interested:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-03/gm-s-cruise-draws-2-75-billion-from-honda-in-self-driving-pact

I'd be very worried that my new car would become obsolete in a few years.  I'm going to do the Moustachian thing and keep driving my 2003, 165K mileage VW.

Cranky

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No. The value of our car is strictly in convenience, and I don’t see that evaporating in the next 10 years.

ixtap

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I don't believe it is the kind of technology that will see a 100% turnover all of the sudden. It will be more like the EV's, which we currently can't produce fast enough to keep up with demand.

the_fixer

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We have some collector cars in the family and in the last few years I have been thinking that someday they might not be allowed to drive on the road or restricted to only certain lanes / areas.

Once self driving cars are the norm driver based cars would seem to be an issue so it would only make sense.

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zolotiyeruki

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New car? I think you might have this forum mixed up with Bogleheads!

My car is 24 years old and has 225,000 miles. It barely has front air bags, and has no ABS let alone any sort of traction control. It has a nonfunctional tape deck and splotchy paint. It might be worth $400 on the open market. However, it is in perfect mechanical condition and still gets 35 mpg on the highway. Its value to me, as Cranky says, comes from the convenience it affords me.

I bought the car just before DW and I got married 15 years ago.  And since I do almost all my own maintenance and repair, I am likely to achieve my goal of having our kids learn to drive in it.

swampwiz

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I am likely to achieve my goal of having our kids learn to drive in it.

I think the whole meme of driving a car will be in large part obviated very quickly when driverless cars get going.  I think that any child under the age of 12 today will not have to learn to drive.

DreamFIRE

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LOL.  This doesn't concern me in the least.   Maybe ask me in 50 years.

Abe

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Value? As in sell the car before the doors fall off? Why would we do that when the doors can be taped back on?

In all seriousness, I assumed the value of my car was $0 after driving it off the lot since that's what it'll be worth once I buy a new car in 20 years.

Laserjet3051

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No. I drive cars until they become worthless. There is no way for driverless cars to reduce my cars future resale value of ~$0.

oldladystache

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When I bought my new car in 2016 I did it with the thought that it would probably be almost worthless in 10 years. I can live with that.

YttriumNitrate

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #10 on: October 03, 2018, 10:27:57 PM »
Nope, not at all. Back in the early 90s I was really excited about throwing away my keyboard because Dragon's voice dictation software was going to render them obsolete, but a quarter century later here I am typing this on a keyboard. Voice dictation has gotten to the point where it's pretty good for some uses, but it still has a while before its accuracy rivals a key board in many situations. Similarly, I figure we are at least another 20 years before self driving cars overtake human driven cars, but I do think that automated highway driving will become common in the next 5-10. It is the edge cases (think icy / dusty side roads) that are going to take a while.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2018, 11:02:55 PM by YttriumNitrate »

Syonyk

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #11 on: October 03, 2018, 10:53:48 PM »
Well... new car?

*checks the URL*

Huh.  I guess you mean, "new-to-you used car"?

I think that any child under the age of 12 today will not have to learn to drive.

I hear this a lot.  I plan to teach my kids (currently 3.5 years and 3 months) to drive, fly, and operate everything I can get my hands on, which is an awful lot, because that gives them an advantage over people who can't drive shit, can't back shit, can't hook up a trailer, and can't operate off road. ;)

Value? As in sell the car before the doors fall off? Why would we do that when the doors can be taped back on?

Come on, show some class!  Use zip ties!

Back in the early 90s I was really excited about throwing away my keyboard because voice Dragon's dictation software was going to render them obsolete, but a quarter century later here I am typing this on a keyboard.

You too?  My dad had that, and I spent an awful lot of time training it to recognize my voice and patterns.

... and, as you, am typing this on a keyboard in 2018.

Quote
It is the edge cases (think icy / dusty side roads) that are going to take a while.

Yeah... let me know when a SDC can safely pass a tractor, deal with a cow wandering the road, and back a trailer over a bunch of weeds, and I'll start worrying about them maybe being relevant in the next decade.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2018, 10:55:58 PM by Syonyk »

BookLoverL

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #12 on: October 04, 2018, 12:04:57 AM »
No, because a) my car was 6 years old when I bought it anyway and not that expensive, and b) driverless cars in my opinion have some major issues to work out before they become feasible, such as AI that can actually respond to a new route or a change in road layout sensibly.

