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They also admitted autonomous cars are going to take much longer than anticipated. Up to 30 years. Perhaps the car situation and this are forcing them to rethi

They also admitted autonomous cars are going to take much longer than anticipated. Up to 30 years. Perhaps the car situation and this are forcing them to rethink some of their plans.

nharada 11y ago
I can't find a source for this, where did they say that?
- itg 11y ago
  http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/google-selfdriving-car-will-be-ready-soon-for-some-in-decades-for-others http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self... What they said is that it may be restricted to certain scenarios initially. A go anywhere self driving car may take longer.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    A lot of people here jump on the robo-taxi idea whenever the topic of autonomous vehicles come up. I think it's fair to say that most of the people deeply familiar with the issues peg that as being decades out. On the other hand, we seem to be very close to very good assistive driving systems and pretty close to (at least the potential to) turn over control to those systems under at least certain types of highway driving. That's actually a very desirable thing given the number of highway accidents caused by driver fatigue and inattentively plowing into the car ahead. It just doesn't lead to all the visions of cars-on-demand etc. that get people all excited.
    - mdorazio 11y ago
      Not so. I work in the industry and most people agree that first-gen robotaxis will hit the streets of LA and SV around 2020. Obviously these locations are ideal for the use case since they have nice weather, flat terrain, and generally decent roads. It will be years later that a robotaxi picks you up on a snowy street in Manhattan, but this is a situation where incremental launches and improvements make sense - some markets are easier than others, so you can launch to those markets where autonomous is good enough.
      - ktRolster 11y ago
        As someone who works in the industry, can you explain the good reasons for choosing 2020 as the estimate? (As opposed to this: https://xkcd.com/678/ https://xkcd.com/678/ or just hopeful thinking)
        lrem 11y ago
        As someone who works in a big company, for some reason every long-term plan is touted this-2020 and that-2020. It's just easier to sell as a slogan and may influence real deadlines. That is until probably 2018, when everything will get named those-2025.
        ghaff 11y ago
        Five years out is roughly the confluence between "close enough to be interesting" with "of course, it's not quite ready yet."
  - visarga 11y ago
    That would work out nice for the current generation of professional drivers and there will be enough warning time for the future drivers so they can be OK when the moment comes.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
rayiner 11y ago
Obviously. People who think general purpose self driving cars are just a few years out ignore the basic tenant of engineering: the last 10% is 90% of the work. And with stuff like supersonic planes or Mars travel, the last 10% may take an indefinite amount of time.
- robotresearcher 11y ago
  I'm pretty optimistic that supersonic planes are possible.
- upstairs2 11y ago
  Engineering has tenants? That I did not know.
mdorazio 11y ago
That's twisting what they said. Google (and everyone else working on self-driving) is still targeting a 2020 timeframe for autonomous vehicles to be ready for the public [1]. However, the first cars that hit the road will likely be somewhat limited to certain geographies and weather conditions until all the corner cases are figured out and the sensor tech gets a bit better. I think it's more likely that BD's robotics plans just don't mesh with Google's goals since BD is mostly focused on military tech, and Google is not. It just doesn't fit in well with the kinds of things X and the other Alphabet hardware teams are working on. [1] http://www.ibtimes.com/google-inc-says-self-driving-car-will-be-ready-2020-1784150 http://www.ibtimes.com/google-inc-says-self-driving-car-will...
- azakai 11y ago
  That older link looks outdated based on this newer information. Google admitted now that it will take 5-30 years to achieve the full goals here. Also, that this technology will show up in pieces - cars will become more and more autonomous. And that makes sense, we already have cars from multiple manufacturers that can drive autonomously on highways, for example. The new information Google provided is that the full "no gas pedal, no brake pedal, can drive anywhere" dream of a fully autonomous car will take up to 30 years to arrive.
  - erikpukinskis 11y ago
    > The new information Google provided is that the full "no gas pedal, no brake pedal, can drive anywhere" dream of a fully autonomous car will take up to 30 years to arrive. The thing is, it doesn't really matter what Google thinks. There are six billion people on the planet, and it only takes one governor or president to decide that some local company's autonomous cars are "good enough" to serve as driverless cabs and they decide they want to reap the economic benefit of being a first mover and all of the sudden it's a geopolitical arms race. We're already past the point where autonomous cars can drive many routes more safely than a typical human. That's just a fact of the universe. You can speculate that the entire world's political forces will form a perfect coalition to prevent the removal of steering wheels from those cars for 30 years, but I don't think that's how politics works.

