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Google’s Self-Driving Cars Are Going to Change Everything

74 points by robdoherty2 14y ago

autophil 14y ago
Self driving cars is such a dumb, short-sighted idea. We don't need more cars on the road, and we don't need more roads either. It's not sustainable. Let's think beyond cars and envision better ways of living that don't punish the Earth and the atmosphere. The emperor is in the buck on this one.
- daeken 14y ago
  > Self driving cars is such a dumb, short-sighted idea. We don't need more cars on the road, and we don't need more roads either. It's not sustainable. Doing heroin is a bad idea; it's harmful to the body and the community. But while fighting heroin is a good thing, it's also good to give addicts clean needles so they aren't harmed even more. Cars aren't going anywhere, but if you can reduce the harm while promoting better alternatives, everyone wins.
  - autophil 14y ago
    Everybody wins? No, the Earth loses, and then we lose. It's happening faster than you think.
    - toomuchtodo 14y ago
      Look, I'm an environmentalist (I fund projects that help pay for inholdings in state parks so they transition to what we'd consider the public domain), but I'm a realist as well. People need mobility. Its not going away, ever. Self driving cars + electric vehicles + intelligent energy management between a large electric grid and all those vehicles is the holy grail. It's going to happen much sooner than you think.
      - thrownaway2424 14y ago
        That's a really pathetic version of a "holy grail". Real progress would mean people living in compact communities where most trips are undertaken on foot or by bicycle. Your "holy grail" is just a new coat of paint on the same deteriorating sprawl.
        ktsmith 14y ago
        > Real progress would mean people living in compact communities where most trips are undertaken on foot or by bicycle. That sounds like an unbearably miserable existence. I don't live in a compact community will millions of other people for a reason.
        agpen 14y ago
        Compact communities don't have to involve large populations. There are already small and medium-sized villages in Europe that have successfully converted to 100% car-free walkable spaces, and it isn't inconceivable for many existing US suburbs. You just have to move away from this design philosophy focused on strictly separating residential and commercial zones.
- anusinha 14y ago
  There is nothing intrinsically wrong about the idea of a car. It is what powers the car (currently gasoline) that is the problem. But the self-driving technology is applicable to electric cars, cars that run on fuel cells, what ever other modern and sustainable methods for powering a car exist.
  - philwelch 14y ago
    > There is nothing intrinsically wrong about the idea of a car. For a single commuter, it increases their weight footprint by an order of magnitude and their space footprint by over two orders of magnitude, which increases total energy consumption and traffic congestion compared to simply transporting the commuter themselves.
- Schwolop 14y ago
  If cars are self-driving, there'll be less of them. And they can better utilise existing road space (faster reaction times means they can tail-gate with comparative safety.)
- veb 14y ago
  I suspect after the technology becomes wide-spread, new laws will be made to minimise people buying (human-driven) vehicles. Cars will probably require some expensive licence to drive, older cars will not be allowed on the road unless an exemption is made etc. Sort of how Singapore does it.
- madiator 14y ago
  > We don't need more cars on the road, and we don't need more roads either. It's not sustainable. If anything, autonomous cars is a great way to go to reducing the number. The car can drop you off at office and come back home by itself, so your significant other could use it in the meanwhile without really having to buy two cars.
- alexqgb 14y ago
  Speaking of dumb and short-sighted, how do you fail to see that robotic drivers can make vastly more efficient use of existing infrastructure than humans? How do you not see that reducing traffic jams lowers the amount of gasoline burnt idling, and carbon emitted to no effect? How do you not see that the same technology can be the basis for a very different transportation system? Can you not imagine a world where few people own cars (which are parked most of the the time) and, instead, rely on fleets of robotic taxis simply pick people up and drop them off where and when they're called? If crashes were a thing of the past, do you see how dramatically engineering would change? How much smaller and lighter cars could become? How much less fuel they'd use? I mean, I'm all for envisioning better ways of living. I'm even more in favor of the guys who are not only envisioning it, they're actually building the means. What are you building?
  - philwelch 14y ago
    autophil probably goes too far, but he isn't entirely wrong--even perfectly efficient robotic cars powered by pixie dust are inefficient and not a panacea for the problems of traffic and pollution that car-centric infrastructure has caused.
    - kkowalczyk 14y ago
      True but assuming the future is that of mostly robo-taxi companies (and not individually owned self-driving cars), there will tremendous business pressure on robo-taxi companies to make their cars as efficient as possible, as the cost of gas (or other energy) will be part of their cost of providing the service. Today car companies sell cars based on many criteria. Fuel efficiency is one of them but when gas prices aren't too high, individual customers don't care about that very much. Someone who operates a fleet of 10.000 cars will make fuel efficiency their top-most priority because that will drive down the cost of their service and the cost will be a major reason why customers will pick one provider over another, not how stylish the car is or how fast it goes from 0 to 60. E.g. if they realize that by putting solar panel on the roof of the car they can save money in the long term, they'll immediately put solar panel in every car. The progress in making cars more efficient will be much faster.
- brc 14y ago
  What annoys me about posts like this in general is that they only see cars (and motorised transport in general) as a cost, but don't take into account any benefits. It's a silly position to only talk about costs, completely disregard any benefits. It comes across like a petulant brainwashed teenager, and people should try and argue their point better.
the_cat_kittles 14y ago
I have hoped/dreamed of this for 10 years. It will happen. Another thing thats nice is we will be able to route efficiently. Tim Roughgarden came up with the "price of anarchy" of when we route selfishly (one of the most interesting papers I have ever read) check it out here: http://theory.stanford.edu/~tim/papers/optima.pdf http://theory.stanford.edu/~tim/papers/optima.pdf Braess's paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox just incredible!
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
zoidb 14y ago
Without car accidents i bet the supply of organs will decrease dramatically, I wonder (in theory) if it might be enough to push them to sell on the free market. Another thing it will due is drastically reduce the need for state police, I assume the majority of their work is traffic and traffic accident related.
- philwelch 14y ago
  The problem with organs is that for most of them, you need freshly-killed young people. Old people's organs are usually no good, as are the organs of those who die of natural causes (if their organs were any good they wouldn't have died), but healthy young people on motorcycles provide top-notch organs, assuming they weren't damaged in the accident itself.
  - coopdog 14y ago
    Luckily it's harder to automate motorcycle driving : D Plus there's less incentive because they usually only injure themself unless something goes terribly wrong. <darkhumour>
    - zoidb 14y ago
      YEah true, though I wonder in the new world of self-driving cars whether some incentives for motorcyle driving will go away.. that and I imagine a decent tranche of motorcyle accidents are caused by cars.
scoofy 14y ago
Never underestimate the Kronos Effect that Tim Wu talks about in The Master Switch. If what this article predicts starts to pan out, I'd expect a lot of lobbying dollars to scare people into keeping it illegal. Even if it is safer/better.
- brc 14y ago
  Too late http://jalopnik.com/5934213/autonomous-google-cars-will-kill-you-old-lady--a-florida-political-ad http://jalopnik.com/5934213/autonomous-google-cars-will-kill...