Linea_Norway

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #13 on: October 04, 2018, 12:35:28 AM »
My next car will not be a new one. And I think self-driven cars might become the norm in 10 years or so. I also think private car ownership will disappear because of that.

For the moment we just keep driving our 8 year old car which is currently working well. And we will keep our 16 year old car as well as long as we both work. We just had to do a repair to keep it running.

I'm a red panda

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #14 on: October 04, 2018, 06:27:48 AM »
I kind of assume my new car has no value as soon as I buy it.  Like a pair of jeans.  It's value is that I can get places. 


Pigeon

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #15 on: October 04, 2018, 07:06:12 AM »
The thing is, Americans love to drive.  They absolutely adore it.  It's a deeply ingrained part of the culture.  I don't see that going away and it's a different thing entirely than wanting to sit in a vehicle that drives itself.

As someone who loathes driving and for whom self-driving vehicles can't come soon enough, no, I'm not at all afraid that my car's value will be ruined by driverless cars.

Cadman

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #16 on: October 04, 2018, 07:42:25 AM »
And I suspect we are a good 30-40 years from any kind of major adoption outside of localized metro areas or specialized applications. The tech just isn't there yet for poor-weather conditions, let alone the years it's going to take to sort out legislation and insurance of self-driving cars. Even then, I don't see manual controls completely going away.

brute

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #17 on: October 04, 2018, 08:02:30 AM »
Will these driverless cars be able to haul a (literal) ton of firewood out of muddy forests with no defined roads? If not, I think my truck and I will be friends for many years yet to come.

MrsPete

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #18 on: October 04, 2018, 08:16:37 AM »
No, my "new car" is 11 years old and represents less than 1% of my total wealth. 

Laserjet3051

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #19 on: October 04, 2018, 08:19:30 AM »
Will these driverless cars be able to haul a (literal) ton of firewood out of muddy forests with no defined roads? If not, I think my truck and I will be friends for many years yet to come.

Great reply!!

GuitarStv

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #20 on: October 04, 2018, 08:19:50 AM »
No. The value of our car is strictly in convenience, and I don’t see that evaporating in the next 10 years.

+1

A car has no value once I buy it, because I'm not going to resell it.  I'll just drive it until it can no longer be driven.

mak1277

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #21 on: October 04, 2018, 08:20:09 AM »
I'm 41 years old.  I do not believe driverless cars will become ubiquitous in my lifetime.

runbikerun

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #22 on: October 04, 2018, 08:28:37 AM »
I suspect that when driverless cars hit the market, we'll be looking at a turnover of less than three or four years before manually driven cars become effectively worthless.

All that's required is for self-driving cars to be significantly less likely to be involved in an accident (which I strongly suspect will be the case due to stringent safety requirements imposed by regulators). Once that's the case, insuring a self-driving car will cost virtually nothing, and the costs will be loaded almost entirely onto manually driven cars. The severe price difference for insurance will have a strong knock-on effect on used car prices.

GuitarStv

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #23 on: October 04, 2018, 08:46:17 AM »
All that's required is for self-driving cars to be significantly less likely to be involved in an accident (which I strongly suspect will be the case due to stringent safety requirements imposed by regulators). Once that's the case, insuring a self-driving car will cost virtually nothing

I love your optimism . . . but am not convinced insuring a self-driving car will cost virtually nothing.  My experience with insurance companies leads be to believe that they will slowly ratchet up prices for manual cars, and will keep prices about the same for self-driving while quietly pocketing the windfall.

BTDretire

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #24 on: October 04, 2018, 08:53:52 AM »
The average age of cars in 2016 was 11.6 years.
 I suspect driverless cars will be a little more expensive,
and it will take years for most people to warm up to the idea.
Given that, I expect at least 20 years before Driverless cars are
something you see a few times on your daily commute.
(ahh, commute not to work)
Have electric vehicles caught on yet?

Also, I don't have a new car, my daily driver is 21 years old.

