Interesting comments David, The Japanese are a very polite people in public and the vending machines allow anonymity when a personal product is needed such a change of underwear, as well as a conveniently purchased snack in an off hour. The gasoline service station is self-service in Ohio, but in Oregon and New Jersey you dare not touch the pump ! Fire safety laws prohibit self service. As for the Taxi, and safety, in many regions (Including mine - Florida,) the taxi drivers have to have a "Hack Drivers License" and that is issued by the local police after a criminal background check along with a regular drivers license. I tell all my acquaintances that are uncomfortable going home at night, "Call a Taxi, the driver is responsible for your safety and his reputation has been verified by the city court. You can't find a more validated safe escort home at any time day or night." And the driver is in constant contact with the dispatcher (I had a problem one night and told my dispatcher, five taxi drivers came to my rescue within three minutes, and 45 minutes later the police arrived to take the problem , a sourly drunk, off to jail on a drunk and disorderly charge.) Will a computer driven car do that?? NO ! I trust the Taxi drivers, not "Robot-cars" who have only been safely allowed to drive on test tracks or lightly traveled roadways. I have seen remotely controlled locomotives in the railway yards sorting out cars and the rail-worker's unions say they are unsafe even under human monitoring...so they are limited to walking speed. Those systems are not subject to cross traffic because they are on rails. How complex if they had to be steered and avoid collisions with cross traffic at 50 miles per hour. ;^)
*Dennis Lee Miles * *Director **E.V.T.I. Inc.* *E-Mail:* *evprofes...@evprofessor.com* <evprofes...@evprofessor.com> *Phone #* *(863) 944-9913* Dade City, Florida 33523 USA On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:31 PM, EVDL Administrator via EV < ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote: > On 22 May 2014 at 18:37, Dennis Miles via EV wrote: > > > I have lived in many cities around the this world from New York to Tokyo > > and they all had autonomous vehicles for the drunkards and transients > > unfamiliar with their city. We called them TAXIs. > > Interesting that you mention Tokyo. I think (but haven't dug up > corroboration because I'm lazy ;-) that it was in Japan that one of the > defining trends of our time emerged. That trend is an increasing desire > among consumers to get the products they want WITHOUT interacting with > sales > and service people. > > For years, Japan has had vending machines offering beer and sake, fried > chicken, crepes, ice cream, fresh bananas and lettuce, eggs, rice, and > bread. Vending machines there even dispense underwear for women, and > neckties for men. There are also some fairly icky machine-vended products > for men, but I think I'll stop here. > > Japanese, I would argue, are the world's most enthusiastic users of > anonymous, non-interactive purchasing. > > But they're not alone; the trend has gone worldwide. Self-service filling > stations have been around so long that most younger EVDLers probably don't > even remember full service filling stations. (Some European stations are > partly or totally unstaffed.) Redbox has replaced the corner video rental > store. Touchscreen ordering and payment is taking over at some fast food > eateries, including hundreds of McDonalds restaurants in Europe. > Supermarkets and big-box stores have self service checkouts. > > The upshot is that we have an entire generation of kids growing up for whom > anonymous, non-interactive purchasing will be the norm. If they don't > particularly care to buy from human cashiers, why would they want to ride > with human taxi drivers? > > Meanwhile, I know women who now are afraid to take a taxicab because > they've > heard or read stories of women being attacked in cabs. They'd go for self- > driving taxis in a second. > > Maybe the whole idea of self-driving cars strikes some folks as over-the- > top. Maybe it is. And yet I don't think EV developers can ignore them. > If > it turns out that self-driving cars are really what people want, and if > they're willing to pay the price for the convenience, monetarily and > perhaps > in privacy, then we'd be foolish not to plan for self-driving cars with > electric drive. > > If nothing else, it's one way to ease range anxiety. If the car knows the > way to the train station, it can also tell you whether it has enough charge > to get there and back, no? And if not, it can take you to the nearest > public charging station, where it can ingest just enough electricity to > accomplish your mission. > > David Roden > EVDL Administrator > http://www.evdl.org/ > > > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA ( > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20140523/d508d5fe/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
