The car doesn't need to orbit. It can go off and park itself somewhere else, and come back as you are about to leave. Think of it as an automated valet.

This does mean we don't need the huge car parks around places of interest as everyone can be dropped off and picked up at the front door.

(And when the car is going to self park, it can use speeds and routes that avoid adding congestion to the people trying to get somewhere.)

If we all start doing this we will end up with huge traffic problems. Luckily, the wasted car mileage and fuel consumption will probably make it an unattractive option. One thing you could do though is ask your car to drop you off and go find a parking.

Do you really think it'll cost less (in gas money) to orbit rather than to just park? Or do you have a Tesla? (http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/24/tesla-supercharger/) :)

Yes, gas powered cars will be largely dead in 30 years. It will be all electric bot cars.

The cars won't orbit though, they will go park themselves or pick up someone else for an errand.

That's a waste of gas. Parking will still be needed as much as ever.

The exception to this will be autonomous taxis, of course.

I've had way too many experiences driving in a city when I've just needed to run inside somewhere for 2 minutes and really wished someone was in the car with me to drive around while I'm inside rather than spending 20 minutes to find a parking spot. An "orbit" feature would be pretty useful for situations like that, and would even save gas occasionally, considering how long you can spend driving around looking for parking.

(Too bad it'll probably be a while before robot cars can legally operate without a human in the driver's seat and paying attention, though)

My car can idle and drive slowly, for an hour on less than 1/2 a gallon of gas (have to watch it more closely the next time I'm stuck in traffic trying to get across the Bay bridge). That is $2 in California today. It costs $3 - $5 for an hour of time on some downtown parking meters, can cost $5 per 20 minutes in the parking garages. Trust me, gas is cheaper, and with a hybrid doing the driving, I could see the 'hover' mode being like 50 cents of electricity.

It's only cheaper because the cost of the space you're taking up on the road and the cost of the traffic you're causing is not accounted for. The solution to this is a VMT tax that accounts for that cost.

Perhaps, San Francisco policy is to use parking prices to discourage vehicle use. They haven't gone the London 'congestion tax' route yet, perhaps they will.

There is a difference between what "is" and how the system responds to what "is". In this case I don't doubt for a moment that drivers of self driving cars would use this technique to economic advantage, and yes if it got too bad it would invoke a response (much like the $5 parking meters with credit card readers in them was a response to cars in general).

And don't forget that with fully automated cars that can at least roll a few meters without starting a combustion engine (e.g. hybrids) you can park the cars without having a "road" between every two rows of cars, reducing space. Similar to this, just not with shelves but the cars themselves moving:http://www.rollster.de/picture/upload/Image/8780a17bd3128fe2... Also, garages would not need to be standing height, only lit on demand etc.

I'd rather you park it, if you don't mind.

I expect that the way Google would design it is that you tell your car 'come back in X minutes' and the car would do the calculation to optimize for cost and time on target, with a user preference setting which has higher priority to the user.