DS

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #25 on: October 04, 2018, 08:58:32 AM »
Don't even wear have a belt car. Beltless Carless.

HBFIRE

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #26 on: October 04, 2018, 09:08:09 AM »
My experience with insurance companies leads be to believe that they will slowly ratchet up prices for manual cars, and will keep prices about the same for self-driving while quietly pocketing the windfall.

I dislike insurance companies too, but the space is extremely competitive.  Any company that does this would get undercut instantly.  Car insurance companies aren't overcharging people as much as you might think -- monthly premiums are actually very market efficient.  In fact, when a company finds areas they can re-assess risk to adjust pricing it gives them a competitive advantage (this is why over the years you see discounts given for various things).  They make their money pricing risk accurately, not overcharging.  If risk modeling changes, pricing will change too.  Where insurance companies get nasty is when they try to fight claims.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2018, 09:17:50 AM by dustinst22 »

Cadman

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #27 on: October 04, 2018, 09:43:46 AM »
I take the other view, that insurance will be much higher for self-driving vehicles. With major decisions left to a machine, who will ultimately be held responsible? DUI's, manslaughter, property damage. If it falls back on the owner for not maintaining control (will there still be manual controls?) then owning such a vehicle may not hold as much appeal. There will be cases where these vehicles will take human lives, based on calculations made that instant. That life may be your own. Are you comfortable with that? Are you (and your insurance company) willing to accept the results?






HBFIRE

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #28 on: October 04, 2018, 09:59:05 AM »
I take the other view, that insurance will be much higher for self-driving vehicles. With major decisions left to a machine, who will ultimately be held responsible? DUI's, manslaughter, property damage. If it falls back on the owner for not maintaining control (will there still be manual controls?) then owning such a vehicle may not hold as much appeal. There will be cases where these vehicles will take human lives, based on calculations made that instant. That life may be your own. Are you comfortable with that? Are you (and your insurance company) willing to accept the results?

I agree that determining fault will be more difficult.  I don't think it necessarily logically follows that rates increase because of this. If risk of accidents is greatly diminished, we should see rates and costs also diminish.

zolotiyeruki

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #29 on: October 04, 2018, 10:01:55 AM »
I suspect that when driverless cars hit the market, we'll be looking at a turnover of less than three or four years before manually driven cars become effectively worthless.

All that's required is for self-driving cars to be significantly less likely to be involved in an accident (which I strongly suspect will be the case due to stringent safety requirements imposed by regulators). Once that's the case, insuring a self-driving car will cost virtually nothing, and the costs will be loaded almost entirely onto manually driven cars. The severe price difference for insurance will have a strong knock-on effect on used car prices.
I'm a software developer who's done a fair bit of work with sensors, and let me tell you that dealing with the real world is really, really hard.  If you're dealing solely in the digital domain, like a website or a piece of software, that's one thing.  But measuring and analyzing real-life stuff is hard.  There are orders of magnitude more things that must be taken into account, not the least of which is human behavior.  There are some tasks for which human brains are just better suited at this time.  Just think of all the things that could happen with LIDAR--dirty sensors, a leaf blowing across the road, a trash bag getting snagged, swirling snow, accumulated snow.  Or just human behavior--is that pedestrian going to dart across traffic in front of you?  Is the person across the intersection waving for you to go ahead of them?  Getting accurate inputs into the system is hard to begin with, and making decisions based on that information is super tricky.

Now, certainly computers can reduce a lot of avoidable accidents.  They can react quicker than humans can.  They won't have a tendency to tailgate (any closer than is safe) or road rage.  But there's a lot of very fuzzy logic our brains do that is going to be very difficult to improve upon.

This seems appropriate: https://xkcd.com/2030/
(just replace "voting" with "driving")

MayDay

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #30 on: October 04, 2018, 10:07:53 AM »
The thing is, Americans love to drive.  They absolutely adore it.  It's a deeply ingrained part of the culture.  I don't see that going away and it's a different thing entirely than wanting to sit in a vehicle that drives itself.

As someone who loathes driving and for whom self-driving vehicles can't come soon enough, no, I'm not at all afraid that my car's value will be ruined by driverless cars.

