Why you have (probably) already bought your last car

[sillygoosegirl]

www.bbc.com/news/business-45786690

I'm guessing you are scoffing in disbelief at the very suggestion of this article, but bear with me.

A growing number of tech analysts are predicting that in less than 20 years we'll all have stopped owning cars, and, what's more, the internal combustion engine will have been consigned to the dustbin of history.

[downtoearth]

This is great for everyone - please stop buying cars (she says from her 4th largest - rural - state with v. few uber/lyft/taxi drivers let alone any public transportation aside from a shuttle that takes hikers/runners/bikers to open space trails all spring/summer/fall). I want this to be true and I want these trends to continue with more efficient/electric cars and public transportation.

[secretlyevil]

I would love to stop driving everywhere.

[lust2hart]

Interesting theories. I don't think it's outlandish to expect that one day all cars will be electric and self-driven, but I cannot see this happening in 20 years. But technology moves fast - the internet became widely available only, what, 20-25 years ago - so who knows.

[glw]

I love cars-- I love looking at them, driving them, talking about them. I own 4 cars and will probably collect more. But I fully understand that not everyone feels that way and would prefer to take public transportation or have an easier/less manual car to commute in.

[goldengirlz]

I live in the capital of self-driving innovation (our last apartment was literally on the Google self-driving car test route) so I believe it’s possible. We’re close.

I also think we’re close to realizing an all-electric fleet of cars.

The technology isn’t the problem; it’s the consumer expectations. And the infrastructure.

[audette]

They completely miss out on the "schlepping" factor of having your own car. Goodness knows that it is nice to be able to pack my car on Friday night so I can day-trip something on Saturday that means getting up super-early to make the drive to where-ever that event is happening. And to just leave the stuff in the car until Sunday after getting home late on Saturday.

I'm just contemplating the quantity of stuff DH and I routinely lug around in our vehicles that is more than we could easily carry in a single trip. How do I order an uber and then tell it to sit and wait while I spend a half hour or more loading stuff into it, and then another half hour unloading at the far end of a 20 minute drive. I suppose we'd just plan differently, or pack differently, or these self-driving cars might be easier to load/unload? Maybe?


I could see self-driving cars being commonplace, or even the majority in 10-20 years. I don't see people getting rid of their own vehicles completely, though. Reducing the number of owned vehicles, yeah, probably. We could drop down to a single vehicle fairly easily if I woke up 10-15 minutes earlier so I can get home from the gym before DH leaves for work and if I had an alternate option for running errands when I'm done work but DH is not.

[Vespasia]

I think this is possible for me personally.

Right now, we only need 1 car because MH bikes everywhere. We just bought a new one 2 months ago and had our last for over 10 years. There is a chance that we may move to a city with better public transportation and bike infrastructure in the next few years. We already use Uber/Lyft a ton to get around if there will be any drinking involved and there are things like ZipCar if we need a vehicle. I could see us just renting when we go to visit family.

[imojoebunny]

I don't see this happening that quickly. Mass numbers of shared driverless cars require a significant change in legislation and liability, as well as, a steep mindset change and learning curve for society who values having their own personal pod on wheels.

Don't get me wrong, I think things will change, but I don't think it is going to be like horses or digital pictures, those things had huge upsides, and little downside, unless you were a blacksmith or Kodak. Shared cars are not seen as a benefit for most Americans, outside of large cities. I also do not think that the estimated reduction in the number of cars has any basis in reality. You would need to have enough cars to meet peak demand, in order to have societal acceptance, like weekday mornings, and that would not allow for a 5 to 1 car reduction, which would make the cost less appealing. There is also, the issue of servicing these cars. Companies are popping up to do this now, in some cities for other shared car platforms, but it is not all that logistically easy, and like bird scooters, where do all these cars go in low demand times? You can't just ditch them on the sidewalk.

