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I'm curious what their first product will be and when it will be available. Chris Urmson stated the goal was to release a self-driving vehicle by 2020, after p

I'm curious what their first product will be and when it will be available. Chris Urmson stated the goal was to release a self-driving vehicle by 2020, after pushing it back from their original goal of 2017, and this was just before he left at the beginning of the year. Since then Google also lost its lead software engineer on the project who left to start a competing company and he also took another senior employee with him, and Google lost several more key members to Otto (which is now owned by Uber). This space has become super competitive and it will be fun to watch what happens. I still think it will be many years before we see a fully self-driving car (where no driver is needed at all). I think the best way to do it is to redesign cities to specifically accommodate self-driving cars. Honestly though that might be something other countries such as China and Singapore are much more reticent to pursue.

drcross 10y ago
>I think the best way to do it is to redesign cities to specifically accommodate self-driving cars That will never happen. The car has to drive itself on existing infrastructure or not at all.
- paulsutter 10y ago
  Where "never" means "early in the transition?" Once self driving cars are widespread, changes are certain even if gradual. Gradual examples include increasing density by replacing parking lots with buildings, relaxing zoning requirements for parking with new residential units, etc
  - kuschku 10y ago
    Where would you park the self-driving cars then? Considering in most cases > 80% of cars are on the road at the same time during rush hours, you can't save much with self-driving cars — not more than with a well-working transit system already. So you'd need huge parking areas somewhere still. And the "increade density, reduce parking requirements" — if you do that, you can just improve transit, and get the same advantage. But that doesn't happen. People want to own a car, have it always available, and don't want to share. Self-Driving cars provide no advantage there.
    - nickez 10y ago
      > Where would you park the self-driving cars then? They will be driving around and not be parked.. > Considering in most cases > 80% of cars are on the road at the same time during rush hours, you can't save much with self-driving cars — not more than with a well-working transit system already. Maybe self driving cars can be the "last/first mile" in transit so that more people actually will use public transit. > People want to own a car, have it always available, and don't want to share. I don't want to own a car and no-one that I know of in my surroundings want to own a car. Car companies even do private leasing now because people do not want to own a car. > Self-Driving cars provide no advantage there. I think you have to think bigger. Why would you want to own a car if you could call one at any moment with your phone with an app?
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >> Where would you park the self-driving cars then? > They will be driving around and not be parked.. They could also go to park in more remote areas, that are uncomfortable for people to walk to, and come back when asked to.
        bryanlarsen 10y ago
        So we're going to have a bunch of self-driving cars driving around without people in them? Sounds like that's going to make our traffic problems worse, not better.
        coldtea 10y ago
        That's assuming our traffic problems are because of "too many cars" and not because of inefficient utilization / driving. That said, I didn't say we'll have cars driving around with no people in them. I said that cars will be able to drive to remote parking areas by themselves.
      - justJanne 10y ago
