11 ms·

Google, Detroit diverge on road map for self-driving cars

69 points by kyrra 12y ago

thinkmassive 12y ago
"Some industry observers have suggested that Google should pair up with Tesla, which is also developing self-driving technology and which shares Google's Silicon Valley mindset." I wish the article had expanded more on this topic. Both companies could make significant gains by partnering and cutting out the old money from the automotive industry. Not that I'm saying I hope that happens, I'm neutral on that matter for now, but I'd like to see a lot more R&D done on autonomous driving tech in my lifetime.
- rondon2 12y ago
  It is much better to develop self driving technology in-house rather than risk being stuck licencing technology from Google in perpetuity. The software is the easy part. The regulatory and societal hurdles are the hard part and Google is already working on that for free.
- ams6110 12y ago
  A big selling point of Tesla cars is the performance, which is irrelevant if you are not driving. Teslas are sold as fun to drive, to people who like driving.
ryandvm 12y ago
It seems obvious to me that industry outsiders are going to have a drastically different road map for self driving cars than the entrenched players. Clearly the end game for self driving automobiles is far, far fewer cars in the world. In 25 years, relatively few people are going to be owning cars at all. You'll subscribe to a self-driving car service (or maybe your government will run it) and whenever you want to go somewhere, you'll enter your automotive needs into your mobile device and five minutes later the appropriate self-driving cycle/car/truck/van will pick you up in front of your house. There won't be a need for every family to own 3 cars that spend 90% of the day turned off and taking up parking space. Of course Google and Detroit aren't going to see eye to eye on this...
- 6d0debc071 12y ago
  There may not be a significant reduction in cars if everyone wants to travel at the same time. Say morning and afternoon rush hours.
  - x1798DE 12y ago
    If you assume the point that people would prefer to use self-driving car services over having their own vehicle, then I imagine this wouldn't be as big a factor, since we already have a ton of unused vehicle capacity (with most people driving around with 1 or 2 people in a car that seats 4). You can imagine that modern car services with a significant customer base would be able to coordinate "carpool" type situations to significantly decrease spare capacity.
    - 6d0debc071 12y ago
      If I assumed that, sure. However, I'm not sure that I should. We're now talking about a situation that contains a highly social aspect. Are you comfortable travelling with others who you don't know? I know many young women would be somewhat uncomfortable about climbing into a vehicle with some random stranger. Even without that aspect, you've got to be around people you may not get along with. On buses people can mostly keep to themselves, and it's more or less expected; at least in my society; that they will - how much of that would be true in the tighter confines of a car? And are you prepared to keep to someone else's schedule? A mismatch of five minutes may be more significant than we expect. I'm not saying it won't happen. What I am saying is that I wouldn't care to make a strong commitment to the idea that in twenty five years or so most people won't have a car, or that there'll be fewer cars on the road. I can easily imagine a future in which most people decide that it's worth owning a car, even a self-driving one, for the privacy and convenience aspects.
      - x1798DE 12y ago
        Well, I mean, I'm on your side, I don't think that self-driving cars are going to cause a huge spike in people using car services because having a car you don't have to personally drive is not new technology at all. This may be somewhat cheaper than having a person driving you around or something, but I really think that on balance people will end up having their own personal vehicles. All I was responding to was that if you grant the parent comment's assertion that people will move to car services, it's very likely to me that rush hour will be the one problem that is very easy to solve, because you would have such a large volume of people all going to the same place. Even the issues with personal space and shared vehicles aren't that big of a problem - self-driving cars don't need to look the way they look now. You could have 4 separate compartments in them, so that it's not possible to touch or interact with the other passengers, for example. (Also, I've participated in casual carpool in both New York and San Francisco, and it works remarkably well - many people, including young women, do travel every day in the car of a complete stranger that they don't know - and it's even more dangerous, because it's controlled by a human driver!) My guess is, however, that in the future the hardware costs of under-utilized vehicles will be considered to be much lower than the "inconvenience costs" of not having your own vehicle, and rates of car ownership won't be dramatically affected by the advent of the self-driving car.
higherpurpose 12y ago
This is why I think the major "car companies" of the future won't be the current "auto companies", but the current major tech companies. The "tech" part is going to become increasingly a bigger competitive advantage, while the "auto" part will be completely commoditized, and you'll see current car companies going bankrupt or being bought out by the major tech companies. I think Tesla is mostly part of the "tech companies" than the auto companies.
- noir_lord 12y ago
  > while the "auto" part will be completely commoditized To some extent this is already the case with some manufacturers, many models across a range are built on a consistent platform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_platform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_platform There is a point where physical improvements on platforms are well into diminishing returns and the bigger improvements are in software and control (the classic "software is eating the world" thing applies here). I don't have a problem with this but I suspect the automotive industry might ;)
