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Even if it were possible to go buy a fully automated car today, there's no way enough of the fleet would have changed over in as short a time as ten years to ma

Even if it were possible to go buy a fully automated car today, there's no way enough of the fleet would have changed over in as short a time as ten years to make such a ban practical. And it's not possible to buy an automated car today; nor are the research prototypes Google and others have been working with up to a level of sophistication where simply productizing them would yield a fully automated car which could be used as a generic replacement for current automobiles. I could believe that the first generation of fully automated cars might be available for purchase in ten years.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> there's no way enough of the fleet would have changed over in as short a time as ten years to make such a ban practical. Cars sit idle 95% of the time. That means you only need to flip 5-10% of the total fleet. Tesla could do it by themselves building 2-4 million cars/year, with the amount of cars needed per year declining the higher the utilization level you can achieve.
- cfmcdonald 11y ago
  Yes, but they all sit idle the same 95% of the time. Everyone needs a ride at rush hour.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    > Yes, but they all sit idle the same 95% of the time. Everyone needs a ride at rush hour. Disincentivize rush hour using congestion pricing.
  - petra 11y ago
    You could divide rush hours maybe to 2 shifts of an SDC. And there's always the possibility of shared rides.
- marssaxman 11y ago
  I don't understand how replacing a small minority of the fleet with automated cars leads to a situation where it is reasonable to talk about banning human drivers.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    You would always consider banning humans from an activity if it was overly dangerous compared to having a machine perform the operation. 40K people a year die in the US from vehicle accidents. Why would you not ban humans from driving if machines were objectively superior? Where do you find the "right" to drive to be? Driving is a privilege granted by the government, not a right.
    - marssaxman 11y ago
      The comment I replied to was suggesting that vehicle automation would progress so rapidly that it would be practical to start working on such a ban as soon as ten years from now. I'm not disputing that such a ban might eventually become a good idea, but for it to become practical so soon, we'd have to be much, much further down the road to full automation than we are now. If fully-automated vehicles become commercially available (which seems likely at some point, though not in the immediate future), we will likely see rapid adoption in the applications where they are very well suited, followed by a long, slow, gradual trend toward broader usage. The hardest cases will be the ones sticking around longest, and one can't simply legislate them out of existence. Just replacing a small percentage of the fleet won't come anywhere close! It's only when automated cars have become so dominant that only a small percentage of the fleet still depends on manual drivers that it will become practical to start talking about a ban on manual operation.
lamontcg 11y ago
So I argued we'd start the conversation in 10 years and that it'd take at least another decade. I that is 20 years until we'd see the first ban against human drivers in metro areas. To be there I do think we need the first generation of fully automated cars available to the general public in 5 years or less, which I think we're actually close to or we wouldn't be having this very discussion...
- marssaxman 11y ago
  Ah, I didn't notice the second ten-year span in your prediction. I still think your perspective is wildly optimistic, but it makes more sense now.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

> there's no way enough of the fleet would have changed over in as short a time as ten years to make such a ban practical. Cars sit idle 95% of the time. That means you only need to flip 5-10% of the total fleet. Tesla could do it by themselves building 2-4 million cars/year, with the amount of cars needed per year declining the higher the utilization level you can achieve.

cfmcdonald 11y ago
Yes, but they all sit idle the same 95% of the time. Everyone needs a ride at rush hour.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > Yes, but they all sit idle the same 95% of the time. Everyone needs a ride at rush hour. Disincentivize rush hour using congestion pricing.
- petra 11y ago
  You could divide rush hours maybe to 2 shifts of an SDC. And there's always the possibility of shared rides.
marssaxman 11y ago
I don't understand how replacing a small minority of the fleet with automated cars leads to a situation where it is reasonable to talk about banning human drivers.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  You would always consider banning humans from an activity if it was overly dangerous compared to having a machine perform the operation. 40K people a year die in the US from vehicle accidents. Why would you not ban humans from driving if machines were objectively superior? Where do you find the "right" to drive to be? Driving is a privilege granted by the government, not a right.
  - marssaxman 11y ago
    The comment I replied to was suggesting that vehicle automation would progress so rapidly that it would be practical to start working on such a ban as soon as ten years from now. I'm not disputing that such a ban might eventually become a good idea, but for it to become practical so soon, we'd have to be much, much further down the road to full automation than we are now. If fully-automated vehicles become commercially available (which seems likely at some point, though not in the immediate future), we will likely see rapid adoption in the applications where they are very well suited, followed by a long, slow, gradual trend toward broader usage. The hardest cases will be the ones sticking around longest, and one can't simply legislate them out of existence. Just replacing a small percentage of the fleet won't come anywhere close! It's only when automated cars have become so dominant that only a small percentage of the fleet still depends on manual drivers that it will become practical to start talking about a ban on manual operation.

lamontcg 11y ago

So I argued we'd start the conversation in 10 years and that it'd take at least another decade. I that is 20 years until we'd see the first ban against human drivers in metro areas. To be there I do think we need the first generation of fully automated cars available to the general public in 5 years or less, which I think we're actually close to or we wouldn't be having this very discussion...

marssaxman 11y ago
Ah, I didn't notice the second ten-year span in your prediction. I still think your perspective is wildly optimistic, but it makes more sense now.