Originally Posted by Spuds (Post 3530445)

I would be fine getting an EV as a third car to run around town in if I had a powered third garage space and they weren't more expensive than my other two cars combined. But I don't and they aren't.

Originally Posted by clio (Post 3530457)

The potential for EV's is huge imho. It isn't too difficult to imagine this imho:

1) EV's drive themselves (Tesla is already making big gains in this space)
2) Cars 'talk' to one another in real time, and
3) ... This makes them all but crash proof, meaning most impact safety systems could be removed from vehicles (reducing cost and weight)
4) Traffic lights could be removed. All traffic is staggered and speed governed to ensuring a non-stop journey. Traffic will simply 'interlace'
5) Uber-style transport, without drivers, will be ridiculously cheap meaning most people will not have to own cars.

Whilst as a driving enthusiast this sounds awful I think a future that resembles this is very likely

Originally Posted by PulsarBeeerz (Post 3530461)

You could accomplish all this with ICE vehicles. None of what was mentioned is exclusive to EVs. Also, we were supposed to have flying cars by now.:iono:

Originally Posted by PulsarBeeerz (Post 3530461)

You could accomplish all this with ICE vehicles. None of what was mentioned is exclusive to EVs. Also, we were supposed to have flying cars by now.:iono:

Originally Posted by Dadhawk (Post 3530497)

Toyota/Subaru are trying to ease us into flying cars. That's the only explanation I can see for the huge wings on the side of the GEN2. GEN3 will replace those with foldable wings. In fact Subaru already has the patent filed for it.

https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/ima...erything_1.jpg

Originally Posted by clio (Post 3530457)

2) Cars 'talk' to one another in real time, and
3) ... This makes them all but crash proof, meaning most impact safety systems could be removed from vehicles (reducing cost and weight)

Originally Posted by WolfpackS2k (Post 3530439)

^^^Does nothing for sustainability. Just dressing up the same problem in a new costume. Which is fine, when the government isn't shoving it down your throat.

Originally Posted by PulsarBeeerz (Post 3530461)

You could accomplish all this with ICE vehicles. None of what was mentioned is exclusive to EVs. Also, we were supposed to have flying cars by now.:iono:

Originally Posted by clio (Post 3530457)

The potential for EV's is huge imho. It isn't too difficult to imagine this imho:

1) EV's drive themselves (Tesla is already making big gains in this space)

Originally Posted by clio (Post 3530457)

2) Cars 'talk' to one another in real time, and

Originally Posted by clio (Post 3530457)

3) ... This makes them all but crash proof, meaning most impact safety systems could be removed from vehicles (reducing cost and weight)

Originally Posted by clio (Post 3530457)

4) Traffic lights could be removed. All traffic is staggered and speed governed to ensuring a non-stop journey. Traffic will simply 'interlace'

Originally Posted by clio (Post 3530457)

5) Uber-style transport, without drivers, will be ridiculously cheap meaning most people will not have to own cars.

Originally Posted by soundman98 (Post 3530648)

and tesla's doing it by making the every other driver part of the beta testing as well.

the real sticking point with self-driving isn't the 'drive themselves'. it's the liabilities surrounding the driving of themselves. the trolley problem. when something goes wrong, who's fault is it? the auto makers? the individual programmers? the person riding in the car that no longer has control, or isn't ready to take over at a moments notice?

currently, tesla is adamant about placing the blame on the vehicle 'rider' behind the steering wheel.

but if the steering wheel no longer exists, can the blame be placed on the rider? or if the blame must be placed on the auto maker, how long are they liable for it? can i own a 30 year old ev, running 29 year old software, and still blame them for driving through a newly built school?

and if the automaker is liable, what benefit do they have to sell individuals vehicles? it's quite clearly to their advantage liability-wise to create their own rentable fleets of vehicles that can be much easier to maintain to a specific standard.


this has been discussed ad nasuem for the last few decades. they dreamt it up in the 40-50's, and the fcc allotted bandwith in the 5.9ghz portion of teh spectrum for 20 years for the cause
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a3...ange-revealed/

the reality is that no car maker wants to work enough with any other car maker to make any of this even slightly work.

lol, insurance companies aren't likely to do that.


lol, again, never gonna happen. too many different governmental bodies involved. they can't even coordinate the traffic lights in my town, and they're all municipal-owned. 2 of them are fun to trip as i make a left hand turn, cut the corner over the turn lane, and watch the traffic behind me come to a stop for a ghost green light...



why will it be ridiculously cheap? if the automakers are no longer able to sell the cars outright to turn a profit, then they'll need to either be subsidized, or they'll need to charge enough to make a profit that will exceed the manufacturing costs, as well as the recurring operating costs of running a taxi business.

and even worse, if there is minimal competition, what/who will keep the prices in check?

Originally Posted by clio (Post 3530457)

5) Uber-style transport, without drivers, will be ridiculously cheap meaning most people will not have to own cars.

Originally Posted by Dadhawk (Post 3530684)

I see this working in a relatively densely populated area, but how does this work beyond the city limits, and what happens in holiday periods when car utilization exceeds capacity? A business doesn't plan for the extreme case, but for the average case with a little bit of error.

If the "Uber-style" transport has to mingle with personally owned vehicles there will be issues. If vehicles are personally owned, you have to account for 30 year old cars, unless there is no such thing as car ownership, which circles back to liability.

We probably won't get to this in my lifetime, but I can tell you for a fact I'm not going to get in a purely self-driving car with no controls where I am somehow liable for what happens.

Originally Posted by Tcoat (Post 3530702)

.....
As far as liability goes it will have to shake up the whole insurance industry as being a paying passenger in a self driving car could place no responsibly upon a person. Little doubt there are whole teams working on this consideration already.

Originally Posted by Tcoat (Post 3530702)

.. But, unless you plan on dyeing in the next ten years or so, it is not only possible but probable that you will see a mix of fully autonomous for hire vehicles and 30 year old privately owned ones on the road at the same time in your lifetime.

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0 (Post 3530582)

Did you read the above articles (or try the ones below)? They have developed sodium sulfur batteries and lithium sulfur batteries that don't use cobalt and are more energy dense and have long life cycles. There is more sulfur and sodium than what is needed to power the whole world with batteries and then some. Once mined, the recycling of batteries for raw materials means the sustainability only gets better, especially if we use car batteries for grid storage prior to recycling.

They have already developed sodium sulfur batteries to 300 cycles. At 400miles of range x 12k miles per year that is 30 cycles/year, so that is 10 years for a battery, and it will only get better and more sustainable. The world has really only been doing massive research for batteries for a short time. Before that, the use was for cell phones and computers, which is on a completely different scale, so the research wasn't focused as much on sustainability and environmental impact in the same way and at the same scale.

https://www.freethink.com/environmen...sulfur-battery

https://automotivepowertraintechnolo...echnology.html

Once we can get renewables into a place where there is an abundance of energy, then we can move to even smaller batteries, if we transition to hydrogen.

These solutions are sustainable and better than oil.