- zenbowman 12y ago
  Just to clarify, it seems that by "tech companies" you mean "software companies". I think it is a little funny that a company like AirBnB would qualify as a tech company (even though I would classify it as a travel agency that uses technology) whereas GM would not (I would consider GM an out and out tech company). But I agree that software will have more of an impact on vehicle sales performance in the future, I'm only objecting to the idea that software=tech.
- mempko 12y ago
  Yet, the car company who is bringing electric to the masses is the likes of Nissan. Even how software is made via things like lean software development, scrum, and some agile practices are rooted in the Toyota production system. Companies like Toyota in their very culture is lean, not bloated. Even Google, despite all the diverse projects, only knows how to make money one way. Toyota group is far more diverse. Also car companies in japan are heavily invested in robots. So there is plenty of disruptive tech happening there.
webmaven 12y ago
Interesting quote: "Moreover, a study by consulting firm KPMG last year found that American consumers would trust brands like Google and Apple more for self-driving cars than they would automakers." Which reminded me of this from a while back: "Early concept research had made it clear that cueing the GM name resulted in a substantially lower quality perception and credibility, whereas cueing a Japanese name (such as Sony) did the reverse." http://books.google.com/books?id=OLa_9LePJlYC&lpg=PA1946&pg=PA2001 http://books.google.com/books?id=OLa_9LePJlYC&lpg=PA1946&pg=...
- Pxtl 12y ago
  Too bad so many Asian brands seem hell-bent on destroying that good name with cheap garbage. Vaio laptops, anyone?
  - nodata 12y ago
    Yeah give me an American Dell any day! Oh, wait...
    - Pxtl 12y ago
      They never had a good name in the first place to destroy.
jccooper 12y ago
Incumbents are correct that adding evolutionary features will allow maturation of technology and public acceptance. However, you cannot use that route to get to a completely autonomous vehicle. There will almost certainly be a red area once you get to the "car only needs human attention X% of the time" phase, where X will be somewhere between 60 and 1. Once the human is allowed to tune out, they're going to and won't be able to come back fast enough in many many circumstances. Heck, that happens today when X is 100. Once you find X, you're going to have to stop and/or back off a little on automation. You can't just keep on pushing towards 0. I presume Google has already found the X point during their program. Google is ultimately right to be aiming at fully auto if the goal is fully auto, not just "driver assistance." There's a big area where half measures just won't work. I wager it'll take quite a lot of work to get to that goal, but it at least seems achievable. And appropriate for an entity not already "in the business".
- Pxtl 12y ago
  Exactly this. The moment you make an autonomous vehicle where some period of time can be done with no driver interaction, drivers will fall asleep. What do you do when it's time to get the driver back into the action, and they don't respond? If expressway shoulders were consistently safe to pull over upon, that would be a good approach, but they're not.
Shivetya 12y ago
Google doesn't have the experience with liability that traditional automobile manufacturers are and I bet they tend to brush over items that made the other guys pause. Its one thing to deliver ads and mail, a simple mistake or improper product usage by the end user doesn't hurt someone, but cars are a whole different ball game. and don't underestimate that some people who get in one will try to cause problems.
- x1798DE 12y ago
  >Its one thing to deliver ads and mail, a simple mistake or improper product usage by the end user doesn't hurt someone, but cars are a whole different ball game. Except for when they released Google Buzz and exposed a bunch of private data to the world, endangering some people who were relying on their trust in google to keep themselves hidden from abusive exes and/or various other dangerous sorts of person. Oopsie!
- Gustomaximus 12y ago
  > Google doesn't have the experience with liability that traditional automobile manufacturers Consider how Elon Musk is disrupting entire industries by refusing to think like this. IMO inexperience can be an advantage when competing with an entrenched industry. And experience can easily be bought where needed by a well funded company.
eftpotrm 12y ago
Driving home from visiting a friend recently I had a lightbulb moment on self-driving cars; much as I really enjoy driving (heck, I've got a sports car), the second a mainstream car with an autonomous mode becomes remotely affordable for me I will buy it. I confess I don't understand why the focus is so strongly on the taxi-replacement market; it's interesting, sure, but largely unviable outside metropolitan areas. It can't serve people who go shopping and want to use their cars as lockers during the shop, or people who leave sports gear in the car while they work then go to the gym later, or a number of other cases. Who pays for them? It'd be an expensive business to set up and you'd have regular arguments about taxi licenses that'd make the fuss about Uber look tiny. Who'd clean them? You bet people would do unsavoury things inside them. No; it's a small, awkward to serve. Fit a 'self-drive' button to my next mainstream car though, and you have a killer product. You can keep it just like your normal car whenever you want, but when you don't - just press the button, program the navigation and do what you want. That night I'd have slept. This evening I'd probably have read on my way home from work. The technical challenges are no greater and it's much easier to set up. That's a killer app, not an autonomous taxi. Your car, with an invisible chauffeur on demand. The first manufacturer to properly pull it off won't be able to keep up with demand.
- fredophile 12y ago
