Discussion on:

Will Google's self-driving car lead to more sprawl?

These days, the distance one is willing to commute, is affected as much (or more) by COST, as by time and/or convenience. Not to mention the PC "green" trend in everything. Making it EASIER to travel far, is not going to make it any cheaper or "earth-friendly", and those are considerable hurdles.
Not to mention that a lot of people LIKE to drive!

I enjoy driving but I hate commuting. That goes for everyone I've talked to about the subject. And I know people who dislike driving under any circumstances. There's many people whose only vehicle is a big pick-up or SUV because they can't afford a 2nd, small car just for commuting. If there was a car sharing service that had a self-driving car at a sufficiently low cost per trip, I think it would eventually become very popular, both because you can use the time in the car productively & because it reduces stress. The cost factor is difficult to determine because the costs of insurance & of maintenance are partly fixed & the cost of debt service is fixed (on that big SUV they keep in the garage)

that was hoodedswan's comment "you can use the time in the car productively". Darn, that means on my 1-hour commute I can work then too? Stretching my workday from 8-10 hours? I think I'm sick and tired of being "productive" all the time. A friend of my made a suggestion a few years back: let's move to a 40-hour day/9-day week. This way we can work 24/7, sleep 8, play 8 and still have weekends.

Time used productivity does not always mean time on the job. The time could be used to surf the internet, read, study something or just take a nap.

bob, don't mean to call you on your commute but we have an issue with the project and we wanted to get started early.......

priceless...

I agree.

...then what are we to make of "green" electric cars that cost pennies-per-mile to operate? It seems to me that is the bigger threat.

That's not an argument, that's being argumentative. Cars that pollute less are better for anyone who breathes. Cost is a separate issue.
The best way to deter more sprawl is to stop building new highways & expanding existing highways. There's not enough money to maintain the existing road network so it's even more illogical to spend public money so developers can make their fortunes paving under farmland & open space.

Look at the title of this article! Google is developing a self-driving car, and all the author can think about is how this will fuel sprawl? In a single second, I can think of a dozen things that contribute to sprawl before self-driving cars come into the picture.

There are plenty of dollars generated for road maint and expansion that our liberal elected officials (includes many GOPs) confiscated for other uses without asking us. Reallocating spending back to fiscally responsible and US Constitutionally legal avenues should come long before anyone starts trying to engineer our freedoms away like our friend Hoodedswan foolishly suggests. If you wish to tell other people that they can't drive their car home because they might drive farther than you like, you're living in the wrong country. You might like Argentina or Cuba, though.

Freedom to ruin the environment? It's not about who's telling who what to do, there are reasons why this is detrimental. And what "freedoms" do you have driving a human made device that you do not have the freedom to oprerate without a license and registration fees?

...while the degree that self-driving cars will have upon promoting it is just silly.

As for stopping sprawl, I suggest two solutions:

A) Make cities more desirable to those who now choose to live outside cities.

B) Slow population expansion, which in the US is exclusively caused by immigration, and globally due to subsidized birth rates.

Both these topics seem to be too uncomfortable for progressives to address.

You actually do have the freedom to operate a motor vehicle without a license or registration. You do need to have an identifying tag on the vehicle, but that is all that is required. Believe it or not, every American has a sovereign right to travel. It's just that we're not told by the state that we have that right, and instead are presented with a "contract" (and yes, your signature on all of those documents down at the DMV constitutes a contract between you and the state). It's amazing what you can pass off to the public under the guise of authority.

Frankly, the whole idea of self-driving cars is another "solution in search of a problem." Creating personal buses isn't just inefficient and costly (automation is more expensive manufacture and maintain), it increases society's over-reliance on machines to respond correctly to completely unforeseen eventualities. It takes a human brain to handle the unexpected. Nothing should be behind the wheel of a vehicle but a breathing, thinking, alert, and involved person.

The greatest thing is it would make drunk driving a thing of the past. Before going into the bar program the car to take you to your favorite after bar eatery followed by the trip home. No more having to pay for expensive taxis or calling a towing company to take your car home for you.
No more need to pay police to man DUI checkpoints.

