On Tuesday, Waymo announced they’d purchase 20,000 sporty, electric self-driving vehicles from Jaguar for the company’s forthcoming ride-hailing service. [...]
They estimate that the Jaguar fleet alone will be capable of doing a million trips each day in 2020. [...] if Waymo is even within 50 percent of that number in two years, the United States will have entered an entirely new phase in robotics and technology.
— The Atlantic
In his piece for The Atlantic, Alexis C. Madrigal looks beyond the technological and economic implications of Waymo's latest announcement to add 20,000 electric self-driving Jaguar I-Pace SUVs to its rapidly growing ride-hailing fleet by 2020 and instead think about the social (how comfortable/uncomfortable will we be around so many robots?), legal (what if a city wants to declare itself a "robocar-free zone"?), and urban planning effects (how will infrastructure redevelopment change our existing cities in the 21st century?).
Renewable energy is obviously the future. But replacing every gas powered personal vehicle with a grid-powered electric vehicle accomplishes nothing (aside from enriching various financial and industrial interests) and is simply the illusion of progress.
The illusion of progress prevents real progress because people
think that the problem is solved. Meanwhile they are still paying a
large percentage of their income to own personal electric vehicles, sit in traffic, and jockey for parking spaces around which the built environment is designed.
Imagine a city without cars. Every street would be the High Line.
This is - like everything - an economic issue. The "cost" of public transit is a burden on society (everybody pays, nobody "profits") that pales in comparison to the real economic, social, and environmental costs of personal vehicles.
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Completely misses the most critical issue: the focus on individual personal transport over mass public transit.
FAIL
I agree, mas transit is still the best at transporting people through densely populate areas. The amount of road space these cars transporting 2-3 people at most will further slow down traffic on surface streets. A single buss can transport the equivalent road space of 3 lanes of 2-3 people per a car taking up a space a block long.
But that assumes public transit riders opt entirely for self-driving cars, which I think does not have to be the case. Why would you not equally assume these vehicles will remove some cars from the road, the vast majority of which have just one passenger, even in major urban areas. Especially when autonomous vehicles can group rideshares, you might actually call them small buses, if in fact some people opt to commute via that transport who normally drive single
I beg to differ, Miles, as I think change needs to come from all sides. It's not realistic to imagine that Public Transit can reach every part of the country.
History provides the lesson that has been followed religiously by industrialists: Henry Ford bought up streetcar companies and then closed them down to increase demand for his automobiles.
While not everyone can be accommodated by public transit, in particular tradespeople who carry around tools and materials, delivery services, etc., the majority of car traffic consists of one person per vehicle.
As for public transit reaching every part of the country, there is clearly a relationship between population density and service. But that's not the issue when cities are clogged with traffic and smog. It's not an issue of affordability because the entire economic system is a sham (but that is another discussion).
Arguing the efficiency of electric vehicles is absurd when you're using a 3,000 pound device to transport a 150 pound person. What you fuel it with is essentially irrelevant because it's only 5% cargo efficient to begin with. People think electric vehicles are highly efficient when all they've done is relocate the energy source to an energy grid that is only 30% efficient. So instead of burning gas locally you're burning gas / coal / oil / plutonium remotely.
Then there are huge societal effects (or "costs", if you like) of traffic, parking, and pollution. Then there are the economics of ownership: on top of fuel, maintenance, insurance, etc., people routinely buy cars that cost > 50% of their gross annual income and spend years slavishly paying them off. This is just another form of debt servitude, with the joke being that at the end - unlike a house - a car is only worth a small fraction of what you paid for it.
Obviously the best solution would be to achieve the best ratio of urbanity/convenience so we would need no personalized transit. But as we know, that will not happen in our lifetime. I still think this is a better way to go than hybrid/electric cars that still use electricity produced by non-clean methods and have huge wastes in terms of battery etc.
There are lots of very interesting studies being made charting the effects of car-ownership-as-a-service (rather than a commodity), and the effects on the urban realm are stunning. Less parking lots/structures, reduction in right-of-way dimensions, converting of streets to walking promenades, so on and so forth. These are very tangible moves to make our cities better, and hence i do not feel that this is a complete "fail".
"But as we know, that will not happen in our lifetime."
Only because we won't make it happen.
Unfortunately, Miles, the General Motors streetcar conspiracy is just that -- a greatly misunderstood and yet widely peddled conspiracy. Here's a nice *brief* summary from the folks at City Lab.
