End of Private car ownership - thoughts?
- Thread starter ShiWarrior
- Start date
Soldato
True. But I would imagine most people would want cars at similar times, so the same would be true of a hire arrangement.
What happens between 4 and 5 when nearly all the working population want a vehicle to get home from work, or around 8 ish in the morning for the school run?
Soldato
There is the option/discussion of having a community based system with vehicle enrolment to support the local network, with the 'owner' selecting what hours the vehicle would be available, and also being paid for having their vehicle enrolled in the system. Makes a lot of sense as not everyone keeps the same hours or need a vehicle at the same time. This isn't getting rid of ownership, but allowing people who have less need to be supported by others who can't manage without a car in their name. It's dead easy to poo poo and idea before it even gets of the ground and call it impossible, much like those with horses an carts did with the automobile, saying how stupid they would be in rural areas with bad roads, and no where to get fuel.
Different but in a similar principal I have my EV charging point available on an app, so that others can request to use it if they wish and when they are in my local vicinity.
Soldato
How am I going to get my mountain bike to the middle of Wales for a day out?
Surely this wacky idea can never happen. Never know with these idiots though, they'll force though impractical ideas that work for them and frustrate the hell out of everyone else.
Surely this wacky idea can never happen. Never know with these idiots though, they'll force though impractical ideas that work for them and frustrate the hell out of everyone else.
Soldato
Wow! You win the internet.
How many people do you think can afford to go and buy a new Ford Focus? Never mind a car costing £5000 more than a Focus?
This is before we get into the charging them all on a terraced back street, or busy main road.
Many can’t even park outside their houses never mind charge an electric vehicle.
Your comment really is incredibly stupid and offensive if you stop to actually think
for a moment.
It's possible in our live times that we get to a point where all NEW cars that are produced are only obtainable via lease/rental/hire. That form of ownership does seem to be where we tend to be going with everything in our throw away society with rampant consumerism and capitalism. It's all about selling a service. This is the business model of profit. I can't ever see it being like a taxi service though.
The problem is the premise of the thread, it sets up a reaction of 'it will never happen' or 'this is definitely happen type answers'. Can pubic transport ever replace car ownership in the UK? No, not without a substantial shift in the current economics or practicalities of the two options.
However, community cars will be able to take cars off the roads but again they only really work well where you have a higher density of people who can get to the car within a few minutes and have a diverse usage pattern. Towns and cites are ideal but out in the sprawling suburbs, not so much where most people do that 9-5 or school run. Services like Zip Car are pretty popular, more so in Europe but again its very much a town and city thing.
Wow! You win the internet.
How many people do you think can afford to go and buy a new Ford Focus? Never mind a car costing £5000 more than a Focus?
This is before we get into the charging them all on a terraced back street, or busy main road.
Many can’t even park outside their houses never mind charge an electric vehicle.
Your comment really is incredibly stupid and offensive if you stop to actually think
for a moment.
Gosh, take a chill pill mate.
You constantly bang on about BEV's being too expensive to buy, the point is that there are reasonably priced cars coming to market. In reality they are just the beginning of 15+ year transition. Given how many new bog standard hatches/estates/small crossovers at this price point that get put onto the roads in a normal year, I'd say quite a lot of people can afford them. A higher purchase price doesn't make it a more expensive car to own, you know that and it doesn't need explaining.
Likewise most people already have off street parking suitable for home charging, that is a fact. The gov has completely re-structed the charging grants and targeted them at renters and residents of flats, what is on offer is pretty substantial.
Once the car market gets back to some sense of normality you'd also expect used EV's to depreciate in a similar fashion to current ICE cars and show up in the used market. Current residuals of EV's are just not going to hold up once most cars are electric.
So yeh, pipe dream for most? No and that's before you moved the goal posts on charging which is also fine for most. The one thing you have successfully done is derail the thread though...
I'd be interested in swapping my car for a car share service, if they were free floating and can be left anywhere and were sufficiently ubiquitous to not have to travel across the city to get one. If others did the same we should end up with less cars parked on the road and should allow people to be more open to choosing more viable options such as walking, cycling and public transport* for individual trips. Driving being the default travel option, regardless of distance, isn't a sustainable solution.
The government won't outright ban car ownership overnight. What would they do with the millions of privately owned cars?
https://youtu.be/OObwqreAJ48?t=300
*Public transport needs to be better. Modern comfortable buses that don't vibrate, more frequent schedules so you don't need to look up times, bypass lanes at congestion points. And please, the simplest of them all to fix, sort out the ticketing system. There are 4 or 5 different bus operators here with their own tickets. It should be hop on/hop off with low cost contactless payment (if payment is necessary).
