Future of Private Plates

[Edwin]

If you don’t need parking lots, that’s often prime commercial or residential land that can be repurposed.

For instance, LA alone has $1.8 trillion worth of land currently dedicated to parking (nearly 15% of the city’s footprint) and a substantial proportion of that belongs to the state.

The sale (or leasing) of such land is a massive new revenue stream that didn’t exist before.

 

[Edwin]

I think in terms of jobs, there'll be a long crossover period where the drivers will be custodians. It's almost like modern aviation. Your average commercial Pilot spends their time dialling in headings to an autopilot mid route. They basically only land/take most fly by wire's to keep their hand in. ILS can land commercial aircraft these days no problem.

That’s exactly what’s predicted for trucks, with humans looking after the first and last few miles (essentially urban driving) and full automation on motorways.

 

[ausername]

Never understood the point in private plates myself, just smacks of "look at me, I can afford a private plate".... just pure vanity.

At least with other status symbols you can present other arguments for owning them. E.g. a sportscar "I like a bit of bite", or a Rolex "I just love the way the second hand sweeps".

What is the point in having your name or whatever on the front of your car? Is it like when your mum would sew a name tag in the back of all your school clothes, so you know which car is yours in the car park?

 

[BREWSTERS]

There are savings of tens of billions to be made on the health side and in other domains from far far fewer accidents, so that should balance out a ton of taxes. If all accidents were eliminated that would save £35 billion a year using the Government’s own figures...
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/665327/ras60003.ods

Of course a zero accident rate is implausible, but it’s likely SDC will eliminate most of the 94% of accidents that are down to “human error”.

Unless you believe cars will be replaced by self-driving vehicles that are as rubbish as humans at driving? Because that really does sound unbelievable! (Why would people switch?)

Again, you're guessing regarding the number of accidents. What would an accident look like? Could it involve a fully loaded truck or coach load of school kids ploughing into a line of cars, or people due to an error, or malicious hacking. What if the governing system went haywire in a city and all cars got the wrong info? No one knows. There's a reason why planes have to have pilots on board despite them having the capability to fly without. Do the government figures include cyclists; pedestrians etc?

And humans are actually fantastic at driving given the number of miles driven to accident ratio.

 

[BREWSTERS]

There are also the hundreds of millions generated by parking and traffic offences, which is a huge income. That would pretty much disappear.

I think in terms of jobs, there'll be a long crossover period where the drivers will be custodians. It's almost like modern aviation. Your average commercial Pilot spends their time dialling in headings to an autopilot mid route. They basically only land/take most fly by wire's to keep their hand in. ILS can land commercial aircraft these days no problem.

Sorry, I hadn't seen your post before I made my previous one.

 

[dee]

Sorry, I hadn't seen your post before I made my previous one.

No worries....

There's a reason why planes have to have pilots on board despite them having the capability to fly without. Do the government figures include cyclists; pedestrians etc?

Again, you're guessing regarding the number of accidents. What would an accident look like? Could it involve a fully loaded truck or coach load of school kids ploughing into a line of cars, or people due to an error, or malicious hacking. What if the governing system went haywire in a city and all cars got the wrong info? No one knows. There's a reason why planes have to have pilots on board despite them having the capability to fly without. Do the government figures include cyclists; pedestrians etc?

True in that the Pilots are there to police the autopilot. However, the major airlines mandate the pilots fly on auto pilot after take off and landing. The reason being the auto pilot is far more efficient at taking the shortest/most effecient route. This saves a fortune in fuel. It's a hybrid that works.

 

[Edwin]

Boeing and Airbus are both working on autonomous planes. Industry analysts expect them to come along in the 2025-2030 timeframe. That’s really not that far away now...

Once people have been “trained” to accept self-driving cars because of their much better safety record, persuading them to accept self-flying planes is an easier proposition.

 

[BREWSTERS]

“trained” to accept self-driving cars because of their much better safety record

Pure assumption.

 

[dee]

Boeing and Airbus are both working on autonomous planes. Industry analysts expects them to come along in the 2025-2030 timeframe. That’s really not that far away now...

Once people have been “trained” to accept self-driving cars because of their much better safety record, persuading them to accept self-flying planes is an easier proposition.

