Why would I want to own one?...

A selection of quotes from the world of science fiction.

““The cars all belong to the city,” said the driver. “Why would I want to own one?”

This throwaway line is from an unnamed taxi driver character in Humans (2003), the second book in Robert J. Sawyer's amazing series, The Neanderthal Parallax. A trilogy, it tells a story of alternate universes, one in which the Neanderthals became the dominant species on earth. The two worlds meet and various fascinating topics are explored as comparisons are drawn between current modern-day Earth and its idyllic Neanderthals multiverse equivalent.

The driver from the quote is one of the Neanderthals; having just picked up some Earthlings who have travelled to his world, he's having a conversation with them while driving them to their destination. On the Neanderthal world, cars are considered common property, owned by the state. They're all electric - fossil fuels aren't used on their world. They're box-shaped, so they can be piled up for easy storage when they're not being used.

There are many other differences between the worlds; the humans are of course fascinated by this one, given how important personally-owned cars are to the average Earth person. However, the Neanderthal driver is no less surprised.

A world where car ownership was weird would have seemed staggeringly unlikely even a few years ago. But the world of driving has changed significantly in that short time. The disruptive presence of peer-to-peer commercial driving networks like Uber and Lyft have massively changed how people use driving services, and their expectations of how such services should operate.

The flow-on effects from these services are still being felt - for example, some studies are showing that the presence of these players in the market are helping to reduce drink driving fatalities. It will be a while before the full scope and impact of these services can be properly understood, but it seems so far that we're witnessing a fundamental shift.

Uber, of course, are keen to make drivers think that their service is more cost-effective than owning a car. On their blog, they attempt to build a case with maths proving that you're better off simply not owning a car and catching Uber everywhere. (Veteran cynics of the software world might argue that these figures would be subject to change if they end up creating the kind of monopoly they appear to be aiming towards.)

Compounding this is the presence of services like Car2Go - the background picture for this quote shows a couple of their cute little Smart cars in Amsterdam. They basically just buy a bunch of cars and then leave them lying around for anyone to use; you'll pay only for the time you're occupying them. You don't even have to pay for petrol - there's a pre-paid fuel card if you need to top up. They have a 'home zone', in which you can park the car anywhere - some cities will even have arrangements with Car2Go so they can be easily parked in public parking lots or in metered spaces for free.

While living in the USA, I was fortunate to have access to Car2Go with such an arrangement. Public sporting events had dedicated Car2Go areas. The biggest shopping mall had a separate parking lot. Almost everywhere downtown offered free parking. It was awesome. The only complaint I could make was no free airport parking - but knowing airports, that might have been asking too much.

In over two years it never even occurred to me to think about buying a car. This system worked so flawlessly for almost all the driving I wanted to do that - combined with Uber for the occasional drive where alcohol was involved - I now look for similar schemes in every city I go to. Certainly, I am shifting into the camp where I hope not to have to own a car again.

The simple statement from the driver in Humans probably wasn't meant to be predictive - the Neanderthal world is basically a big happy socialist utopia, so it's more from that angle that car ownership is weird. But it's still interestingly prescient.

And of course, everyone is falling over themselves to figure out self-driving cars. Many large technology companies - Google, Tesla, Apple, and Uber - are investing heavily in this space and working hard to be the first. Large auto companies are also rushing to get into this space - GM recently dropped $500m into Lyft, and Toyota into Uber.

Self-driving cars seem to be progressing rapidly, though in addition to the outstanding technical challenges (apparently they don't work so great in the snow), there are still plenty of hurdles. Figuring out things like who is liable for an accident in a self-driving car is keeping lawyers up late at night - although there is already action on this front, with Volvo declaring up front that they're happy to accept liability. Many legislative and regulatory challenges remain.

Aside from those significant (but probably not insurmountable) problems, there is also figuring out how to get people used to being in a vehicle that is magically moving by itself. How quickly this happens will be interesting; if the safety factor is as great as many in the technology community are predicting then it seems a safe bet that adoption will follow reasonably quickly. But it won't take many terrible failures to have a dramatic effect on how safe people feel about getting into these vehicles.

Car ownership will probably still remain a big factor for a lot of people; as a luxury item they'll no doubt be around for ever. But even a small shift in behaviour might have a massive effect on the manufacturing side.

As the Neanderthal population figured out in this series, most cars sit unused for a significant percentage of their lifetime. If the utilisation of cars increases it will undoubtedly have a powerful impact. Unfortunately The Neanderthal Parallax doesn't speculate much more on the matter of vehicles (although it has a lot to say on other current hot-button issues, most notably on privacy and the surveillance state), but this one comment from a minor character really stood out to me. ”

Humans, by Robert J. Sawyer

Image: Wikipedia

← Older · · Newer →

Close

Comments are closed.