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The % of total English driving that occurs on country roads is miniscule. That's the niche* usecase. The vast majority of driving occurs in sub/urban areas. The

The % of total English driving that occurs on country roads is miniscule. That's the niche* usecase. The vast majority of driving occurs in sub/urban areas. The rate of driving even within the city of London/Manchester/Cambridge is dropping like a rock. If you solve the 80% of that use case, you still have most of the thing, and that seems close.

acdha 3y ago
The problem is that these systems can't handle a ton of “edge” cases which are actually fairly common — they work in the best case scenarios when conditions are normal, weather is decent, other drivers are behaving, etc. That could, as you point out, still replace a LOT of human driving time but there are two challenges: the first is that you don't know when road or weather conditions will change unexpectedly and require human intervention, and the second is that there's a fair cost to having these systems. That extra cost is easy to justify when the pitch is “you get a robot chauffeur and can watch a movie or sleep” but not when it's “you need to be ready to step in at a moment's notice because we just encountered inconsistent markings, road work, or a spill”. I am expecting something like the automatic convoying some of the trucking companies have been experimenting with to be more successful since they avoid the tedium aspects (they're already paying a driver to handle everything), don't drive in terrible conditions or unusual roadways, and since they get heavy utilization of the vehicles there isn't the problem of paying even more for something which already sits idle 95% of the time.
- storkhm 3y ago
  I will believe self driving long haul trucking when I see it. I imagine it is a bit of a pipe dream. When it goes wrong it is going to go horribly wrong, most likely at very high speeds and the liability will all be on the trucking company.

acdha 3y ago

The problem is that these systems can't handle a ton of “edge” cases which are actually fairly common — they work in the best case scenarios when conditions are normal, weather is decent, other drivers are behaving, etc. That could, as you point out, still replace a LOT of human driving time but there are two challenges: the first is that you don't know when road or weather conditions will change unexpectedly and require human intervention, and the second is that there's a fair cost to having these systems. That extra cost is easy to justify when the pitch is “you get a robot chauffeur and can watch a movie or sleep” but not when it's “you need to be ready to step in at a moment's notice because we just encountered inconsistent markings, road work, or a spill”. I am expecting something like the automatic convoying some of the trucking companies have been experimenting with to be more successful since they avoid the tedium aspects (they're already paying a driver to handle everything), don't drive in terrible conditions or unusual roadways, and since they get heavy utilization of the vehicles there isn't the problem of paying even more for something which already sits idle 95% of the time.

storkhm 3y ago
I will believe self driving long haul trucking when I see it. I imagine it is a bit of a pipe dream. When it goes wrong it is going to go horribly wrong, most likely at very high speeds and the liability will all be on the trucking company.