This used to be true but it no longer is. Now many young people dislike it because you can't be on your phone at the same time.

I have an8 and 11 year old. I think both will learn to drive, but won't drive for long.

Psychstache

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #31 on: October 04, 2018, 10:17:17 AM »
It's moreso that 50 years ago, the drivers licence was the golden ticket that got you away from your parents and with your friends. Now it is the smartphone. Kids aren't clamoring to get a learners permits like they used to because they already have an outlet to get to their friends/away from their parents.
The thing is, Americans love to drive.  They absolutely adore it.  It's a deeply ingrained part of the culture.  I don't see that going away and it's a different thing entirely than wanting to sit in a vehicle that drives itself.

As someone who loathes driving and for whom self-driving vehicles can't come soon enough, no, I'm not at all afraid that my car's value will be ruined by driverless cars.

This used to be true but it no longer is. Now many young people dislike it because you can't be on your phone at the same time.

I have an8 and 11 year old. I think both will learn to drive, but won't drive for long.

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BTDretire

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #32 on: October 04, 2018, 10:30:47 AM »
As an occasional bicycle rider, I hope the driverless cars are smart enough to turn on a turn signal.
 

ixtap

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #33 on: October 04, 2018, 10:36:59 AM »
As an occasional bicycle rider, I hope the driverless cars are smart enough to turn on a turn signal.

As a driver, I agree that would be assume. Earlier this summer there was a spat of people changing in lane in the opposite direction of their signal. Um, yeah, I am going to pass you on the left if I see your right signal on, so DON'T COME AT ME.

ketchup

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #34 on: October 04, 2018, 10:37:25 AM »
I don't pencil out any assumptions past about 5-10 years for cars right now.  Our two cars are worth maybe four grand combined, so I'm not too torn up about it one way or the other.

Autonomous cars will arrive soon, and will take things over a lot faster than most people (including in this thread) seem to think.  The used car market will crash pretty hard once autonomous cars reach ubiquity.

GuitarStv

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #35 on: October 04, 2018, 10:46:49 AM »
I don't pencil out any assumptions past about 5-10 years for cars right now.  Our two cars are worth maybe four grand combined, so I'm not too torn up about it one way or the other.

Autonomous cars will arrive soon, and will take things over a lot faster than most people (including in this thread) seem to think.  The used car market will crash pretty hard once autonomous cars reach ubiquity.

Just like how betamax crushed VHS in sales with it's superior technology?  :P  The one thing I know about predicting the future is that it's really hard to predict the future.

ixtap

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #36 on: October 04, 2018, 10:53:21 AM »
I don't pencil out any assumptions past about 5-10 years for cars right now.  Our two cars are worth maybe four grand combined, so I'm not too torn up about it one way or the other.

Autonomous cars will arrive soon, and will take things over a lot faster than most people (including in this thread) seem to think.  The used car market will crash pretty hard once autonomous cars reach ubiquity.

Just like how betamax crushed VHS in sales with it's superior technology?  :P  The one thing I know about predicting the future is that it's really hard to predict the future.

If autonomous cars quickly reach ubiquity in production, used cars will become luxury items.

MilesTeg

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #37 on: October 04, 2018, 10:53:35 AM »
Not even remotely;

* Level 5 autonomous cars (i.e. cars that can actually drive autonomously in most situations) won't exist for decades
* They won't be accessible to the average buyer even longer.
* They won't be trusted by the average buyer even longer than that.
* Plenty of folks prefer to drive themselves anyway.

The only real threat to car ownership is increased public transportation and/or vehicle sharing, which won't happen either in the U.S.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2018, 10:57:06 AM by MilesTeg »

Syonyk

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #38 on: October 04, 2018, 11:15:33 AM »
I suspect that when driverless cars hit the market, we'll be looking at a turnover of less than three or four years before manually driven cars become effectively worthless.

Hah, no.

Maybe in some leftist urban shithole like Seattle that decides they can claim they're being progressive while finding another way to tell anyone making less than $150k a year to fuck off.  It's yet another way to have a policy that looks good, while screwing over the poor they claim to care so much about, so I expect them to do it unless forced by lawsuit to back off.

