Posts about Cars

Does being car-shaped and having batteries make it more appealing than a bicycle? In downtown DC, being car-shaped would just make this bicycle hard to park, but in a place like Loudoun, it could bridge the gap between cyclists and drivers. It's great that a number of people in Loudoun and other very spread-out suburbs bicycle everywhere. But it's not easy for the average person there to start riding regularly.

For urban dwellers in dense communities, driving already has substantial hassles, especially parking, and there's a lot to reach from just a short bike ride. As I noted in my Washington Post op-ed, Capital Bikeshare got me biking a lot more. That was easy because I can reach a great many destinations with a one-mile bike ride.

If I lived in Olney or Chantilly, there'd be some, but far fewer. Running everyday errands requires traversing longer distances. Roads are engineered to be even less friendly to biking, and almost every store requires navigating a parking lot where people aren't expecting a cyclist.

Maybe a vehicle that's in between the car and the bike would give someone who drives everywhere an alternative that's not as intimidating. Hills aren't quite so difficult, but the driver gets used to pedaling and improves physical fitness. It's larger and therefore more visible to other drivers.

Being larger, though, it's also harder to pass. If these vehicles became more than the very occasional curiosity, will they change drivers' view of the roadway, or will they just become yet another source of angry conflict?

Newspapers are already replete with angry letters to the editor about cyclists riding on roads like Macarthur Boulevard that force drivers to wait instead of achieving any desired speed. Then there's the occasional column by someone who admits to wanting to actually assault cyclists because they get in the way.

It's easy to imagine the same conflict between drivers of motor vehicles and users of these pedal-powered cars. Drivers get irate if 2 cyclists are riding abreast; this car is always at least as wide as 2 cyclists. It can go faster than a bike, but still far slower than a motor vehicle.

If enough people drive both an SUV and a bike-car, maybe everyone on the road will just develop an appreciation for each other's point of view. First, though, bike-cars would have to go through a period of being a niche product for early adopters. Then we'll see if Loudoun residents continue to find them entertaining and fascinating, or if they turn into a nuisance, a point of conflict, and a punching bag for politicians who can't envision any kind of freedom other than driving a really large, high-horsepower car.

Oligopolies share an important characteristic with monopolies: firms price goods and services not based simply on supply and demand, but in the way that maximizes their revenue, while taking into consideration how their competitors behave. Oligopoly industries are notorious difficult to understand, and game theory scholars have stepped into help explain why these firms behave the way they do.

In a perfectly competitive market, competition among firms brings down prices. In an oligopoly, this is also true to an extent. Consider the case of a well-known oligopoly: airlines. The air travel industry is dominated by a small number of firms and barriers to entry are extremely high. Even so, "fare wars" occasionally drive prices down and yield great deals for consumers.

Car sharing is unlike air travel in one key way: customers are screened for safe driving records, and must be a member of a given company to use its cars. In the case of Zipcar, a potential customer must submit an application that shows that they have a driver's license and have committed no serious infractions behind the wheel. If a potential customer lacks either of these, he or she is ineligible for the service.

Imagine if airlines operated similarly: Before booking a trip, you would have to buy a membership with the airline. You'd only be able to buy fares from those companies where you held a membership. Airlines would still compete for business on price, but in different ways. "Fare wars" would be a much less likely occurance.

In that sense, the market for car-sharing is more like the cell phone industry. Consumers are allowed to sign up with as many wireless carriers as they please; but most pick just one and stick with it. Rates are a major selling point, as are features like service coverage and available phones.

Even with monopoly status in many cities, and the perception of success, Zipcar is not a profitable company. In it's ten-year history, the firm has never turned a profit. Until recently, the District indirectly subsidized the company by offering choice parking spaces at below-market rates.

Arguably, Zipcar was able to pass those savings on to their customers. And with monopoly status, it became a one-stop shop for anyone looking to have access to a shared car. If, instead, the region's 800-some shared cars had been split among four companies, a customer holding a membership with only one service would have access to only a fraction of the total number of cars.

Still, competition will likely mean more total shared cars in the region, which is good from an urbanist perspective. It should benefit the consumer by forcing the industry, including Zipcar, to offer attractive rates and quality service. Just don't expect it to drive down rates significantly or drastically alter the market in the immediate future.

Today, buses have fairly high operating costs because of the labor involved. They're far more space-efficient than cars, but it's expensive to pay a driver. The biggest reason transit costs more to operate than highways is because with transit, you're paying a driver, but if you're driving your own car, you're doing the labor yourself.

That's a structural imbalance that puts transit at a budgetary disadvantage, until your car drives yourself and so can the bus. Suddenly, there's no difference.

Cities with self-driving trains, like Vancouver, can run far greater frequency at low ridership times like nights for a reasonable price. More vehicles makes transit more appealing.

