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To be clearer, it's not the concept of self driving cars itself that scares me. It's the aggressive timeline that sounds like it was dictated by marketing and s

by imh 10y ago

To be clearer, it's not the concept of self driving cars itself that scares me. It's the aggressive timeline that sounds like it was dictated by marketing and strategic goals rather than technical feasibility and engineering estimates.

ghshephard 10y ago
Technically, self-driving cars are about 1 year out from being better than human drivers under normal highway driving conditions. If they continue to follow that curve of progress, then by (my hand wavey estimates) 2018 you should see micro-mapped urban driving scenarios (similar to google car in the bay area) capable of responding to traffic lights, construction lights, 2019 you should should see exception based systems (Construction pylons, road flares), 2020 gets you responding to Traffic Police, hand waves, and 2021 fills in the gaps that I'm not thinking of. So, in theory, by end of 2021, within the Bay Area (at least South Bay - Think Mountain View/Cupertino Area), Ford should be able to start deploying on a Trial Basis, automated fleets of cars that will, more safely than humans, pick up and deliver people under good driving conditions, during the day, over very micromapped routes. Once they get that nailed, they should be able to start expanding to other neighborhoods in the Bay Area, until by 2028-2030, an automated car should be able to pick up and deliver you anywhere in the SFBAY area that has presumably been micromapped, while at the same time providing pretty decent highway automated driving experiences for good portions of California. Based on those lessons, (and probably in parallel with the California Experience) - other countries/states/cities will likewise be micro-mapping their road systems, and also creating "Automated Capable Areas" - that will, over time, merge - until eventually you should be able to get, over well known roads, in non-inclement weather conditions from pretty much anywhere in the United States to Any other area, more safely than you would with a human. My prediction is 2050 at the latest, and 2040 if there is aggressive investment. (The actual data probably lands somewhere between those two). Honestly, human drivers are so horrible, it's hard to believe that with just a few hundred billion dollars of investments over the next fifteen years, that we shouldn't be able to come up with something better.

by imh 10y ago

ghshephard 10y ago

Technically, self-driving cars are about 1 year out from being better than human drivers under normal highway driving conditions. If they continue to follow that curve of progress, then by (my hand wavey estimates) 2018 you should see micro-mapped urban driving scenarios (similar to google car in the bay area) capable of responding to traffic lights, construction lights, 2019 you should should see exception based systems (Construction pylons, road flares), 2020 gets you responding to Traffic Police, hand waves, and 2021 fills in the gaps that I'm not thinking of. So, in theory, by end of 2021, within the Bay Area (at least South Bay - Think Mountain View/Cupertino Area), Ford should be able to start deploying on a Trial Basis, automated fleets of cars that will, more safely than humans, pick up and deliver people under good driving conditions, during the day, over very micromapped routes. Once they get that nailed, they should be able to start expanding to other neighborhoods in the Bay Area, until by 2028-2030, an automated car should be able to pick up and deliver you anywhere in the SFBAY area that has presumably been micromapped, while at the same time providing pretty decent highway automated driving experiences for good portions of California. Based on those lessons, (and probably in parallel with the California Experience) - other countries/states/cities will likewise be micro-mapping their road systems, and also creating "Automated Capable Areas" - that will, over time, merge - until eventually you should be able to get, over well known roads, in non-inclement weather conditions from pretty much anywhere in the United States to Any other area, more safely than you would with a human. My prediction is 2050 at the latest, and 2040 if there is aggressive investment. (The actual data probably lands somewhere between those two). Honestly, human drivers are so horrible, it's hard to believe that with just a few hundred billion dollars of investments over the next fifteen years, that we shouldn't be able to come up with something better.