Self-Driving Cars vs. the Airlines

i could be in florida in 24 hours, need a sleeper car.

 

i believe it is coming, i just don't know how long it will take. there doesn't seem to be much push back though, i see a lot of politicians signing bills allowing tasing on public streets.

i can imagine whole entertainment systems on wheels.

 

I doubt many people are going to buy an autonomous RV to travel in if they already don't own an RV.
With that expense you could afford to go business class on many flights.
Cars have gotten real safe over the past few decades, but a lot of that is due to safety in an accident, such as seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, etc. These things, sort of, go away in an RV with people sleeping in them.

So instead of owning are you going to rent an autonomous RV? What will that cost compared to an airline ticket?
Certainly more than an RV rental today whatever that is.
Plus the CO2 emitted per mile will likely be quite high unless it is electric. Now you've got to recharge it a few times every 24 hours...It will be a long time before this is practical enough to matter.

Mike

 

Speed vs cost.
Plane vs car.

I for one despise air travel....no need to air travel except to meet my Russian bride (joke...LOL).
I'd have a desire to utilize my car and avoid the entire air travel experience.

If an "auto" car can go S. Francisco to New York in 8 hours for $400 round trip (in other words less than plane fare) it may win the versus war.
Spending 4 days going cross county by car could be considered not effective or efficient.

3000 miles (6000 round trip) wear & tear/ tires/ depreciation/ even fuel for the car may exceed the cost of a plane ticket.

Then there is the road surface infrastructure, especially pot hole repairs!
Interesting topic.​

 

Gee.....
I thought this was going to be a thread discussing the technical difficulty differences between self-driving and airline automation.
For me (YMMV) this is even MORE of a no-brainer....

When I make my quarterly sojourn to my beloved home state (IN) I always drive....because I STILL LIKE TO DRIVE.

I can take three different routes that differ by less than an hour and a half, but even the longer of these isn't significantly longer, driveway to driveway.
By the time you have to deal with ground transportation, TSA , and the one or two mandatory layovers, and shifting luggage...it's more expensive and aggravating flying than driving.
I'm pretty sure that when I die and go to either heaven OR hell I'll have to layover in Atalanta.
...and many times I can punch out the 10 hour trip more quickly, based on the dozen or so times that I've been forced to fly.

When I drive....it's cheaper, and I usually arrive refreshed after having listened to an audiobook or filled my curiosity tank with podcasts, witnessed the wonders of scenery as it transitions from flat to bumpy, and back again from ground level, and having eaten something more substantial than a bag of peanuts.

OK...so I have a brother that's doing 20 to life out on the left coast, and so the algebra is a little different if I want to go to Caly (I DON'T!!), but on at least ten occasions I've had the opportunity to drive out west, or to the nor'east on business rather than fly when I worked for dot.gov simply by "volunteering" to haul equipment.....and I would not trade those experiences for anything.

life is a journey....not a destination.

FLY?!

Maybe.
If I have to....
But I won't willingly PAY for the 'privilege' unless it's on an interesting aircraft and I get one of the front seats!

 

by the time we have self driving cars, most people won't own. it will be all ride share or corporate vehicles.

you want a car, suv, truck, rv, bus, whatever. call it, it picks you up and takes you where you want to go.

 

It is definitely a ponderable. An airplane is just a gigantic self driving vehicle that you share with a bunch of other people.

A train is a gigantic self driving vehicle that you share with a bunch of other people, who are considerably less miserable than other people on an airplane.

A self driving RV is a really small train with no tracks.

 

Interesting thread that echos one in another forum about going to the June 21, Munro & Associates, EV Conference, Auburn Hills, MI:

	Requirement	Fly	Drive
1	Drive to and park local airport	Yes	No
2	Parking fee	$10	No
3	Plane / Charging	$600	$50
4	Luggage size and weight	50 lbs	+500 lbs
5	Food choices	limited	unlimited
6	Security inspection	Yes	No
7	Hops - stops time	1 - 2 hr	8 - 3 hr
8	Leg room/stretch	No	Yes
9	Car rental/Uber	$80	No
10	Block-to-Block	6 hr	14 hr
11	Nap time stretched out	none	unlimited
12	Operate / AutoPilot	0%	10%

• I drove and never looked back
• Cheaper flights do not allow attending the conference
• AutoPilot handled Interstate driving, lane keeping, and speed management
  • also +50% of urban driving
• On the drive home, I took an hour nap on a foam mattress in the car

Bob Wilson

 

i wonder how much fuel/pollution would be saved by killing the airline industry

 

this is why we drive to florida, until we can't. yes it's 3 days vs one, but all the other factors outweigh that inconvenience, and i have nothing but time

 

i don't think there will be any congestion with self driving cars, and if we can move to all renewable fuels, it will be much better than 75 mpg.

there will still be the need to cross water, unless we get self driving boats

 

It was my habit to ask the crew when getting off how much fuel and how many seats. The big savings are a block-to-block speed measured in hundreds of miles per hour.

Bob Wilson

 

There is expected to be big growth in air travel, straining ability to get qualified pilots etc, so there is that. I suspect there is plenty of market to share with autos. Meanwhile, come over here and take the Auto-Train to FL.

 

I have always been skeptical about self-driving vehicles because anticipating the unanticipated (other drivers) is not always feasible - even with AI. Autopilots work in aircraft because spacing in traffic environment is controlled by the ATC. In an automobile, the traffic environment is unregulated... ...and all those other drivers represent a huge amount of "unanticipated" that can happen at any moment. I expect self-driving cars to go the way of bubble memory. Either it won't happen - in this case because of state regulations - or at most, it will be no more than a glorified form of high-tech cruise control with an alert driver presence mandatory at all times.

 

Talk about confirmation bias: https://www.motortrend.com/news/consumer-reports-right-wrong-tesla-autopilot/

. . . there's methodology and belief, and then there's the actual experience. On his transcontinental jaunt from Chicago to L.A., Alan averaged 730 miles per day at 70 mph, each day, stopping three to four times to supercharge. Although the traffic was generally light, dodging potholes (which NoAP can't predict) had him on continuous alert.
. . .​

I tend towards more frequent, 6-8, shorter charge sessions but otherwise, we're on the same page.

Bob Wilson