        > Maybe self driving cars can be the "last/first mile" in transit so that more people actually will use public transit. So the Park+Ride concept. That’s already possible today, yet completely underutilized. A criticism often brought against transit is "I’d have to switch trains at some point", do you think these people would start using that now? > They will be driving around and not be parked.. All the time? That’d be quite wasteful, considering most cars are only used for about 2h a day, during the rush hours, for the commute. > I think you have to think bigger. Why would you want to own a car if you could call one at any moment with your phone with an app? Why would you want to own a car if you could call a taxi at any moment with your phone with an app? Why would you want to own a car if busses and trains come every 2-5 minutes at every stop, and you’re never more than 400m from a stop? Reality is, as European cities show, all these "advantages" can already be gotten with public transit today. I’m not sure what self-driving cars actually improve compared to existing public transit methods. And especially because they’re using space more inefficient than existing transit methods, these advantages would have to be huge to make any tradeoff worth it. Otherwise you could just invest in better transit, not self-driving cars.
  - mulletbum 10y ago
    I can see the commuter lanes in many cities being converted to self driving lanes with 100mph speed limits. That alone would push people into self driving vehicles.
    - wrsh07 10y ago
      You wouldn't even need 100mph speedlimits if self-driving cars can avoid some of the common high-traffic pitfalls [eg traffic waves [1]] It's likely that even at equal or higher density, self-driving cars will be able to have higher throughput with comparable speed limits. Initially, though, it might be sufficient to "encourage" them by allowing them in commuter lanes. [this should even be trivial, because it should be pretty easy to find passengers uber-pool style if adding passengers would improve the trip] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave
      - alonmower 10y ago
        Slight tangent but one of the most interesting parts (to me) of lane splitting on a motorcycle is getting to navigate through these waves and actually see the dense and sparse segments as you pass through them
- dagw 10y ago
  We happily redesigned cities to accommodate cars, what makes you think we won't do it again for self-driving cars?
elmar 10y ago
A full self-driving car with no driver will take more than 30 years, and probably will only be possible on areas restricted to self-driving cars. We will se first one to two seat fully self-flying vehicles than cars.
- jrv 10y ago
  Considering that Elon Musk says we'll have full self-diving cars (from an engineering standpoint) in 2 or 3 years, this estimate seems very pessimistic.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    It is unsurprising futurists working on pushing their cars that allegedly self-drive would tell you that the technology is closer to practicality than it is.
  - rimantas 10y ago
    I consider Musk's timeframe a pipe dream.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    Isn't Musk notorious for blowing way past his self-imposed deadlines?
    - jrv 10y ago
      By a couple of years, but not many decades, yes.
  - Fricken 10y ago
    It could be 3 years or 30 years says Chris Urmson, depending on what you're talking about. Elon Musk's predictions are consistently unreliable.
  - anexprogrammer 10y ago
    2-3 years in OK conditions, 30 years to cater for all the odd edge cases humans take cars. Bad human drivers, Indian traffic, cyclists, animals, narrow, unlit or poor roads etc. The other question is will the tech be there before the licensing/legislation. Somewhere in the middle there's probably a point where self driving is demonstrably safer than human, even before they're "ready" for everywhere.
ForHackernews 10y ago
> Honestly though that might be something other countries such as China and Singapore are much more reticent to pursue. Are you sure "reticent" is the word you want here? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reticent https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reticent : "Hesitant or not wanting to take some action; reluctant"
- dexterdog 10y ago
  When I read his comment I paused for a second and said to myself, "Wait, I thought I knew what reticent meant."
- jayjay71 10y ago
  You are correct! I meant to say receptive. Too late to edit it now.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

