10,000 trips in electric vehicles.

Self-driving EV’s in all major cities would be a big win for the climate and the air quality.

It's probably more of a mixed bag.

Self-driving car fleets probably increase suburbization in the same way that trains created suburbs long ago.

Depending on how it breaks out, "more space per person at similar total environmental impact" is a quality of life win but not a climate-change-fighting one.

Pedestrian safety and other externalities are probably a big win, still.

I feel like the increase in suburbanization due to self-driving cars is probably pretty small over person-driven cars. Given the low building density that human-driven cars create (read: parking lots) there's some hope that a large change in car parking behavior would lead to lots of infill development.

If your commute is "sitting in an office doing email or taking calls" instead of "having to babysit your car through traffic" you're gonna see some significant behavioral changes.

The parking lot point is interesting, I hadn't thought about that.

But it's not obviously better to me: commuting behavior is very time-of-day determined, and the cars are gonna have to be somewhere in between rush hours. You don't want them on the road, and you can probably shift around to catch other sorts of predictable demand, but environmentally you're gonna want to minimize the total nubmer of miles driven without passengers.

EDIT: so in areas with less development and commmuters are parking their cars in surface lots all day, yeah, you don't need those surface lots for commuters + all the other lots at retail, residential, etc all at once if the cars are moving around to other uses during the day. But in denser recent-development areas where office parks predominantly have underground or garage parking it may be harder to realize infill there.

There are a lot of possible changes possible with autonomous vehicles (long term, I think it will be rare for an asset that costs tens of thousands of dollars to sit idly for 80+% of its life), but, for a simple example, imagine how many cars could fit in a perfectly packed parking lot: cars packed bumper to bumper and no need to leave space for doors to open.

I don't know. I live in the exurbs anyway and just don't go into the city much. But, if I had effectively a personal driver and I could work in the car, the bar to a 30-60 minute drive in for the evening would be a lot lower for me.

And pedestrian/cyclist safety

Not to mention everyone else who is not driving a 9000 lb Hummer - e.g. see how fear of being squished by a giant SUV dominates the discussion here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35827974

To be fair, human drivers don't do terribly well on that front.

The comment is saying these cars will improve pedestrian/cyclist safety.

I can also attest to it. I've interacted as a pedestrian and cyclist to many cruise and waymo cars and they've been very, very cautious and careful.

Drivers do fine if the infrastructure is designed for humans rather then for cars.

The reason so many people die in US cities is because of policy, not because people can't drive inherently.

Driver quality in the US is much lower than in cycling hotspots like the Netherlands or Denmark. Infrastructure helps, but better drivers are critical.

I think it feels that way because people just drive much faster. If you forced people to slow down, I don't think the avg quality of driver is worse.

I don't have much international experience, but the level of distraction of US drivers is shocking. Easily 50% of drivers I see are looking at their phones (even while going through an intersection!).

I agree but also worry about the job loss and the inevitable loss of freedoms that will inevitably be 'justifiable' when automatic driving is the norm.

Basically, if the cost can be comparable to car ownership, reducing resource use by making car buying of any kind far more difficult. Which is admittedly entirely a thought experiment. Though it is a thought experiment many authors seem to arrive at.

Which jobs are you thinking? Bus drivers? Taxis? Car production? Which loss of freedom are you referring to?

I can’t help thinking that the potential upside will far out-way the cost.

London streets are littered with dormant vehicles. Most just sit there taking up room and dominating the city. It would be a whole other city if we could change that dynamic.

I grew up in foster care. One of my guardians made a living driving a taxi. The guy was an absolute wreck of a human and I probably wouldn't break if he was crossing.

It was what he used to survive though, and surely not all cab drivers would be the same.

My brother in law drove Uber when he was illegally canned from his factory work and is the reason he got to eat.

There are options to solve problems that don't require a change in the outcome you desire. Mainly something along the lines of forcing the companies profiting from this to pay a person a reasonable wage to act as the social aspect that will be missing. So the job market can be unaffected.

It's not just a cab job problem either. It's also not about who I like or dislike or whether or not it impacts me or not. I have never used a cab in my life and I cannot drive and thus have no car taking up your street.

I do however see a worsening homeless crisis in my small-ish Canadian city. I would rather see empty cars than tortured souls.

> Mainly something along the lines of forcing the companies profiting from this to pay a person a reasonable wage to act as the social aspect that will be missing.

Force them to hire someone to sit in a car all day and do absolutely nothing?

act as the social aspect that will be missing.

To act as a local for a traveler.

