Couldn't resist...

It's an interesting question--and surely smarter people than me have worked it out--but I can't make the math work.

If there were to be a self-driving mandate it would seem to me to be oppressively expensive. Governments would need to recoup taxes and fees on tags, stickers, inspections, and fuel (and whatnot). Most people probably wouldn't be able to afford their own self-driving cars, so that would, out of necessity, lead to be pools. Pools means that you would need fewer vehicles per capita. Fewer vehicles means fewer mechanics, and car washes and parking lots and other infrastructure to support them. Add mandatory EV on top of that and you lose the infrastructure to support ICE (collection, refinery, distribution and sales). Add to that: delivery of goods--are we to have electric trucks and freight trains? Snow plows? Bulldozers? What do you do with the billion non self-driving vehicles on the road now? You'd need to supplement the electric grid to support it all. What about all the people put out of work? The whole thing seems to collapse in on itself on the economics alone. If it's to work, I think it needs to happen organically over time.

Don't get me wrong, I don't worship at the altar of ICE (okay, maybe I do a little bit) and EV in many respects is vastly superior. I just don't see a mandate happening in the U.S. until we're about to run out of dinosaurs. Otherwise, I think the economy would implode.

The issue that will make you change will be your own economics. In 10 to 12 years almost all cars will be electric and most people won't own a car. You may own an electric automated work vehicle, but gas engines are already on their way out.

Yep. The first drive I had was in a Leaf when they were showing them off here just before they went on sale (one of the 3 production plants is just south of here.. it’s HUGE!) and I was convinced this was the future within seconds of driving it.

Also on the economics front EVs require quite a lot less maintenance than ICE cars so instantly it’s making a lot of mechanics redundant. And self driving will almost inevitably kill off all driver jobs. I’m about to scare you Americans here.. Universal Income. Yes.. socialism. For this huge economic change that’s about to hit us all.. theres not going to be enough jobs going around. I’ll stop now cos I don’t want to give you nightmares....



Ok mebbe one nightmare

Oh and as for the billions of existing cars.. what’s the average life of a car these days? Last time I checked it was 13 years.. so assuming that’s still true then almost all cars on the roads in 2030 will be completely different to today’s ones.. so that shouldn’t cause any issues.

The issue that will make you change will be your own economics. In 10 to 12 years almost all cars will be electric and most people won't own a car. You may own an electric automated work vehicle, but gas engines are already on their way out.

We don't get Uber, Lyft or taxis where I live, so it will be interesting to see how that'll all work.

Oh and as for the billions of existing cars.. what’s the average life of a car these days? Last time I checked it was 13 years.. so assuming that’s still true then almost all cars on the roads in 2030 will be completely different to today’s ones.. so that shouldn’t cause any issues.

You need to double-check your math. If the average life of a car is 13 years, then many of them are considerably older than that.

In all seriousness, I agree that alternative fuels is the wave of the future. I just believe it will take longer than a decade for it to be the only thing.

Double check your maths.. many cars will get written off before they hit 13

And it won’t be the only thing.. but it will happen sooner than you think.. and as I mentioned earlier it’ll cause a lot of petrol stations to close so suddenly it’ll become quite awkward to fill up. Mean while the rest of us will just plug in at home or wherever we park!

Shouldn't you be asleep?


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Don't get me wrong, I don't worship at the altar of ICE (okay, maybe I do a little bit) and EV in many respects is vastly superior. I just don't see a mandate happening in the U.S. until we're about to run out of dinosaurs. Otherwise, I think the economy would implode.

I agree, Dave... I think we have a situation in the United States that makes it more difficult than Europe for switching over -- the United States is a huge land mass (comparatively speaking) for a single country and vast portions of the country are not high urbanized. For instance, there are plenty of cities in the South and Southwest which dwarf even NYC in land area, but with half or even a fifth of the population. SO, I think you see the transition first within the practical areas where it makes the most economic sense -- such as NYC, Boston, Chicago, etc. Especially, as has been pointed out, the fleet vehicles. Our metro area is something like 400k people, but I just measured the area on Google Earth and it is ~250 square miles. I honestly see maybe 3 taxies per year. And I would guess 40% of the vehicles are trucks & SUVs. Those people are not giving up their vehicles easily!

The electric grid being taxed is another thing I've heard about as a potential issue; I guess that will really come down to particular areas but in general a slower adoption will be easier on the utilities to be able to ramp up production in the necessary areas.

Then again, 10 years ago we likely would have thought someone was crazy saying that everyone will have phones which are faster than many computers... Sometimes we surprise ourselves...

