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Nevada approves regulations for self-driving cars

258 points by dantheman 15y ago

wtvanhest 15y ago
Is it possible that this will turn cities in to less desirable places to live? Imagine if you could take your car in to the city for drinks, have it drive around for a while and pick you up when your done. That is just one possibility, I'm sure there are so many applications I can't even think of them.
- draggnar 15y ago
  maybe the opposite is true. i can get around the city very fast without having to worry about parking.
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    I think this is more likely. Living in cities is desirable because you have a vibrant and 'close' community, it is undesirable because its hard to drive and if you do own a car its under utilized. One of the interesting effects on this might be 'non-bus' cars. Which is to say public transit as a fleet of say 'four person' self driving cars where you walk to a bus top and touch your transit car and one shows up and picks you up. You tell it where you want to go and it takes you there. It of course destroys the taxi business quite completely. But combines all manner of public transit into a single service which gets economies of scale. Dynamic electric cars would be fine (where they have an electric 'boom' like trains in Europe do).
    - jfoutz 15y ago
      No way it's public. I can imagine apartment buildings having a car or two for use like a gym or laundry. Or, perhaps a subscription service, superzipcar or something like that.
      - xp84 15y ago
        Why "no way"? I don't have any problem with your suggested models either, but see no reason why public car services couldn't coexist.
        jfoutz 15y ago
        short version, politics & tragedy of the commons. Anything is possible, I just can't imagine a (US) municipality that's able to implement an entirely new public service. IIRC, community wi-fi keeps getting sued by companies that want to make money. First, none can afford it. Second the US, IMHO, is really hostile toward any sort of government service. Even if those were non-issues, you still have to solve the problem of vandalism. People behave like grownups when other people are watching (pretty much). The bus or subway are good examples. Alone, in a car, i think it's much tougher to keep people well behaved. there have been various community bicycle programs that suffer from people beating the hell out of the bikes, or just stealing them. These are perhaps mutable problems in small towns, or outside of the US.
        saraid216 15y ago
        Seattle has a light rail system they only booted up a few years ago. They had to build a completely new set of rails everywhere to do it. I'll admit I don't know the details of its history, since I wasn't paying attention, but it's utterly possible.
        jfoutz 15y ago
        If you belive this (http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/07/20/seattles-light-rail-opens-redefining-life-in-the-city/ http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/07/20/seattles-light...) it took seattle almost 20 years to make that happen. Also, i think that city, in particular, was flush with cash.
        saraid216 15y ago
        20 years is on the long side, but I find it a reasonable amount of time to make it happen. And the point was more that it happened, and that it wasn't exactly an isolated case.
- melvinram 15y ago
  It doesn't need to drive around for a while. There could be parking lots for driverless cars that somehow connect with the owners credit card and pay for parking.
- interknot 15y ago
  I'd be surprised if cities became less desirable. I could see cars turning into something like an on-demand, private bus (or just an automated taxi that you own).
- jameslevy 15y ago
  The proliferation of self-driving cars will absolutely affect where people live, eventually. I imagine that to start with, we'll see certain areas - such as the Vegas strip, perhaps - that support Valet™, a feature first appearing in luxury vehicles that does exactly what we'd already expect from human valet drivers. But to drill down even further, I'm not exactly sure where the very first Valet™ supported parking lot would be. Manhattan would be a great use-case, but my own guess is that we'll first see this appear at places like large mall parking lots where city regulations won't be as much of a problem.
  - jameslevy 15y ago
    And yes, self-driving cars will provide a huge boom to services like Zipcar, and indirectly to marketplaces like AirBnB that convert ownership into access.
    - wtvanhest 15y ago
      At first I thought that taxi companies would use the vehicles, but now I think it is more realistic that zip car would be first (or someone like them) since not everyone will be fast to adopt and may be uncomfortable riding.in one. Then over time the economics will force cab companies to switch at which point it will be a mature market. Bschool professors will talk about how cab companies made the wrong strategic choice even though it will really be the only option and one essentially predetermined. Personally, I can't wait!
- dekz 15y ago
  Something that is needed here and probably many places is competition in Public Transport. I imagine a time where it will be cheaper to have your electric car drive you into work than to catch a train, then drives itself home and charges until you're ready to be picked up again. Or just driverless taxis on the cheap. Public transport here costs at least $20 a week just for students relatively close to the city. You can expect $50+ for adults, it's not uncommon for people here to live 1+ hours away and commute from the coast, costing $15+ per trip.
- natesm 15y ago
  Regardless of whether or not it drives itself (although it's an improvement), I still find the idea of owning a car very unappealing, and it still doesn't give the suburbs a soul.
