I don’t know that I necessarily buy all of these arguments, although there’s some merit to the idea that, when your car is a mobile office/living room, you’ll want it to be your car so you can fill it with your stuff.
One of my yet-to-be-developed post-cyberpunk story ideas involves a “fixer” character who’s permanently on the move in a driverless pod, where he lives and works. You don’t find him; you put out the word, and he finds you.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
Why the Rise of Self-Driving Vehicles Will Actually Increase Car Ownership http://suhub.co/2F34kZy
I’ve talked with friends about this and we think there’s probably a future for a container that is keyed to me that I can transfer or have transferred from one self driving car (or workspace) to another. To hold all of the things that ride around in my car now. The jacket and the extra pair of shoes and the dog leash and bottle of water and keys and grocery bags and pens and post its and tissues and etc.
That would make a lot of sense (and would also work better for my story, since this particular kind of guy is not going to want to be trackable by his license plate).
I posted a piece in this collection a little while back about the idea of driverless hotel rooms – basically the hotel as base station where your living pod docks to connect to services, wherever you happen to be.
As someone who has traveled around a little bit in some rooms that go places, a horse drawn caravan, river boat, RV, I will say that it’s fun for a while but the charm of having to batten everything down so it doesn’t fall over and break or spill while you’re on the move does wear thin. Sometimes you just wanna leave a cup on the counter.
That said I have long thought that travel pods would be ideal for taking trips because all of the getting on and off various forms of transportation gets frustrating after a while. Taking the cab to the bus station to the bus to the airport to the plane to the bus to the parking area to the rental car to the hotel. I’d rather just get in a pod and do some work or catch a nap. I just don’t want to live in it all the time. Maybe it would make sense to have one detachable room that could travel around but part of your house stays where you left it.
It would definitely not be everyone’s choice of lifestyle.
It would be nice to be able to shift parts of your house around more occasionally. Have a kid, add a room, kid goes off to college send the room with them. Get a divorce, you each take half the house and go in separate directions, Partner up with some other person, bring a few rooms along. Instead of having to move to a new house every time your circumstances change. Just take your house with you.
As If