Technological Stagnation

[sojourner]

The Tesla S can go about 480 kilometers on one full battery charge, about 6 dollars of electricity. Is that good enough for you Edit_XYZ?

 

[farmkid]

All this discussion of self-driving cars is a colossal geek-wank. Because IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

We're talking two different transportation paradigms here. There's public transit, which can certainly be made faster, more efficient, and more flexible. And then there's private transportation, i.e., the personal automobile -- the entire POINT of which is that you, the driver, control the vehicle and make the decisions. People will never willingly surrender control of their cars to automation -- because then they won't be cars anymore.

BTW, on my recent poll thread, a majority said they enjoy driving for its own sake. As do I.

You couldn't be more wrong. The primary reason people use their own cars instead of public transportation is the convenience. You aren't waiting for a bus or depending on a timetable, and you don't have to worry about having a long walk at the other end. A person driving a car gets to go straight to their destination whenever they want. You can't do this with public transport. That is why people have their own cars, and it can easily be done with self driving cars.

And no one is suggesting that future self driving cars will completely lack the ability to be manually driven by a person. There are plenty of cases where this might be required. You'll still be able to drive for fun.

I have to agree. Most people I know would rather take a bus to get to work, for example, but don't because it would require significant walking, more time, and restrictions on when you can travel. In my case, for example, if I take the bus, I have to walk 1.5 miles to the bus stop (in temperatures ranging from -20 to 100), then ride two buses for nearly an hour. On top of that, I have to hope I don't miss it, because it only runs once per hour. Or, I can drive and go whenever I want and get there in 15 minutes. Hmm, tough choice.

 

[DarthTom]

I have to agree. Most people I know would rather take a bus to get to work, for example, but don't because it would require significant walking, more time, and restrictions on when you can travel. In my case, for example, if I take the bus, I have to walk 1.5 miles to the bus stop (in temperatures ranging from -20 to 100), then ride two buses for nearly an hour. On top of that, I have to hope I don't miss it, because it only runs once per hour. Or, I can drive and go whenever I want and get there in 15 minutes. Hmm, tough choice.

Public transportation is great until you have to make multiple stops, go to the grocerey store and get large/bulky items or a lot, or have a family and/or young children.

I've spoken with several friends who have young children and it's just too much effort to coordinate the transportation and the children at the same time.

Obviously some people have no choice - but given a choice I think anyone with young children prefers a car under most circumstances.

 

[MacLeod]

Regarding speed, the primary reason that fuel efficiency drops off at higher speeds is because of increases in air resistance. If the cars were traveling at high speeds and very close to one another, that air resistance would be dramatically reduced, and therefore the efficiency penalties for high speeds would be similarly reduced.

The drag reduction isn't that great. Bump drafting, where the rear car actually pushes the front car, can gain you maybe 15 mph at NASCAR speeds, the equivalent of perhaps 50 to 100 HP per vehicle. But then to go that fast they need 750 HP engines and get about 5 mpg. Drafting might conceivably get the mileage up to 6 or 7 mpg. If the cars were as streamlined as a Prius that might drop to 300 HP or so and get maybe 10 to 15 mpg.

And of course to travel at those speeds with even marginal safety we'd all have to put on our Nomex fire suits, helmets, and crawl into the roll cage through the window because our doors would be welded shut.

Well some modern road cars can have top speeds over 200mph, so the technology is there. As for fuel consumption it is true that you do pay a peanlty for those speeds. But if we look at F1 engines which from 2014 will be 1.6L V6 turbo engines around 600HP and they'll have to be a baout a third more efficent than the current 2.4L norm ally aspirated V8's as the fuel tank reduces from 160kg to 100kg.

Now whilst those cars that are following might recive some fuel benefits the car in the lead won't as it'll have to work the air so that in essence others can draft them. Do you want to be the lead car?

For it to work you woul in essence have trains of cars, where a highly aerodynamic lead car sets the pace. This might have to be run by the state. You could have seperate ones for slower moving traffic such as lorries. Which have there own uniquelt designed lead vehicle.

 

[MacLeod]

And there is this one from Ford, another step along the way to driverless cars

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24464480

 

[Gov Kodos]

I have to agree. Most people I know would rather take a bus to get to work, for example, but don't because it would require significant walking, more time, and restrictions on when you can travel. In my case, for example, if I take the bus, I have to walk 1.5 miles to the bus stop (in temperatures ranging from -20 to 100), then ride two buses for nearly an hour. On top of that, I have to hope I don't miss it, because it only runs once per hour. Or, I can drive and go whenever I want and get there in 15 minutes. Hmm, tough choice.

Public transportation is great until you have to make multiple stops, go to the grocerey store and get large/bulky items or a lot, or have a family and/or young children.

I've spoken with several friends who have young children and it's just too much effort to coordinate the transportation and the children at the same time.

Obviously some people have no choice - but given a choice I think anyone with young children prefers a car under most circumstances.

Urban design would need to change as well. Our current sprawl can be attributed to private cars as much as anything. Abandoning private cars for public transit as the mainstay would force a rethink on urban and suburban planning. Whether that will happen is another thing.

 

[Shatnertage]

Life is definitely easier with kids if you have a car, at least where I live.