drcross 10y ago

>I think the best way to do it is to redesign cities to specifically accommodate self-driving cars That will never happen. The car has to drive itself on existing infrastructure or not at all.

paulsutter 10y ago
Where "never" means "early in the transition?" Once self driving cars are widespread, changes are certain even if gradual. Gradual examples include increasing density by replacing parking lots with buildings, relaxing zoning requirements for parking with new residential units, etc
- kuschku 10y ago
  Where would you park the self-driving cars then? Considering in most cases > 80% of cars are on the road at the same time during rush hours, you can't save much with self-driving cars — not more than with a well-working transit system already. So you'd need huge parking areas somewhere still. And the "increade density, reduce parking requirements" — if you do that, you can just improve transit, and get the same advantage. But that doesn't happen. People want to own a car, have it always available, and don't want to share. Self-Driving cars provide no advantage there.
  - nickez 10y ago
    > Where would you park the self-driving cars then? They will be driving around and not be parked.. > Considering in most cases > 80% of cars are on the road at the same time during rush hours, you can't save much with self-driving cars — not more than with a well-working transit system already. Maybe self driving cars can be the "last/first mile" in transit so that more people actually will use public transit. > People want to own a car, have it always available, and don't want to share. I don't want to own a car and no-one that I know of in my surroundings want to own a car. Car companies even do private leasing now because people do not want to own a car. > Self-Driving cars provide no advantage there. I think you have to think bigger. Why would you want to own a car if you could call one at any moment with your phone with an app?
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >> Where would you park the self-driving cars then? > They will be driving around and not be parked.. They could also go to park in more remote areas, that are uncomfortable for people to walk to, and come back when asked to.
      - bryanlarsen 10y ago
        So we're going to have a bunch of self-driving cars driving around without people in them? Sounds like that's going to make our traffic problems worse, not better.
        coldtea 10y ago
        That's assuming our traffic problems are because of "too many cars" and not because of inefficient utilization / driving. That said, I didn't say we'll have cars driving around with no people in them. I said that cars will be able to drive to remote parking areas by themselves.
    - justJanne 10y ago
      > Maybe self driving cars can be the "last/first mile" in transit so that more people actually will use public transit. So the Park+Ride concept. That’s already possible today, yet completely underutilized. A criticism often brought against transit is "I’d have to switch trains at some point", do you think these people would start using that now? > They will be driving around and not be parked.. All the time? That’d be quite wasteful, considering most cars are only used for about 2h a day, during the rush hours, for the commute. > I think you have to think bigger. Why would you want to own a car if you could call one at any moment with your phone with an app? Why would you want to own a car if you could call a taxi at any moment with your phone with an app? Why would you want to own a car if busses and trains come every 2-5 minutes at every stop, and you’re never more than 400m from a stop? Reality is, as European cities show, all these "advantages" can already be gotten with public transit today. I’m not sure what self-driving cars actually improve compared to existing public transit methods. And especially because they’re using space more inefficient than existing transit methods, these advantages would have to be huge to make any tradeoff worth it. Otherwise you could just invest in better transit, not self-driving cars.
- mulletbum 10y ago
  I can see the commuter lanes in many cities being converted to self driving lanes with 100mph speed limits. That alone would push people into self driving vehicles.
  - wrsh07 10y ago
    You wouldn't even need 100mph speedlimits if self-driving cars can avoid some of the common high-traffic pitfalls [eg traffic waves [1]] It's likely that even at equal or higher density, self-driving cars will be able to have higher throughput with comparable speed limits. Initially, though, it might be sufficient to "encourage" them by allowing them in commuter lanes. [this should even be trivial, because it should be pretty easy to find passengers uber-pool style if adding passengers would improve the trip] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave
    - alonmower 10y ago
      Slight tangent but one of the most interesting parts (to me) of lane splitting on a motorcycle is getting to navigate through these waves and actually see the dense and sparse segments as you pass through them
dagw 10y ago
We happily redesigned cities to accommodate cars, what makes you think we won't do it again for self-driving cars?

elmar 10y ago

A full self-driving car with no driver will take more than 30 years, and probably will only be possible on areas restricted to self-driving cars. We will se first one to two seat fully self-flying vehicles than cars.

jrv 10y ago
Considering that Elon Musk says we'll have full self-diving cars (from an engineering standpoint) in 2 or 3 years, this estimate seems very pessimistic.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  It is unsurprising futurists working on pushing their cars that allegedly self-drive would tell you that the technology is closer to practicality than it is.
- rimantas 10y ago
  I consider Musk's timeframe a pipe dream.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  Isn't Musk notorious for blowing way past his self-imposed deadlines?
  - jrv 10y ago
    By a couple of years, but not many decades, yes.
- Fricken 10y ago
  It could be 3 years or 30 years says Chris Urmson, depending on what you're talking about. Elon Musk's predictions are consistently unreliable.
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  2-3 years in OK conditions, 30 years to cater for all the odd edge cases humans take cars. Bad human drivers, Indian traffic, cyclists, animals, narrow, unlit or poor roads etc. The other question is will the tech be there before the licensing/legislation. Somewhere in the middle there's probably a point where self driving is demonstrably safer than human, even before they're "ready" for everywhere.

ForHackernews 10y ago

> Honestly though that might be something other countries such as China and Singapore are much more reticent to pursue. Are you sure "reticent" is the word you want here? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reticent https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reticent : "Hesitant or not wanting to take some action; reluctant"

dexterdog 10y ago
When I read his comment I paused for a second and said to myself, "Wait, I thought I knew what reticent meant."
jayjay71 10y ago
You are correct! I meant to say receptive. Too late to edit it now.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]