The rest of the country?  No.

Let me know when they can figure out a tractor or spreader on the road and how to pass safely.  Or deal with actual winter conditions.  And all the other stuff that reality involves.

I'm a software developer who's done a fair bit of work with sensors, and let me tell you that dealing with the real world is really, really hard.  If you're dealing solely in the digital domain, like a website or a piece of software, that's one thing.  But measuring and analyzing real-life stuff is hard.  There are orders of magnitude more things that must be taken into account, not the least of which is human behavior.

Exactly.  Silicon Valley reliably screws up any estimates related to interfacing with reality, because the arrogance of "We're so good at dealing with things in a pure software environment!" leads to a belief that they're godlike with anything that has a computer, and that you can sprinkle some machine learning around to solve any problem.  Physical reality has a way of being obstinate in a manner that a purely software environment isn't, and when the two collide head on, reality wins.  Every single time.  See Tesla.

2Birds1Stone

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #39 on: October 04, 2018, 11:31:57 AM »
No, they can pry the ICE powered, manual gearbox, mechanical steering wheel out of my cold dead hands =D

GuitarStv

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #40 on: October 04, 2018, 11:35:32 AM »
I suspect that when driverless cars hit the market, we'll be looking at a turnover of less than three or four years before manually driven cars become effectively worthless.

Hah, no.

Maybe in some leftist urban shithole like Seattle that decides they can claim they're being progressive while finding another way to tell anyone making less than $150k a year to fuck off.  It's yet another way to have a policy that looks good, while screwing over the poor they claim to care so much about, so I expect them to do it unless forced by lawsuit to back off.

I agree with you that runbiketun's analysis doesn't seem particularly likely from my point of view.  That said . . .this topic has nothing to do with political leanings.  Describing a city as a 'leftist urban shithole' seems well over the limit for polite conversation, as is railing against 'progressives' who have thus far been absent from the thread.  Your bias is showing.  Vehement political attacks out of the blue just kinda make you look like a raving lunatic, not the person with a reasoned opinion that I"m sure you are.

Syonyk

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #41 on: October 04, 2018, 12:02:47 PM »
I agree with you that runbiketun's analysis doesn't seem particularly likely from my point of view.  That said . . .this topic has nothing to do with political leanings.  Describing a city as a 'leftist urban shithole' seems well over the limit for polite conversation, as is railing against 'progressives' who have thus far been absent from the thread.  Your bias is showing.  Vehement political attacks out of the blue just kinda make you look like a raving lunatic, not the person with a reasoned opinion that I"m sure you are.

*shrug*

My point is, I'm certain some city will mandate self driving cars before they work.  Seattle is just the lunacy I'm familiar with.  I expect they'll fight with Portland and San Francisco for the right to ban people without a lot of money from moving around first.  They'll do it in the summer, it'll sort of work for a few months, and then be utterly shocked when winter happens like it does every year and nobody can get anywhere.  Foresight isn't their strong suit if they can Make a Point by doing something silly.

The rest of the country will still be using non-self-driving cars for a long, long time.  Out where I live, 20 year old trucks are still very, very common, and they're used for things I don't expect self driving to handle any time soon.

ketchup

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #42 on: October 04, 2018, 12:36:06 PM »
I don't pencil out any assumptions past about 5-10 years for cars right now.  Our two cars are worth maybe four grand combined, so I'm not too torn up about it one way or the other.

Autonomous cars will arrive soon, and will take things over a lot faster than most people (including in this thread) seem to think.  The used car market will crash pretty hard once autonomous cars reach ubiquity.

Just like how betamax crushed VHS in sales with it's superior technology?  :P  The one thing I know about predicting the future is that it's really hard to predict the future.
Well, I did say I'm not making assumptions past the 5-10 year mark. :P

Regardless though, betamax vs VHS was two competing similar technologies, not an old one and a new one.  A better comparison would be 35mm film to digital cameras.  Sure 35mm film cameras still exist for hobbyists or specialized purposes, but digital cameras overtook them nearly 100% about 5 years after becoming affordable.