  - jfeldstein2 15y ago
    You wouldn't buy a car, you'd just order a ride when you needed it, and the car would come pick you up. Think Zipcar
- Selvik 15y ago
  But why did people leave cities to begin with? Street crime was an important factor.
  - geogra4 15y ago
    It's a complex question, but I think the main reason was just for child-rearing space. Crime wasn't an issue when the first suburbs exploded in the 50s. With fewer people having children I think that's less of an issue.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
robobenjie 15y ago
more details in this (slightly) older article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/technology/googles-autonomous-vehicles-draw-skepticism-at-legal-symposium.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/technology/googles-autonom...
vasco 15y ago
This opens lots of cool possibilities such as eliminating the need for two cars in the family for example. You go to work, the car then comes back and drives the wife and then later in the afternoon when both parents are working it goes to school and picks up the kids!
- draggnar 15y ago
  It could eliminate the need for having a car altogether. Hello zipcar
  - dsr_ 15y ago
    Oh, yes. Having a robot taxi pick you up when you need it and disappear when you're done beats finding a parking space any day of the week. +1 city dwellers. I'd like to be able to give my kids an RFID tag so that I could send them to school when I'm running late, or pick them up after sports practice. Trust will be an issue... but entirely doable.
  - gcb 15y ago
    zip car here in LA is way more expensive than owing an old luxury car AND paying dealership prices on maintenance. or renting a car every other day. I paid 1/8 of zip car's prices when i used enterprise rentals for two months
    - rdouble 15y ago
      Zip Car works best in SF, there are cars everywhere, the city is 2nd densest in the country but still a pain to do most errands without a car, cabs suck, and the price is right. Boston is similar, but I have not used ZipCar there. In NYC it's at least $2/hr more expensive. Cabs become competitive, and there are tons of cabs. There are many more people but not as many cars as SF, so it's harder to get a car. It's mostly good for moving apartments without dealing with U-Haul, going to IKEA/Fairway in Red Hook or picking up craigslist stuff. I found in LA, the zip cars were so spread out, I first had to figure out how to get someone to drive me 15 minutes to the car.
SoftwareMaven 15y ago
I'm very excited to here this because it solves the regulatory chicken and egg. Nevada gets a bump for being first (if things go well) and other municipalities can point to Nevada to craft their own regulations. Kudos to Nevada on this one.
- pastaking 15y ago
  Yes! I hope this will snowball!
- ChrisNorstrom 15y ago
  This makes me want to visit Las Vegas for this reason alone. I would love to go to Vegas and for the first time in my life ride in a driverless car, convertable, top down, and enjoy the view, take pictures, and relax no matter what the traffic is like. I can see this being a MASSIVE boost to tourist cities.
  - rorrr 15y ago
    I think there's only one street in the whole state that gets bad traffic.
    - Arelius 15y ago
      Hey now! There are at least 2 other streets that get traffic at least annually.
    - ChrisNorstrom 15y ago
      It doesn't matter, traffic or not, I don't have to worry about driving, or street names, or traffic lights, or GPS directions. It's like the convenience of mass transit with the convenience of a private vehicle merged into one.
    - papa_bear 15y ago
      The bonus in vegas is more that you can be drunk and not have to worry about driving than it is the traffic. Of course, you could also just take a taxi.
xp84 15y ago
Having just read Robopocalypse, I'm very concerned with this development. These automated cars did a lot of damage in that book.
- joering2 15y ago
  just the legal question; if I drive with a family and autocar will smash into me, killing my children and wounding me so I cannot walk or work, who is going to be liable? car manufacturer, producer of the tires, software engineers house, or GPS system? Could see 20 years of litigation between all parties involved before I get a dime for recovery, or probably die first.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    I've yet to read Nevada's regulations, but having it be the same as for regular cars would make the most sense. In an isolated accident, the operator's insurance company is liable. If there's a fundamental flaw with the cars, the manufacturer issues a recall. It's far more likely that an inattentive human driver will smash into a driverless car than the reverse, though.
    - joering2 15y ago
      I guess what I was trying to say is that cars were designed to be driven by humans, and although there are situations where machine's fault is hard to prove [1], in reality adding additional layer of decision-making piece of hardware will make it even harder to determine who's fault was when my children, hypothetically, died in a car accident smashed by a second car. [1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1300880/Toyota-defence-frees-man-jailed-fatal-car-crash.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1300880/Toyota-defen...
      - learc83 15y ago
        Almost all auto fatalities are caused by human error. I think saving 1 million+ lives per year is worth the legal wrangling to determine fault for the remaining few accidents.
unexpected 15y ago
This is a beautiful example of a state, in desperate need of revenue, supporting legislation that encourages businesses to start up without increasing/decreasing taxes. Now if only the US could do the same thing with stem cells.
- pdx 15y ago