The government won't outright ban car ownership overnight. What would they do with the millions of privately owned cars?
https://youtu.be/OObwqreAJ48?t=300
*Public transport needs to be better. Modern comfortable buses that don't vibrate, more frequent schedules so you don't need to look up times, bypass lanes at congestion points. And please, the simplest of them all to fix, sort out the ticketing system. There are 4 or 5 different bus operators here with their own tickets. It should be hop on/hop off with low cost contactless payment (if payment is necessary).
And imagine if there was already a substantial number of cars on the road that can do this immediately.
https://venturebeat.com/2019/04/22/tesla-plans-to-launch-driverless-taxi-service-in-2020/
And for our resident victor meldrew who just can't possibly get his head around anything other than a 520D:
"Tesla expects that rides in its driverless taxi fleet will cost $0.18 cents a mile compared to the $2 to $3 cost of traditional ridesharing. And on the vehicle owner side of the equation, it’s projecting gross profit of $0.65 per mile for a total of $30,000 per car per year on average, assuming the cars in question last about 11 years."
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
It is a shame we can't have a sensible discussion about this without descending to that isn't it? Lets try anyway (btw, I don't have a 520d).
I don't think there is absolutely no demand for a driverless taxi service. There probably is. Infact, the demand is probably at least as big as the demand for a conventional taxi service, probably a bit more. But this is absolutely not the same thing as the common view held here that nobody will want a car ever again because they can just get a driverless taxi to pick them up. Let's explore this a bit further and we'll use you as a case study.
My understanding is that you drive a Mercedes E43 AMG. This is a really, really nice car. I applaud your choice.
It's somewhat more expensive to buy and own than a Toyota Prius. It's even somewhat more expensive to buy and own than an E220d, a car which looks the same inside and out and offers largely the same experience to anyone who isn't driving. But you still bought it - because you like it. Because your desires and requirements for a car extend beyond basic or even plush transport from A to B. The car is more to you than that or you'd not have bought it.
The same largely goes for most people on here - this entire forum is proof that vehicles are not purely a tool for a job. I suspect you are not also arguing on the What Induction Hob? forums with similar passion?
So why would you suddenly give it up purely because you could summon a taxi to your house if you needed to go anywhere? I bet you wouldn't.
So I ask again - where is this assumption that the entire planet would rather summon a driverless car than own one themselves coming from?
I see driverless taxis as a viable product alongside a load of other options, not the complete and total future of cars. I'm really surprised my opinion is receiving so much criticism on here as I'd have thought it was a fairly logical view.
Soldato
How can the fare be $0.18 per mile yet the owner is making $0.65 per mile profit?
Also, 11 years at $30,000/$0.65 = 507,000 miles in total. Half a million miles on every EV?
Soldato
Cars block roads, disfigure estates without even moving, which is most of the time. People don't use garages even if they have them. Personal car ownership will become niche, it is bound too for economic, technological and social reasons
Great question, where is this assumption coming from? Because every time this topic comes up all you do is say Taxi's already exist
This forum is the fringe use case. We sell more everyday cars used as white goods than E43s. I own two cars, an E43 and an Ibiza FR. I'd get rid of the Ibiza FR in a heart beat if I could get a reliable rental service that allows me to summon the vehicle to my door. It would probably delete about 90% of the cars off of my road as well, which in turn, means my beautiful E43 will stop getting god damn hit by useless drivers attempting to parallel park
Soldato
Being able to call a car to my house, in a semi-rural area (up a small track, too) in five minutes? That's not going to happen. I have to book taxis days in advance, unless i'm feeling lucky.
Above all the conveniences of having a vehicle I like sitting there ready and waiting, I'd certainly rather be able to dive in and get to hospital or family/friend in an emergency, even breaking speed limits slightly if I feel like it.
That single (already had a couple) instance would be worth it.
This might be one of those things that might work in cities, though.
Above all the conveniences of having a vehicle I like sitting there ready and waiting, I'd certainly rather be able to dive in and get to hospital or family/friend in an emergency, even breaking speed limits slightly if I feel like it.
That single (already had a couple) instance would be worth it.
This might be one of those things that might work in cities, though.
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Similar situation for me, there is no way that a service would be quick or very useful where i am. This is a city idea only. No taxi service, driverless or not, is sending a taxi to my house for a reasonable price and within a reasonable timeframe.
This brings the argument back to that which Fox has mentioned - driverless technology is evolutionary not revolutionary. My brother lives in the middle of a capital city for example, he has not needed or wanted a private car for years despite easily being able to accommodate one. He has an amazing mix of uber within a few minutes day or night, zipcars everywhere for a quick shopping trip which he grabs any time he wants, and further to that, multiple traditional rental locations within a short walk if he wants to grab a car for a long weekender.