  While taxis are one likely use for these cars I expect they'll also replace existing car share/co-op programs. I used to live in an urban area where I didn't need a car 99% of the time. I was in a co-op so I could book a car for a few hours the other 1% of the time. I don't see anything preventing someone from booking an autonomous car for a few hours while they get all of their shopping done. This type of use can also replace a second car for some families.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > I confess I don't understand why the focus is so strongly on the taxi-replacement market; it's interesting, sure, but largely unviable outside metropolitan areas. Yeah, but metropolitan areas contain lots of people, and also fairly high concentrations of money, so serving them is particularly attractive. > It can't serve people who go shopping and want to use their cars as lockers during the shop, or people who leave sports gear in the car while they work then go to the gym later, or a number of other cases. Well, sure, it doesn't serve the "use a vehicle as a stationary storage facility" role very well. OTOH, if it sufficiently reduces the per-use cost of using a vehicle as a vehicle compared to traditional ownership or taxi-with-a-driver, it can free up money for alternative, at-destination lockers. > Who pays for them? Lots of possibilities, there: cities (perhaps particularly suburbus) as last (few) mile(s) connectors for mass transit systems. Or companies that want to disrupt the taxi market. > It'd be an expensive business to set up and you'd have regular arguments about taxi licenses that'd make the fuss about Uber look tiny. So, maybe Google just does it directly. Its not like they don't have a huge pile of money to pay the startup costs. > Who'd clean them? You bet people would do unsavoury things inside them. So, like a hotel, you do a user agreement that covers that, and have internal video monitoring (like most public transport) to identify the source of problems and assign responsibility. > Fit a 'self-drive' button to my next mainstream car though, and you have a killer product. Yeah, that incremental upgrade is the more obvious direct market for consumers, and its easy to see why conservative players are focussing on it. Its also not surprising that Google's vision is bigger and less conservative.
twotwotwo 12y ago
There's a big mapping problem that could maybe be solved by selling cars that have plenty of sensor hardware--can figure out curb positions to the inch and all that--but at first only use it for semi-autonomous features (lane assist, auto emergency braking, etc.). As people drive them, they're recording a ton of data that can be sent back to the mothership to build detailed maps will be useful to provide full-autonomous driving later. Google might effectively pay for the data and field testing they're getting from early users by charging a lower price than you'd ordinarily expect for all that fancy hardware. I don't know how all this will, in fact, play out; I'm just saying driving assistance and full autonomy don't have to be rival approaches.
stuaxo 12y ago
Just work with a car company from a different country that isn't so backwards. I'm sure Volvo would be interested with their focus on safety.
lovemenot 12y ago
This discussion should probably start from commercial rather than passenger vehicles. In the latter category the driver is usually the owner as well as the cargo and the principle agent (my driving pleasure). There is an inherent distortion in the discussion around what the current drivers imagine they'd want. Commercial vehicles live or die on their economics alone. Separating concerns in this way makes the issues clearer. Assuming they become established in the commercial market, producers can then address the consumer market. At that point, car drivers may rationally decide whether they'd prefer to pay the prevalent market premium for not using a self-driving vehicle. Amazon might never deliver by drone, but the market for micro-deliveries by autonomous, wheeled vehicle could be huge.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
This reads a whole lot like an industry that has lost touch. If you read some of the stories out of SpaceX when they talked about Aerospace companies quoting 6 months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a part, that SpaceX turned around and did in a few weeks, you realize that there is the status quo, and the folks who don't accept the status quo, and the people who try to enforce the status quo but have forgotten (or never knew) why it was that way in the first place. Self driving cars are sexy and all but there is so much that could be done with a much simpler system. The old 'personal rapid transit' ideas come to mind. For those too young to remember, that was a system where the cars would show up at the station when paged. The cars were on tracks but travelling either on a 'through' track (no stops) or pulling into the station when passengers enter/exit. Built using rubber wheels on a paved "track" such a system could be built more cost effectively than highways (no trucks) and with much better efficiency than metros (your car stops at your entry station and exit station only.). All the technology to build that exists today, and it would be massively more efficient than BART, but it isn't even being advocated.
- iandanforth 12y ago
  If you think Detroit is out of touch and slow moving I can hardly believe you're advocating getting hundreds of municiple governments involved.
gregpilling 12y ago
“We’d say, ‘Well you don’t really know that much. And we’re not going to put our name on a project like that because if something goes wrong, we have a lot more to lose.’” ----- I think that says a iot about the automaker point of view. They have experience with being sued for defects decades later, and they know the story of Audi and alleged "unintended acceleration"
pjspycha 12y ago
I just don't see computers being able to be better drivers then humans. Especially when dealing with something a programmer hasn't thought of or situations which are hard to predict. I would definitely would prefer my taxi driver to be a person than a computer. (and honestly the trip would take twice as long in the city with a computer driver)

