[j10t]

> "Parking? Solved! Once we arrive at our destination, the car can self-park while we go on with our day."

Doesn't solve the worst part of parking: reserving that much space for car storage.

The author's vision seems to be one in which everyone owns a self-driving car. Why own the car? Just pay for use, Uber et al. can handle logistics. Only the reserve portion of the fleet should be parked, like buses.

[visakanv]

Yep. Why should the cars be parked? Why should we own cars? All we actually need is a very high % chance of getting access to a car whenever needed. If it were 99.9%, and wayyy cheaper than owning a car, why own the car?

[christiansmith]

> Why should we own cars?

In the city, I couldn't possibly agree with this more. When I lived in Boston I sold my car after the first two years because it was a ridiculous expense and hassle for the utility. Taking a cab a few times a week turned out to be cheaper than parking tickets alone.

Given a choice though, I much prefer to live in less densely populated areas (e.g., northwest Montana), and owning a vehicle is really unavoidable. In these places that also means a 4x4 SUV or truck, not a Prius, or else you'd be calling a tow truck every 5 minutes in the winter.

[jpollock]

In order to control what happens in the car when you're not in it.

I would expect driverless taxis to end up like public toilets.

[danielbln]

You don't have to register at the toilet with your ID/driver's license. You do however, have to do that when you use e.g car sharing, and the first question the system usually asks you, is: "is the car clean?". If no, then the previous renter will be liable. So this is already a solved problem.

[raldi]

If public toilets had a user reputation system (like Uber), they would be as lovely as the ones in Japan. Unless you had a bad reputation, in which case you deserve what you get.

[weaksauce]

You can build car parks that aren't in super close proximity to you though and underground too. There are problems to overcome but it's possible. You could have an app that connects to your car that beckons it to us at a certain time or now etc. you could hop in a self driving taxi to where your car is. If all you want is the current system but automated, it's not going to work. Just like if you asked what people wanted pre cars... Faster horse drawn carriages would have been the answer. This will take some vision and a paradigm change.