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I think US is going to side step Railways entirely and in 30 years achieve full autonomous driving (ofcourse electric). So roads will become the defacto "railwa
by systemvoltage 6y ago
I think US is going to side step Railways entirely and in 30 years achieve full autonomous driving (ofcourse electric). So roads will become the defacto "railways" with cars forming a convoy of sorts over long distances. Special lanes will be designated for autotraffic. Yet it will retain the conveniences of door-to-door transport. I, too, would love to see Japan-style railways in the US, but it's not going to happen. Any long distance will be dominated by Airways as we currently have.
- otabdeveloper4 6y agoAutonomous driving will never happen. It's a pipe dream like the flying car. (The problems aren't technical, they're socal and legal, and will never be solved.)
- ashtonkem 6y agoIt’s not even clear when the technical problems will be solved. It’s been “in five to ten years” for a while now.
- wussboy 6y agoThat’s odd. I would have sworn the flying car problems are technical (failure scenarios, power to weight ratios etc.) and while maybe currently legal absolutely not social.
- otabdeveloper4 6y agoThe technical problems are solvable, while the social and legal ones are not.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoThink 200 years. We will have it but not in our lifetimes.
- yourmom2 6y agofantastic. just have to make sure society still exists in 200 years and we'll be all set.
- systemvoltage 6y ago30 years is a pretty long time. I am skeptical but you never know. Its exactly the opposite of flying cars. There are billions being spent on autonomous driving, DOT is onboard and trials have begun. I do agree that its not going to happen in next 5 years as Elon Musk claims.
- otabdeveloper4 6y agoPeople spent billions on "blockchain" too, this isn't any sort of indicator in the current economic climate.
- foobiekr 6y agoJapan spent a billion dollars in 1980s money to build AI. Investors piling into self-driving doesn’t mean it will work. It is pretty clear at this point that even if it happens the timeline is such that 100% of the me-too venture investments are going to fail completely with perhaps a few exceptions that get acquired by bigger fools first.
- tbihl 6y agoHopefully. If they do get solved, it'll be by further pushing people away from roads with walls or other barriers that prevent crossings.
- panic 6y agoA convoy of cars is a hugely inefficient use of space. Maybe autonomous buses would work, though.
- Ericson2314 6y agoEven if autonomous cars drove full speed in heavy traffic, they are still terrible people movers. For large dense cities that are the economic engines of the modern world, you need public transit.
- mijamo 6y agoI don't get this opinion. Cars are inefficient in space, slow and uncomfortable. How does that replace a high speed train in any way? If anything autonomous cars would be great for train travel as a last mile solution to replace taxis.