illumin8 14y ago
It will eventually happen, but in order to do so, you first need a catalyst - a major metropolitan area such as Manhattan that converts to 100% robocars within a geographic area. The problem is that if you mix human and robocar drivers, any car company making a robocar is going to get sued into oblivion when they collide with a human driver, regardless of who is at fault. And, there are definitely ways that humans can cause robocars to have unavoidable accidents (swerving across the double yellow line at the last split second, etc). I think that's a really good solution, honestly. Just deploy 100,000 robotaxis the size of smart cars in Midtown and ban all other vehicles. On a side note, NYC pedestrians are already pretty aggressive at jaywalking and the fact that robocars stop on a dime when they sense a pedestrian in their way will create all kinds of new ways for pedestrians to harass robotaxis.
- toomuchtodo 14y ago
  Doesn't even have to be a major metro area. Start small. Someplace without snow (Google cars still have problems with snow). Puerto Rico. The Bahamas. Hawaii. These are all small places where you can shake out the major issues before expanding. Also, other places to start would be Nevada (as Google is doing), Texas, and other large states where there is a benefit to having something automated do the driving for 3-6 hours across large stretches of highway. You're never going to have a major metro just ban human-driven cars overnight; you win by attrition, small bites very quickly.
  - illumin8 14y ago
    Good point - better to start small. Vacation islands would be perfect as most people don't really want to drive on vacation anyway, and you don't have to worry about getting a shady taxi driver.
  - callmeed 14y ago
    I don't think tourist-heavy locations like Hawaii and the Bahamas would be good. Lots rental car business and airport traffic relative to the size.
    - 14y ago
anthonycerra 14y ago
I've also thought about how self-driving cars will affect crime. If police don't have to enforce moving violations does that give them more time to patrol areas with higher crime OR do those departments shrink because of the lack of revenue from said moving violations?
dm8 14y ago
I love Google's Self Driving Cars. But do you think auto industry will allow self driving cars without any problems? For simple concept like Uber, we are already seeing so many hurdles. For any radical innovation to happen lots of naysayers and incumbents will try to kick innovators at every opportunity. Unfortunately, auto industry will use some sort of machination to lobby for evil regulations. EDIT: To downvoters, I'm in favor of self driving cars but I'm worried about auto industry spoiling the party.
- brc 14y ago
  Self driving cars have the ability to increase the number of passenger miles driven. The auto industry profitability depends on passenger miles - less miles, less cars + parts, less revenue. Google isn't going to get into the car assembly business. One or more of the innovative car firms will just licence the self drive technology into an existing platform as a first step. Car makers themselves have been experimenting with this stuff for decades. If you google around you'll find BMWs doing high speed laps of race circuits with no drivers. A modern S-Class Benz can literally drive itself already - it has brake assist, lane assist, steering assist, parking assist and radar guided cruise control. It knows where it is going and how long it will take to get there. The driver really is only a small part of the driving equation in a car like this.
  - toomuchtodo 14y ago
    Why would Google license the tech when they could buy Tesla (TSLA market cap is $3 BB; CHEAP for the value they deliver) and turn out Google cars themselves? They then control the entire ecosystem, similar to Android, versus having to cede control to car companies who drag ass on innovation.
    - philwelch 14y ago
      Actually Android is a counterexample--Google doesn't control the entire Android ecosystem, and they do have to cede control to phone manufacturers, who cede control to carriers, who drag ass on innovation, which is why you can buy a brand new phone today that has a years-old version of Android running on it and loads of crapware.
senthilnayagam 14y ago
Also these cars would be mostly electric, which have fewer moving parts
notime 14y ago
"Here's what is going to happen in the next 5-10 years." In my experience the auto industry is slow to change and our federal and state governments even slower. There could be a prototype from one or more car manufacturers within 5-10 years, but it will then have to be thoroughly tested in pilot studies. I will not be able to buy a Google self-driving car from any dealership within 30 miles of my location within 5-10 years. "The car insurance industry will cease to exist. These cars aren't going to crash." I think there was a boat in the Atlantic they said that about... While I'm all for Google's Self-driving car technology, I'll only trust it after my old driving ed teacher takes it out and starts telling it where to go, then have the DMV guy make it do a 3-point turn. Then it can drive with one its parents in the car for a year, Eric or Larry. After that I'll give it 5 years or so to have its first few accidents, hopefully avoid a DUI- driving under the influence (of bad information)- and then I'll let it drive me somewhere. On a more serious note, is it capable of pulling off the road or speeding up beyond the speed limit if a car came careening up behind it? What would it do if you fell asleep while it was driving and it did a hit and run when a drunk runs in front of it? Will PETA protest Google when the cars don't swerve to miss the cats?
bengl3rt 14y ago
Sorry but I will always want to drive myself. I have a great car that I love and because of the way the world has changed since it was made (20 years or so) I don't think they'll ever make anything quite like this again. I intend to keep it forever. Plus driving is way too fun. Driving != commuting... go find yourself a nice deserted mountain road, roll down the windows, and feel the breeze.
- jonknee 14y ago
  Read the part about higher insurance rates for people who want to risk driving themselves.
  - bengl3rt 14y ago
    I don't follow... are the economies of scale that allow insurance companies to operate in the current market graduated such that if they only had to insure a fraction of the current driving population, they couldn't do it at the same cost per person? Granted they will fight the shrinking of that market tooth and nail (and probably lobby to mandate insurance for all cars regardless of who or what is driving them), but it's not as though their cost structure stays the same once most of the population stops having accidents.
    - kkowalczyk 14y ago
      There is non-insignificant fixed cost to insurance business: people, advertising cost immediately come to mind. But I see another scenario: traditional insurance business will not be willing to insure self-driving cars rationally (i.e. at much lower cost due to much lower incident rates) and robo-taxi companies will self-insure. That will deprive traditional insurers from a lot of revenue and since they are publicly traded companies, they won't just accept that and scale down to match smaller market. Instead, they'll try to prop up revenues in short term by rising prices which will make self-driving cars even more attractive to more people, fueling their own decline.
      - bengl3rt 14y ago
cargo8 14y ago
Interesting thoughts, but you're ignoring the demographic that enjoys driving for driving. Driving a car is a fun experience for a lot of people, when you're not just commuting and putzing along to work.
- randomdata 14y ago
  People still ride horses and enjoy doing it, but I don't see anyone advocating using horses for their daily driver (the Amish excluded). Driving for pleasure doesn't have to go away.
  - orangecat 14y ago
    Exactly. And I can see a new sport/hobby of semi-automated driving where you can perform maneuvers that are difficult or impossible for the best humans today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY93kr8PaC4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY93kr8PaC4 is a simple example; imagine what you could do with a high-performance vehicle.
callmeed 14y ago
The other day I was driving 2 of my kids (6 and 7) to one of their Summer rec programs. I told them that they would be driven by robotic/self-driving cars someday soon. The questions never stopped after that: "How will the car know where to take us?" "How will the car know to stop at stop signs?" "What if there's a cat in the road?" "Will the car take us to get frozen yogurt?"