. Universal Income. Yes.. socialism. For this huge economic change that’s about to hit us all.. theres not going to be enough jobs going around. I’ll stop now cos I don’t want to give you nightmares....

Ahhhh, yes, the economic theory based on the fact (which we Americans just can't seem to grasp) that goods and services will continue to mystically magically appear even when every last one of us is given a platinum VISA drawing on Trump's bank account.. Because these economists can prove (by quoting each other) that (to paraphrase Obama from 2009) Business owners don't actually do any work; they are just lucky enough to own the factory where these goods appear (ie replicators I assume)....

But we digress; getting back to cars (and in my case a truck), I don't see the ICE going away "quickly" unless we have a large breakthrough in either portable electric generation (high efficiency fuel cells using hydrocarbons or alcohols, thermocouples with no heat sink, etc) or storage (multirecharge cycle batteries or supercaps with at least 5 times the capacity of present best available technology). However, as these technologies continue to incrementally increase in efficiency and capacity, I see ICEs slowly phasing themselves out niche by niche; ICE wireline trimmers, chain saws and lawnmowers are already losing big chunks of their market share to ever better battery electric replacements... and I expect that trend to continue into those who only need in city personal transportation, then as range improves, everybody currently currently buying or leasing the cheap economy cars, and once the capacity gets great enough, electrics will push into every market sector all the way up to heavy trucks. But depending on the pace of efficiency/capacity increases, it may take a century or more before the last refinery is shut down and the last gas station is formally closed. I doubt it will be as fast or disruptive as the shift from horse and mule transportation into ICEs that occurred in the early 20th century (ever wonder what happened to all the blacksmiths, farriers, horse vets, buggy repairmen, pooper scoopers, etc?). we got through that one without universal income, so I don't think it'll be necessary this time around unless there's an "order of magnitude" breakthrough somewhere.

Isn’t it fascinating how a post originally about net neutrality excuses has segwayed into all manor of different topics?

Unfortunately nobody knows what’s gonna happen.. but I’m sure it’s going to happen a lot quicker than most people think it will.. and we’re not ready for it. And I genuinely fear that it’s going to be one of the biggest disruptions to life since the industrial revolution... possibly for good and for bad.


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I can't believe that I actually get to say this....

Jay started it.


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He did! Of course he’s part of the problem.. before indigo came along I employed three people to turn on lights, close blinds and change tv channels for me.. now with indigo I don’t need these peons so they’re just unemployed drains on society! I might rehire one though.. no ones written a plugin for indigo that cleans my toilets! Hey @Howartp.. want a job?


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[jay (support)]

so assuming that’s still true then almost all cars on the roads in 2030 will be completely different to today’s ones.. so that shouldn’t cause any issues.

However, EVs are still a small percentage of cars being sold today. EVs are coming, but I think the guy in the video posted earlier is way overestimating the timeline.

I think we have a situation in the United States that makes it more difficult than Europe for switching over -- the United States is a huge land mass (comparatively speaking) for a single country and vast portions of the country are not high urbanized. For instance, there are plenty of cities in the South and Southwest which dwarf even NYC in land area, but with half or even a fifth of the population. SO, I think you see the transition first within the practical areas where it makes the most economic sense

This. Another thing the guy in the video earlier seems to not take into account is that the majority of the US is NOT urban. For instance, I'm in a suburb of Austin, but it's still rural enough that getting an Uber/Lyft is challenging. Food delivery companies are just now starting to service my area. Another point: my brother and mother live in east Texas in a very rural location. To go visit them requires not only a personally owned car (because you're never going to get a Lyft for a 3 hour drive to rural east Texas), but now you're starting to run into distance issues. Logistically, LOTS of things will have to happen and filter into rural areas for the switch to fully happen.

And, sorry, I'm just not buying the "maintenance" cost calculations as a huge factor. Those might be the average over the average lifetime of an automobile, but I suspect that the maintenance costs increase in a non-linear fashion as the car gets older. The guy on the video claims that owning an ICE is $10k a year. A little back of the napkin calculations show that I've never spent that much on a car. That may be the "average", but averages often don't show the whole story.

Finally, in the US at least the vast majority of people take car ownership as much more than just a numbers game. It's so ingrained in our psyche that having a car means freedom to go wherever you want whenever you want. Overcoming this in favor of something more shared is going to take a lot more time IMO (and, in fact, could very well be generational). Making things more "on demand" than, say, public transportation will certainly help - but I think there's a certain independent spirit that is going to resist this.