  Is the Nevads government subsidizing research into self driving cars with tax money? If not, than I see no parallel to stem cells. For the last 10 years or more, you're welcome to do anything you want with stem cells. Go crazy. You just haven't been able to get tax money to fund it, if the stem cells happened to be embryonic.
  - thetrendycyborg 15y ago
    There's not really an advantage to embryonic stem cells anyways.
    - ori_b 15y ago
      Are you sure? How was this determined without doing experimentation with embryonic stem cells?
      - georgieporgie 15y ago
        I thought the only 'difference' was the timeframe of availability, but apparently not: http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics5.asp http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics5.asp One major difference between adult and embryonic stem cells is their different abilities in the number and type of differentiated cell types they can become. Scientists believe that tissues derived from embryonic and adult stem cells may differ in the likelihood of being rejected after transplantation.
        thetrendycyborg 15y ago
        They have actually managed to make adult stem cells pluripotent (research at the UW Madison did this), and furthermore have managed to make them from a person's own skin (again, UW Madison ftw). And adult stem cells are less likely to be rejected. Embryonic stem cells grow at a different rate than adult stem cells (they grow much faster) which causes higher rejection rate and can in fact act much like a tumor. The difficulty isn't being able to research them. There's a lot of money flowing both ways that is very politically motivated, but it's pretty simple to say that the adult stem cells have actually resulted in recoveries and cures (embryonic have not) and do not have the ethical problems. Being able to research embryonic stem cells doesn't make them more viable. At this point, they don't have advantages.
cobrausn 15y ago
If a driverless car cuts me off, to whom do I direct my middle finger? Seriously, though, good on them - I'd love to see this kind of thing during my lifetime. Hopefully it goes well - I'd hate to see this cause a rash of accidents no matter whose fault it ends up being.
- angersock 15y ago
  Whose fault? SEGFAULT
  - cobrausn 15y ago
    If the accident involves a bus, does that make it a SIGBUS?
    - angersock 15y ago
      If something goes wonky and it hits a lamppost, SIGPOLL?
      - figglesonrails 15y ago
        How do I send SIGSTOP to this horrible line of UNIX jokes?
        troymc 15y ago
        Did you try turning your car off and then back on again?
- jfoutz 15y ago
  With all of the sensors required, there will be a fantastically detailed record of every crash. My money is on the humans screwing up so badly the driverless car can't recover.
  - cobrausn 15y ago
dripton 15y ago
Where's the link to the actual regulations? I hate articles like this that could easily refer to the primary source, but fail to do so.
nivertech 15y ago
“It won’t truly be an autonomous vehicle, until you instruct it to drive to work and it heads to the beach instead.”
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  An oldie but goodie: http://www.computerjokes.net/027.asp http://www.computerjokes.net/027.asp
christkv 15y ago
The question of the self-driving car is much more complicated I think than the benefit it will bring. The consequences to the labor market will be interesting to say the least. Just imagine. - No taxi drivers - No UPS delivery truck drivers (automated delivery anyone) - No truckers - Less cars produced, less people building cars. - Less doctors, hospitals etc due to less accidents. I don't remember who said that we are entering a period of massive labor change. A second industrial age where there are less need for labor. The first one brought marxism and communism what will this one bring?
christkv 15y ago
The question of the self-driving car is much more complicated I think than the benefit it will bring. The consequences to the labor market will be interesting to say the least. Just imagine. No taxi drivers No UPS delivery truck drivers (automated delivery anyone) No truckers Less cars produced, less people building cars. Less doctors, hospitals etc due to less accidents. I don't remember who said that we are entering a period of massive labor change. A second industrial age where there is less need for labor. The first one brought marxism and communism what will this one bring?
- beedogs 15y ago
  True socialism is my guess.
  - jgmmo 15y ago
    Socialism is impossible, due to the inability to use economic calculation when the means of production are State controlled. When you don't have profits, and you don't have market prices, then you have no idea when you should be switching away from some resources and using others. Resources get squandered, there's no way to make sure they go to their most valued use. That's the beauty of Capitalism, we make sure resources go to where they are most needed by selling it to the highest bidder. Ex: If copper prices go up, some people - those who can - will substitute away from it, thus allowing the copper to go to it's most valued use. If interested, I recommend 'Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth' by Ludvig Von Mises [http://mises.org/econcalc.asp http://mises.org/econcalc.asp] Also good is Friedrich Hayek's 'Competition as a Discovery Procedure' [http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae5_3_3.pdf http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae5_3_3.pdf]
    - UK-AL 15y ago
      You do know there are socialist models that also use markets?
- swombat 15y ago
  Don't forget a huge amount of space reclaimed on the roads and in city centre parking lots. Most cars are sitting idle for 90+% of every day. With self-driving cars, you need 1/10 the number of cars to achieve the same result (maybe 2/10 to deal with rush hours).
gcb 15y ago
self driving cars in nevada can be accomplished by a timer. Aim the car. accelerate. engage cruise control. start timer. After N minutes required to get to the place, stop car.