- shasta 14y ago
  At first the robot cars will take you to get frozen yogurt. Then they will begin to refuse, citing your weight and the three laws.
veb 14y ago
How will this technology work in say, New Zealand? There's a lot of backroads, gravel roads and roads that don't appear in Google Maps. I guess it would be interesting to see a Google Car, flying around on some back gravel road in New Zealand at 100km/hr without crashing. :) (Google rally driving anyone?)
- plywoodtrees 14y ago
  They can recognise road edges visually. Best-guess routing to off-map destinations. Cars can feed back trip data to improve the map database.
- seanx 14y ago
  Driving to ski fields will be fun:)
salman89 14y ago
Author is missing a few important points that are highly relavent: 1) No insurance implies no liability. When people "buy" these mostly autonomous vehicles, who is assuming liability? Google? 2) "Death of car companies" - is Google going to start making cars? Are they going to compete against years of engineering? Just because they are building the brain doesn't mean they will be building the entire body. 3) The auto industry is heavily regulated, and moves very slow. 5-10 years is a very optimistic estimate. 4) Cars are moving mechanical parts. They require maintenance and repair. How often do you go to the car shop because of an accident? How often do you go for general repairs? 5) Sure, parking revenue might go down for the city. Traffic at those same spots where people did not go because it was hard to find parking will go up. How often have you considered going somewhere else because of parking? 6) Not sure what percentage of the legal system is bogged down by "driving" related crimes. Same for health industry, vehicle related health service. The author is making the mistake of equating Google moving into this space as Google being able to do all. Google will not be able to manufacture cars for the near future. They will not be able to eliminate liability. They will also have to change driving culture and habits. Having discussed this with friends, a fair number of people just want their own car that they drive.
- poblano 14y ago
  Re: 3, he didn't say mechanics would go away, just auto body/collision shops.
- kkowalczyk 14y ago
  My theory is that we'll see the rise of what the author calls robo-taxi companies e.g. Uber or Google can provide car-as-a-service, for a monthly fee or 1. robo-taxi companies will self-insure. Insurance is just spreading the risk. If you have a fleet of 10.000 cars, self-insurance will be cheaper 2. by "death" he means "significant decline", not "disappearance". A company that buys 10.000 cars has a purchasing power that a single customer doesn't. They can dictate the specs to a car company and they can pit several companies against each other to get the best deal. They can even co-design the cars for their own metrics (e.g. fuel efficiency, reliability, maintainability is super important for someone who has a large fleet). Car companies will have no choice but to play ball, some of them will go bankrupt and the remaining will service a much smaller market. 3. You assume that self-driving cars need a lot of new regulations. They don't - they just need to be allowed on the road. The rules have already changed in Nevada in California. When the technology is proven, the states will have a hard time justifying not allowing technology that is proven to save a significant number of lives. 4. robo-taxi companies will bring repairs in-house or outsource to existing companies. Again, they'll have upper hand in negotiations due to providing a lot of business and the overall market for repairs will shrink dramatically. Google could bring all their statistics knowledge to predicting what and when will fail and use the past data to improve the parts that fail the most. 5. not sure what you're driving at 6. agreed, probably overstatement on the author's part Google (or some other robo-taxi company) doesn't have to make their own cars, they'll have enough pricing power to pit multiple car manufacturers against each others to get the best deal, drive down the margins etc., just as Apple does with iPhone parts manufactuers (where Apple gets most of the profit from the phone). They can self-insure - the liability never goes away but will be manageable from revenues. As to people who insist on owning a car - most of them will change their mind because of price. If you leave college with $50k in student debt, are you going to spend $10k on a new car + monthly insurance + gas + cost of garage ($100/month in San Francisco if your apartment doesn't already come with it) + hassle of owning a car or will you pay $100/month for much more convenient car-as-a-service deal?
the_cat_kittles 14y ago
Does anyone have a good summary of the actual monetary costs associated with human drivers? That would be really compelling.
ForrestN 14y ago
I think this is missing one major thing: private car ownership will drastically decrease. It will be a luxury to own a car, almost everyone will be driven in available commodity cars. I personally hope this becomes public transit: available public cars just like some cities have available public bikes. Request it via your handheld (a la Uber), take it anywhere, hop out and it will either remain where it is or head to where it's needed. But it could just as easily by all private robotaxis. Human drivers will be regulated and confined to certain areas. No amount of "but I like the feeling of driving!" can justify unnecessary death and destruction for too long, and anyway people will grow up not driving. It's more or less like paper books. Eventually the infrastructure and car design will change, too. Our system is built for human drivers and cars. Obviously we won't abandon existing roads, at least not for a long time, but a lot can be changed cheaply that will have major effects once robocars are ubiquitous.
GFKjunior 14y ago
How would a young programmer get into this field? Are PhD's a prerequisite?
- the_cat_kittles 14y ago
  machine learning (particularly computer vision) and AI would be valuable skills I think.
- shriphani 14y ago
  DSP, Decision Theory, Machine Learning.
joshsegall 14y ago
I understand the googly eyed take on "the way of the future" of cars, but self-driving cars are going to be too impractical to become ubiquitous for much longer than 5-10. Maybe this all works great in metro areas with mild weather, but it's not going to work well in severe weather, poorly/wrongly marked roads, "offroad" areas, and construction zones, which is still a lot of the country at this point (and most of 3rd world). I've driven in some backwards places where there are no maps or GPS, and I've driven in near-whiteout conditions, and I'm sorry but no robotic system today can deal with all those variables. It's also not going to handle human trade-offs well--e.g. sometimes it's better to crash your out-of-control car than to ram into a schoolbus full of kindergarteners. You can argue these are all low probability situations or that eventually AI will solve them all and you're probably right, but I'd argue these situations are going to prevent full adoption for much longer than 5-10 years. It's going to take near-human intelligence to overcome all of them. Until then, humans will still drive cars, and probably a lot more often that you can imagine, even if everyone wanted the utopian vision to be true.
spdy 14y ago
This is the next big thing and it will happen. Just imagine a city full of robotic cars were you dont have to own a car anymore because you can always call one. Less traffic jams because they can drive at peak efficiency and can plan ahead because they all know where everyone wants to go and all of them will be electronic cars. This has so many ups on society and our environment if i could buy/use one tomorrow i would do so. One of the biggest downside of this a lot of people like cab/truck driver will lose their jobs due to this "revolution"
- orangecat 14y ago
  One of the biggest downside of this a lot of people like cab/truck driver will lose their jobs due to this "revolution" In the medium to long term, that's a benefit.
philsnow 14y ago
Come on, let's not get swept away in the hyperbole and be reasonable for a minute: MADD will never go away.
plywoodtrees 14y ago
I doubt that car insurance is dominated by fixed costs - istr payout rates are over 70%. Even if the number of policy holders falls by half (which is unlikely to happen in a decade) premiums shouldn't skyrocket. More robot cars on the road likely make it safer for the remaining humans, which will tend to lower premiums. The only problem is if the most dangerous humans prefer to drive themselves. I can see factors in both directions.