69 points by kyrra 12y ago

"Some industry observers have suggested that Google should pair up with Tesla, which is also developing self-driving technology and which shares Google's Silicon Valley mindset." I wish the article had expanded more on this topic. Both companies could make significant gains by partnering and cutting out the old money from the automotive industry. Not that I'm saying I hope that happens, I'm neutral on that matter for now, but I'd like to see a lot more R&D done on autonomous driving tech in my lifetime.

rondon2 12y ago
It is much better to develop self driving technology in-house rather than risk being stuck licencing technology from Google in perpetuity. The software is the easy part. The regulatory and societal hurdles are the hard part and Google is already working on that for free.
ams6110 12y ago
A big selling point of Tesla cars is the performance, which is irrelevant if you are not driving. Teslas are sold as fun to drive, to people who like driving.

ryandvm 12y ago

It seems obvious to me that industry outsiders are going to have a drastically different road map for self driving cars than the entrenched players. Clearly the end game for self driving automobiles is far, far fewer cars in the world. In 25 years, relatively few people are going to be owning cars at all. You'll subscribe to a self-driving car service (or maybe your government will run it) and whenever you want to go somewhere, you'll enter your automotive needs into your mobile device and five minutes later the appropriate self-driving cycle/car/truck/van will pick you up in front of your house. There won't be a need for every family to own 3 cars that spend 90% of the day turned off and taking up parking space. Of course Google and Detroit aren't going to see eye to eye on this...