sensui 15y ago
There's no hope, all taxi guys will be unemployed. Not now, but soon. And this trend will continue, everyone, even programmers in the not so far future have to study and become architects.
mrhyperpenguin 15y ago
So I assume Google is going to start selling ads and collecting information through autonomous cars?
Bud 15y ago
Does this mean we can also legally play poker with prostitutes in the self-driving cars? Hunter S. Thompson would have loved this.
ekianjo 15y ago
Regulations is one thing, but when do we expect self-driving cars to reach the market ?
rkaplan 15y ago
I'm interested to find out how this will affect car insurance in the future. Although the human operator of the vehicle is held liable for any accidents, even if he/she is not physically present in the car [1], the likelihood of an autonomous vehicle accident will obviously be largely dependent on the car's software rather than the human responsible. Will insurance companies stop charging you based on your driving history and instead determine your insurance rate based on the safety rating of the AI powering your vehicle? Or perhaps some combination of both? Insurance pricing based on AI safety could become a powerful motivator for developers of the software to continue to innovate and ensure driving safety. There is certainly a lot of marketing potential in a company being able to say, "Not only is our car the safest autonomous vehicle on the road, but you'll also pay the lowest insurance rate as a result!" [1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46419453/ns/business-autos/#.Tz2993JSRoA http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46419453/ns/business-autos/#.Tz2...
- Volpe 15y ago
  Could only really work if ALL cars are autonomous. How many car accidents involve only 1 car? Also insurance is hardly an innovative industry... I'd bet they don't change anything about how they insure people for a LONG time.
redact207 15y ago
America, if there's anything that's going to send bolts of lightning through your economy, it's this.
- redact207 15y ago
  Unrelated, if driverless cars are efficient enough, then traffic lights won't be needed and traffic will merge continuously. Does that mean pedestrians can confidently stride out to cross the road and the traffic will effortlessly stream around them?
jonathlee 15y ago
The Governor's comment about red license plates being used, then green once the technology is ready for the general public reminds me of the old regulations that were put in place when automobiles were just beginning to spread. Anyone driving an automobile was required to hire a runner to run in front of them and warn everyone to get out of the way!
andyl 15y ago
Can't wait for the day my car will drive itself to the shop for a smog check and oil change.
NoBorders 15y ago
That's great!
MattBearman 15y ago
Am I the only one a little bit concerned by this? Don't get me wrong, I can see all the positives to come out of driverless cars, and the tech behind it astounds me. My issue is I love driving, and once the world sees how much safer the world is without driver error, would driving manually eventually be banned? I realise I'm essentially putting my enjoyment over people's safety, but what can I say, I love driving. Just have to hope riderless motorcycles don't come along anytime soon. Having said all that, it's just occurred to me that if all cars we're driverless, then motorcycle crashes would be massively reduced. Maybe banning manual driving wouldn't be so bad.
- rasur 15y ago
  >My issue is I love driving, and once the world sees how much safer the world is without driver error, would driving manually eventually be banned? I think it'd be more likely to be moved somewhere off-road: Race-tracks, specific off-road areas, that kind of thing. Continuing to allow the day-to-day wholesale slaughter that is humans-driving-cars on public roads is - frankly - insane. (edit: for slightly better grammatical clarity)
- Retric 15y ago
  If you look at how current safety systems are designed, there will probably be a manual mode with the car taking over if it thinks your doing something stupid. There will probably always be places where you can drive cars built without such systems. That said, if you want to drive a 3,000+ LB vehicle at ridiculous speeds and or in a completely unsafe manor on public highways, Fuck You no. Your desire to take stupid risks for fun ends when it puts others at significant risk, you sociopath.
kahirsch 15y ago
Brian Hayes had an interesting column last year on what could happen if these became common, or even universal.[1] One advantage he pointed out was that you wouldn't have to waste time looking for a parking place. The car could drop you off right at the door and then go, maybe far away, to park. Valet parking for everyone! [1] http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.13359,y.2011,no.5,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.13359,y.2011,no.5...
amurmann 15y ago
I wonder how long it will take until it is illegal to have a human driving a car. I am sure self-driving cars will cause much fewer accidents. Even better: once all human-driven cars are gone, traffic can be organized incredibly efficiently, esp in areas without human interference like on Freeways. Cars won't need to stop anymore. Traffic lights could communicate when they will be red or green well in advance and allow cars to slow down or speed up a little. That would greatly increase fuel efficiency and allows prevention of traffic jams.
arvinjoar 15y ago
Been in contact with politicians in the Swedish Parliament trying to alert them to this, but they don't really seem to care, I even got "Well, I like driving" as a response from one politician. It's sad, given that Sweden is a country where a lot of cars get tested that we're not seizing the opportunity to allow for innovation to happen in the car industry.