joering2 14y ago
To me, there are still so many questions left unanswered... First and foremost, the majority that believes AC will resolve heavy traffic in the cities is wrong. At the end, its about people, not cars. Think how you behave nowadays in the city crowded with cars -- you are perfectly aware not to f*ck with the driver, because if you step in his way you may get killed. We are humans, we make mistakes. Now, I would imagine those super cars must see everything around -- otherwise noone in the GOV in their sound mind would have approved AC to drive around humans. Therefore, I can imagine hoards of people taking advantage of this and just simply walking in front of a riding AC just because they know its not a human steering the wheel and that the car has no other choice than stop in front of the pedestrian, regardless if he stepped in and force the right of way or not. Heck, most likely the car will not even hunk or course at the pedestrian. Awesome! In the crowded cities, people will establish this behavior: before walking into the street, check the car - oh its AC, fine I am stepping in, no worries! And whos gonna enforce those violators? 100 more cameras at each corner?? Second, I still have no idea how on Earth would AC riding on a highway know that it is a black cat, not a black bag laying on the street. We humans see the difference faster than a blink of an eye. Are you telling me that Google invented perfect image recognition system that will be always right? What if someone paints a black cat on a bag that flies low on the highway?? -- will the car stop or not? I can see the news: google AC ran over Missis Jennings's cat -- noone is liable; noone will be responsible. The bottom line: sooner or later AC will make a mistake. Hope it won't be in front of you. Last, who is liable when the system makes a mistake? When you crash into other vehicle and there are victims. Are you liable? Can you go to jail? Will google go to jail? or car manufacturer? Are you telling me there are NO chances whatsoever that this will happen again?? [1] [2] [1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35589163/ns/business-autos/t/toyota-revelations-may-free-man-jailed-crash/#.UCsX6LRfElQ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35589163/ns/business-autos/t/toy... [2] http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-02-22/news/27057005_1_sudden-acceleration-floor-mats-camry-owner http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-02-22/news/27057005_1_s... edit: not to mention all the suiciders -- now its not only trains, but I can throw myself under riding AC.
- jasonlingx 14y ago
  Huh? So are you saying the cars are too safe or not safe enough?
badragon 14y ago
The laser guidance system costs $70K by itself. http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/consumer&id=8703278 http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/consumer&i... It makes sense on long haul trucking but it is going to have to get a LOT cheaper before it goes on passenger cars. 10+ yrs is my guess before you see it on luxury cars. Same as Tesla. People who can afford a driver will replace them with Google Bots who won't sell their story to People.
mynegation 14y ago
Very good points. Almost all of them. This, however... > Think how devastating that would be to the car industry. People use their cars less than 10% of the time. Imagine if everyone in your city used a RoboTaxi instead, at say 60% utilization. That's 84% fewer cars required. Somehow that does not ring true. 84% number assumes that no matter the utilization, car lifetime will be the same. As a driver, I know this is definitely not the case, especially in colder regions.
poblano 14y ago
FYI, the article suggests self-driving cars have been approved in Nevada and California, which is true -- but in both states, a human passager (presumably with a driver's license) has to be in the vehicle. In Nevada, you actually have to have two passengers, which in some cases makes it more inconvenient than regular driving. So ideas like sending your car home instead of parking it, or sending tractor trailers across the country without a driver, aren't going to be legal for the time being.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
DividesByZero 14y ago
The changes the author proposes will not occur for the vast majority of the population of the earth - not in China, or in India, or anywhere in Africa and not in many places in south east Asia or south/central America. He has the first world, US-centric view of most futurists. In places where people don't have reliable access to electricity, or even safe drinking water, absolutely no one would be interested in self-driving cars. He also raises a disturbing point, but masks it as an advantage - "People said it would take years to get these things on the road. It took Google a few months of lobbying Nevada for it to happen. The US states and cities are broke, and Google has $43 billion in cash." In other words, he implies that this will happen quickly because corporations are able to strongarm broke government institutions into policies favouring them, a trend that is dangerous for the average citizen. He also misses that self-driving cars becoming a norm leads to more car-centered infrastructure over public transportation, leading to a continuation of the vicious circle of over-reliance on cars.
- achal 14y ago
  > self-driving cars becoming a norm leads to more car-centered infrastructure over public transportation Out of curiosity, why would this be? I can see that commuters who despise driving may switch to cars from public transport, but at least from personal experience, I don't see this as a major reason for people using public transport in the first place. Is there another reason I'm missing? I'd imagine it would be more likely that self driving vehicles end up improving public transport (both in quality of service and popular usage).
  - DividesByZero 14y ago
    I think there would be a feedback loop in place where self-driving cars demand better infrastructure to support them, and as this infrastructure improves, self-driving cars become more convenient to use, leading more people to want to use them, leading to more such infrastructure. Since this infrastructure gets funded, it's not much of a stretch to think that most transport money would go there. Some of the technology might make public transport more efficient (self driving buses seem like a good idea), but cars would probably dominate.
- 14y ago
maxxpower 14y ago
I am a firm believer that if the car was never invented until 2012, we would not be in control of them, they would be computerized and autonomous. I welcome the day when unnecessary deaths due to car accidents is a reality.
hrktb 14y ago
Cars won't change 'Everything', self driving or not. Thinking and building the infrastructures to handle smoothly different types of transportations for different purposes, managing the energy consumption and pollution problems, making efficient public transportation work in high population density areas, have smarter roads in the more rural areas and keep in mind communities' safety and well being while designing it all. All these are large problem that cost a lot, require cooperation from big players from everywhere, and need to be done gradually and consistently over decades. There was a very very interesting talk by Horace Dediu on this topic on his podcast [0] Solving the low level infra problem changes everything, having self driving cars is the icing on the cake at best. [0] http://5by5.tv/criticalpath/40 http://5by5.tv/criticalpath/40
andyjsong 14y ago
>Long-haul truck driving will cease to exist. Think how much money trucking companies will save if they don't have to pay drivers or collision and liability insurance. That's about 3 million jobs in the States. Shipping of goods will be much cheaper. Does this mean there won't be anyone inside the truck guarding valuable goods inside? 1. Find a truck carrying mobile devices 2. Stand in front of it since it's programmed to stop for pedestrians 3. Partner uses blow torch to get the goods 4. $$$$ I think there will always be someone at the wheel even with self-driving technology. Just think of other forms of commercial forms of transport aka trains. Why aren't their unmanned trains, couldn't we deploy the same tech and incorporate it with a flying drone that has sensors to see what's ahead on the track or even satellite imagery?

