On Feb 17, 4:48=A0am, Jette <bossl...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> David Friedman wrote:
> > In article
> > <6386119a-a980-42f8-8234-c674a8d4b...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> > =A0Willie.Moo...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>
> >> What Ford found though when they did market studies was that car
sales
> >> would plummet along with profits. =A0Why? =A0 Because personal buyers
> >> would more than likely disappear as they went to high quality taxi
> >> services that didn't have to pay drivers, and they'd have a large
> >> number of high quality cars sitting around available at little over
> >> cost.. =A0Fleet buyers would dominate and about 1/4 the number of
autos=
> >> would be sold. =A0It would end congestion, and be more efficient -
but
> >> it would kill the auto-industry. =A0So, you don't see it.
>
> > And you know all this how?
>
> > Let me offer three reasons not to believe it.
>
> > 1. Ford was not and is not the majority of the auto industry. If they
> > can produce a driverless car, they will have a much larger share of
that=
> > market--even if it is a smaller one.
>
> > 2. Switching to taxi services doesn't reduce the number of miles
driven
> > per year--indeed, if they are more convenient, it increases the
number.
> > Most cars, so far as I can see, end up wearing out. So if the average
> > car is good for a hundred thousand miles and total driving is (say)
> > 10^12 car miles/year, about ten million cars a year will be purchased.
> > So it wouldn't be a smaller market but a bigger one.
>
> > 3. One of my colleagues was involved over a period of several years
with=
> > the project to try to design an intelligent highway--a modern system
> > along the lines you describe, with cars computer controlled. They
> > eventually gave up. If it isn't practical now, with current computer
> > technology, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that it was practical
> > fifty years ago.
>
> > Or in other words, you believe it because it is a good story.
>
> Anyway, the biggest drawback to a system like that is the network of
> "wires" that would need to be laid in the roadways. =A0Think of the HUGE
> =A0 project that would be - and there would still be roads that would be
> "off network" .... or do you think they'd lay wires to every farmhouse
> and barn?
>
> The driverless car as a taxi system seems to have a future in certain
> environments. =A0 Just such a system is being piloted at Heathrow
> Airport outside London.
>
> http://www.thealarmclock.com/euro/archives/2007/12/halting_state_driv...
>
> --
> Jette Goldie
>
je...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ("reply to" is spamblocked - use the email addy in sig)- Hide quoted
text =
-
>
> - Show quoted text -
You obviously never lived through the era of Rural Electrification.
Sceptics in the 1920s said the same thing of electrical systems in the
US. Yet the Federal government stepped in and standardized the
variety of US utilities around a single standard, and created a
mechanism that allowed all of America to be electrified.
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761563543/rural_electrification_administ=
ration.html
Recall that the Federal Highway System was formed in 1956 and highways
are still being added to the system. So, to those who saw the ease
with which the nation created a national electrification program,
outfitting the new highways with a wire, and using it to broadcast
radio transmissoins - a simple FM detector could separate out a
broadcast - allowing an FM radio to be attached to the guide circuit
to provide national broadcasting on the highways, emergency
announcements, and natoinal advertising - that way NBC, ABC or CBS
radio could work a deal to service the new system -by selling ad space
on it.
Vehicles that were driverless on one roadway could still be driven on
other roadways. A light would come on when you entered a controlled
space, and you could then engage the driverless mechanism. Well
before you left the driverless space, you would receive a warning. If
the driverless system were still engaged by the time you reach the
end, there's a parking spot the car will pull over and wait until the
driver takes charge.
That isn't a problem.
As I said, just as we took the major cities and tied them together
with a federal electrification program, the proposed highway
administration of the 1950s, could have easily incorporated the
'advanced' roadways needed in the newly proposed highway systems - and
extended them from there into major thoroughfares, and to every corner
of the nation.
So, where you see problems, there were very simple solutions to all of
them.
|