Prairie Stash

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #43 on: October 04, 2018, 12:38:43 PM »
I hope so, but its your new car for sale I presume (since I don't own a new car). I'll gladly buy a cheap car off you when its obsolete.

The question is backwards, I see this as an opportunity to save money in the future!

zolotiyeruki

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #44 on: October 04, 2018, 02:43:55 PM »
Autonomous cars will arrive soon, and will take things over a lot faster than most people (including in this thread) seem to think.  The used car market will crash pretty hard once autonomous cars reach ubiquity.
I don't understand the reasoning for why people would suddenly stop using non-autonomous cars once autonomous cars reach viability.  Autonomy is a (very expensive) value-add, like cruise control or bluetooth.  It doesn't invalidate the utility of existing vehicles.

Physical reality has a way of being obstinate in a manner that a purely software environment isn't, and when the two collide head on, reality wins.  Every single time.  See Tesla.
  There's also the element of risk tolerance.  For example, it's not a big deal if, say, Facebook's facial recognition systems malfunction. The consequences for its failure are usually negligible, ranging from "that's not a face" to "that's the wrong face."  Big whoop.  The probability of a failure is allowed to be higher, because the impact of a failure is lower.

Autonomous cars are far different, because the impact of failure is literally "people dying".  As the technology gets better, the probability of failure will decrease, but the impact of failure will remain just as severe.

ketchup

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #45 on: October 04, 2018, 03:12:09 PM »
Autonomous cars will arrive soon, and will take things over a lot faster than most people (including in this thread) seem to think.  The used car market will crash pretty hard once autonomous cars reach ubiquity.
I don't understand the reasoning for why people would suddenly stop using non-autonomous cars once autonomous cars reach viability.  Autonomy is a (very expensive) value-add, like cruise control or bluetooth.  It doesn't invalidate the utility of existing vehicles.
When an autonomous Uber-equivalent is cheaper than driving my own car, why would I drive my own car? At the very least, why would 99% of multiperson households have more than one personal vehicle?

I view an autonomous Uber-equivalent as the true killer app, not privately owned autonomous vehicles.

Syonyk

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #46 on: October 04, 2018, 03:42:53 PM »
When an autonomous Uber-equivalent is cheaper than driving my own car, why would I drive my own car? At the very least, why would 99% of multiperson households have more than one personal vehicle?

Because you have child seats you don't want to haul into the grocery store with you?

Because you have other stuff you wish to carry with you to multiple appointments?

Because you live 20-30 minutes away from where cars are likely to show up and don't believe they'll actually show up when you request one because it's inconvenient?

Because you don't think a self driving car will be able to make it down your driveway in the winter?

zolotiyeruki

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #47 on: October 04, 2018, 04:00:18 PM »
EDIT: dangit, Syonyk beat me to it, and much more succinctly.
Autonomous cars will arrive soon, and will take things over a lot faster than most people (including in this thread) seem to think.  The used car market will crash pretty hard once autonomous cars reach ubiquity.
I don't understand the reasoning for why people would suddenly stop using non-autonomous cars once autonomous cars reach viability.  Autonomy is a (very expensive) value-add, like cruise control or bluetooth.  It doesn't invalidate the utility of existing vehicles.
When an autonomous Uber-equivalent is cheaper than driving my own car, why would I drive my own car? At the very least, why would 99% of multiperson households have more than one personal vehicle?

I view an autonomous Uber-equivalent as the true killer app, not privately owned autonomous vehicles.
I guess that would depend heavily on where you live and what sort of life you live.  We put about 15,000 miles/year on our minivan, most of which is very short, local trips.  When I think of how often we're rushing around putting kids' shoes on, I can only imagine that adding the complexity of effectively calling a cab would be an absolute non-starter, especially given the inevitable wait time.  Also, if it's an uber-like service, that means that you have to make sure the car is spotless every time you get out.  If you've got kids, that's not particularly realistic.  I suppose that radio presets or seat positions could be saved in the cloud.  Buckling in a car seat every time you need to take the kid?  Fuggedaboutit.  Driving somewhere and need to leave something in the car (say, you're taking a picnic lunch)?  That doesn't work with the car sharing model either.  In order to overcome these challenges, you're not just talking about a car that can drive itself.  You're talking about shared cars that are located near you, that have seats that can convert into children's car seats, that are sufficiently numerous to always be available at a moment's notice, regardless of demand.