74 points by robdoherty2 14y ago

Self driving cars is such a dumb, short-sighted idea. We don't need more cars on the road, and we don't need more roads either. It's not sustainable. Let's think beyond cars and envision better ways of living that don't punish the Earth and the atmosphere. The emperor is in the buck on this one.

daeken 14y ago
> Self driving cars is such a dumb, short-sighted idea. We don't need more cars on the road, and we don't need more roads either. It's not sustainable. Doing heroin is a bad idea; it's harmful to the body and the community. But while fighting heroin is a good thing, it's also good to give addicts clean needles so they aren't harmed even more. Cars aren't going anywhere, but if you can reduce the harm while promoting better alternatives, everyone wins.
- autophil 14y ago
  Everybody wins? No, the Earth loses, and then we lose. It's happening faster than you think.
  - toomuchtodo 14y ago
    Look, I'm an environmentalist (I fund projects that help pay for inholdings in state parks so they transition to what we'd consider the public domain), but I'm a realist as well. People need mobility. Its not going away, ever. Self driving cars + electric vehicles + intelligent energy management between a large electric grid and all those vehicles is the holy grail. It's going to happen much sooner than you think.
    - thrownaway2424 14y ago
      That's a really pathetic version of a "holy grail". Real progress would mean people living in compact communities where most trips are undertaken on foot or by bicycle. Your "holy grail" is just a new coat of paint on the same deteriorating sprawl.
      - ktsmith 14y ago
        > Real progress would mean people living in compact communities where most trips are undertaken on foot or by bicycle. That sounds like an unbearably miserable existence. I don't live in a compact community will millions of other people for a reason.
        agpen 14y ago
        Compact communities don't have to involve large populations. There are already small and medium-sized villages in Europe that have successfully converted to 100% car-free walkable spaces, and it isn't inconceivable for many existing US suburbs. You just have to move away from this design philosophy focused on strictly separating residential and commercial zones.
anusinha 14y ago
There is nothing intrinsically wrong about the idea of a car. It is what powers the car (currently gasoline) that is the problem. But the self-driving technology is applicable to electric cars, cars that run on fuel cells, what ever other modern and sustainable methods for powering a car exist.
- philwelch 14y ago
  > There is nothing intrinsically wrong about the idea of a car. For a single commuter, it increases their weight footprint by an order of magnitude and their space footprint by over two orders of magnitude, which increases total energy consumption and traffic congestion compared to simply transporting the commuter themselves.
Schwolop 14y ago
If cars are self-driving, there'll be less of them. And they can better utilise existing road space (faster reaction times means they can tail-gate with comparative safety.)
veb 14y ago
I suspect after the technology becomes wide-spread, new laws will be made to minimise people buying (human-driven) vehicles. Cars will probably require some expensive licence to drive, older cars will not be allowed on the road unless an exemption is made etc. Sort of how Singapore does it.
madiator 14y ago
> We don't need more cars on the road, and we don't need more roads either. It's not sustainable. If anything, autonomous cars is a great way to go to reducing the number. The car can drop you off at office and come back home by itself, so your significant other could use it in the meanwhile without really having to buy two cars.
alexqgb 14y ago
Speaking of dumb and short-sighted, how do you fail to see that robotic drivers can make vastly more efficient use of existing infrastructure than humans? How do you not see that reducing traffic jams lowers the amount of gasoline burnt idling, and carbon emitted to no effect? How do you not see that the same technology can be the basis for a very different transportation system? Can you not imagine a world where few people own cars (which are parked most of the the time) and, instead, rely on fleets of robotic taxis simply pick people up and drop them off where and when they're called? If crashes were a thing of the past, do you see how dramatically engineering would change? How much smaller and lighter cars could become? How much less fuel they'd use? I mean, I'm all for envisioning better ways of living. I'm even more in favor of the guys who are not only envisioning it, they're actually building the means. What are you building?
- philwelch 14y ago
  autophil probably goes too far, but he isn't entirely wrong--even perfectly efficient robotic cars powered by pixie dust are inefficient and not a panacea for the problems of traffic and pollution that car-centric infrastructure has caused.
  - kkowalczyk 14y ago
    True but assuming the future is that of mostly robo-taxi companies (and not individually owned self-driving cars), there will tremendous business pressure on robo-taxi companies to make their cars as efficient as possible, as the cost of gas (or other energy) will be part of their cost of providing the service. Today car companies sell cars based on many criteria. Fuel efficiency is one of them but when gas prices aren't too high, individual customers don't care about that very much. Someone who operates a fleet of 10.000 cars will make fuel efficiency their top-most priority because that will drive down the cost of their service and the cost will be a major reason why customers will pick one provider over another, not how stylish the car is or how fast it goes from 0 to 60. E.g. if they realize that by putting solar panel on the roof of the car they can save money in the long term, they'll immediately put solar panel in every car. The progress in making cars more efficient will be much faster.
brc 14y ago
What annoys me about posts like this in general is that they only see cars (and motorised transport in general) as a cost, but don't take into account any benefits. It's a silly position to only talk about costs, completely disregard any benefits. It comes across like a petulant brainwashed teenager, and people should try and argue their point better.

the_cat_kittles 14y ago

I have hoped/dreamed of this for 10 years. It will happen. Another thing thats nice is we will be able to route efficiently. Tim Roughgarden came up with the "price of anarchy" of when we route selfishly (one of the most interesting papers I have ever read) check it out here: http://theory.stanford.edu/~tim/papers/optima.pdf http://theory.stanford.edu/~tim/papers/optima.pdf Braess's paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox just incredible!

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

zoidb 14y ago

Without car accidents i bet the supply of organs will decrease dramatically, I wonder (in theory) if it might be enough to push them to sell on the free market. Another thing it will due is drastically reduce the need for state police, I assume the majority of their work is traffic and traffic accident related.

philwelch 14y ago
The problem with organs is that for most of them, you need freshly-killed young people. Old people's organs are usually no good, as are the organs of those who die of natural causes (if their organs were any good they wouldn't have died), but healthy young people on motorcycles provide top-notch organs, assuming they weren't damaged in the accident itself.
- coopdog 14y ago
  Luckily it's harder to automate motorcycle driving : D Plus there's less incentive because they usually only injure themself unless something goes terribly wrong. <darkhumour>
  - zoidb 14y ago
    YEah true, though I wonder in the new world of self-driving cars whether some incentives for motorcyle driving will go away.. that and I imagine a decent tranche of motorcyle accidents are caused by cars.

scoofy 14y ago

Never underestimate the Kronos Effect that Tim Wu talks about in The Master Switch. If what this article predicts starts to pan out, I'd expect a lot of lobbying dollars to scare people into keeping it illegal. Even if it is safer/better.

