> Good assistive systems (probably leading in the nearish term to a level of full autonomy under some conditions) has already started to arrive from a variety o

> Good assistive systems (probably leading in the nearish term to a level of full autonomy under some conditions) has already started to arrive from a variety of auto makers--but Google doesn't seem to be interested in participating there. So there's a definite business model for assistive/autopilot systems and there will be, some day, for fully autonomous systems. However, it's unclear whether the latter, taken by itself, will be profitable in any reasonable commercial timeframe. If you can replace a driver you are paying ~$20,800 [$10/hr] every year, that is ~$100k of savings [I'm assuming the more complex car also costs ~$100k to service over 10 years, so it may be more than that if I'm being overly conservative]. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/12/04/the-75000-problem-for-self-driving-cars-is-going-away/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/12/0... Right now, its ~$100k to produce a self driving car. If they can get it down to $50k and maintenance costs of ~$5k/year ... it is much, much cheaper than any human driver.