What about wall paintings and posters? While I wouldn't mind banning ads from public streets, you can't regulate yourself into safety, the car must be robust enough to deal even with people willing to break the law.

That's true but you can make some assumptions that greatly reduce the edge cases if you apply some basic rules. e.g. I can imagine self driving only lanes with high barriers on either side, at which 200+ mph speeds are achievable.

This "200+ mph self-driving cars" thing gets repeated a lot on HN but I've never seen anything to suggest that it would be remotely fuel-efficient. There is a reason why today's high-speed rail rarely exceeds 200mph / 320km/h, namely that around that value, wind resistance starts to exhibit cubic growth. Even with ultra-dense automated slipstream driving, I can't imagine this being very efficient. Some citations would be greatly appreciated.

Tyres might be an even bigger problem. See the Bugatti Veyron: "It uses special Michelin PAX run-flat tyres, designed specifically to accommodate the Veyron's top speed [258mph / 415 km/h], and cost US$25,000 per set. The tyres can be mounted on the wheels only in France, a service which costs US$70,000" from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Veyron

So your vision of self driving cars involves dedicated roads being built for 200mph speed? So essentially you think the best use case for self driving cars is to replace rail between cities?

Who do you imagine will vote for the many billions of dollars it would cost to build these self-driving Veyron tracks for the absurdly wealthy? The people who can afford 200+ mph cars can probably afford to employ drivers anyway.

Switzerland has a few car shuttle trains ("Autoverlad") to avoid mountain passes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_shuttle_train#Switzerland - no advance booking required. The Eurotunnel shuttle between France and the UK is another great example (but has inflexible bookings).

High-speed car shuttle trains might be the better solution, if you insist on using cars.

That's an entirely different scenario than we're discussing, right?

Yeah of course. I'm just trying to salvage the idea (door-to-door in a car, high speed). Seems like a train for cars would be the solution. Not that it would be particularly efficient, but not as terrible as 200mph cars.

Definitely better than 200mph cars. The Veyron drinks 2 gallons per minute at top speed. (And only gets 8mpg at city speed.)

It's part of the self driving vision. Veyron's could be as cheap as other high-end cars if mass produced. The point of self driving is not really about replacing drivers but making overall transportation more efficient.

The advantage of lanes over trains is that

a) it would be an order of magnitude cheaper to convert a car lane into a self driving lane than build an entire railway line b) self driving cars can still go on normal roads at lower speeds, so you solve the last mile problem

> Veyron's could be as cheap as other high-end cars if mass produced.

Yeah, right. Lack of scale is definitely why the Veyron was so costly. It definitely isn't the difficult engineering with a W12 engine or the $75k tires to keep it from killing the passengers in the event of a flat.

Also, most people don't drive "high end cars". I hope self driving eventually isn't something restricted to the wealthy.

> The point of self driving is not really about replacing drivers but making overall transportation more efficient.

Long haul between cities is not where cars are inefficient. Cars are inefficient in traffic.

> it would be an order of magnitude cheaper to convert a car lane into a self driving lane than build an entire railway line

Not really. You're stealing lanes from cars that can't self drive or can't drive 200mph, so you're making everything worse for everyone else if you do this. You also need to build on ramps and off ramps everywhere because your 200mph lane cannot safely use the same exits as the 70mph lane next to you.

> self driving cars can still go on normal roads at lower speeds, so you solve the last mile problem

The last mile is the real problem, though. Traveling between cities rapidly is not a real problem except for shipping.

I agree high speeds would be achievable but some fundamental aerodynamics must be solved to achieve that. Cars can catch a bit of and gain lift they are often airfoil shaped.

Its not impossible, but the goals of an F1 car are directly at odds with a consumer sedan.

Really?

Is this something people seriously feel government regulation of is needed?

Let people paint whatever they want on their damn cars (within reason). If it triggers a poorly handled edge case that's what insurance and/or lawsuits are for.

An accident that's the result of several consecutive "on in a $largenumber" situations stacked on top of each other isn't something society should be regulation. Regulation that junk is how you wind up with blue laws that only serve to enable society to unfairly harass people decades down the line

> If it triggers a poorly handled edge case that's what insurance and/or lawsuits are for.

Insurance claims and lawsuits are cold comfort for those severely injured in crashes.

I'm not saying regulating the wraps is the right decision, but regulating that autonomous cars must be able to properly react to such scenarios probably is.

In this future you won't own a car, so there's nothing for you to paint.

For the record I rather like owning my own car - I can see why a lot of people (particularly in towns/cities) could live without having their own vehicle but not everyone lives in the centre of a city.

A lot of the "no one will own cars" folks need to get out of their bubble more. The typical car is a sort of moving storage locker and has often been customized for preferences and needs like carrying various types of sports gear. (Also car seats for kids.) Plus, a lot of people just like having a car that they're comfortable in.

I have talked to many people about private cars (out measuring NO2 pollution in cities) and it seems that this is the main argument why they won't give up their car. Kids is another huge argument. Handling kid's gear with rentals or public transport sucks a lot.

My current thinking goes into the direction of small private electrical golf carts for cities since those fulfill the most important requirements given to me by those who say they'd never want to give up their car. One could even make them foldable and stack them upright when parked. Slow speeds mean that not much of a safety buffer is needed in the material.

Being able to make longer trips in the same vehicle is surprisingly low on the list. It is given mainly by people with kids who want to load the vehicle in front of their house and not have to pay for several vehicles (thus having a golf cart and a normal car does not sound appealing).

There have been various proposals for city-optimized vehicles such as http://cp.media.mit.edu/citycar/.

Maybe someday. The problem is that there isn't really a sharp divide between dense urban core and everything else. I think about the largest city nearest to me and traffic can get pretty high speed even nearby fairly dense areas. Traffic is often jammed up but when it isn't it doesn't just move at sedate speeds.

Even inside cities, vehicles frequently need to drive at speeds up to 70kph. So while small electric golf carts (neighborhood electric vehicles) will continue to be used as niche vehicles in limited areas they're useless to most drivers.

This may depend on region. I'm in Europe, where the city speed limit is at 50 km/h and frequently reduced to 30km/h and where you can get literally stuck between buildings in a few places with a larger car.

This future is unlikely to exist. For most people owning their car will be an advantage. If you already take public transit you might not understand this, but a lot of car owners have customized their car with other things. I'm not talking cosmetic things like paint either.

Many golfers carry their clubs. The chess guy has his chess set in the car. Shopping bags from the lunch break shopping trip - all things you live in your personal car. Sure you can carry them in, but you don't want to.

Furthermore, there's an assumption that sharing vehicles lowers costs.

Parking is one reason given. Maybe. But if you don't live and/or work in a dense part of a city, parking isn't a big issue. Feel free to argue that people might be better off if there were less parking but today's reality is that a lot of people don't have any parking issues on a day to day basis.

The bigger argument is around improved utilization. But the cost of owning a car is usually more about mileage than time and shared vehicles will actually have to travel more miles because they won't always be transporting a passenger. There are some age-related costs, especially in states where it snows. Yes, some people want the latest and greatest but then they have the option of leasing today.

But you can paint the car you are riding but do not own! I don't even want to imagine how those shared cars will look like.