Driverless cars - the biggest potential impact to real estate?

Agreed HE, I found out yesterday I've used uber 86 times or around twice a week since it launched and don't see that decreasing. My parents who are in their 60s and moving into cbd have more or less decided to get rid of one car in the future and use uber to supplement. A friend of mine has used it 1000 times in 12 cities which is insane but she does work for uber.

With regards to the technology paul , I'm pretty confident it will be worked out.even audi came out recently with a demo stating their new technology should be available in 2017, not fully driverless yet but can change lanes etc on the freeway. If Elon musk is confident of doing it by 2020 you'd be a brave man to bet against him
 
I don't think it will ever happen have people forgotten lessons learnt from the Gulf war, when auto-guidance system were disrupted and caused havoc to agricultural operations. Satellite signals can easily be jammed or shut down by any-body with a grudge, a political objective or just for the hell of it. Iraq was jamming satellites and the USA was restricting use for military purposes. It would make economies to vulnerable to terrorists.
 
We used to have enviromentaly friendly , naturally powered, automated vehicles with anti collision avoidance...then we got rid of the horse
 
I would still trust a driveless system over some of the idiots on the road today. I surf alot and people ask me "are you scared of the sharks?" And I say "no, I'm more scared of the drive to the surf".


I think for it to work all existing cars would have to be taken off the road and these new driverless cars implemented all in the same day. Then you will still have to deal with people hacking the system or deliberately blocking roads for "fun" to see how the computer system reacts.

Flying cars would definately be the key.

Too many oil and car companies profit from cars to alow battery powered solar charged cars to take over. Also the government unless they got some better tax from it.

As for house prices, in my opinion the demand for inner city will still be there however the what's consdered "inner city" will be expanded.
 
Good topic.

FYI, driverless cars are already here and driving safely in some US states. Have been for a few years, actually. It's a matter of when, not if, they become ubiquitous.

In a decade we will be debating when to pass laws making it a crime for a human to drive a car on public roads. Some time after that laws will be passed and one of the biggest killers of healthy humans will be eliminated. Our primative wetware can't compete with something that can see everywhere simultaneously and out to great distances , doesn't get distracted or tired, can calculate complex equations and communicated wirelessly with other cars around it to know when they're braking, accelerating, where they're headed and the entire fleet is able to make traffic jams a thing of the past by driving like a flock and rerouting to avoid congestion.

It'll be interesting for sure. Especially to see if shared vehicles (that you summon on demand) become the norm rather than owning your own car.

I think it will have a minimal impact on property prices but not as much as we might think. Remember the talk about the internet doing the same thing when people could all work from home?

Another thing to think about that's parallel to this is advances in contrcution tecniques. In CHina they're 3D printing buildings already... when construction costs plummet, communication tech improve and cars drive themselves...well, I won't guess.


What driverless cars will do is end the roles of taxi drivers, bus drivers, train drivers, tram drivers and the like....in a flash.

I like asking taxi drivers if they know about the driverless cars already on US roads.
 
But lets just assume they can't fly for now. OK I'm out cruisin' on a Friday night and I want to impress some skirt on the footpath. A nice burnout would be handy but it can't be done, it's driverless!

Dont worry Datto, if modern history has taught us anything it's that as soon as a new gizmo is released someone, somewhere is already well on their way to hacking it. Driveless cars will be no exception, within months of being released a quick hacked software update will have your new driveless car dropping burnouts in front of Maccas to impress the chicks like it was still on it's red Ps. Also be very handy to be able to have your driveless car carry out a drive by shooting or two on your behalf when the need arises.

I think it will be awesome when you call up your driveless uber share car to run you to work, open the car door to get in and realise the last user was getting a lift home from from the Casino after a 24hr bender and has left you a 6 pack and a pizza to enjoy. Cabbies have a hard time convincing people to keep their cab clean when they're sitting in the car with the customer, a driverless share car would be filthy in days.

On a serious note, I dont see property demand changing much, computers can only improve congestion so much, and a 1 hour commute to work will only suck slightly less when the car is driving from me. Also, all this "the car will drive to work, then go home for the wife to use, then come back and pick me up a the end of the day" effectivly doubles the congestion if everybody does it.

On the plus side fatigue and driver error related fatalities should drop to zero, car accidents are a terrible way to lose a loved one.
 
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