Yes, that's exactly the point. It disarms people from fighting over patent nonsense. If you hate software patents you should love the bad + patents license.
What is it that makes solar panels cost what they do, ultimately? Not materials, right? Those are all basically sand and other not so special things. Labor? Isn't it mostly automated? Upkeep of the factories? Input energy?
Maybe it's just all those things together. But it sure seems like if we wanted to it wouldn't be that hard to ramp up production and drive costs down a couple fold. Not that I know how.
I think it would be much easier to use methane. Just as carbon neutral if you make it yourself, and doesn't have as many exotic engineering requirements.
I didn't know that about fuel cells though, interesting.
Even buses don't take you door to door. I can't imagine a future where a streetcar is anywhere near as good as self driving cars (possibly paired with mass transit).
I really want to be in the business of writing the software that plans these things. The possibilities are crazy. Predicting where to have cars based on overall traffic flows, having cars ready for individuals who always leave at the same time. Think, a car is 30 seconds away every time you follow your routine. That's faster than getting into and starting your own car! Especially if you have a parking garage.
I think car sharing even works in those cases. It's all a logistical problem.
Not that there won't be some people who own cars. There just aren't that many problems that are hard to solve with car shares to outweigh the huge benefits.
Driverless cars can take you between train stations and destinations. No magical form of train will come to your house or go to your office.
In fact, this is a perfect use case for driverless cars. The problem with trains everywhere is the wasted time not on the train and the million stops along the way.
"A teenager doesn't just "want a car." He wants that freedom that car gives him."
Precisely, and this is why owning the car isn't that important. This teenager presumably still has to pay for the car and fuel, or bug his parents for it. Paying for the (cheaper) self driving ride is no different.
You missed the point like the GP. None of those services are anything like what's coming. Car2go still has to be parked, has to be close, you have to live in the home zone. Zip car is just... Not even close. It's a rental service and you need to take the car back.
Comparing either of those or public transit to self driving cars misses the point entirely.
The fear of battery degradation is way way overblown. You'll drive at least a few hundred thousand miles before you might "need" to replace it [1]. And even then, you could keep going.
How is that your take? It seems that would completely contradict it. If it's just accumulation of errors how would that be impacted at all by what you eat? Especially the age of what you eat!