abfarid

Regarding your 1st point, yes, it is a problem that cars are underutilized. So I think that in addition to promoting public transport, for the time being, we could also promote proper usage of cars. Here in Europe, we don't have much problems with cars compared to US, but oh boy you guys overseas need to tame your F-150 owners.

Regarding the 2nd point, it's not a fact but an opinion. With which I don't really agree. I believe that true self-driving cars will eventually surpass the capabilities of meatbags, but I will look up the literature. Solely based on what you said, it seems to me that the "dead heading" problem is just a logistical issue that can be solved using science/technology (if the fleet of cars is algorithmically dispersed enough, they will always pick up a nearby passenger, as a hypothetical solution).
But yes, the corporations remain an issue and they will surely find a way to mess everything up. That is a separate problem that also needs solving, capitalism and overconsumption.

The solution would be autonomous single seat cars, similar to the podbike.

Interesting proposal. I think that a single-seat vehicle will inherently be too inefficient cause you need to have all the infrastructure, but you carry only 1 person. 2-4 passenger vehicles would probably still be most optimal.

But yes, I do believe that autonomous cars will unlock possibilities that humans can tap into. Eventually, robo-car will not be equal to a taxi, it will be more than that. But I hope that it's publicly owned and not corporate.

I dunno where you’re getting your numbers for the calculation you’re doing, that would probably be something good to include

Absolutely fair. In fact, since yesterday night I tried to do more variations of my calculations for different types and now I, at least, heavily doubt my own conclusions and, at most, disagree with my conclusions entirely. Especially taking into consideration some of the aspects that people like you mentioned. But here's my approach. When I was saying "efficiency" I specifically meant percentage of useful work done relative to weight (I know it's not a be-all, end-all metric, but that's what I chose). For example, a 2 ton car carrying one 70kg person has efficiency rating of:
(70 kg / 2,070 kg) * 100 = ~3.38%
Then I did these calculations for 1, 3 and 5 passengers, which makes 3.38%, 9.50% and 14.89% respectively. Then I took a random bus (curb weight = 12000 kg, max capacity 40 passengers), and repeated the calculations for 1 passenger, half and full occupancies. That came out to 0.58%, 10.45% and 18.92% respectively. Seeing that at half occupancy, cars are basically as efficient as busses, and knowing that on average busses are not even half-loaded (around 40%) I concluded that cars are in fact very efficient, given that you use them properly.
But of course that isn't the whole picture. Some issues with my numbers that I found:

• average car is much lighter than 2000 kg (regular sedans are about 1500 kg, and a typical European car is around 1100 kg)
• busses at that weigh actually have much more occupancy
• it's unfair to compare half occupancy, because statistically cars have 1.2 passengers on average.

Taking these things into account, I (mostly Claude) made this calculator. It even has rough numbers for certain cars and bus types. Using that calculator I can clearly see, that busses win, even when lighter cars are reasonably utilized.

talking about autonomous vehicles

This was a sci-fi hypothetical anyway, even optimistically, I don't think we will have truly self-driving cars for another 5-10 years. I agree with a lot of what you said, but we can't really apply today's approach to that future sci-fi scenario. For example, if we have a swarm of hive-mind public cars that anticipate each other's moves, then those potentially could be way more efficient than route based traffic. But I don't wanna fixate on the hypotheticals.

Regarding your last paragraph, I don't own a car, mostly walk and use trams. But I live in Europe, and here in Warsaw, we don't really have a car problem. Sure, the work commute hours are a bit loaded, but otherwise, public transport is really good and a car is barely needed. So yes, until further notice, avoid cars if possible.

Thank you for such a lengthy and detailed response!

Regarding your first point, I'm aware that that is the unfortunate truth. That IS the issue with cars when it comes to efficiency. ~~If you load the car with 3-5 passengers it easily beats busses in efficiency, according to my calculations. But that's not gonna happen.~~

Regarding your second point, the core of the issue is just capitalism, not self-driving cars or privately owned cars.
Cars don't have to drive around empty if they are some sort of shared transport that can pick up the nearest passenger.
If companies aren't gonna cause unnecessary car purchases only those who need them anyway will own them.

Basically, the problem with cars is not cars themselves as a concept, it's the overuse and misuse. But unfortunately, that isn't changing anytime soon.

Because trams and busses can't fulfill every need. Certain point to point transportation options still need to exist, we just need to make them as efficient as possible.

And as I mentioned in another comment, ~~turns out busses aren't really as efficient as I thought they were. Fully packed small cars are way more efficient~~.

Edit: Changed my mind. See previous comment.

Doesn't Lyft work sorta like that? Idk, it doesn't operate in my country, but from what I've seen online, it's several strangers sharing one ride.

But after giving it more thought, I tend to agree with you on this. Except... After posting my comment I got curious and decided to calculate the efficiency of cars vs busses. I always assumed that they were way more efficient than cars (cause lugging around 2 tons of steel just to move 1 or a couple 70kg hairlines apes is stupid). But it turns out that busses only win if we compare it to cars with only one passengers. So basically, at half load, both are about equally efficient (about 10%). And on average a bus is only half full. Turns out, busses are really heavy... there's of course the density, and busses win if you give each passenger their own car, ~~but if we pack cars fully, they will be significantly more efficient~~. Not to mention if you use smaller European cars that carry basically their own weight in passengers.

So my conclusion is, to maximize efficiency in the future we should try to implement a system of highly packed smaller sized transportation devices.

Edit: I did some more calculations and now disagree with my own conclusion. Busses still win even when cars are reasonable utilized, not to mention the usual utilization, which is 1.2 passengers.

More details in this comment.

Thank you, that is a very interesting insight. But besides sharing cars in parallel (multiple passengers at once) there can also be sequential sharing, which is, I understand, a regular taxi without a driver. But I think that high availability of cars like that, which are cheap, would still reduce the amount of car owners, and consequently increase public transportation utilization.

Things being close together isn't really an issue here because it's just meant to visualize the volume. They are not trying to paint a realistic scenario, I don't think.

While I'm a strong proponent of reducing and possibly eliminating car use, this image is disingenuous. They neatly packed 69 (nice) people into a medium bus, sure. But when showing cars, it's almost 1 persons per car (I counted 15 cars in a row and there are 4 rows, so 60 cars). You can definitely use cars more efficiently than that.

Assuming that actually autonomous self-driving cars exist, they could be extremely efficient. Especially if you treat them like ride sharing taxis. In other words, a lot of people could share the same car and that would reduce the amount of owned cars. They also never waste space being parked. So I can see how when we make a real self-driving car, it can potentially reduce traffic. Especially for all those cases where public transportation doesn't work.

And what the heck is a "connected car"?

But the meme is specifically about historical events, not modern day. And you also need to take into account that with the case of "top 1%", they often still pass on the family business to their children, even in modern days.

I just didn't want to make it bulky, so tried to bring in the core statement. My thought was that for more details, the Wikipedia link is right there.

FYI, you can disable the pop-up in settings.