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There is a wide range of ability when it comes to driving cars, these don't have to be better than everyone to be useful, just better than the worst drivers, wh

There is a wide range of ability when it comes to driving cars, these don't have to be better than everyone to be useful, just better than the worst drivers, which I think it's clear they already are.

the8472 9y ago
Plus they learn as a fleet. So when they start out as barely better than the worst legal drivers and start improving then a large set of vehicles will improve every time they roll out improvements to handle some edge cases.
rhino369 9y ago
1) Why do you think that? Has any car ever been successfully test in traffic for long periods of time without human intervention. 2) Better than the worst isn't good enough because good drivers would buy them too.
- Eridrus 9y ago
  Cruise Automation reported 6 disengagements over 2200 miles of downtown SF driving last November: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/deade5b7-5b10-4b25-a926-78484dbc2b31/GMCruise_disengage_report_2016.pdf?MOD=AJPERES https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/deade5b7-5b10-4b25... Waymo was reporting 0.2 disengagements per 1000 miles last year, but people like to nit pick those because they're not all downtown miles. For context humans have 0.006 accidents per 1000 miles driven, and that's counting all the simple miles we drive on highways. So last year Waymo was within a factor of 30 of average human performance, assuming each disengagement was an accident. If you allow for the fact that with so few disengagements, some of this is noise, and that most of these disengagements would probably not result in accidents, but are rather drivers being cautious and the cars are probably better a year later, I'd say they're probably knocking on the door of human safety at least. Obviously hard to really say without more data, but the data makes me bullish rather than bearish.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
If all the car reviewers get their hands on it and say it's like a timid person lost in downtown Baltimore driving a uhaul truck it's gonna crash and burn You have to do something well to redeem that or sales will be a flop. It doesn't look like self driving cars will be much cheaper, better handling, cheaper to own or more luxurious than normal car so the only thing left is for them to drive as better than most people. The kind of review you want is "this thing costs $10k more than a Prius but being able to sleep off a hangover on your way to work is worth every bit of that $10k"
- Eridrus 9y ago
  Self-driving cars will first be deployed in fleets that you can request, where the cost of the cars will be amortized over the many people who get to make use of them, making them far cheaper than owning, operating and parking the car. Much of this margin will probably be captured by the self-driving car companies for the near future, but in the long term with a competitive market they should be far cheaper than current cars for the vast majority of users.

the8472 9y ago

Plus they learn as a fleet. So when they start out as barely better than the worst legal drivers and start improving then a large set of vehicles will improve every time they roll out improvements to handle some edge cases.

rhino369 9y ago

1) Why do you think that? Has any car ever been successfully test in traffic for long periods of time without human intervention. 2) Better than the worst isn't good enough because good drivers would buy them too.

Eridrus 9y ago
Cruise Automation reported 6 disengagements over 2200 miles of downtown SF driving last November: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/deade5b7-5b10-4b25-a926-78484dbc2b31/GMCruise_disengage_report_2016.pdf?MOD=AJPERES https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/deade5b7-5b10-4b25... Waymo was reporting 0.2 disengagements per 1000 miles last year, but people like to nit pick those because they're not all downtown miles. For context humans have 0.006 accidents per 1000 miles driven, and that's counting all the simple miles we drive on highways. So last year Waymo was within a factor of 30 of average human performance, assuming each disengagement was an accident. If you allow for the fact that with so few disengagements, some of this is noise, and that most of these disengagements would probably not result in accidents, but are rather drivers being cautious and the cars are probably better a year later, I'd say they're probably knocking on the door of human safety at least. Obviously hard to really say without more data, but the data makes me bullish rather than bearish.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

If all the car reviewers get their hands on it and say it's like a timid person lost in downtown Baltimore driving a uhaul truck it's gonna crash and burn You have to do something well to redeem that or sales will be a flop. It doesn't look like self driving cars will be much cheaper, better handling, cheaper to own or more luxurious than normal car so the only thing left is for them to drive as better than most people. The kind of review you want is "this thing costs $10k more than a Prius but being able to sleep off a hangover on your way to work is worth every bit of that $10k"

Eridrus 9y ago
Self-driving cars will first be deployed in fleets that you can request, where the cost of the cars will be amortized over the many people who get to make use of them, making them far cheaper than owning, operating and parking the car. Much of this margin will probably be captured by the self-driving car companies for the near future, but in the long term with a competitive market they should be far cheaper than current cars for the vast majority of users.