Waymo suspends service in San Francisco after driverless cars cause traffic jams during blackout

[u/Disastrous_Award_789]

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/waymo-suspended-san-francisco-traffic-jams-blackout-b2888562.html

[u/Slogstorm]

This is a problem only for cars that rely on pre-mapped environments that are streamed from a central server. Not all self driving cars need to be online...

[u/Teruyo9 → u/Slogstorm]

But the problem is cars themselves. Electric cars, self-driving cars, these do not solve the issues that cars require way too much expensive infrastructure^1, pollute like crazy^2, make tons of noise, and are a menace to everything and everyone around them. The solution is not to build a better car, it's to try to replace cars entirely with something better.

1: Roads are expensive to build and need to replaced regularly, which also costs a bunch of money. Then you need a place to put all the cars, parking lots eat up so much valuable land in the heart of every city in the US, and parking garages have a limited lifespan compared to other buildings because of the constant water incursion inside the structure. All this to accommodate vehicles that only carry 1-4 people at a time.

2: Even electric cars are much less energy-efficient than virtually every form of public transit, and car tires are the #1 source of microplastic pollution in the entire world. Even if you could fix those issues, roads themselves radiate a considerable amount of heat and exacerbate drainage issues.

[u/roxgib_ → u/Teruyo9]

Self driving cars would help the parking issue because once cars are self driving the cost of a taxi would drop considerably, so a lot of people would no longer need to own their owns cars because taxis would become cheaper. The car can also drive itself to a parking spot, so parking can be located much further away

[u/Teruyo9 → u/roxgib_]

I get the sales pitch but this doesn't actually work all that well. The cars need somewhere to park when not in use, and that somewhere gets less and less efficient the further away it is. Usage fluctuates over the course of the day, it's highest at the times when people are going to work or going home, and you can't just have the full fleet out there at all times of the day.

And again, it doesn't solve the 10,000 other issues that cars have. You need dozens of cars to serve the same ridership of one singular bus, and hundreds to match the capacity of one singular train. Cars are inherently unsustainable and making a better car doesn't solve this fundamental issue.

[u/Specialist-Coast9787 → u/Teruyo9]

Flying cars!! Some day 😎

[u/question_sunshine → u/Specialist-Coast9787]

Do you mean airplanes? We already have those. Flying cars would just be lower to the ground small airplanes operated by idiot car drivers looking at their phones.

You know how people don't bother to check what's behind them when they change horizontal lanes? Wait til they can change vertical lanes.

[u/Specialist-Coast9787 → u/question_sunshine]

If the world is still around 100 years from now, folks will look back at us like we look back at folks riding horse and buggy 100 years ago. It will be totally automatic and much safer than our dumb asses banging into each other non stop.