brc 14y ago
Too late http://jalopnik.com/5934213/autonomous-google-cars-will-kill-you-old-lady--a-florida-political-ad http://jalopnik.com/5934213/autonomous-google-cars-will-kill...

illumin8 14y ago

It will eventually happen, but in order to do so, you first need a catalyst - a major metropolitan area such as Manhattan that converts to 100% robocars within a geographic area. The problem is that if you mix human and robocar drivers, any car company making a robocar is going to get sued into oblivion when they collide with a human driver, regardless of who is at fault. And, there are definitely ways that humans can cause robocars to have unavoidable accidents (swerving across the double yellow line at the last split second, etc). I think that's a really good solution, honestly. Just deploy 100,000 robotaxis the size of smart cars in Midtown and ban all other vehicles. On a side note, NYC pedestrians are already pretty aggressive at jaywalking and the fact that robocars stop on a dime when they sense a pedestrian in their way will create all kinds of new ways for pedestrians to harass robotaxis.

toomuchtodo 14y ago
Doesn't even have to be a major metro area. Start small. Someplace without snow (Google cars still have problems with snow). Puerto Rico. The Bahamas. Hawaii. These are all small places where you can shake out the major issues before expanding. Also, other places to start would be Nevada (as Google is doing), Texas, and other large states where there is a benefit to having something automated do the driving for 3-6 hours across large stretches of highway. You're never going to have a major metro just ban human-driven cars overnight; you win by attrition, small bites very quickly.
- illumin8 14y ago
  Good point - better to start small. Vacation islands would be perfect as most people don't really want to drive on vacation anyway, and you don't have to worry about getting a shady taxi driver.
- callmeed 14y ago
  I don't think tourist-heavy locations like Hawaii and the Bahamas would be good. Lots rental car business and airport traffic relative to the size.
  - 14y ago

anthonycerra 14y ago

I've also thought about how self-driving cars will affect crime. If police don't have to enforce moving violations does that give them more time to patrol areas with higher crime OR do those departments shrink because of the lack of revenue from said moving violations?

dm8 14y ago

I love Google's Self Driving Cars. But do you think auto industry will allow self driving cars without any problems? For simple concept like Uber, we are already seeing so many hurdles. For any radical innovation to happen lots of naysayers and incumbents will try to kick innovators at every opportunity. Unfortunately, auto industry will use some sort of machination to lobby for evil regulations. EDIT: To downvoters, I'm in favor of self driving cars but I'm worried about auto industry spoiling the party.

brc 14y ago
Self driving cars have the ability to increase the number of passenger miles driven. The auto industry profitability depends on passenger miles - less miles, less cars + parts, less revenue. Google isn't going to get into the car assembly business. One or more of the innovative car firms will just licence the self drive technology into an existing platform as a first step. Car makers themselves have been experimenting with this stuff for decades. If you google around you'll find BMWs doing high speed laps of race circuits with no drivers. A modern S-Class Benz can literally drive itself already - it has brake assist, lane assist, steering assist, parking assist and radar guided cruise control. It knows where it is going and how long it will take to get there. The driver really is only a small part of the driving equation in a car like this.
- toomuchtodo 14y ago
  Why would Google license the tech when they could buy Tesla (TSLA market cap is $3 BB; CHEAP for the value they deliver) and turn out Google cars themselves? They then control the entire ecosystem, similar to Android, versus having to cede control to car companies who drag ass on innovation.
  - philwelch 14y ago
    Actually Android is a counterexample--Google doesn't control the entire Android ecosystem, and they do have to cede control to phone manufacturers, who cede control to carriers, who drag ass on innovation, which is why you can buy a brand new phone today that has a years-old version of Android running on it and loads of crapware.

senthilnayagam 14y ago

Also these cars would be mostly electric, which have fewer moving parts

notime 14y ago

"Here's what is going to happen in the next 5-10 years." In my experience the auto industry is slow to change and our federal and state governments even slower. There could be a prototype from one or more car manufacturers within 5-10 years, but it will then have to be thoroughly tested in pilot studies. I will not be able to buy a Google self-driving car from any dealership within 30 miles of my location within 5-10 years. "The car insurance industry will cease to exist. These cars aren't going to crash." I think there was a boat in the Atlantic they said that about... While I'm all for Google's Self-driving car technology, I'll only trust it after my old driving ed teacher takes it out and starts telling it where to go, then have the DMV guy make it do a 3-point turn. Then it can drive with one its parents in the car for a year, Eric or Larry. After that I'll give it 5 years or so to have its first few accidents, hopefully avoid a DUI- driving under the influence (of bad information)- and then I'll let it drive me somewhere. On a more serious note, is it capable of pulling off the road or speeding up beyond the speed limit if a car came careening up behind it? What would it do if you fell asleep while it was driving and it did a hit and run when a drunk runs in front of it? Will PETA protest Google when the cars don't swerve to miss the cats?

bengl3rt 14y ago

Sorry but I will always want to drive myself. I have a great car that I love and because of the way the world has changed since it was made (20 years or so) I don't think they'll ever make anything quite like this again. I intend to keep it forever. Plus driving is way too fun. Driving != commuting... go find yourself a nice deserted mountain road, roll down the windows, and feel the breeze.

jonknee 14y ago
Read the part about higher insurance rates for people who want to risk driving themselves.
- bengl3rt 14y ago
  I don't follow... are the economies of scale that allow insurance companies to operate in the current market graduated such that if they only had to insure a fraction of the current driving population, they couldn't do it at the same cost per person? Granted they will fight the shrinking of that market tooth and nail (and probably lobby to mandate insurance for all cars regardless of who or what is driving them), but it's not as though their cost structure stays the same once most of the population stops having accidents.
  - kkowalczyk 14y ago
    There is non-insignificant fixed cost to insurance business: people, advertising cost immediately come to mind. But I see another scenario: traditional insurance business will not be willing to insure self-driving cars rationally (i.e. at much lower cost due to much lower incident rates) and robo-taxi companies will self-insure. That will deprive traditional insurers from a lot of revenue and since they are publicly traded companies, they won't just accept that and scale down to match smaller market. Instead, they'll try to prop up revenues in short term by rising prices which will make self-driving cars even more attractive to more people, fueling their own decline.
    - bengl3rt 14y ago

cargo8 14y ago

Interesting thoughts, but you're ignoring the demographic that enjoys driving for driving. Driving a car is a fun experience for a lot of people, when you're not just commuting and putzing along to work.

randomdata 14y ago
People still ride horses and enjoy doing it, but I don't see anyone advocating using horses for their daily driver (the Amish excluded). Driving for pleasure doesn't have to go away.
- orangecat 14y ago
  Exactly. And I can see a new sport/hobby of semi-automated driving where you can perform maneuvers that are difficult or impossible for the best humans today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY93kr8PaC4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY93kr8PaC4 is a simple example; imagine what you could do with a high-performance vehicle.