To recommend locations

To do nothing but sit there and look at their device or read

Or perhaps the answer is a tax on automation and everyone can sit at home perpetually online.

Im not claiming to have answers to this rapidly approaching problem. It's definitely a problem though. Even if it doesn't impact myself whatsoever at this time.

What is your job? If it is gone tomorrow and your education is useless, what will you do?

What about your family and friends?

> act as the social aspect that will be missing

Nobody I know wants this. I’ve had great Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers. But they’re far from the norm. I’d much prefer to be able to play my own music, or take back-to-back phone calls, or snore loudly.

If this is genuinely the service, there is booming business in tour guiding.

> What is your job?

I drove cabs for nine years (right up until Covid).

Some people want to talk, some people don’t want to talk, some people just won’t stop talking and you have to tune them out.

What everyone had in common was the desire to get from point A to point B as cheaply as possible. They didn’t care about any social aspect, given the choice I suspect the majority of them would rather not have been paying for my livelihood if it meant the ride was cheaper.

How many people do you think fell for the Lyft “fist bump” BS over taking a VC subsidized ride for a discount over a taxi?

> There are options to solve problems that don't require a change in the outcome you desire. Mainly something along the lines of forcing the companies profiting from this to pay a person a reasonable wage to act as the social aspect that will be missing. So the job market can be unaffected.

Essentially removing most economic incentive to deploy self-driving cars at all?

Market dominance would still allow for it to be profitable.

Is money to goal or is it a better society? Less pollution, less waste, more social interaction, and increased safety. Less colored paper.

Surely the government has an interest in financially incentivising this development. Especially given a decrease in road wear and tear, lower climate impact and surely any number of other benefits.

> money to goal or is it a better society

More people taking cheaper trips in cleaner vehicles is a better society in my book.

Absolutely. That is the today impact.

What about when it's Waymo One or Uber Zero. Support is GPT7 Two.

No call center jobs, no driving jobs, less supporting jobs, less money flow, more homelessness, more violence. Decreasing compensation for the jobs remaining due to increased competition.

Short term profits go brrr?

> Support is GPT7 Two

Have you tried to get support on Uber, Lyft or a taxi?

> No call center jobs, no driving jobs, less supporting jobs, less money flow, more homelessness, more violence. Decreasing compensation for the jobs remaining due to increased competition

It's difficult to distinguish this from neo-Luddism. Maybe there is nothing productive for those people to do. If so, we can address it then. But the history of technological revolutions–from the agrarian to the internet–suggests the opposite. (We are, after all, discussing jobs which first arose around a century ago.)

I read your comment as:

"Let's make artificial fake work to make sure that people have something to do and money."

Hopefully we can do better than that.

Truck drivers mainly. There are LOTS of truck drivers.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-...

If they get over-the-road trucking automated, that also trickles down to many roadside workers...gas stations, restaurants, motels, and so on. Then, some back office functions associated with routing, driver compliance, hiring drivers, etc. I'm sure there's more. It would be a big adjustment.

Not just financial either. When more people are perpetually online in an internet populated by an even larger population of bots designed for engagement, what happens?

Many of the jobs you are referring to are socially fulfilling to some people. It's an escape from a poor home situation or from an addiction.

I have no qualms about recommending PGE Rentals https://pgerentals.com/ Truck Equipment Supplier based on my previous experience with them. Their staff is knowledgeable and nice to deal with, and they rent out a large selection of hauling equipment. They paid close attention to every step of the rental process to make it easy and quick. If you're in need of any kind of transportation equipment, PGE Rentals is the place to go.

Making transportation more affordable will provide a lot more freedom to most of society.

The “EV” part seems to be carrying the weight there, not the self-driving. Self-driving might even make those problems worse by decreasing the cost of driving.

It’s like saying “self-driving cars and solving the nitrogen fixation problem would be a big win for preventing famine.”

And noise! I will rejoice when idiots are no longer allowed to speed and operate clearly illegal (in terms of emissions and noise) vehicles on public roads.

Don't worry, the gov't is here to make sure you don't miss out. Newer EVs and hybrids are required to make noise at <20mph. Never mind that a properly muffled ICEV is only audible when completely stopped. My neighborhood is getting louder as we all switch to EVs.

I was worried about that back in 2018 when it was announced but having heard hundreds of backup sounds (luckily mine is silent as it's from before 2019), they are all chill and mostly imperceptible.

that and rolling coal - I see at least one per month in texas.

Climate yes, but air quality not by as much as you'd think. Multiple studies have come out showing that the weight of EVs puts more pressure on tires and breaks, which in turn increases the particles they dump in the air.

