<story><title>G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/technology/gm-invests-in-lyft.html?module=WatchingPortal&amp;region=c-column-middle-span-region&amp;pgType=Homepage&amp;action=click&amp;mediaId=wide&amp;state=standard&amp;contentPlacement=1&amp;version=internal&amp;contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&amp;contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F01%2F05%2Ftechnology%2Fgm-invests-in-lyft.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America&amp;#x27;s fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this:&lt;p&gt;FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school.&lt;p&gt;SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car&amp;#x27;s owners collect a fee from Uber, Lyft et al.&lt;p&gt;THIRD, economies of scale and changes in perceptions towards the utility versus cost of owning cars causes people to stop buying them. Instead, they subscribe for access to a fleet–such as Uber or Tesla&amp;#x27;s. (Note: people already do this in cities like New York, where car ownership is relatively scarce.)&lt;p&gt;AND FINALLY, as distributed car ownership falls, retail locations for their maintenance go out of business. Barring massive public subsidy for car ownership, this creates a feedback loop that increases the cost of individual car ownership until it becomes a luxury.&lt;p&gt;1 will happen later than we expect. 2 will happen sooner, 3 much later and 4 drastically sooner. In fact, I think it will ultimately be 4, not 3, that drives a rapid, self-perpetuating dominance of self-driving cars within our lifetime.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sustainablemobility.ei.columbia.edu&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;Transforming-Personal-Mobility-Jan-27-20132.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sustainablemobility.ei.columbia.edu&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;Tra...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Merad</author><text>Sorry, I think this is just totally disconnected from the reality of the average American who lives outside of a major urban center.&lt;p&gt;1.  Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work&amp;#x2F;school at roughly the same time.  If they all have a 15-20 minute commute (well below average for many areas) and the destinations for all three aren&amp;#x27;t in the same immediate vicinity, we&amp;#x27;re right back to the family needing 2-3 cars.&lt;p&gt;2.  Eh, no.  Go to the mall or a shopping center parking lot and walk around looking in people&amp;#x27;s cars.  The average person&amp;#x27;s car is somewhere between messy and a pigsty.  IMO, this will only get worse with SDCs, since people will be able to do more eating&amp;#x2F;dressing&amp;#x2F;preparing&amp;#x2F;relaxing in their car without the need to drive.  Not to mention the number of people who simply don&amp;#x27;t want random strangers using their car.  Uber or Lyft would have to offer a &lt;i&gt;significant&lt;/i&gt; fee before I would even consider it.&lt;p&gt;3.  Vehicle owners are used to convenience.  If I live in 20 minutes outside the city, then I probably have to wait 20-30 minutes for a ride to arrive before I even start my trip.  Massively inconvenient, and not worth it.&lt;p&gt;SDCs will definitely lead to change in American society, but I have to wonder if it won&amp;#x27;t completely backfire on some of these expectations, and actually lead to American society sprawling out even more into the suburban and rural areas.  WFH is becoming a viable option for more and more jobs, and longer commutes will be much more acceptable to most people when the time in their car isn&amp;#x27;t simply lost time.</text></comment>
<story><title>G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/technology/gm-invests-in-lyft.html?module=WatchingPortal&amp;region=c-column-middle-span-region&amp;pgType=Homepage&amp;action=click&amp;mediaId=wide&amp;state=standard&amp;contentPlacement=1&amp;version=internal&amp;contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&amp;contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F01%2F05%2Ftechnology%2Fgm-invests-in-lyft.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America&amp;#x27;s fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this:&lt;p&gt;FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school.&lt;p&gt;SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car&amp;#x27;s owners collect a fee from Uber, Lyft et al.&lt;p&gt;THIRD, economies of scale and changes in perceptions towards the utility versus cost of owning cars causes people to stop buying them. Instead, they subscribe for access to a fleet–such as Uber or Tesla&amp;#x27;s. (Note: people already do this in cities like New York, where car ownership is relatively scarce.)&lt;p&gt;AND FINALLY, as distributed car ownership falls, retail locations for their maintenance go out of business. Barring massive public subsidy for car ownership, this creates a feedback loop that increases the cost of individual car ownership until it becomes a luxury.&lt;p&gt;1 will happen later than we expect. 2 will happen sooner, 3 much later and 4 drastically sooner. In fact, I think it will ultimately be 4, not 3, that drives a rapid, self-perpetuating dominance of self-driving cars within our lifetime.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sustainablemobility.ei.columbia.edu&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;Transforming-Personal-Mobility-Jan-27-20132.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sustainablemobility.ei.columbia.edu&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;Tra...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ssmoot</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s crazy unrealistic that autonomous cars will be the majority in anything short of 20 to 30 years. The tech doesn&amp;#x27;t even exist yet.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s taken that long just to see ABS become standard equipment across 90% of vehicles.&lt;p&gt;And this just completely ignores the ~5 to 7 year product cycle. There&amp;#x27;s no way that in just one or two generations of the Taurus we have a completely self-driving car capable of operating in all normal driving conditions, and that it&amp;#x27;s displaced the 4 or 5 previous generations of vehicles commonly on the road without the tech.</text></comment>