callmeed 14y ago

The other day I was driving 2 of my kids (6 and 7) to one of their Summer rec programs. I told them that they would be driven by robotic/self-driving cars someday soon. The questions never stopped after that: "How will the car know where to take us?" "How will the car know to stop at stop signs?" "What if there's a cat in the road?" "Will the car take us to get frozen yogurt?"

shasta 14y ago
At first the robot cars will take you to get frozen yogurt. Then they will begin to refuse, citing your weight and the three laws.

veb 14y ago

How will this technology work in say, New Zealand? There's a lot of backroads, gravel roads and roads that don't appear in Google Maps. I guess it would be interesting to see a Google Car, flying around on some back gravel road in New Zealand at 100km/hr without crashing. :) (Google rally driving anyone?)

plywoodtrees 14y ago
They can recognise road edges visually. Best-guess routing to off-map destinations. Cars can feed back trip data to improve the map database.
seanx 14y ago
Driving to ski fields will be fun:)

salman89 14y ago

Author is missing a few important points that are highly relavent: 1) No insurance implies no liability. When people "buy" these mostly autonomous vehicles, who is assuming liability? Google? 2) "Death of car companies" - is Google going to start making cars? Are they going to compete against years of engineering? Just because they are building the brain doesn't mean they will be building the entire body. 3) The auto industry is heavily regulated, and moves very slow. 5-10 years is a very optimistic estimate. 4) Cars are moving mechanical parts. They require maintenance and repair. How often do you go to the car shop because of an accident? How often do you go for general repairs? 5) Sure, parking revenue might go down for the city. Traffic at those same spots where people did not go because it was hard to find parking will go up. How often have you considered going somewhere else because of parking? 6) Not sure what percentage of the legal system is bogged down by "driving" related crimes. Same for health industry, vehicle related health service. The author is making the mistake of equating Google moving into this space as Google being able to do all. Google will not be able to manufacture cars for the near future. They will not be able to eliminate liability. They will also have to change driving culture and habits. Having discussed this with friends, a fair number of people just want their own car that they drive.

poblano 14y ago
Re: 3, he didn't say mechanics would go away, just auto body/collision shops.
kkowalczyk 14y ago
My theory is that we'll see the rise of what the author calls robo-taxi companies e.g. Uber or Google can provide car-as-a-service, for a monthly fee or 1. robo-taxi companies will self-insure. Insurance is just spreading the risk. If you have a fleet of 10.000 cars, self-insurance will be cheaper 2. by "death" he means "significant decline", not "disappearance". A company that buys 10.000 cars has a purchasing power that a single customer doesn't. They can dictate the specs to a car company and they can pit several companies against each other to get the best deal. They can even co-design the cars for their own metrics (e.g. fuel efficiency, reliability, maintainability is super important for someone who has a large fleet). Car companies will have no choice but to play ball, some of them will go bankrupt and the remaining will service a much smaller market. 3. You assume that self-driving cars need a lot of new regulations. They don't - they just need to be allowed on the road. The rules have already changed in Nevada in California. When the technology is proven, the states will have a hard time justifying not allowing technology that is proven to save a significant number of lives. 4. robo-taxi companies will bring repairs in-house or outsource to existing companies. Again, they'll have upper hand in negotiations due to providing a lot of business and the overall market for repairs will shrink dramatically. Google could bring all their statistics knowledge to predicting what and when will fail and use the past data to improve the parts that fail the most. 5. not sure what you're driving at 6. agreed, probably overstatement on the author's part Google (or some other robo-taxi company) doesn't have to make their own cars, they'll have enough pricing power to pit multiple car manufacturers against each others to get the best deal, drive down the margins etc., just as Apple does with iPhone parts manufactuers (where Apple gets most of the profit from the phone). They can self-insure - the liability never goes away but will be manageable from revenues. As to people who insist on owning a car - most of them will change their mind because of price. If you leave college with $50k in student debt, are you going to spend $10k on a new car + monthly insurance + gas + cost of garage ($100/month in San Francisco if your apartment doesn't already come with it) + hassle of owning a car or will you pay $100/month for much more convenient car-as-a-service deal?

the_cat_kittles 14y ago

Does anyone have a good summary of the actual monetary costs associated with human drivers? That would be really compelling.

ForrestN 14y ago

I think this is missing one major thing: private car ownership will drastically decrease. It will be a luxury to own a car, almost everyone will be driven in available commodity cars. I personally hope this becomes public transit: available public cars just like some cities have available public bikes. Request it via your handheld (a la Uber), take it anywhere, hop out and it will either remain where it is or head to where it's needed. But it could just as easily by all private robotaxis. Human drivers will be regulated and confined to certain areas. No amount of "but I like the feeling of driving!" can justify unnecessary death and destruction for too long, and anyway people will grow up not driving. It's more or less like paper books. Eventually the infrastructure and car design will change, too. Our system is built for human drivers and cars. Obviously we won't abandon existing roads, at least not for a long time, but a lot can be changed cheaply that will have major effects once robocars are ubiquitous.

GFKjunior 14y ago

How would a young programmer get into this field? Are PhD's a prerequisite?

the_cat_kittles 14y ago
machine learning (particularly computer vision) and AI would be valuable skills I think.
shriphani 14y ago
DSP, Decision Theory, Machine Learning.

joshsegall 14y ago

I understand the googly eyed take on "the way of the future" of cars, but self-driving cars are going to be too impractical to become ubiquitous for much longer than 5-10. Maybe this all works great in metro areas with mild weather, but it's not going to work well in severe weather, poorly/wrongly marked roads, "offroad" areas, and construction zones, which is still a lot of the country at this point (and most of 3rd world). I've driven in some backwards places where there are no maps or GPS, and I've driven in near-whiteout conditions, and I'm sorry but no robotic system today can deal with all those variables. It's also not going to handle human trade-offs well--e.g. sometimes it's better to crash your out-of-control car than to ram into a schoolbus full of kindergarteners. You can argue these are all low probability situations or that eventually AI will solve them all and you're probably right, but I'd argue these situations are going to prevent full adoption for much longer than 5-10 years. It's going to take near-human intelligence to overcome all of them. Until then, humans will still drive cars, and probably a lot more often that you can imagine, even if everyone wanted the utopian vision to be true.

spdy 14y ago

This is the next big thing and it will happen. Just imagine a city full of robotic cars were you dont have to own a car anymore because you can always call one. Less traffic jams because they can drive at peak efficiency and can plan ahead because they all know where everyone wants to go and all of them will be electronic cars. This has so many ups on society and our environment if i could buy/use one tomorrow i would do so. One of the biggest downside of this a lot of people like cab/truck driver will lose their jobs due to this "revolution"

orangecat 14y ago
One of the biggest downside of this a lot of people like cab/truck driver will lose their jobs due to this "revolution" In the medium to long term, that's a benefit.

philsnow 14y ago

Come on, let's not get swept away in the hyperbole and be reasonable for a minute: MADD will never go away.

