> The existing parking infrastructure is not going away because of self-driving cars. The exact same argument could've been applied to the car sharing programs that already exist.
Why would the existing infrastructure not continue to change? We are redeveloping parking lots today. Car and ride shares did reduce parking needs.
> People that own cars are not going to leave their cars for a robo-taxi, in the same way that they are not getting rid of their cars in favor of a ZipCar membership.
Building codes for parking spaces are constantly changing here and consider transit availability and car ownership. If self-driving vehicles (including expanded public transit) are available that will further reduce the requirements.
Self-driving vehicles (even cars) put downward pressure on parking needs.
> Do you know that picture showing people standing on the street to show the density of the different methods of transportation? What do you think needs a larger parking footprint? I'd guess that even if autonomous cars got to a remarkable 10% idle rate, they would still require more space than buses.
Why are you so obsessed with the car form factor? I don’t see how a robotaxi needs any more parking than a taxi. A self-driving bus needs as much space as a conventional bus today.
> Guess what companies will do when they realize that their customers do not want to wait 10 minutes for their ride to come pick them up at home? That's right, they will get lots of parking spots close to the urban/suburban city centers.
That’s not how busses, taxis or Ubers work. Ubers are not dispatched from a hub on every call. Demand is predicted and capacity is dispatched accordingly. As demand goes up dispatched capacity utilization goes up. More vehicles can be dispatched when demand approaches dispatched capacity.
This problem is the same no matter what form the driver takes. Taxis, ride shares, and busses already do capacity planning. Robot drivers just remove the human driver complexity from the equation.
Robotaxis (like busses and taxis) can use denser parking structures in their depots because they don’t have to deal with the limitations of the public, or even humans.