[seeyalater52]

I love this. We only have one car, which we JUST got 1.5 years ago when we moved from Boston to RI because it's just not feasible to live in the suburbs without a car. Before that for my entire adult life we didn't have a car and basically had no need for one living in places that had great, or even passable, public transit systems. I take the train to work and otherwise don't have much need for a car, or if I do, I take a Lyft.

Part of my excitement is colored by the fact that I don't drive, and I'm not sure I ever will.

[Gato]

Hallelujah, I hope this is true. I truly enjoyed the 15 years or so I lived in big cities and didn't own the car. Cheaper (obviously), plus cars and driving just take up a lot of mental space that I don't want to give them.

[lust2hart]

Oct 19, 2018 12:04:34 GMT -5 audette said:

They completely miss out on the "schlepping" factor of having your own car. Goodness knows that it is nice to be able to pack my car on Friday night so I can day-trip something on Saturday that means getting up super-early to make the drive to where-ever that event is happening. And to just leave the stuff in the car until Sunday after getting home late on Saturday.

I'm just contemplating the quantity of stuff DH and I routinely lug around in our vehicles that is more than we could easily carry in a single trip. How do I order an uber and then tell it to sit and wait while I spend a half hour or more loading stuff into it, and then another half hour unloading at the far end of a 20 minute drive. I suppose we'd just plan differently, or pack differently, or these self-driving cars might be easier to load/unload? Maybe?


I could see self-driving cars being commonplace, or even the majority in 10-20 years. I don't see people getting rid of their own vehicles completely, though. Reducing the number of owned vehicles, yeah, probably. We could drop down to a single vehicle fairly easily if I woke up 10-15 minutes earlier so I can get home from the gym before DH leaves for work and if I had an alternate option for running errands when I'm done work but DH is not.

I thought about this, too. We live a 4- and 7-hour drive away from our parents. Whenever we see them, it's for a weekend, at least. And I just kind of chuckled when I got to the paragraph about - If your car runs out of electricity, no problem, the fleet will send a fully-charged car right to you! Yay! I can't wait to sit in a dead car on a late December day in the Midwest waiting for my new car to show up, and then move all of my stuff over in snowy 20* weather and be on my merry way! 

[kershnic]

I mean, it sounds beautiful. But we recently moved from an urban area where having one car was a luxury to a small city surrounded by a rural area. People think we are nuts for only having one car and although we love aspects of it we're preparing to buy a second car.

Will these magic driverless cars have car seats? In appropriate configurations for the children involved? Will they sit and wait w me while I let my kid finish a nap? Who will clean it up when my kid gets carsick and the car needs to leave? And I can leave all my stuff in the trunk while I park at the various places I go? And somehow I won't get stranded when I need a vehicle and it also happens to be move in weekend at the local college? And I can pack my stuff for camping the night before? And then pile my dirty smelly family back in to get to the beach?

[ESF]

Oct 19, 2018 12:04:34 GMT -5 audette said:

They completely miss out on the "schlepping" factor of having your own car. Goodness knows that it is nice to be able to pack my car on Friday night so I can day-trip something on Saturday that means getting up super-early to make the drive to where-ever that event is happening. And to just leave the stuff in the car until Sunday after getting home late on Saturday.

I'm just contemplating the quantity of stuff DH and I routinely lug around in our vehicles that is more than we could easily carry in a single trip. How do I order an uber and then tell it to sit and wait while I spend a half hour or more loading stuff into it, and then another half hour unloading at the far end of a 20 minute drive. I suppose we'd just plan differently, or pack differently, or these self-driving cars might be easier to load/unload? Maybe?


I could see self-driving cars being commonplace, or even the majority in 10-20 years. I don't see people getting rid of their own vehicles completely, though. Reducing the number of owned vehicles, yeah, probably. We could drop down to a single vehicle fairly easily if I woke up 10-15 minutes earlier so I can get home from the gym before DH leaves for work and if I had an alternate option for running errands when I'm done work but DH is not.

I agree with this. I'm not going to go as far as to say that what this article predicts will NEVER happen, but I think it oversimplifies a lot. There are enormous differences between the horse-to-car transition and the car-to-this-prediction that make it an apples to oranges comparison.  The car transition offered people more control and independence. It made it easier to get around faster and go long distances. It made it easier to transport families and stuff. 

