Self-driving homes could be the future of affordable housing
Housing is not affordable primarily because of rentseeking behavior from a constrained supply.<p>&quot;Self-driving homes&quot; have been available to every American for decades. They are called RVs. A more affordable and practical version are trailers.<p>There are trailers that expand out when parked to effectively double the floor space.<p>While living in a trailer is perfectly doable, there is a significant degradation in the quality of life.<p>Living in a studio apartment is, for the average person, a completely different experience than living in even a nice $70k trailer that has 3 beds and two bathrooms with sewage and 15A hookups.<p>Let&#x27;s assume that the quality of life was comparable - it still costs thousands of dollars to rent a parking spot with hookups so you can live in a vehicle.<p>The concept the article is about is absolutely insane and far detached from reality.<p>It&#x27;s a wierd take on a RV that combines all the responsibilities of owning a trailer with the responsibilities of owning an automobile with the risk of being unable to use the &quot;home&quot; when the automobile needs to go in for repairs coupled with the nightmare of having thousands of intricate parts that cannot be purchased without going through the dealership.<p>This is impractical and a disaster.<p>This not only fails to address affordable housing completely but makes a complete mockery of it.<p>Housing is not affordable primarily because of rentseeking behavior from a constrained supply.<p>Even if Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo et al were to mass produce these RVs and sell millions of them (which they will not), these vehicles will need to be parked somewhere and the rental fee for these parking spots will then become unaffordable for most.<p>Did it solve the unaffordable housing problem in the end?<p>No.