Lowly Worm had a self-driving Apple car ages ago (it must have been self-driving... how else would a worm steer). REF http://bfy.tw/1Jdz http://bfy.tw/1Jdz And

Lowly Worm had a self-driving Apple car ages ago (it must have been self-driving... how else would a worm steer). REF http://bfy.tw/1Jdz http://bfy.tw/1Jdz And the ubiquity of that design as a child's pedal toy is precisely what should have some folks concerned. Apple seems to have a long history of vendor lock on hardware components that go in to their systems. I expect they view self-driving cars as a similar opportunity -- for regulatory reasons they could push heavily for use of only vendor-supplied parts, resulting in a tightly closed system. I would also expect a limited number of models to enter the market each year -- just as we see for Apple computer products. Contrast that with vehicles like the Honda Civic and Ford F150, where there is comparatively a large product range, and an even more enormous range of after-market parts for repair and customization. I suspect self-driving cars will reach a point of market saturation when they become cheaper than human-driven cars, aided by vendors touting the extremely high safety ratings and environmental protection value. And when self-driving cars are here in force, I expect we'll actually see the loss of ability to work on your own car that is decried today by folks who advocate classic car technology over cars with computer systems. Within our community the real question around self-driving cars should be the ability to create an open platform, and whether this is a space that hobbyists should be permitted to operate. Without this, we'll all be driving Lowly's Apple car in a few years.