This removes independence and control. People who require car seats for kids or have pets or disabilities that require special accommodations are not easily going to be able to transition to a "call a driverless car" world.

People might want to drive less, but that does not mean that people do not want the option to own a car. Now if the article said that in twenty years, nobody would be driving a car, I'd buy that. But if there are driver less cars, people will own them.

[katieinthecity]

This is definitely not true for us. We are going to need to replace our older car within probably 5 years. We're in the vast suburban wasteland where almost nothing is walkable and public transportation is middling and inefficient.

That said, the reason it's untrue is a timing thing for us - we buy used and drive them into the ground for 15+ years. If this happened to be at a different point in our "car cycle" I could see it being true. I could see the next one being the last. I certainly believe that it'll be the last combustion engine we'll buy, if it even is one.

[dreamcrisp1]

I can see this.

The Netherlands is banning all new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. So people are already leaning more towards EVs.

[mskitkat]

How would this work for holiday travel? I routinely make 12 hour drives at Christmas/Thanksgiving. If everyone is needs more cars during peak travel times, what if there isn’t one available when it runs out of charge in middle-of-nowhere Ohio?

[CrazyLucky]

Consider me one of the scoffers. This is how the article addresses the rural areas:

Don't worry that rural areas will be left out. A vehicle could be parked in every village waiting for your order to come.

There may be fewer of us, but we're going to need more than one car per village. I seriously doubt that any personal car alternative is going to be cheap and efficient enough for the commute, regular errands like grocery shopping, and myriad kid activities. This might be possible in big cities or even suburbs, but people who live in the country most definitely have not purchased their last car.

[lilibet]

I'm also in a small City surrounded by rural area and there's no way this will happen here in 20 years. I legit think a lot of people would rise up and protest any attempt to start legislation allowing this. Owning your own car is still seen as a sign of success here. Plus hybrid and electric cars are still laughed at here.

Also hell no to sitting in a cold car in a Midwest winter waiting on a fully charged one.

I'd love to see something like this happen, but I don't see it happening easily.

[lilibet]

Oct 19, 2018 12:47:47 GMT -5 CrazyLucky said:

Consider me one of the scoffers. This is how the article addresses the rural areas:

Don't worry that rural areas will be left out. A vehicle could be parked in every village waiting for your order to come.

There may be fewer of us, but we're going to need more than one car per village. I seriously doubt that any personal car alternative is going to be cheap and efficient enough for the commute, regular errands like grocery shopping, and myriad kid activities. This might be possible in big cities or even suburbs, but people who live in the country most definitely have not purchased their last car.

In addition to errands what about doctor appointments. Most small town and rural people have a long drive to get to their doctor. We have a hospital just outside my town but my fil still has to go an hour north to see his cancer doc. And this isn't something like he's going to Mayo or something,it's just a regular hospital but it's the closest cancer center.

[aurora]

I think the next decade will see substantial changes to day-to-day commuting activities in metro areas. I also think it's likely more families will decide to own just one car instead of one per driver.

I think it's going to be a lot longer before people are going to get rid of all of their cars. For example H and I did a camping trip last weekend that would have been totally infeasible without our vehicle. I certainly wouldn't have been happy for a shared driverless vehicle to strand us at our campsite when the wind picked up at sub-freezing temperatures and we needed to store our water somewhere it wouldn't freeze.

And I say all of this as someone who commutes by bus or bike most days and whose car thus is in the driveway a lot of the time.

[mcsangel2]

I'm thinking of a line from "The American President" where Annette Benning's character (a lobbyist) says to someone on the phone that their combustion engine car is going to be a relic in ten years.

That movie is 23 years old.

Electric, hybrid, driverless cars taking off? You bet. Any other predictions belong with the mid-twentieth century flying cars in the future trope.

[meshaliuknits]

Call me when we get matter transporters. THAT'S the change I really want to see.

