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I have a feeling truly driverless operation will be slower than we think.
by pbreit 11y ago
I have a feeling truly driverless operation will be slower than we think.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI seriously believe it'll be here in no more than 3 years, maybe 5 if there are regulatory hurdles. There's just too much value to capture for everyone to be half-assing it. EDIT: Citations "Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report | December 2015" https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//selfdrivingcar/files/reports/report-1215.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en... "We’re currently averaging 10,000-15,000 autonomous miles per week on public streets" There are ~100K Model S vehicles. Somewhere around VIN 55K is when autopilot hardware was introduced (http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/44787-Autopilot-production-start-VIN-and-or-date http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/44787-Autopilo...). Let's conservatively say that there are 40K Model S vehicles out there with self-driving hardware that are refining their data, and consequently, algorithms Tesla is updating. 40K vehicles * 12K miles/year/vehicle (average) = 40,000,000 miles/month (!!!) in "autonomous experience" Tesla is gaining. (Fun fact: The average human drives ~500K miles in their lifetime) "According to Fred Lambert from Electrek, Musk referred to the first round of Model S owners with Autopilot as "expert trainers" that will collect and deliver tons of important data for Tesla's intelligence network. Musk said the system should improve each week as the driving algorithm constantly updates, adding Model S drivers could add around 1 million miles of new data every day." http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musk-explains-tesla-autopilot-2015-10 http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musk-explains-tesla-autopilot... That's a lot of progress being made each month.
- JoshTriplett 11y agoNever underestimate the volume of regulatory hurdles. I'd bet on decades of needless delay. Half of it caused by the first time people hear on the news about a self-driving car in an accident and ignore all the statistics showing they're actually far safer.
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- enraged_camel 11y agoI think regulatory hurdles will be introduced by politicians not due to safety concerns, but based on jobs. The conversation will switch from "immigrants are stealing our jobs!" to "robots are stealing our jobs!"
- JoshTriplett 11y agoTwo can play at the propaganda game. "Human drivers cause X% more deaths on the road; can your family risk having humans at the wheel?"
- protomyth 11y agoTechnology companies have been remarkably bad at playing the propaganda game. We, as an industry, have done such a bad job of security that trusting the computer to drive you is going to be a powerful problem to overcome. "You've replaced your credit card because of a computer security failure, now think about that when getting into your computer controlled car. Can your family risk having a hacker at the wheel?"
- toomuchtodo 11y agoExcept for people who have no choice (the elderly, whom have no one else to transport them and can no longer drive themselves, or people who have gotten DUIs ironically enough).
- protomyth 11y agoWell, we do elderly transport in our neck of the woods (not sure about the urban folks). People currently sometimes have no options, but those groups probably won't overcome the regulatory wall that will show up. Plus, the truck driver is one of the most common jobs in almost every state, and it is a job that cannot be outsourced. Its going to be a rather large hit to the economy. I would imagine which side a politician would come down on. I will think it might become an issue when I see a Google Car in North Dakota in the winter. Until then, I'm not sure the technology for a national roll-out is really there.
- officemonkey 11y agoI will bet you $1,000 that there will be ZERO driver-less cabs in Chicago by New Years Day 2021. Your statement that there's "too much value to capture" is absolutely correct. The value that is being captured is human labor. There are entrenched political interests that will slow down adoption of this that will make climate-change deniers look like kindergarten bullies.
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- txru 11y agoI agree that the adoption rate will be slower than the 3-5 years rate stated by the commenter above. I do think, though, that of the major cities, many people would agree that Chicago is among the most resistant to changes in labor due to customer preferences, due to its unique political system. That said, though, imagine how absurd it would have been 6 years ago to imagine the market share that the Chicago yellow cab companies are losing, to newcomers that didn't even exist yet. I don't think many people, especially cab companies and Chicago legislators, could have predicted it. The swell of opposition in legislators against cheaper technological answers to current labor solutions is heroic- the question that remains is, 'How long before consumer demand for the radically cheaper and/or more efficient option makes the opposition moot?'. The answer usually seems to be: 'Sooner than everyone thinks.'
- rayiner 11y agoThe first satellite was launched in 1957. The first man landed on the moon only 12 years later in 1969. But that didn't meant that a trip to Mars was in the cards even decades later. Uber was a matter of applying well understood techniques and waiting for a critical mass of GPS enabled mobile devices with data support. Self driving cars still need to overcome fundamental challenges. It could happen in five years, or 50 years might pass without breaking through the final hurdles. Remember, the last 10% is 90% of the work.
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- AJ007 11y agoIt is going to take longer than expected to have a perfect driverless car but when it is here the takeover is going to be extraordinarily quick. I believe the regulatory hurdles will actually go the other way -- suddenly it is going to be very hard to be a human driver on a public road. It is the regulations which will force human drivers from the road, not self-driving technology. Someone can provide a better analogy than I can, but it would be the equivalent of trying to hand deliver a packet rather than send it across the internet.
- coldtea 11y ago>I seriously believe it'll be here in no more than 3 years, maybe 5 if there are regulatory hurdles. There's just too much value to capture for everyone to be half-assing it. We wont have full blown self-driving cars amounting to any more than 10% of the traffic even in 2025.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoMaybe! Per capita vehicle miles have been dropping since 2004: Article: http://www.ssti.us/2014/02/vmt-drops-ninth-year-dots-taking-notice/ http://www.ssti.us/2014/02/vmt-drops-ninth-year-dots-taking-... Graph: http://www.ssti.us/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-VMT-chart-453x363.jpg http://www.ssti.us/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-VMT-ch... > Unlike other past dips in driving, this recent downward shift has had no clear, lasting connection to economic trends or gas prices. Evidence suggests that the decline is likely due to changing demographics, saturated highways, and a rising preference for compact, mixed-use neighborhoods, which reduce the need for driving. Some key factors that pushed VMT upward for decades – including a growing workforce and rising automobile ownership – have also slowed considerably. SSTI released a report last September outlining the many contributing factors, with references to supporting literature. You mention 10%. 10% of total miles driven in 2025 is going to be drastically more than 10% of total vehicle miles driven today (Baby boomers aging out, who drive much less in retirement).
- threeseed 11y agoI agree. Anyone who thinks it is coming soon is deluding themselves. The technology maybe reasonably close but the policies and logistics aren't. The responsibility for car crashes and insurance isn't defined and needs alignment with government policy around the world. And there are still concerns about the behaviour of the self driving cars i.e. it drives to the rules which no one does and how does it handle random scenarios e.g. mattress flies off truck in front. It's taken years for car avoidance and emergency braking technologies to come to market and even those aren't widely available still.
- melted 11y agoAnd it isn't even close. Just the other day Google released a bit of PR that indicates their current cars will pull over and stop if it starts to rain. That basically means their cars aren't usable in all but the driest locales. And handling the rain is exponentially harder than handling good weather driving.
- henrikschroder 11y agoI still predict that the first major adoption of driverless tech will come for long-haul trucking, not the every-day commute. Think remote flat desert highways. Trucking companies have strong economic incentives to make it happen, having a person in the driver's seat that has to take frequent legally mandated breaks is slower and more expensive than a machine.
- massysett 11y agoDriverless cars are Google hoopla. I think it's more likely that cars slowly come equipped with increased automation, like adaptive cruise control and automatic braking. As they become cheaper, regulators will mandate some of these features. These are cheap fixes that make driving safer. Drivers and insurers will both like them. But complete computer control of the whole car is a much bigger hurdle and I don't see why we will simply skip to that point rather than implementing cheaper, effective automation first.