Now, buses are often very infrequent or nonexistent at night, making them an unappealing mode for an evening trip, for example, unless you live right near a high-frequency, late night line. But what if the bus just drove itself every 5 minutes? Basically, it's like everything PRT promises, but without any guideways.

Or, better yet, what if it ran on demand? Then it's like a cheap taxi. And, in fact, buses, taxis, and car sharing will essentially merge into one mode.

Right now, each of those modes has advantages and disadvantages. Buses have the labor cost issue. Taxis have it even more, but are very convenient when available. Car sharing is great for certain types of trips, but you have to return the car to its starting point.

With autonomous vehicles, there will be no need to differentiate between vehicles that carry many people on fixed routes (buses), vehicles that carry few people on demand (taxis), and vehicles you can drive but are only in certain places (car sharing).

Instead, you'll simply be able to call a number or use a mobile app to book a trip. In urban areas, you'd go to a designated bus stop, or maybe pay more to get a custom pickup right where you are. A vehicle will show up at an assigned time, maybe picking up a few other people as well who are going to a similar destination, unless you want to buy a solo trip.

For more on how this could work, see Mark Gorton's Smart Para-Transit articles.

We'll need far fewer parking spaces in dense areas. Commuters from suburbs that take autonomous buses/taxis/paratransit vehicles/car sharing cars into the city won't need to park them. Instead, they can drive themselves around all day serving short-range trips as taxis. Others would live in the city full-time, and those might need overnight parking, but far less than we have today.

It will simply become far easier and cheaper to live in the city without a car. It won't really be like living without a car today. It will simply be like living with a car, without worrying about parking or paying nearly as much. Or, perhaps, it's like using car sharing, but with the guarantee that a car is always available and without having to worry about getting the car back in time.

Finally, assuming Google can perfect the software, streets will become much safer. The cars will be far better at avoiding crashes. Instead of most drivers speeding, turning improperly across bike lanes, and being distracted with texting or phone calls or the radio, the car will be "paying attention" at every moment (as long as its software isn't buggy!)

Governments and manufacturers will have to decide how to handle speed limits. Today, many localities set speed limits knowing most people speed. Will drivers be able to choose their speed, or will cars be required to travel the actual speed limit? If so, maybe we can finally rationalize all these limits and set them appropriately.

If governments set up autonomous car-only lanes on freeways or ban human-driven cars altogether once most cars drive themselves, traffic can move more efficiently. Right now, if a bunch of cars are stopped in traffic or at a light, each driver has to wait a few seconds after the car in front starts moving. With computers, the entire line of cars could simply start moving all at once.

The greater efficiency will allow existing freeways to carry more people than they do now, and since it'll be a lot easier to create carpools with Smart Para-Transit dispatching, even more if jurisdictions are willing to convert lanes to HOV. That could also accelerate sprawl, but the greater ease of urban living and lower need for parking will also facilitate infill development as well.

How else will cities change if cars can drive themselves?

When one goes to purchase their replacement vehicle, what happens to the one they already have? In most cases it is sold to someone else, who eventually sells it to someone else until it finally completely dies after about 17 years and several owners.

In fact, every car that is manufactured will be on the road until it finally is totaled or gives up the ghost. Your particular ownership of that car is just a waypoint on the path from manufacturer to junkyard.

A better outcome, from an environmentalist's standpoint, is for manufacturers to start churning out more and more high mileage and hybrid cars and working desperately to design and build the next, even better generation of vehicles.

The way to get the manufacturers on board is to affect demand. Car builders claim over and over that they manufacture to meet the demand of buyers—it's why GM claimed it was building so many SUVs, for instance.

Manufacturers don't care about used-car buyers, even if demand for used cars sends a weak signal. If I buy a new, cutting edge, fuel-efficient vehicle, then I'm sending a signal to the manufacturer to make more of those. If I buy a used car, I'm not sending any signal, but someone buying a gas-guzzler might be.

Buying a used car neither reduces the total number of manufactured cars nor the number of cars going to the junkyard: remember, each owner is just a way station along the car's trip.

Another way to look at the argument is to scale it up. Thought experiment: a fleet buyer is buying 100,000 vehicles. Imagine the difference between placing an order for 100,000 new hybrids vs. buying 100,000 used cars. Which is going to make the manufacturers sit up and take notice—and maybe even invest in new factories?

In fact, what if that fleet owner put in an order for 100,000 every year? There's an interesting twist. Counterintuitively, by making that argument writ small we learn that buying a new efficient car every year is better than buying one and making it last. And it's true (although not practical for most people). It would send an even stronger economic signal to manufacturers.

In the end, the decision about replacing your car includes a lot of factors, not the least of which is your own personal financial situation. But if you're thinking about a new car, but have considered a used car for environmental reasons, think again.

Incidentally, Slate did a comparison that also comes out in favor of the new Prius even without invoking my macroeconomic and macro-environmental arguments.