258 points by dantheman 15y ago

Is it possible that this will turn cities in to less desirable places to live? Imagine if you could take your car in to the city for drinks, have it drive around for a while and pick you up when your done. That is just one possibility, I'm sure there are so many applications I can't even think of them.

draggnar 15y ago
maybe the opposite is true. i can get around the city very fast without having to worry about parking.
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  I think this is more likely. Living in cities is desirable because you have a vibrant and 'close' community, it is undesirable because its hard to drive and if you do own a car its under utilized. One of the interesting effects on this might be 'non-bus' cars. Which is to say public transit as a fleet of say 'four person' self driving cars where you walk to a bus top and touch your transit car and one shows up and picks you up. You tell it where you want to go and it takes you there. It of course destroys the taxi business quite completely. But combines all manner of public transit into a single service which gets economies of scale. Dynamic electric cars would be fine (where they have an electric 'boom' like trains in Europe do).
  - jfoutz 15y ago
    No way it's public. I can imagine apartment buildings having a car or two for use like a gym or laundry. Or, perhaps a subscription service, superzipcar or something like that.
    - xp84 15y ago
      Why "no way"? I don't have any problem with your suggested models either, but see no reason why public car services couldn't coexist.
      - jfoutz 15y ago
        short version, politics & tragedy of the commons. Anything is possible, I just can't imagine a (US) municipality that's able to implement an entirely new public service. IIRC, community wi-fi keeps getting sued by companies that want to make money. First, none can afford it. Second the US, IMHO, is really hostile toward any sort of government service. Even if those were non-issues, you still have to solve the problem of vandalism. People behave like grownups when other people are watching (pretty much). The bus or subway are good examples. Alone, in a car, i think it's much tougher to keep people well behaved. there have been various community bicycle programs that suffer from people beating the hell out of the bikes, or just stealing them. These are perhaps mutable problems in small towns, or outside of the US.
        saraid216 15y ago
        Seattle has a light rail system they only booted up a few years ago. They had to build a completely new set of rails everywhere to do it. I'll admit I don't know the details of its history, since I wasn't paying attention, but it's utterly possible.
        jfoutz 15y ago
        If you belive this (http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/07/20/seattles-light-rail-opens-redefining-life-in-the-city/ http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/07/20/seattles-light...) it took seattle almost 20 years to make that happen. Also, i think that city, in particular, was flush with cash.
        saraid216 15y ago
        20 years is on the long side, but I find it a reasonable amount of time to make it happen. And the point was more that it happened, and that it wasn't exactly an isolated case.
melvinram 15y ago
It doesn't need to drive around for a while. There could be parking lots for driverless cars that somehow connect with the owners credit card and pay for parking.
interknot 15y ago
I'd be surprised if cities became less desirable. I could see cars turning into something like an on-demand, private bus (or just an automated taxi that you own).
jameslevy 15y ago
The proliferation of self-driving cars will absolutely affect where people live, eventually. I imagine that to start with, we'll see certain areas - such as the Vegas strip, perhaps - that support Valet™, a feature first appearing in luxury vehicles that does exactly what we'd already expect from human valet drivers. But to drill down even further, I'm not exactly sure where the very first Valet™ supported parking lot would be. Manhattan would be a great use-case, but my own guess is that we'll first see this appear at places like large mall parking lots where city regulations won't be as much of a problem.
- jameslevy 15y ago
  And yes, self-driving cars will provide a huge boom to services like Zipcar, and indirectly to marketplaces like AirBnB that convert ownership into access.
  - wtvanhest 15y ago
    At first I thought that taxi companies would use the vehicles, but now I think it is more realistic that zip car would be first (or someone like them) since not everyone will be fast to adopt and may be uncomfortable riding.in one. Then over time the economics will force cab companies to switch at which point it will be a mature market. Bschool professors will talk about how cab companies made the wrong strategic choice even though it will really be the only option and one essentially predetermined. Personally, I can't wait!
dekz 15y ago
Something that is needed here and probably many places is competition in Public Transport. I imagine a time where it will be cheaper to have your electric car drive you into work than to catch a train, then drives itself home and charges until you're ready to be picked up again. Or just driverless taxis on the cheap. Public transport here costs at least $20 a week just for students relatively close to the city. You can expect $50+ for adults, it's not uncommon for people here to live 1+ hours away and commute from the coast, costing $15+ per trip.
natesm 15y ago
Regardless of whether or not it drives itself (although it's an improvement), I still find the idea of owning a car very unappealing, and it still doesn't give the suburbs a soul.
- jfeldstein2 15y ago
  You wouldn't buy a car, you'd just order a ride when you needed it, and the car would come pick you up. Think Zipcar
Selvik 15y ago
But why did people leave cities to begin with? Street crime was an important factor.
- geogra4 15y ago
  It's a complex question, but I think the main reason was just for child-rearing space. Crime wasn't an issue when the first suburbs exploded in the 50s. With fewer people having children I think that's less of an issue.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]

robobenjie 15y ago

more details in this (slightly) older article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/technology/googles-autonomous-vehicles-draw-skepticism-at-legal-symposium.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/technology/googles-autonom...