Going back to the OP, a few months ago a guy in space (Chris Hadfield) asked a question on Twitter and I answered him in real time. I wouldn't have imagined doing that even ten years ago. I don't think we're stagnating.

It's funny because this touches on something we were discussing in class a while back. Studying the Hoover Dam, I was skeptical that our society would have the will to launch such an ambitious and difficult engineering project today. Then a week later we learned about the Yucca Mountain Project, which, let's just say, was quite ambitious and difficult (of course, the fact that the feds canceled it does sort of speak to my original point).

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I have to agree. Most people I know would rather take a bus to get to work, for example, but don't because it would require significant walking, more time, and restrictions on when you can travel. In my case, for example, if I take the bus, I have to walk 1.5 miles to the bus stop (in temperatures ranging from -20 to 100), then ride two buses for nearly an hour. On top of that, I have to hope I don't miss it, because it only runs once per hour. Or, I can drive and go whenever I want and get there in 15 minutes. Hmm, tough choice.

Public transportation is great until you have to make multiple stops, go to the grocerey store and get large/bulky items or a lot, or have a family and/or young children.

I've spoken with several friends who have young children and it's just too much effort to coordinate the transportation and the children at the same time.

Obviously some people have no choice - but given a choice I think anyone with young children prefers a car under most circumstances.

Urban design would need to change as well. Our current sprawl can be attributed to private cars as much as anything. Abandoning private cars for public transit as the mainstay would force a rethink on urban and suburban planning. Whether that will happen is another thing.

I suspect it will happen when it is forced to happen, which would be after we have an energy crisis from which there are no easy "outs."

 

[MacLeod]

Public Transportation is a joke, well a joke the further away from a town or city that you live. For most people living in more rural areas a car is a neccessity not an option.

 

[Gov Kodos]

And yet, folks managed to do so before cars, they can again.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

People also got along fine before telephones and electric lights, but I think most would now consider those to be necessities.

 

[Gov Kodos]

They aren't necessities either except so far as to keep life working as it currently goes. In their absence life wouldn't end, society would readjust.

 

[Deckerd]

Life without internet? Impossible!

 

[Into Darkness]

If everyone moved closer to where they worked, caught the train and bus for holidays and ordered their shopping online we wouldn't need so many cars on the roads.

 

[MacLeod]

Rural areas, tend to have limited bus routes, and are miles away from the nearest train station. So a car is needed.

 

[scotpens]

Public Transportation is a joke, well a joke the further away from a town or city that you live. For most people living in more rural areas a car is a necessity not an option.

Why, it's the Model T Ford made the trouble,
Made the people wanna go, wanna get, wanna get,
Wanna get up and go seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve,
fourteen, twenty-two, twenty-three miles to the county seat.
Yes sir, yes sir
Who's gonna patronize a little bitty two-by-four kinda store anymore?

 

[Into Darkness]

Rural areas, tend to have limited bus routes, and are miles away from the nearest train station. So a car is needed.

Should petition their local council for a bus route then

 

[gturner]

That wouldn't make any sense, because then you're using a bus to drive 20 miles to pick up one passenger instead of using a small car.

 

[MacLeod]

Rural areas, tend to have limited bus routes, and are miles away from the nearest train station. So a car is needed.

Should petition their local council for a bus route then

If you note I said limited not none (though that might be the case in some areas).

But even with those with bus routes might only get one every couple of hours and not before 07:00 or after 23:00. Give the 24hr world in whcih we live those might not be conveniant times to get to work.

I live in a rural area and when I was at college, it would take 3 buses and a minimum of 2 hours to get home. Longer if I had to walk the last 3.25miles along a 60mph road with no pavement. Compared against 30 mins or so in car once I could drive.

It might be fair to say that the issues facing those that live in Urban areas differ in some respects than those that live in Rural areas. True they share some of the same issues. But sometimes unless we have actually experianced those issues it is not always easy to understand why they are important to the other side.

Take Broadband (in the UK)for example, it is generally cheaper and faster in the more urban areas. But you know what annoys many in the rural areas not so much that they are getting a slower service, but they are paying more for it.

 

[farmkid]

Rural areas, tend to have limited bus routes, and are miles away from the nearest train station. So a car is needed.

Should petition their local council for a bus route then

To get even close to the level of bus coverage needed to meet the needs of those living in rural areas would probably require more miles driven by the busses than are currently driven by the cars. Another serious problem is the limited amount of stuff you can transport on a bus. People in rural areas commonly go to town once every week or two at the most because it is so far. Do you really think it would be reasonable to bring home enough groceries to fill a couple of shopping carts on a bus? It would probably take at least a couple of hours to get home, so forget ever buying frozen items.

I don't think people who have never lived in a real rural area really appreciate the realities of living in rural America. I went to high school with kids who drove an hour each way to school every day. My home county is about the size of Rhode Island, but the population is only about 15K, mostly concentrated in one corner of the county. Those on the other side of the county would routinely drive as far as 50-70 miles to go the grocery store. And my county was actually more populated and closer to cities than many others in the state. I've lived in places like that, in London (UK) and nearby areas, and in several places in between. I've seen how public transportation can work in areas of moderate to high population density and how it absolutely can't work in areas like where I grew up.