They also admitted autonomous cars are going to take much longer than anticipated. Up to 30 years. Perhaps the car situation and this are forcing them to rethink some of their plans.

nharada 11y ago

I can't find a source for this, where did they say that?

itg 11y ago
http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/google-selfdriving-car-will-be-ready-soon-for-some-in-decades-for-others http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self... What they said is that it may be restricted to certain scenarios initially. A go anywhere self driving car may take longer.
- ghaff 11y ago
  A lot of people here jump on the robo-taxi idea whenever the topic of autonomous vehicles come up. I think it's fair to say that most of the people deeply familiar with the issues peg that as being decades out. On the other hand, we seem to be very close to very good assistive driving systems and pretty close to (at least the potential to) turn over control to those systems under at least certain types of highway driving. That's actually a very desirable thing given the number of highway accidents caused by driver fatigue and inattentively plowing into the car ahead. It just doesn't lead to all the visions of cars-on-demand etc. that get people all excited.
  - mdorazio 11y ago
    Not so. I work in the industry and most people agree that first-gen robotaxis will hit the streets of LA and SV around 2020. Obviously these locations are ideal for the use case since they have nice weather, flat terrain, and generally decent roads. It will be years later that a robotaxi picks you up on a snowy street in Manhattan, but this is a situation where incremental launches and improvements make sense - some markets are easier than others, so you can launch to those markets where autonomous is good enough.
    - ktRolster 11y ago
      As someone who works in the industry, can you explain the good reasons for choosing 2020 as the estimate? (As opposed to this: https://xkcd.com/678/ https://xkcd.com/678/ or just hopeful thinking)
      - lrem 11y ago
        As someone who works in a big company, for some reason every long-term plan is touted this-2020 and that-2020. It's just easier to sell as a slogan and may influence real deadlines. That is until probably 2018, when everything will get named those-2025.
        ghaff 11y ago
        Five years out is roughly the confluence between "close enough to be interesting" with "of course, it's not quite ready yet."
- visarga 11y ago
  That would work out nice for the current generation of professional drivers and there will be enough warning time for the future drivers so they can be OK when the moment comes.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

rayiner 11y ago

Obviously. People who think general purpose self driving cars are just a few years out ignore the basic tenant of engineering: the last 10% is 90% of the work. And with stuff like supersonic planes or Mars travel, the last 10% may take an indefinite amount of time.

robotresearcher 11y ago
I'm pretty optimistic that supersonic planes are possible.
upstairs2 11y ago
Engineering has tenants? That I did not know.

mdorazio 11y ago

That's twisting what they said. Google (and everyone else working on self-driving) is still targeting a 2020 timeframe for autonomous vehicles to be ready for the public [1]. However, the first cars that hit the road will likely be somewhat limited to certain geographies and weather conditions until all the corner cases are figured out and the sensor tech gets a bit better. I think it's more likely that BD's robotics plans just don't mesh with Google's goals since BD is mostly focused on military tech, and Google is not. It just doesn't fit in well with the kinds of things X and the other Alphabet hardware teams are working on. [1] http://www.ibtimes.com/google-inc-says-self-driving-car-will-be-ready-2020-1784150 http://www.ibtimes.com/google-inc-says-self-driving-car-will...

azakai 11y ago
That older link looks outdated based on this newer information. Google admitted now that it will take 5-30 years to achieve the full goals here. Also, that this technology will show up in pieces - cars will become more and more autonomous. And that makes sense, we already have cars from multiple manufacturers that can drive autonomously on highways, for example. The new information Google provided is that the full "no gas pedal, no brake pedal, can drive anywhere" dream of a fully autonomous car will take up to 30 years to arrive.
- erikpukinskis 11y ago
  > The new information Google provided is that the full "no gas pedal, no brake pedal, can drive anywhere" dream of a fully autonomous car will take up to 30 years to arrive. The thing is, it doesn't really matter what Google thinks. There are six billion people on the planet, and it only takes one governor or president to decide that some local company's autonomous cars are "good enough" to serve as driverless cabs and they decide they want to reap the economic benefit of being a first mover and all of the sudden it's a geopolitical arms race. We're already past the point where autonomous cars can drive many routes more safely than a typical human. That's just a fact of the universe. You can speculate that the entire world's political forces will form a perfect coalition to prevent the removal of steering wheels from those cars for 30 years, but I don't think that's how politics works.