vasco 15y ago

This opens lots of cool possibilities such as eliminating the need for two cars in the family for example. You go to work, the car then comes back and drives the wife and then later in the afternoon when both parents are working it goes to school and picks up the kids!

draggnar 15y ago
It could eliminate the need for having a car altogether. Hello zipcar
- dsr_ 15y ago
  Oh, yes. Having a robot taxi pick you up when you need it and disappear when you're done beats finding a parking space any day of the week. +1 city dwellers. I'd like to be able to give my kids an RFID tag so that I could send them to school when I'm running late, or pick them up after sports practice. Trust will be an issue... but entirely doable.
- gcb 15y ago
  zip car here in LA is way more expensive than owing an old luxury car AND paying dealership prices on maintenance. or renting a car every other day. I paid 1/8 of zip car's prices when i used enterprise rentals for two months
  - rdouble 15y ago
    Zip Car works best in SF, there are cars everywhere, the city is 2nd densest in the country but still a pain to do most errands without a car, cabs suck, and the price is right. Boston is similar, but I have not used ZipCar there. In NYC it's at least $2/hr more expensive. Cabs become competitive, and there are tons of cabs. There are many more people but not as many cars as SF, so it's harder to get a car. It's mostly good for moving apartments without dealing with U-Haul, going to IKEA/Fairway in Red Hook or picking up craigslist stuff. I found in LA, the zip cars were so spread out, I first had to figure out how to get someone to drive me 15 minutes to the car.

SoftwareMaven 15y ago

I'm very excited to here this because it solves the regulatory chicken and egg. Nevada gets a bump for being first (if things go well) and other municipalities can point to Nevada to craft their own regulations. Kudos to Nevada on this one.

pastaking 15y ago
Yes! I hope this will snowball!
ChrisNorstrom 15y ago
This makes me want to visit Las Vegas for this reason alone. I would love to go to Vegas and for the first time in my life ride in a driverless car, convertable, top down, and enjoy the view, take pictures, and relax no matter what the traffic is like. I can see this being a MASSIVE boost to tourist cities.
- rorrr 15y ago
  I think there's only one street in the whole state that gets bad traffic.
  - Arelius 15y ago
    Hey now! There are at least 2 other streets that get traffic at least annually.
  - ChrisNorstrom 15y ago
    It doesn't matter, traffic or not, I don't have to worry about driving, or street names, or traffic lights, or GPS directions. It's like the convenience of mass transit with the convenience of a private vehicle merged into one.
  - papa_bear 15y ago
    The bonus in vegas is more that you can be drunk and not have to worry about driving than it is the traffic. Of course, you could also just take a taxi.

xp84 15y ago

Having just read Robopocalypse, I'm very concerned with this development. These automated cars did a lot of damage in that book.

joering2 15y ago
just the legal question; if I drive with a family and autocar will smash into me, killing my children and wounding me so I cannot walk or work, who is going to be liable? car manufacturer, producer of the tires, software engineers house, or GPS system? Could see 20 years of litigation between all parties involved before I get a dime for recovery, or probably die first.
- nitrogen 15y ago
  I've yet to read Nevada's regulations, but having it be the same as for regular cars would make the most sense. In an isolated accident, the operator's insurance company is liable. If there's a fundamental flaw with the cars, the manufacturer issues a recall. It's far more likely that an inattentive human driver will smash into a driverless car than the reverse, though.
  - joering2 15y ago
    I guess what I was trying to say is that cars were designed to be driven by humans, and although there are situations where machine's fault is hard to prove [1], in reality adding additional layer of decision-making piece of hardware will make it even harder to determine who's fault was when my children, hypothetically, died in a car accident smashed by a second car. [1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1300880/Toyota-defence-frees-man-jailed-fatal-car-crash.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1300880/Toyota-defen...
    - learc83 15y ago
      Almost all auto fatalities are caused by human error. I think saving 1 million+ lives per year is worth the legal wrangling to determine fault for the remaining few accidents.

unexpected 15y ago

This is a beautiful example of a state, in desperate need of revenue, supporting legislation that encourages businesses to start up without increasing/decreasing taxes. Now if only the US could do the same thing with stem cells.