[mcsangel2]

Oct 19, 2018 13:12:24 GMT -5 meshaliuknits said:

Call me when we get matter transporters. THAT'S the change I really want to see.

Or portkeys!

[Jalapeñomel]

I find this hard to imagine.

On this board alone, almost every day, someone is asking about purchasing a new car, especially SUVs and other cars that use lots of gas and take up lots of space (regularly stating that they need a third row or whatever, with little to no regard on how their car is affecting the environment).

I hope I'm totally wrong.

[mcsangel2]

And also, this is a British writer talking about the UK. This kind of expectation is way more realistic there and in Europe where the population is much more dense.

[stephogirl]

I'd just be happy to purchase an affordable electric car with a 500+ mile range. Do I need that range 90% of the time? Definitely not. But when I'm driving five hours through the rural Midwest to visit family, I don't see many options for charging an electric car. Hopefully that infrastructure will change and charging stations will be as common as gas stations, but I don't see it being a quick transition in corn/ethanol country.

[mskitkat]

Oct 19, 2018 13:12:24 GMT -5 meshaliuknits said:

Call me when we get matter transporters. THAT'S the change I really want to see.

🎶 If you have to take me apart to get me there, I’d rather stay at home. 🎶

[Deleted]

Oct 19, 2018 12:28:23 GMT -5 ESF said:

Oct 19, 2018 12:04:34 GMT -5 audette said:

They completely miss out on the "schlepping" factor of having your own car. Goodness knows that it is nice to be able to pack my car on Friday night so I can day-trip something on Saturday that means getting up super-early to make the drive to where-ever that event is happening. And to just leave the stuff in the car until Sunday after getting home late on Saturday.

I'm just contemplating the quantity of stuff DH and I routinely lug around in our vehicles that is more than we could easily carry in a single trip. How do I order an uber and then tell it to sit and wait while I spend a half hour or more loading stuff into it, and then another half hour unloading at the far end of a 20 minute drive. I suppose we'd just plan differently, or pack differently, or these self-driving cars might be easier to load/unload? Maybe?


I could see self-driving cars being commonplace, or even the majority in 10-20 years. I don't see people getting rid of their own vehicles completely, though. Reducing the number of owned vehicles, yeah, probably. We could drop down to a single vehicle fairly easily if I woke up 10-15 minutes earlier so I can get home from the gym before DH leaves for work and if I had an alternate option for running errands when I'm done work but DH is not.

I agree with this. I'm not going to go as far as to say that what this article predicts will NEVER happen, but I think it oversimplifies a lot. There are enormous differences between the horse-to-car transition and the car-to-this-prediction that make it an apples to oranges comparison.  The car transition offered people more control and independence. It made it easier to get around faster and go long distances. It made it easier to transport families and stuff. 

This removes independence and control. People who require car seats for kids or have pets or disabilities that require special accommodations are not easily going to be able to transition to a "call a driverless car" world.

People might want to drive less, but that does not mean that people do not want the option to own a car. Now if the article said that in twenty years, nobody would be driving a car, I'd buy that. But if there are driver less cars, people will own them.

Yes. We share one car, but not owning a car doesn't feel particularly feasible.

Incidental @ below

I could take the bus to drop the baby off at daycare and then go to work, but that would take about 80 minutes total. It's about 40 minutes with a car. That's a savings of over an hour per day. When my kid sleeps 12 hours (13 last night!), spending 3 hours/day commuting is just not OK.

We CAN take the train to my MIL's - I have done it. Traveling by myself, it's honestly preferable to driving. But with a toddler? You can't install a car seat on a train, so I have no way to restrain her. I'm supposed to schlepp my stroller and my pack and play through Union Station when I change trains?

I know this article isn't exactly about public transportation, but I just see a lot of reasons that cars aren't going away.

[eclaires]

We just bought a 2019 Honda Odyssey over the summer. It is definitely not my last car. I love this fucking thing but I will own a corvette one day. Preferably a restored 70s version like Pam Ewing.

Don’t take my dreams away.