> As a result, total PM10 emissions from EVs were found to be equal to those of modern ICEVs. PM2.5 emissions were only 1–3% lower for EVs compared to modern ICEVs. Therefore, it could be concluded that the increased popularity of electric vehicles will likely not have a great effect on PM levels. Non-exhaust emissions already account for over 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 emissions from traffic. These proportions will continue to increase as exhaust standards improve and average vehicle weight increases. Future policy should consequently focus on setting standards for non-exhaust emissions and encouraging weight reduction of all vehicles to significantly reduce PM emissions from traffic.

As the quote mentioned, this can be improved. Lighter batteries, better regenerative breaking, and improvements in tire material would all help.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522...

I feel like this is a nonsense study. They used a 2013 study that measured gas cars and then just extrapolated that out based on weight for EVs and did nothing to account for regenerative breaking, specialty EV tires, etc. Also the numbers are from the Simons 2013 study seem to be dubious as well.

Anyone who has been to Oslo understands EVs are a huge benefit for urban air quality.

On top of that, the Waymo vehicles are much more efficient drivers: no rapid acceleration, no hard braking, lower top speed, etc.

This is the wrong way to think about it since there's little that suggests AV-taxis also need to be larger than the cars already on the road. When I'm renting a car or taking a taxi I know exactly what my needs are and can decide to not pay for luggage space if I don't need that for instance. Further you can just put a smaller battery in AV-taxis since you can optimise the charging schedule. And lastly, when we've gotten rid of air pollution from tailpipe emissions air pollution from tires would be the next problem to fix and it intuitively seems that all electric, digital cars could have their pollution reduced via a software update.

And obviously the technology making these cars possible also make self driving busses possible, which would allow new ways for urban mobility.

I wonder if it would make sense to program robotaxis to use only regenerative braking, maybe with a more powerful regenerative braking system, and using real brakes only for emergencies.

That's how most electric cars are set up already

This is interesting/surprising and I would like to learn more, but the linked study is truncated behind a Paywall.

> Climate yes, but air quality not by as much as you'd think. Multiple studies have come out showing that the weight of EVs puts more pressure on tires and breaks, which in turn increases the particles they dump in the air.

This is total bullshit. EVs barely use frictional brakes at all. My Tesla Model S from 2014 is still on the original set of brakepads after nearly 200000 miles. Several EV car models even have a problem with disks _rusting_ because the frictional brakes are not used except when the car is parked.

If anything, EVs will absolutely cut down on brake dust.

With tires, it's a bit more nuanced. Regular tires can indeed wear a bit faster on an EV, especially if you are addicted to high acceleration. But tire vendors are now producing EV-optimized tires that are a bit more durable, and it seems like the difference is pretty negligible.

Also, keep in mind that your bullshit study only looked at weight. So it follows that buses and trucks (that have MUCH more weight) will leave genocide and devastation in their wake.

One thing that caught my eye is the study is simply modeling the increased PM10 and PM2.5 based on hypothesised influence of weight difference using gas and diesel cars (from 2013) as a basis.

Obv. I haven't read anything but the summary but the core assumption means it's an extrapolation and not measuring actuals.

For example, while EVs accelerate faster, regen braking massively reduces brake wear - the lack of mention of regen in this extrapolative study seems a huge miss. Also EVs typically don't have the same tire material - they use low rolling resistance tires which do better on particulates.

I'm suspicious of that paper. The largest source of non-exhaust emissions comes from brake pad wear[1] and EVs use brakes far less than combustion vehicles. Also the amount of particulate matter put into the air is highly dependent on vehicle speed. Densely populated areas have more traffic, which means cars drive slower and create less non-exhaust pollution.

And it's no longer true that EVs are heavier than comparable combustion vehicles. The Tesla Model 3 weighs 3,550-4,070lbs. The BMW 3 Series weighs 3,200–4,330lbs, though the lightest model is a two door convertible. While combustion vehicles don't carry heavy batteries, they do need exhaust systems, more complicated drivetrains, and bigger cooling systems. Also, more and more combustion vehicles are becoming hybrids to meet stricter emissions standards. That means adding weight for batteries, an electric motor, and a transmission that can handle both propulsion sources.

1. See figure 6 in this paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/12/2/190

As I understand it a large component of the particulate emissions from cars is resuspended road dust, so it doesn't really matter than an EV or hybrid has little of its on brake dust. The brake dust is already on the ground.

