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> it could be 20 to 25 years before most trips in cities will be provided by autonomous vehicles, he added. Ouch, I had no idea it was that far away. Hard to

> it could be 20 to 25 years before most trips in cities will be provided by autonomous vehicles, he added. Ouch, I had no idea it was that far away. Hard to believe that when Uber is already testing with passengers in cities, though.

bryanlarsen 10y ago
The average lifespan of a car in California is 19 years. Let X = # of years before true class 4 self driving cars are available to buy Let Y = # of years after introduction before class 4 self driving cars are the majority sold Let Z = # of years after Y where self driving cars provide the majority of trips. Z could be 19/2, but we can probably assume that newer cars are used for more miles than the older ones, so Z is probably somewhere between 5 and 10. That could mean that X+Y is as little as ten years away. X=5 and Y=5 both seem fairly optimistic to me.
ghaff 10y ago
I'd be happy to be proven wrong but I fully expect it will be decades before I could order a self-driving car with no driver aboard in Manhattan or Boston. It's certainly possible that fully autonomous driving systems under some subset of conditions like limited access highways will be available sooner--maybe much sooner--but, of course, that doesn't enable the use cases that excites people who don't want to own cars etc.
- kilroy123 10y ago
  I agree with you. However, I do think it _is_ possible to have it sooner. However, not without a massive investment and effort from many different players working together. Government involvement, etc.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    That's probably fair. One the one hand, nine women, one baby etc. On the other hand, if there were widespread adoption of standards, infrastructure were modified to smooth over some of the hard bits (e.g. transponders in construction zones), possibly remote operators setup for if cars get stuck, etc. adoption could be accelerated at least somewhat. I still think the generalized door-to-door driverless experience is a lot harder than many are giving it credit for though. The government involvement in a positive direction will probably be somewhat tough. It's not hard to frame this as a job-destroying technology initially primarily for the benefit of the better off.
rtkwe 10y ago
The important part of that phrase is "most trips." It's going to be a while before cars are cheap enough that most people will have a car with them and even once it starts appearing in cheaper (10-20k USD) cars it will still take a while since people generally use their cars for a good long time before replacing them.
bluthru 10y ago
That's not terribly far away considering how slowly people replace cars. We'll probably see autonomous taxi services within 10 years, right?
- ghaff 10y ago
  I'd be very surprised. Multiply by 3 or 4.
gohrt 10y ago
Testing is trivial, when it's just putting data-collection and simulation software in a car that is still driven by a person.

bryanlarsen 10y ago

The average lifespan of a car in California is 19 years. Let X = # of years before true class 4 self driving cars are available to buy Let Y = # of years after introduction before class 4 self driving cars are the majority sold Let Z = # of years after Y where self driving cars provide the majority of trips. Z could be 19/2, but we can probably assume that newer cars are used for more miles than the older ones, so Z is probably somewhere between 5 and 10. That could mean that X+Y is as little as ten years away. X=5 and Y=5 both seem fairly optimistic to me.

ghaff 10y ago

I'd be happy to be proven wrong but I fully expect it will be decades before I could order a self-driving car with no driver aboard in Manhattan or Boston. It's certainly possible that fully autonomous driving systems under some subset of conditions like limited access highways will be available sooner--maybe much sooner--but, of course, that doesn't enable the use cases that excites people who don't want to own cars etc.

kilroy123 10y ago
I agree with you. However, I do think it _is_ possible to have it sooner. However, not without a massive investment and effort from many different players working together. Government involvement, etc.
- ghaff 10y ago
  That's probably fair. One the one hand, nine women, one baby etc. On the other hand, if there were widespread adoption of standards, infrastructure were modified to smooth over some of the hard bits (e.g. transponders in construction zones), possibly remote operators setup for if cars get stuck, etc. adoption could be accelerated at least somewhat. I still think the generalized door-to-door driverless experience is a lot harder than many are giving it credit for though. The government involvement in a positive direction will probably be somewhat tough. It's not hard to frame this as a job-destroying technology initially primarily for the benefit of the better off.

rtkwe 10y ago

The important part of that phrase is "most trips." It's going to be a while before cars are cheap enough that most people will have a car with them and even once it starts appearing in cheaper (10-20k USD) cars it will still take a while since people generally use their cars for a good long time before replacing them.

bluthru 10y ago

That's not terribly far away considering how slowly people replace cars. We'll probably see autonomous taxi services within 10 years, right?

ghaff 10y ago
I'd be very surprised. Multiply by 3 or 4.

gohrt 10y ago

Testing is trivial, when it's just putting data-collection and simulation software in a car that is still driven by a person.