An elegant and golden The car stops at a bustling corner market and a middle-aged couple gets out. A woman puts a suitcase in the spacious trunk of the same vehicle. Later, a doodle and his teacher watch videos of rockets in the front seat as the car slowly drives through the neighborhood. No driver, no steering wheel, no pedals, no waiting, no traffic, no worries: this Tesla Cybercab drives itself.
That’s the vision showcased by Tesla CEO Elon Musk last week during a presentation broadcast from a set at Warner Bros. Studio outside Los Angeles. About 20 prototypes toured the film lot as a series of mock images showed scenes of the idyllic tomorrow these sleek people movers could take us to. But experts say Tesla’s brave new city of the future will need more than a few robotaxis to transform this high-definition rendering into reality.
While he largely sidestepped the technical challenges of developing self-driving technology, Musk primarily focused on what an autonomous taxi service could do. mean. Starting next year, he said, Tesla owners should be able to share their personal cars by putting them in self-driving mode while they’re not using them. It would be a kind of Uber-cum-Airbnb, in which the car strives to earn a salary while its owner strives to earn his own. A constantly moving vehicle could obviate the need to park: “You’re eliminating parking ‘lots’,” Musk joked, as a presentation showed the expanses of asphalt around Los Angeles’ notoriously busy Dodger and SoFi stadiums transformed into spaces greens.
In short, Musk and Tesla argued that autonomy means more enjoyable lives for everyone. “A car in a self-driving world is like a small living room,” Musk said, noting that a ride in a self-driving taxi would cost less than even a bus ride. “You can do whatever you want… and when you leave, you will be at your destination. So yeah, it’s going to be amazing.”
But if we make autonomous personal vehicles too cheap and enjoyable, we’ll have a city-sized problem on our hands. Cheaper, more comfortable trips could lead to even more traffic and more driving, says Adam Millard-Ball, professor of urban planning and director of the UCLA Institute for Transportation Studies. For proof, check out studies on the effects of Uber and Lyft on US cities; Research suggests that despite marketing promises about the death of private car ownership, its introduction led to more urban traffic, not less.
In this way, cheap robot taxis are a kind of double-edged sword, ending in further urban expansion. “That’s a setback for the environment and for other urban goals, whether that’s being physically active or socially inclusive,” Millard-Ball says.
Get the ‘-ing Lot’ out of the parking lot?
Parks instead of parking lots could be a good advantage for autonomous driving. (Apartments instead of parking lots could be great, too.) But it will take more than just switching to autonomous driving to get there. Anyone running an autonomous vehicle service hoping to use as little parking space as possible will have to create a super-efficient network. That will require people to share vehicles. And people don’t love to share.
“People love to move safely and comfortably,” says Andreas Nienhaus, director of the Mobility Forum at the consulting firm Oliver Wyman. “Whenever people have the choice and don’t have the guidance, they will opt for a personal car.”