Club Wyndham Plus owner.
AVs have been legal in FL since 2016 timeframe when codified as so - not sure where you're getting your bad assumptions from - Waymo is already deploying in Miami and has been testing there for months now: https://x.com/i/grok/share/974eca3b62b94d68ac50694172d15295
IME as a Tesla owner and having used FSD for the past few years, it's not perfect in all cases, but it's generally far safer than most human drivers - and has markedly improved over that three year time period - particularly since v14 was released last fall. We were at OTA this past weekend, and we used FSD to/from the resort - here's the drive from OTA to home - just as one example - almost 120 miles - literally door to door - zero interventions - note the 100% FSD usage for the entirety of this 2+ hour trip home. This is my wife's daily driver - and her FSD overall usage since FSD v14.2 sits at 97% - meaning she is literally only driving her Model Y 3% of the time. That needs to be higher to get to AV levels - that's why most AVs are geofenced with hyper-accurate scans of the geofenced zones. Still, to own a vehicle that literally drives itself 97% of the time, and only has issues in odd edge cases for the most part - I can see this technology getting to 99.9x% within a year, hence why more and more folks are talking about L4/L5 AVs going wide likely by 2027. 118 miles - literally never touched the steering wheel once:
Seperate topic - but a 120 mile drive cost over $20? Isn’t that terrible cost average? At $3.60 in New York currently, my 12 year old suburu has a lower cost. Or is that comparing fuel cost to electric cost?
Guilty. Sorry.
I think the two costs were for comparison, not to be combined.
Got it. My work car is a plug in hybrid so both energy and fuel costs.
The two topics are connected as there won't be any need for parking lots with self driving cars.
Correct, it's comparing fuel vs electric costs to show how much you're saving using a BEV on average. It's not an exact comparison though, as it makes certain assumptions.
Koala allowed me to indicate that parking was extra and paid directly to resort for Smugglers.
Smuggs charges for parking?? That's worse than Palm-Aire charging for parking.
They didn't last year, but I guess who knows for 2026? That would be pretty hard to justify IMO, they're basically in the middle of nowhere. I don't even think it's practical to get there without a car.
True dat! One more thing to add to Smuggs' already lengthy list of fees.
Then I guess we should expand the topic to discussing getting rid of parking lots everywhere, since there won't be any need for them?
As these automated cars take off, and as parking rates get ever higher, I start to think that could be a sales pitch - a large free parking lot somewhere out of the way and cheap, maybe co-located with the maintenance facility for the cars and storage of the cars not in use, and of course the instant ready to go auto car right near each line of parking.
So, in keeping with the expanded discussion, what are some other uses for the millions of acres of parking lot paving across the country, once we only have self-driving cars? How about massive solar farms to get us off fossil fuels and provide power for all the self-driving cars? What about other uses for the thousands of parking garages across the country? Apartment buildings? Would need some architectural answer for the sloped floors.
I think the garages would be torn down or might lower their rates to compete for at least a while. We'll still need some sort of interstate transport from rural areas etc so I expect IF this becomes cheaper than owning a car and sufficiently minimal hassle vs owning a car we might see the return of public transport or some sort of long range version that drops you off - much like trains used to do.
Turn them into timeshares.
As long as the majority of America ilves in suburban areas, cars aren't going anywhere.
or rural areas.