pdx 15y ago
Is the Nevads government subsidizing research into self driving cars with tax money? If not, than I see no parallel to stem cells. For the last 10 years or more, you're welcome to do anything you want with stem cells. Go crazy. You just haven't been able to get tax money to fund it, if the stem cells happened to be embryonic.
- thetrendycyborg 15y ago
  There's not really an advantage to embryonic stem cells anyways.
  - ori_b 15y ago
    Are you sure? How was this determined without doing experimentation with embryonic stem cells?
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      I thought the only 'difference' was the timeframe of availability, but apparently not: http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics5.asp http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics5.asp One major difference between adult and embryonic stem cells is their different abilities in the number and type of differentiated cell types they can become. Scientists believe that tissues derived from embryonic and adult stem cells may differ in the likelihood of being rejected after transplantation.
      - thetrendycyborg 15y ago
        They have actually managed to make adult stem cells pluripotent (research at the UW Madison did this), and furthermore have managed to make them from a person's own skin (again, UW Madison ftw). And adult stem cells are less likely to be rejected. Embryonic stem cells grow at a different rate than adult stem cells (they grow much faster) which causes higher rejection rate and can in fact act much like a tumor. The difficulty isn't being able to research them. There's a lot of money flowing both ways that is very politically motivated, but it's pretty simple to say that the adult stem cells have actually resulted in recoveries and cures (embryonic have not) and do not have the ethical problems. Being able to research embryonic stem cells doesn't make them more viable. At this point, they don't have advantages.

cobrausn 15y ago

If a driverless car cuts me off, to whom do I direct my middle finger? Seriously, though, good on them - I'd love to see this kind of thing during my lifetime. Hopefully it goes well - I'd hate to see this cause a rash of accidents no matter whose fault it ends up being.

angersock 15y ago
Whose fault? SEGFAULT
- cobrausn 15y ago
  If the accident involves a bus, does that make it a SIGBUS?
  - angersock 15y ago
    If something goes wonky and it hits a lamppost, SIGPOLL?
    - figglesonrails 15y ago
      How do I send SIGSTOP to this horrible line of UNIX jokes?
      - troymc 15y ago
        Did you try turning your car off and then back on again?
jfoutz 15y ago
With all of the sensors required, there will be a fantastically detailed record of every crash. My money is on the humans screwing up so badly the driverless car can't recover.
- cobrausn 15y ago

dripton 15y ago

Where's the link to the actual regulations? I hate articles like this that could easily refer to the primary source, but fail to do so.

nivertech 15y ago

“It won’t truly be an autonomous vehicle, until you instruct it to drive to work and it heads to the beach instead.”

anigbrowl 15y ago
An oldie but goodie: http://www.computerjokes.net/027.asp http://www.computerjokes.net/027.asp

christkv 15y ago

The question of the self-driving car is much more complicated I think than the benefit it will bring. The consequences to the labor market will be interesting to say the least. Just imagine. - No taxi drivers - No UPS delivery truck drivers (automated delivery anyone) - No truckers - Less cars produced, less people building cars. - Less doctors, hospitals etc due to less accidents. I don't remember who said that we are entering a period of massive labor change. A second industrial age where there are less need for labor. The first one brought marxism and communism what will this one bring?

christkv 15y ago

The question of the self-driving car is much more complicated I think than the benefit it will bring. The consequences to the labor market will be interesting to say the least. Just imagine. No taxi drivers No UPS delivery truck drivers (automated delivery anyone) No truckers Less cars produced, less people building cars. Less doctors, hospitals etc due to less accidents. I don't remember who said that we are entering a period of massive labor change. A second industrial age where there is less need for labor. The first one brought marxism and communism what will this one bring?

beedogs 15y ago
True socialism is my guess.
- jgmmo 15y ago
  Socialism is impossible, due to the inability to use economic calculation when the means of production are State controlled. When you don't have profits, and you don't have market prices, then you have no idea when you should be switching away from some resources and using others. Resources get squandered, there's no way to make sure they go to their most valued use. That's the beauty of Capitalism, we make sure resources go to where they are most needed by selling it to the highest bidder. Ex: If copper prices go up, some people - those who can - will substitute away from it, thus allowing the copper to go to it's most valued use. If interested, I recommend 'Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth' by Ludvig Von Mises [http://mises.org/econcalc.asp http://mises.org/econcalc.asp] Also good is Friedrich Hayek's 'Competition as a Discovery Procedure' [http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae5_3_3.pdf http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae5_3_3.pdf]
  - UK-AL 15y ago
    You do know there are socialist models that also use markets?
swombat 15y ago
Don't forget a huge amount of space reclaimed on the roads and in city centre parking lots. Most cars are sitting idle for 90+% of every day. With self-driving cars, you need 1/10 the number of cars to achieve the same result (maybe 2/10 to deal with rush hours).

gcb 15y ago

self driving cars in nevada can be accomplished by a timer. Aim the car. accelerate. engage cruise control. start timer. After N minutes required to get to the place, stop car.

sensui 15y ago

There's no hope, all taxi guys will be unemployed. Not now, but soon. And this trend will continue, everyone, even programmers in the not so far future have to study and become architects.

mrhyperpenguin 15y ago

So I assume Google is going to start selling ads and collecting information through autonomous cars?