I know that my car will always be in the garage, waiting for me to use it.  I don't have to worry about forgetting something in it.  I don't have to worry about someone messing with the seat, or whether I've left it clean enough for the next user.  I don't have to worry about whether it'll be there.  It's old, yet reliable, and it costs nearly nothing.  I'm fine driving around my 24-year-old beater, but I'm not a typical consumer, and a newer (shared, autonomous) car still has lots of value that needs to be paid for by its fares.  Over the 15 years and 140,000 miles I've had this car, its purchase price has come out to about 3.2 cents per mile.

There are certainly use cases for which car sharing can be useful.  Going to and from work, for example, where everything I take with me into the car also comes out of the car with me, or errands where I won't be leaving anything in the car when I get out.  Going out to eat or going to an event, sure.

Syonyk

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #48 on: October 04, 2018, 04:04:58 PM »
I do get the impression that most people who are assuming self driving Ubers will take over don't have (young) children...

They'll probably be useful, to some people, some of the time, but all people, all of the time, such that they replace personally owned vehicles?  Unlikely, outside dense urban cores.

Also, we've had UPS trucks get stuck in our driveway in the winter (did you know they have chains?  Personally, I think he could have made it with a running start, but... he decided to chain up).  If we get a layer of hard ice, it becomes quite the challenge to get anything in and out.

moof

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Re: Are you afraid your new car's value will be ruined by the driverless car?
« Reply #49 on: October 04, 2018, 04:14:12 PM »
There is still massive hype with autonomous cars, so take every headline and divide by 10, maybe more.

Insurance:  A frequent trope is to claim that insurance companies will stop insuring regular cars because they will be relatively less safe.  Never mind that classic cars without airbags are still insurable, and that the current average crash liabilities will not suddenly spike because some of the cars are now less crash prone (your rates might actually go down!).

Ownership will become a thing of the past!:  Everybody loves the smell of a well used taxi, right?  A lot of people keep half their life in their cars, between car seats, golf clubs, spare clothes, and god knows what else.  Not owning your own car is going to stay without some major cultural shifts.  Sorry, not gonna happen.  How about never being able to backpack from a cell-free trail head?  How do evacuations work in emergencies like a hurricane?  Want to sit in your driveway for a couple minutes mashing a touch screen to get the darn thing to go EVERY FRICKING TRIP?  How about never being able to easily pick the parking spot you want ever again?

Manual driving will be outlawed!:  Again, see Insurance.  Nobody takes away keys until you are a repeat drunk driver or have crashed multiple times in your old age.  Laws and habits don't change overnight, not even over decades.

Old cars:  How many of your 15+ year old electronics still receive security updates?  Imagine the legal snarl of a 15 year old AI car on the road.  Can your car be banned for lack of software updates, or security holes that easily let hackers crash you?  Can manufacturers disable your car if the tires are sensed to be too bald, or an oil change is overdue?  Can a car be banned because its control software interacts badly with another brand's software resulting in frequent crashes?  It gets messy, which is why so far most sane companies have shied away from promising personal ownership any time soon.  Fleets of well maintained and frequently updated cars is the only way to control for these types of variables in the medium term.

My advice:  Follow the money.  If companies can eliminate labor costs they will try to do so.  Personal commuting costs companies nothing.  So look for autonomous long haul trucking, taxi services, and food delivery to be the first wave.  Next look for it to come to high end luxury cars where almost all features percolate down from.  Maybe in 20-30 years you will be able to get affordable Auto-Drive capability on your Honda Civic, but not in the next decade for sure.

Set expectations:  The difficulty of getting autonomous cars to the 100% level is astronomically hard.  While developments so far are damn impressive, they still rely on a capable driver to take over when the map deviates from the conditions encountered, such as in construction zones.  Many US roads are in bad repair, so expect a lot of frustration for early adopters who will find themselves beeped at to take over far more often than expected.
« Last Edit: October 05, 2018, 04:22:40 PM by moof »

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!