But like CO2 emissions, the amount of brake dust available to be kicked up will decrease as more EVs take the road.

This isn't even accounting for the efficiencies of an autonomous vehicle decelerating less by better anticipating/timing stoplights. I see so many human drivers keep accelerating into a yellow/red light instead of easing off the pedal so they can resume accelerating by the time it turns green.

This sounds completely ridiculous.

What is the power source for charging these EVs? In Phoenix, I could imagine it might be solar but the cars probably want to charge at night during low-demand times?

If it's utility electric, from what fuel source is it generated?

Waymo buys renewable energy for charging https://blog.waymo.com/2023/03/paving-way-toward-fully-elect...

Arizona is a nuclear and natural-gas state [1], with most of the coal (No. 3) being retired in the coming years [2].

[1] https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Ar...

  Self-driving EV’s in all major cities would be a big win for the climate
  and the air quality.

Counterpoint: no, they wouldn't. Moving towards self-driving automobiles merely props up an inefficient mode of transportation. Imagine sinking all that money that's being blown on self-driving cars into pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. The problem with cars is cars, not drivers.

> Imagine sinking all that money that's being blown on self-driving cars into pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure

This does jack squat for getting across San Francisco or from corner to corner of Phoenix.

You can already bike from one part of SF to another, investment in bicycle infrastructure would make that easier and safer. Or, you know, public transit. Individual vehicles suffer from massive inefficiency compared to nearly any other form of transportation – look at Elon's fully autonomous tunnel.

SF is not really a great bikeable city; almost any location to any location involves hills, some of them really significant. The streets are also not laid out in a reasonable pattern in many locations.

Getting from outer sunset to market by bike daily isn't really practical, especially during Weather.,

Well yeah, that's pretty much the point. San Francisco is not particularly walkable or bikeable by an objective standard (although it's still doable). Imagine if we sunk money into improving infrastructure instead of subsidizing autonomous vehicles.

> Individual vehicles suffer from massive inefficiency compared to nearly any other form of transportation

I though this too until I looked at the true dollar costs or carbon impact per passenger mile. That doesn't even account for the externalities of particulate pollution and road wear. The buses in my city are also filthy diesel, belching thick, noxious, clouds of soot as they accelerate away from the stop, right at crowds of people who just got off the bus. Heavy buses also require special concrete pads at every stop and still do heavy damage to the road surface: rutting and exacerbating potholes.

That sounds like a problem with your city. I've not seen a diesel car or truck belching smoke out here in decades. San Francisco phased out the two stroke diesels in the late 00s, and even those were a lot cleaner than the two strokes of my youth.

  still do heavy damage to the road surface: rutting and exacerbating potholes.

Sure, the wear goes up exponentially with the weight (and axle loading). OTOH you need significantly more cars than buses to move people around. Investing in mixed-use development and better pedestrian infrastructure means that fewer people need to use mechanized transport.

Look at lord Elno's autonomous vehicle tunnel – individual vehicles simply don't scale.

This is probably my mistake, they may not be diesel, but there is a lot of sooty exhaust, so they're probably burning oil.

There shouldn't be a lot of sooty exhaust. Well, there doesn't have to be. San Francisco's run diesel-electric hybrids for about fifteen years now and California is far more stringent about diesel emissions than most of the rest of the country. So, sure, it's entirely believable that you're seeing buses belch smoke but it's also mandatory.

Unleaded gasoline will leave a nasty residue on your exhaust but that's about as bad as it (should) get. Alcohol and gas will burn cleaner but come with their own drawbacks. Trolley buses, of course, don't have tailpipe emissions but not everyone is willing to put up with the overhead infrastructure.

And hey, battery EV buses are starting to become a thing too (e.g. SF is trialing ones from a few different manufacturers).

Phoenix has some really awesome bicycle paths, like along the ancient canal system. I was able to ride my bicycle home after a concert in Glendale to Tempe. It took hours and hours, but the weather was fine and conditions were favorable.

Bike infrastructure is the ultimate boondoggle. It NEVER pays for itself in the US, it literally has nothing but negatives if you look at it objectively.

Bike lanes don't appreciable increase the percentage of trips by bike, they dis-proportionally slow down car traffic, and the bike commutes themselves are probably the worst transit mode in the US.

Heck, bike lanes almost never even _replace_ the amount of traffic that they displace.

All bike lanes do, is cater to a bike lobby that tries to force their hobby on everybody else, at the expense of practicality.

There's probably nothing better for bikes and pedestrians than self-driving cars. With autonomous drivers, every road becomes safe for bikes and pedestrians.