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my unpopular personal opinion (strictly as a casual observer): self-driving will only be commercially viable as an augmented safety technology in single-owner

my unpopular personal opinion (strictly as a casual observer): self-driving will only be commercially viable as an augmented safety technology in single-owner vehicles (collision avoidance, lane keeping etc.) for ~20 years before we come close to reaching full-autonomy. What we have currently; maybe four or five 9s of reliability in perfect conditions is not nearly good enough for autonomous car sharing. If the car breaks down or is in a collision what is the passenger going to do? drive it themselves to the shoulder and get out? How far are we from autonomous systems harmoniously and safely coexisting with the most erratic human drivers/bikers/pedestrians? How far from adverse weather conditions? How will we finance 100 million $80,000 autonomous vehicles. Automated collision mitigation is already in many new cars and the data on accident rates is just materializing. Toyota preemptively put it's radar/camera based system in ALL of their cars for 2017. Its rumored that the NHTSA will mandate it for all manufacturers in the near future. The gradual progression of these developments is that these systems will add features incrementally and gain economies-of-scale until one day in the far far future driver input will be minimal. Only then will autonomous ride sharing become viable.

richardwhiuk 9y ago
Human drivers are pretty terrible. I'd imagine if it breaks down, then the same breakdown cover everyone has at the moment will kick in.
- jakelarkin 9y ago
  - autonomous vehicle could be transporting someone not qualified to drive. - hard to draft paying & passive customers in to accident mitigation or resolution role.
- vkou 9y ago
  > Human drivers are pretty terrible. I beg to differ. The average sober human driver has 1 fatal accident in 120-300 million miles traveled, depending on where they live in North America. Given that we are bags of meat and water, have reaction times measured in hundreds of milliseconds, were never designed to operate heavy machinery, and manage to achieve all that on a mere 100 watts, that's pretty amazing.
  - KekDemaga 9y ago
    Agreed if human drivers were actually terrible nobody would ever drive. The risk would simply be too high.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - kelnos 9y ago
    Where are you getting that data? [1] claims that the rate was 1.27 deaths per billion miles in 2008, and 1.25 in 2016. What do you consider the threshold for human drivers being good or bad? Even if we could get to 1 death per billion miles (with human drivers), I'd consider that pretty bad. Regardless, if an autonomous driving system can do better, that's all that really matters. We're not there yet, but it's not inconceivable that we could be before too long. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States#Introduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
    - vkou 9y ago
      The death rate varies widely from region to region. The article you linked cites Ontario, with its 3 deaths/1 billion miles. Denmark has 1 death/1 billion miles. South Carolina is a graveyard, with 12 deaths/1 billion miles. Also, ~40% of driving deaths (Again, with significant regional variation) are due to alcohol use. I'd consider 1 death per billion miles pretty good. That's one fatal mistake in 25 million hours of driving. That's a lot of hours. > Regardless, if an autonomous driving system can do better, that's all that really matters. We're not there yet, but it's not inconceivable that we could be before too long. Agreed.

richardwhiuk 9y ago

Human drivers are pretty terrible. I'd imagine if it breaks down, then the same breakdown cover everyone has at the moment will kick in.

jakelarkin 9y ago
- autonomous vehicle could be transporting someone not qualified to drive. - hard to draft paying & passive customers in to accident mitigation or resolution role.
vkou 9y ago
> Human drivers are pretty terrible. I beg to differ. The average sober human driver has 1 fatal accident in 120-300 million miles traveled, depending on where they live in North America. Given that we are bags of meat and water, have reaction times measured in hundreds of milliseconds, were never designed to operate heavy machinery, and manage to achieve all that on a mere 100 watts, that's pretty amazing.
- KekDemaga 9y ago
  Agreed if human drivers were actually terrible nobody would ever drive. The risk would simply be too high.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kelnos 9y ago
  Where are you getting that data? [1] claims that the rate was 1.27 deaths per billion miles in 2008, and 1.25 in 2016. What do you consider the threshold for human drivers being good or bad? Even if we could get to 1 death per billion miles (with human drivers), I'd consider that pretty bad. Regardless, if an autonomous driving system can do better, that's all that really matters. We're not there yet, but it's not inconceivable that we could be before too long. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States#Introduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
  - vkou 9y ago
    The death rate varies widely from region to region. The article you linked cites Ontario, with its 3 deaths/1 billion miles. Denmark has 1 death/1 billion miles. South Carolina is a graveyard, with 12 deaths/1 billion miles. Also, ~40% of driving deaths (Again, with significant regional variation) are due to alcohol use. I'd consider 1 death per billion miles pretty good. That's one fatal mistake in 25 million hours of driving. That's a lot of hours. > Regardless, if an autonomous driving system can do better, that's all that really matters. We're not there yet, but it's not inconceivable that we could be before too long. Agreed.