6d0debc071 12y ago
There may not be a significant reduction in cars if everyone wants to travel at the same time. Say morning and afternoon rush hours.
- x1798DE 12y ago
  If you assume the point that people would prefer to use self-driving car services over having their own vehicle, then I imagine this wouldn't be as big a factor, since we already have a ton of unused vehicle capacity (with most people driving around with 1 or 2 people in a car that seats 4). You can imagine that modern car services with a significant customer base would be able to coordinate "carpool" type situations to significantly decrease spare capacity.
  - 6d0debc071 12y ago
    If I assumed that, sure. However, I'm not sure that I should. We're now talking about a situation that contains a highly social aspect. Are you comfortable travelling with others who you don't know? I know many young women would be somewhat uncomfortable about climbing into a vehicle with some random stranger. Even without that aspect, you've got to be around people you may not get along with. On buses people can mostly keep to themselves, and it's more or less expected; at least in my society; that they will - how much of that would be true in the tighter confines of a car? And are you prepared to keep to someone else's schedule? A mismatch of five minutes may be more significant than we expect. I'm not saying it won't happen. What I am saying is that I wouldn't care to make a strong commitment to the idea that in twenty five years or so most people won't have a car, or that there'll be fewer cars on the road. I can easily imagine a future in which most people decide that it's worth owning a car, even a self-driving one, for the privacy and convenience aspects.
    - x1798DE 12y ago
      Well, I mean, I'm on your side, I don't think that self-driving cars are going to cause a huge spike in people using car services because having a car you don't have to personally drive is not new technology at all. This may be somewhat cheaper than having a person driving you around or something, but I really think that on balance people will end up having their own personal vehicles. All I was responding to was that if you grant the parent comment's assertion that people will move to car services, it's very likely to me that rush hour will be the one problem that is very easy to solve, because you would have such a large volume of people all going to the same place. Even the issues with personal space and shared vehicles aren't that big of a problem - self-driving cars don't need to look the way they look now. You could have 4 separate compartments in them, so that it's not possible to touch or interact with the other passengers, for example. (Also, I've participated in casual carpool in both New York and San Francisco, and it works remarkably well - many people, including young women, do travel every day in the car of a complete stranger that they don't know - and it's even more dangerous, because it's controlled by a human driver!) My guess is, however, that in the future the hardware costs of under-utilized vehicles will be considered to be much lower than the "inconvenience costs" of not having your own vehicle, and rates of car ownership won't be dramatically affected by the advent of the self-driving car.

higherpurpose 12y ago

This is why I think the major "car companies" of the future won't be the current "auto companies", but the current major tech companies. The "tech" part is going to become increasingly a bigger competitive advantage, while the "auto" part will be completely commoditized, and you'll see current car companies going bankrupt or being bought out by the major tech companies. I think Tesla is mostly part of the "tech companies" than the auto companies.

noir_lord 12y ago
> while the "auto" part will be completely commoditized To some extent this is already the case with some manufacturers, many models across a range are built on a consistent platform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_platform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_platform There is a point where physical improvements on platforms are well into diminishing returns and the bigger improvements are in software and control (the classic "software is eating the world" thing applies here). I don't have a problem with this but I suspect the automotive industry might ;)
zenbowman 12y ago
Just to clarify, it seems that by "tech companies" you mean "software companies". I think it is a little funny that a company like AirBnB would qualify as a tech company (even though I would classify it as a travel agency that uses technology) whereas GM would not (I would consider GM an out and out tech company). But I agree that software will have more of an impact on vehicle sales performance in the future, I'm only objecting to the idea that software=tech.
mempko 12y ago
Yet, the car company who is bringing electric to the masses is the likes of Nissan. Even how software is made via things like lean software development, scrum, and some agile practices are rooted in the Toyota production system. Companies like Toyota in their very culture is lean, not bloated. Even Google, despite all the diverse projects, only knows how to make money one way. Toyota group is far more diverse. Also car companies in japan are heavily invested in robots. So there is plenty of disruptive tech happening there.

webmaven 12y ago

Interesting quote: "Moreover, a study by consulting firm KPMG last year found that American consumers would trust brands like Google and Apple more for self-driving cars than they would automakers." Which reminded me of this from a while back: "Early concept research had made it clear that cueing the GM name resulted in a substantially lower quality perception and credibility, whereas cueing a Japanese name (such as Sony) did the reverse." http://books.google.com/books?id=OLa_9LePJlYC&lpg=PA1946&pg=PA2001 http://books.google.com/books?id=OLa_9LePJlYC&lpg=PA1946&pg=...