AIrcraft pretty much are already capable of being autonomous and currently the pilots fly via automation once in the air as it much more efficient, and you dont get fatigue from being at the stick for 8 hours. Small step to upload from elsewhere though. They can, and do land themselves, although there are situations where a human pilot is actually better at the mo. In heavy crosswinds for example. They arent allowed to take off at the moment though. 100% of commercial take offs are manual still.

 

[Edwin]

Could they run on a blockchain? ...I'll get my coat

Various companies are working on blockchain applications for driverless cars. For instance...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-blockchain-for-driverless-cars-idUSKBN18I2G4

https://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-move-self-driving-cars-fast-lane/

https://www.aier.org/blog/blockchain-technology-could-power-driverless-cars

 

[Edwin]

A very detailed, in-depth study of one possible self-driving "future". It projects the rapid decline of ICE (internal combustion engines) and lays out step-by-step the logic that leads to that conclusion.
https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...eport_051517.pdf?pdf=RethinkingTransportation

 

[bonusmedia]

A very detailed, in-depth study of one possible self-driving "future". It projects the rapid decline of ICE (internal combustion engines) and lays out step-by-step the logic that leads to that conclusion.
https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...eport_051517.pdf?pdf=RethinkingTransportation

This is exciting stuff. Standout point is we only need 10% of current personal cars to meet the same needs since they'll be in constant use, rather than sat around all day.
Going from 25 million cars parked up all day to 2.5 million being used efficiently is pretty compelling

Guess it will take depots in population centres for hubs, then lots of smaller satellite parks, and probably a load driving round empty (as with Uber now) to ensure there's always one close by.
I reckon if I can always get one to my door in under 5 minutes I can give up the car.

It's going to destroy a LOT of value held in current cars though, isn't it?

I suppose manufacturers can go from building 10 x £10K cars to 1 x £100K car - similar to how black cabs cost a fortune but are built to last in constant use.

 

[Edwin]

The future just leapt a little closer...
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/263057-waymo-buys-thousands-self-driving-vehicles-fiat-chrysler

More than anything else, an expansion such as this will give them scale. Scale to test countless thousands and millions of scenarios on real roads - and learn from them. Essentially every self-driving car will teach every other self-driving car, and their ability to handle tricky edge cases should get geometrically better.

 

[Bibamus]

Never understood the point in private plates myself, just smacks of "look at me, I can afford a private plate".... just pure vanity.
...
What is the point in having your name or whatever on the front of your car? Is it like when your mum would sew a name tag in the back of all your school clothes, so you know which car is yours in the car park?

Surely a major factor is that we are obliged to have something written in big letters across the front and rear of our cars, so why not something personalised rather than randomly allocated?

I have personal plates (and accept that people are free to form their opinions of me based on that), yet would rather have no plates at all.

In most cases, I would consider (eg) a full sleeve tattoo to be much more wasteful vanity, and certainly unnecessary.

 

[max99x]

Never understood the point in private plates myself, just smacks of "look at me, I can afford a private plate".... just pure vanity.

At least with other status symbols you can present other arguments for owning them. E.g. a sportscar "I like a bit of bite", or a Rolex "I just love the way the second hand sweeps".

What is the point in having your name or whatever on the front of your car? Is it like when your mum would sew a name tag in the back of all your school clothes, so you know which car is yours in the car park?

it's a way to make your car unique... people like the look of them on their car, makes the generic car a bit more personal to you. I have a personalised plate and love it. Why do we all paint our front doors different colours? It's just a door, colour is pointless, they should all be just one colour.... no we do it because of taste and we like the way we look at it.

I always try not to judge people based on not knowing the reason behind something, I might not like the top that a person is wearing with a big Versace logo on it but i'm not going to be like 'what a vane person' , each to their own and as long as it's not offending anyone or hurting anyone its fine. I'm not a fan of people who do judge.

 

[dee]

I saw in the paper a couple days ago that the plate TAX1 is coming up for auction which someone has had for years. It mentioned they thought it would go for 100k

 

[mojoco]

Just read the article about TAX1 ...

http://metro.co.uk/2018/02/08/number-plate-tax1-goes-sale-first-time-40-years-7295566/

My bet is it that will sell for way over £100k

 

[martin-s]

I see private plates as a cheap way of hiding the age of expensive motors? (Not my thing though)