plywoodtrees 14y ago

I doubt that car insurance is dominated by fixed costs - istr payout rates are over 70%. Even if the number of policy holders falls by half (which is unlikely to happen in a decade) premiums shouldn't skyrocket. More robot cars on the road likely make it safer for the remaining humans, which will tend to lower premiums. The only problem is if the most dangerous humans prefer to drive themselves. I can see factors in both directions.

joering2 14y ago

To me, there are still so many questions left unanswered... First and foremost, the majority that believes AC will resolve heavy traffic in the cities is wrong. At the end, its about people, not cars. Think how you behave nowadays in the city crowded with cars -- you are perfectly aware not to f*ck with the driver, because if you step in his way you may get killed. We are humans, we make mistakes. Now, I would imagine those super cars must see everything around -- otherwise noone in the GOV in their sound mind would have approved AC to drive around humans. Therefore, I can imagine hoards of people taking advantage of this and just simply walking in front of a riding AC just because they know its not a human steering the wheel and that the car has no other choice than stop in front of the pedestrian, regardless if he stepped in and force the right of way or not. Heck, most likely the car will not even hunk or course at the pedestrian. Awesome! In the crowded cities, people will establish this behavior: before walking into the street, check the car - oh its AC, fine I am stepping in, no worries! And whos gonna enforce those violators? 100 more cameras at each corner?? Second, I still have no idea how on Earth would AC riding on a highway know that it is a black cat, not a black bag laying on the street. We humans see the difference faster than a blink of an eye. Are you telling me that Google invented perfect image recognition system that will be always right? What if someone paints a black cat on a bag that flies low on the highway?? -- will the car stop or not? I can see the news: google AC ran over Missis Jennings's cat -- noone is liable; noone will be responsible. The bottom line: sooner or later AC will make a mistake. Hope it won't be in front of you. Last, who is liable when the system makes a mistake? When you crash into other vehicle and there are victims. Are you liable? Can you go to jail? Will google go to jail? or car manufacturer? Are you telling me there are NO chances whatsoever that this will happen again?? [1] [2] [1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35589163/ns/business-autos/t/toyota-revelations-may-free-man-jailed-crash/#.UCsX6LRfElQ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35589163/ns/business-autos/t/toy... [2] http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-02-22/news/27057005_1_sudden-acceleration-floor-mats-camry-owner http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-02-22/news/27057005_1_s... edit: not to mention all the suiciders -- now its not only trains, but I can throw myself under riding AC.

jasonlingx 14y ago
Huh? So are you saying the cars are too safe or not safe enough?

badragon 14y ago

The laser guidance system costs $70K by itself. http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/consumer&id=8703278 http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/consumer&i... It makes sense on long haul trucking but it is going to have to get a LOT cheaper before it goes on passenger cars. 10+ yrs is my guess before you see it on luxury cars. Same as Tesla. People who can afford a driver will replace them with Google Bots who won't sell their story to People.

mynegation 14y ago

Very good points. Almost all of them. This, however... > Think how devastating that would be to the car industry. People use their cars less than 10% of the time. Imagine if everyone in your city used a RoboTaxi instead, at say 60% utilization. That's 84% fewer cars required. Somehow that does not ring true. 84% number assumes that no matter the utilization, car lifetime will be the same. As a driver, I know this is definitely not the case, especially in colder regions.

poblano 14y ago

FYI, the article suggests self-driving cars have been approved in Nevada and California, which is true -- but in both states, a human passager (presumably with a driver's license) has to be in the vehicle. In Nevada, you actually have to have two passengers, which in some cases makes it more inconvenient than regular driving. So ideas like sending your car home instead of parking it, or sending tractor trailers across the country without a driver, aren't going to be legal for the time being.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

DividesByZero 14y ago

The changes the author proposes will not occur for the vast majority of the population of the earth - not in China, or in India, or anywhere in Africa and not in many places in south east Asia or south/central America. He has the first world, US-centric view of most futurists. In places where people don't have reliable access to electricity, or even safe drinking water, absolutely no one would be interested in self-driving cars. He also raises a disturbing point, but masks it as an advantage - "People said it would take years to get these things on the road. It took Google a few months of lobbying Nevada for it to happen. The US states and cities are broke, and Google has $43 billion in cash." In other words, he implies that this will happen quickly because corporations are able to strongarm broke government institutions into policies favouring them, a trend that is dangerous for the average citizen. He also misses that self-driving cars becoming a norm leads to more car-centered infrastructure over public transportation, leading to a continuation of the vicious circle of over-reliance on cars.

achal 14y ago
> self-driving cars becoming a norm leads to more car-centered infrastructure over public transportation Out of curiosity, why would this be? I can see that commuters who despise driving may switch to cars from public transport, but at least from personal experience, I don't see this as a major reason for people using public transport in the first place. Is there another reason I'm missing? I'd imagine it would be more likely that self driving vehicles end up improving public transport (both in quality of service and popular usage).
- DividesByZero 14y ago
  I think there would be a feedback loop in place where self-driving cars demand better infrastructure to support them, and as this infrastructure improves, self-driving cars become more convenient to use, leading more people to want to use them, leading to more such infrastructure. Since this infrastructure gets funded, it's not much of a stretch to think that most transport money would go there. Some of the technology might make public transport more efficient (self driving buses seem like a good idea), but cars would probably dominate.
14y ago

maxxpower 14y ago

I am a firm believer that if the car was never invented until 2012, we would not be in control of them, they would be computerized and autonomous. I welcome the day when unnecessary deaths due to car accidents is a reality.

hrktb 14y ago

Cars won't change 'Everything', self driving or not. Thinking and building the infrastructures to handle smoothly different types of transportations for different purposes, managing the energy consumption and pollution problems, making efficient public transportation work in high population density areas, have smarter roads in the more rural areas and keep in mind communities' safety and well being while designing it all. All these are large problem that cost a lot, require cooperation from big players from everywhere, and need to be done gradually and consistently over decades. There was a very very interesting talk by Horace Dediu on this topic on his podcast [0] Solving the low level infra problem changes everything, having self driving cars is the icing on the cake at best. [0] http://5by5.tv/criticalpath/40 http://5by5.tv/criticalpath/40

andyjsong 14y ago

>Long-haul truck driving will cease to exist. Think how much money trucking companies will save if they don't have to pay drivers or collision and liability insurance. That's about 3 million jobs in the States. Shipping of goods will be much cheaper. Does this mean there won't be anyone inside the truck guarding valuable goods inside? 1. Find a truck carrying mobile devices 2. Stand in front of it since it's programmed to stop for pedestrians 3. Partner uses blow torch to get the goods 4. $$$$ I think there will always be someone at the wheel even with self-driving technology. Just think of other forms of commercial forms of transport aka trains. Why aren't their unmanned trains, couldn't we deploy the same tech and incorporate it with a flying drone that has sensors to see what's ahead on the track or even satellite imagery?