Pxtl 12y ago
Too bad so many Asian brands seem hell-bent on destroying that good name with cheap garbage. Vaio laptops, anyone?
- nodata 12y ago
  Yeah give me an American Dell any day! Oh, wait...
  - Pxtl 12y ago
    They never had a good name in the first place to destroy.

jccooper 12y ago

Incumbents are correct that adding evolutionary features will allow maturation of technology and public acceptance. However, you cannot use that route to get to a completely autonomous vehicle. There will almost certainly be a red area once you get to the "car only needs human attention X% of the time" phase, where X will be somewhere between 60 and 1. Once the human is allowed to tune out, they're going to and won't be able to come back fast enough in many many circumstances. Heck, that happens today when X is 100. Once you find X, you're going to have to stop and/or back off a little on automation. You can't just keep on pushing towards 0. I presume Google has already found the X point during their program. Google is ultimately right to be aiming at fully auto if the goal is fully auto, not just "driver assistance." There's a big area where half measures just won't work. I wager it'll take quite a lot of work to get to that goal, but it at least seems achievable. And appropriate for an entity not already "in the business".

Pxtl 12y ago
Exactly this. The moment you make an autonomous vehicle where some period of time can be done with no driver interaction, drivers will fall asleep. What do you do when it's time to get the driver back into the action, and they don't respond? If expressway shoulders were consistently safe to pull over upon, that would be a good approach, but they're not.

Shivetya 12y ago

Google doesn't have the experience with liability that traditional automobile manufacturers are and I bet they tend to brush over items that made the other guys pause. Its one thing to deliver ads and mail, a simple mistake or improper product usage by the end user doesn't hurt someone, but cars are a whole different ball game. and don't underestimate that some people who get in one will try to cause problems.

x1798DE 12y ago
>Its one thing to deliver ads and mail, a simple mistake or improper product usage by the end user doesn't hurt someone, but cars are a whole different ball game. Except for when they released Google Buzz and exposed a bunch of private data to the world, endangering some people who were relying on their trust in google to keep themselves hidden from abusive exes and/or various other dangerous sorts of person. Oopsie!
Gustomaximus 12y ago
> Google doesn't have the experience with liability that traditional automobile manufacturers Consider how Elon Musk is disrupting entire industries by refusing to think like this. IMO inexperience can be an advantage when competing with an entrenched industry. And experience can easily be bought where needed by a well funded company.

eftpotrm 12y ago

Driving home from visiting a friend recently I had a lightbulb moment on self-driving cars; much as I really enjoy driving (heck, I've got a sports car), the second a mainstream car with an autonomous mode becomes remotely affordable for me I will buy it. I confess I don't understand why the focus is so strongly on the taxi-replacement market; it's interesting, sure, but largely unviable outside metropolitan areas. It can't serve people who go shopping and want to use their cars as lockers during the shop, or people who leave sports gear in the car while they work then go to the gym later, or a number of other cases. Who pays for them? It'd be an expensive business to set up and you'd have regular arguments about taxi licenses that'd make the fuss about Uber look tiny. Who'd clean them? You bet people would do unsavoury things inside them. No; it's a small, awkward to serve. Fit a 'self-drive' button to my next mainstream car though, and you have a killer product. You can keep it just like your normal car whenever you want, but when you don't - just press the button, program the navigation and do what you want. That night I'd have slept. This evening I'd probably have read on my way home from work. The technical challenges are no greater and it's much easier to set up. That's a killer app, not an autonomous taxi. Your car, with an invisible chauffeur on demand. The first manufacturer to properly pull it off won't be able to keep up with demand.

