3 ms·
You are assuming that driverless cars will be just as inexpensive as the typical American car today. That's certainly not true today. For example the Google car
by lumberjack 14y ago
You are assuming that driverless cars will be just as inexpensive as the typical American car today. That's certainly not true today. For example the Google car has $150K in equipment costs. Sure that might go down in time due to more demand but I doubt it will become literally negligible cost wise. Besides that, there is the added cost of software development, and maintenance. And besides that there is money to be made in selling software for these new cars. Software like up to date datasets or more accurate traffic avoidance heuristics.
- michaelt 14y agoLIDAR manufacturer Ibeo currently make a ~12,000 euro LIDAR which they estimate, if mass produced, could cost less than 200 euros. The cost of the extra equipment won't be negligible - but it'll be very low once this stuff gets widely adopted. [1] http://www.its.dot.gov/research_docs/pdf/cicas_tech_docrpt2.pdf http://www.its.dot.gov/research_docs/pdf/cicas_tech_docrpt2.... PDF, see pages 12 and 13
- DanBC 14y agoThe Google car is a prototype. That $150k in equipment cost will be dramatically reduced by engineering for production and mass production. The cost doesn't need to become negligible. The cost needs to become justifiable.