Bud 15y ago

Does this mean we can also legally play poker with prostitutes in the self-driving cars? Hunter S. Thompson would have loved this.

ekianjo 15y ago

Regulations is one thing, but when do we expect self-driving cars to reach the market ?

rkaplan 15y ago

I'm interested to find out how this will affect car insurance in the future. Although the human operator of the vehicle is held liable for any accidents, even if he/she is not physically present in the car [1], the likelihood of an autonomous vehicle accident will obviously be largely dependent on the car's software rather than the human responsible. Will insurance companies stop charging you based on your driving history and instead determine your insurance rate based on the safety rating of the AI powering your vehicle? Or perhaps some combination of both? Insurance pricing based on AI safety could become a powerful motivator for developers of the software to continue to innovate and ensure driving safety. There is certainly a lot of marketing potential in a company being able to say, "Not only is our car the safest autonomous vehicle on the road, but you'll also pay the lowest insurance rate as a result!" [1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46419453/ns/business-autos/#.Tz2993JSRoA http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46419453/ns/business-autos/#.Tz2...

Volpe 15y ago
Could only really work if ALL cars are autonomous. How many car accidents involve only 1 car? Also insurance is hardly an innovative industry... I'd bet they don't change anything about how they insure people for a LONG time.

redact207 15y ago

America, if there's anything that's going to send bolts of lightning through your economy, it's this.

redact207 15y ago
Unrelated, if driverless cars are efficient enough, then traffic lights won't be needed and traffic will merge continuously. Does that mean pedestrians can confidently stride out to cross the road and the traffic will effortlessly stream around them?

jonathlee 15y ago

The Governor's comment about red license plates being used, then green once the technology is ready for the general public reminds me of the old regulations that were put in place when automobiles were just beginning to spread. Anyone driving an automobile was required to hire a runner to run in front of them and warn everyone to get out of the way!

andyl 15y ago

Can't wait for the day my car will drive itself to the shop for a smog check and oil change.

NoBorders 15y ago

That's great!

MattBearman 15y ago

Am I the only one a little bit concerned by this? Don't get me wrong, I can see all the positives to come out of driverless cars, and the tech behind it astounds me. My issue is I love driving, and once the world sees how much safer the world is without driver error, would driving manually eventually be banned? I realise I'm essentially putting my enjoyment over people's safety, but what can I say, I love driving. Just have to hope riderless motorcycles don't come along anytime soon. Having said all that, it's just occurred to me that if all cars we're driverless, then motorcycle crashes would be massively reduced. Maybe banning manual driving wouldn't be so bad.

rasur 15y ago
>My issue is I love driving, and once the world sees how much safer the world is without driver error, would driving manually eventually be banned? I think it'd be more likely to be moved somewhere off-road: Race-tracks, specific off-road areas, that kind of thing. Continuing to allow the day-to-day wholesale slaughter that is humans-driving-cars on public roads is - frankly - insane. (edit: for slightly better grammatical clarity)
Retric 15y ago
If you look at how current safety systems are designed, there will probably be a manual mode with the car taking over if it thinks your doing something stupid. There will probably always be places where you can drive cars built without such systems. That said, if you want to drive a 3,000+ LB vehicle at ridiculous speeds and or in a completely unsafe manor on public highways, Fuck You no. Your desire to take stupid risks for fun ends when it puts others at significant risk, you sociopath.

kahirsch 15y ago

Brian Hayes had an interesting column last year on what could happen if these became common, or even universal.[1] One advantage he pointed out was that you wouldn't have to waste time looking for a parking place. The car could drop you off right at the door and then go, maybe far away, to park. Valet parking for everyone! [1] http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.13359,y.2011,no.5,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.13359,y.2011,no.5...

amurmann 15y ago

I wonder how long it will take until it is illegal to have a human driving a car. I am sure self-driving cars will cause much fewer accidents. Even better: once all human-driven cars are gone, traffic can be organized incredibly efficiently, esp in areas without human interference like on Freeways. Cars won't need to stop anymore. Traffic lights could communicate when they will be red or green well in advance and allow cars to slow down or speed up a little. That would greatly increase fuel efficiency and allows prevention of traffic jams.

arvinjoar 15y ago

Been in contact with politicians in the Swedish Parliament trying to alert them to this, but they don't really seem to care, I even got "Well, I like driving" as a response from one politician. It's sad, given that Sweden is a country where a lot of cars get tested that we're not seizing the opportunity to allow for innovation to happen in the car industry.