fredophile 12y ago
While taxis are one likely use for these cars I expect they'll also replace existing car share/co-op programs. I used to live in an urban area where I didn't need a car 99% of the time. I was in a co-op so I could book a car for a few hours the other 1% of the time. I don't see anything preventing someone from booking an autonomous car for a few hours while they get all of their shopping done. This type of use can also replace a second car for some families.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> I confess I don't understand why the focus is so strongly on the taxi-replacement market; it's interesting, sure, but largely unviable outside metropolitan areas. Yeah, but metropolitan areas contain lots of people, and also fairly high concentrations of money, so serving them is particularly attractive. > It can't serve people who go shopping and want to use their cars as lockers during the shop, or people who leave sports gear in the car while they work then go to the gym later, or a number of other cases. Well, sure, it doesn't serve the "use a vehicle as a stationary storage facility" role very well. OTOH, if it sufficiently reduces the per-use cost of using a vehicle as a vehicle compared to traditional ownership or taxi-with-a-driver, it can free up money for alternative, at-destination lockers. > Who pays for them? Lots of possibilities, there: cities (perhaps particularly suburbus) as last (few) mile(s) connectors for mass transit systems. Or companies that want to disrupt the taxi market. > It'd be an expensive business to set up and you'd have regular arguments about taxi licenses that'd make the fuss about Uber look tiny. So, maybe Google just does it directly. Its not like they don't have a huge pile of money to pay the startup costs. > Who'd clean them? You bet people would do unsavoury things inside them. So, like a hotel, you do a user agreement that covers that, and have internal video monitoring (like most public transport) to identify the source of problems and assign responsibility. > Fit a 'self-drive' button to my next mainstream car though, and you have a killer product. Yeah, that incremental upgrade is the more obvious direct market for consumers, and its easy to see why conservative players are focussing on it. Its also not surprising that Google's vision is bigger and less conservative.

twotwotwo 12y ago

There's a big mapping problem that could maybe be solved by selling cars that have plenty of sensor hardware--can figure out curb positions to the inch and all that--but at first only use it for semi-autonomous features (lane assist, auto emergency braking, etc.). As people drive them, they're recording a ton of data that can be sent back to the mothership to build detailed maps will be useful to provide full-autonomous driving later. Google might effectively pay for the data and field testing they're getting from early users by charging a lower price than you'd ordinarily expect for all that fancy hardware. I don't know how all this will, in fact, play out; I'm just saying driving assistance and full autonomy don't have to be rival approaches.

stuaxo 12y ago

Just work with a car company from a different country that isn't so backwards. I'm sure Volvo would be interested with their focus on safety.

lovemenot 12y ago

This discussion should probably start from commercial rather than passenger vehicles. In the latter category the driver is usually the owner as well as the cargo and the principle agent (my driving pleasure). There is an inherent distortion in the discussion around what the current drivers imagine they'd want. Commercial vehicles live or die on their economics alone. Separating concerns in this way makes the issues clearer. Assuming they become established in the commercial market, producers can then address the consumer market. At that point, car drivers may rationally decide whether they'd prefer to pay the prevalent market premium for not using a self-driving vehicle. Amazon might never deliver by drone, but the market for micro-deliveries by autonomous, wheeled vehicle could be huge.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

This reads a whole lot like an industry that has lost touch. If you read some of the stories out of SpaceX when they talked about Aerospace companies quoting 6 months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a part, that SpaceX turned around and did in a few weeks, you realize that there is the status quo, and the folks who don't accept the status quo, and the people who try to enforce the status quo but have forgotten (or never knew) why it was that way in the first place. Self driving cars are sexy and all but there is so much that could be done with a much simpler system. The old 'personal rapid transit' ideas come to mind. For those too young to remember, that was a system where the cars would show up at the station when paged. The cars were on tracks but travelling either on a 'through' track (no stops) or pulling into the station when passengers enter/exit. Built using rubber wheels on a paved "track" such a system could be built more cost effectively than highways (no trucks) and with much better efficiency than metros (your car stops at your entry station and exit station only.). All the technology to build that exists today, and it would be massively more efficient than BART, but it isn't even being advocated.

iandanforth 12y ago
If you think Detroit is out of touch and slow moving I can hardly believe you're advocating getting hundreds of municiple governments involved.

gregpilling 12y ago

“We’d say, ‘Well you don’t really know that much. And we’re not going to put our name on a project like that because if something goes wrong, we have a lot more to lose.’” ----- I think that says a iot about the automaker point of view. They have experience with being sued for defects decades later, and they know the story of Audi and alleged "unintended acceleration"

pjspycha 12y ago

I just don't see computers being able to be better drivers then humans. Especially when dealing with something a programmer hasn't thought of or situations which are hard to predict. I would definitely would prefer my taxi driver to be a person than a computer. (and honestly the trip would take twice as long in the city with a computer driver)