"Only because we won't make it happen." -- The Guy Not Making It Happen While Complaining About A Company That Is Making It Happen
National City Lines (owned by GM, Firestone, Standard Oil, and Phillips Petroleum) bought street car systems and shut them down, replacing them with buses. NCL was convicted in Federal Court for conspiring to monopolize sales. GM and the rest were also convicted of conspiracy and given minimal fines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_City_Lines#History
Keep up the anonymous shilling for Waymo. It's really effective.
You do realize that both my City Labs link and your Wikipedia links are in reference to the same thing?
Issue 1: Your original comment was about Henry Ford's nefarious scheme to sell cars. My City Labs link (and your Wikipedia article) are about National City Lines trying to push buses (a different form of mass transit). On top of that, it was GM, not Henry Ford. Also of importance, NCL's original goal was " to purchase transportation systems in cities 'where street cars were no longer practicable' and replace them with passenger buses." So we've got a company trying to monopolize an alternative mode of mass transit, not push cars, making your original comment moot.
Issue 2: Because I disagree with you I *must* be a corporate shill... Mkay.
Here's the thing. While I agree with you that mass transit is an issue worth tackling, that's not the issue Waymo has chosen to tackle. So to me your point sounds like "this headache medicine is not fixing my sunburn." Independent studies have shown that elderly populations in the US are increasingly relying on cars despite the fact that as they age they tend to become less able to drive. On top of that, public transit options are often not in place to give them independence or mobility. And Waymo's original mission statement? You guessed it -- to increase mobility for those in need (and safety). So here we have a company trying to solve a *different* problem, and it turns out that it's a problem that mass transit systems may not be able to solve. Additionally, as sameolddoctor pointed out, there are likely some very positive side effects to this "autonomous vehicle revolution."
My point about the GM/Ford/buses/cars was merely an aside. I'll address your full point as I think I understand it:
(1) You acknowledge that "the majority of car traffic consists of one person per vehicle." (2) You also concede the point that public transit reaching every part of the country is bound by the relationship between population density and service. (3) More fully, I think your point was about cities being "clogged with traffic and smog." I don't disagree with (1) or (2), and (3) appears directly affected by (1) and (2). So still no disagreement from me.
You say that "arguing the efficiency of electric vehicles is absurd when you're using a 3,000 pound device to transport a 150 pound person. What you fuel it with is essentially irrelevant because it's only 5% cargo efficient to begin with." but you've already acknowledged those realities in (1) and (2). So is your point here that we should instead be solving issues (1) and (2) and by consequence (3) will be solved?
You then go on to argue about the efficiency of electric vehicles. And I think there's a misstep. Idealists (or whatever you want to call them; let's not get caught up in names or semantics) probably don't want to "[burn] gas / coal / oil / plutonium remotely," they want to generate energy via more sustainable methods like hydroelectric, solar, and wind. Emphasis on the word "more" because while none of them are without their own problems, are we at least in agreement that they're at least better than coal or oil? I think an electric car powered by renewable energy is a better reality than a gas powered cars and burning coal / oil. Am I wrong? If not, then it seems like we're at least starting to make improvements (progress) towards reducing smog (half of issue (3)).
We can talk about how these innovations are affecting the second half of (3) -- sameolddoctor touched on it -- and I'd start the discussion by intuiting that yes, these technologies will likely have a net positive effect. Do you disagree?
There is no magic bullet, but I think it's disingenuous to say that we're not making progress.
As to your point that "people routinely buy cars that cost > 50% of their gross annual income and spend years slavishly paying them off. This is just another form of debt servitude, with the joke being that at the end - unlike a house - a car is only worth a small fraction of what you paid for it," I agree, those people are idiots. =)
Renewable energy is obviously the future. But replacing every gas powered personal vehicle with a grid-powered electric vehicle accomplishes nothing (aside from enriching various financial and industrial interests) and is simply the illusion of progress.
The illusion of progress prevents real progress because people
think that the problem is solved. Meanwhile they are still paying a
large percentage of their income to own personal electric vehicles, sit in traffic, and jockey for parking spaces around which the built environment is designed.
Imagine a city without cars. Every street would be the High Line.
This is - like everything - an economic issue. The "cost" of public transit is a burden on society (everybody pays, nobody "profits") that pales in comparison to the real economic, social, and environmental costs of personal vehicles.
its more efficient to make cars cleaner and safer than to completely overhaul the already built road infrastructure and replace it with some new modes of transit. Electric self driving cars/buses aren't as sexy as high speed rail, but its a way more realistic goal.
I think one day our grandkids will find it crazy that people used to drive manually...its a very dangerous thing. We always talk about the environment, and its important, but saving the 1.3 million people die every year in crashes should be a big part of the conversation. For some reason no one ever talks about this? Autonomous vehicles can have a huge impact on safety in the coming decades.
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