What about no more soccer mom duties? Have the car take the kids to school or practices for you. Don't feel like dealing with the ex-wife after your divorced dad visitation weekend? Program the car to take the kids home for you. The possibilities are endless.

The question is would driver's licenses become obsolete?

If all cars were to be self-driving there would also be the issue of who is at fault during a crash. If the car has even the slightest mistake within its database, the highway could be a dangerous place to be when inside this kind of car.

Interesting point, this is very critical issue. If this kind of accident happened then it may be require framing different rule for self-driving car.
Cheap cars

Back in the late 1970s there was a major chain reaction pileup on Interstate 5 near Medford, Oregon. My brother-in-law and his Volkswagen were involved in it. There was a heavy morning fog that descended upon the Rogue Valley rather suddenly and drivers on I-5 failed to adjust their speed accordingly. If I remember correctly there were about 100 cars involved. Accidents like this would become a thing of the past with this new technology. The down side is that if the satellite link was faulty for any reason, the smart car wouldn???t have any way to know where the other cars were beyond its own onboard sensors, so would either come to a complete stop or chug along at only a few feet every minute. With the luxury of machines thinking for you, the old adage becomes true; "The good news is that robots will handle that from now on. But, the bad news is that robots will handle that from now on."

To spread the limbs in a relaxed, awkward, or unnatural position; So much for sitting up strait in you're seat. Will the car stop as soon as seat belt is detached?
To sit or lie in such a position: to sprawl in a chair. May distract other drivers?
To crawl in an awkward, ungainly way. May tickets,(DUI and speeding) be a thing of the past?
To spread out in an awkward or uneven way, esp. so as to take up more space than is necessary, etc. If we were to be more cautious and responsible. We would not need that much technology. Only thing that will benefit is more money spent for vehicle, everything else will still rise in cost.
I love the idea. But more problems will be raised ($).

To arrive at you're destination just to be left out in the cold.

...And particularly Amtrak. After all, it has numerous small and underserved stations that only really link to places by either car or poor transit connections, and the current low usage of those stations might render a car rental facility impractical. Robocars can help by eliminating the need to pay a chauffeur, thus freeing them up to drive to the station. As for trains themselves, I'm sure there'll always be some demand for them, because they are big and they offer socializing opportunities (not to mention that there are strong traveling traditions associated with rail). I also suspect that there are people out there who want to travel by train but find suburban destinations inconvenient - and robocars might help there, too. The same goes for airlines, but the existence of car rental agencies at airports kind of lessens the impact of robocars.

rRbocars are not going to change the Urban Sprawl problem. The sprawl problem comes from people wanting to get out of the problem 'inner' city area. The problem is limited by the maximum trip time that people will put up with. Robot (computer) driven cars are not faster than human driven cars, so the trip time will not be substantially reduced. It will probably take longer. What it may do is to reduce the number of cars you need. If the car can take me to the train station, then go back home, It could serve double duty. If my family needs two cars, it's just a matter of scheduling. Before we get to 3 or 4 cars, it will definitely be possible to forgo on of the cars by scheduling.

No, it isn't autopilot driving that will enable more suburban development than we presently have, it will be high speed transport, probably rail.

At the other end, unmanned taxis should be less expensive, and therefore more used.

Would it know how to avoid traffic problems that may arise along the preferred route? I can take several combinations of routes to my workplace from my home, and can vary as needed for avoidance of traffic accidents. Some are out of the way, but possibly necessary. Are they equipped for manual takeover or is it programmed to a specific route, no matter what may come your way? I already live in the suburban area (still within the city limits) of Oklahoma City.
How does it work, is it equipped with sensors to avoid collisions, road conditions (ice, water, snow...), or other myriads of possibilities one faces on the daily commute. (would it stop for an oncoming train, oncoming traffic, avoiding careless drivers, those who run stop signs...)

Play with Google Maps for 5 minutes and you will see what information is available to a Google-Guided car.

My main concern with cars like this is that if anyone can drive them by telling them where to go, what would happen if some little kid climbs into the car and tells it to take him/her somewhere? Or what if a thief breaks into your car and it will take him/her wherever they want? It seems like there would need to be some kind of identification system (and you probably could just use driver's licenses for this) to prevent things like this but maybe this just shows that I don't know much about these types of cars.