9 ms·

A lot of people are bashing the car's appearance, but I think people forget that putting the first driverless cars on the road is as much a PR challenge as it i

A lot of people are bashing the car's appearance, but I think people forget that putting the first driverless cars on the road is as much a PR challenge as it is a technological challenge. Truly autonomous driverless cars is a huge shift in the way we have operated for almost 100 years. There will be a lot of caution and resistance from political groups, concerned citizens, entrenched interests, etc. The car that they put forward first needs to be non-threatening, safe, and easy to adopt. Given Google's stake in Uber the car will be part of a fleet that can be summoned by a mobile app, not some product you go out and buy. Because there will be no dealerships and individual owners, they don't care about attracting buyers for the vehicle - it doesn't need a cool factor. What it needs is to be non-threatening and safe so you will feel comfortable getting in one and going for a ride. Additionally, the first car on the roads will just be making in town trips and will be limited to 25mph - no highways or major arterials. This means it makes more sense for the car to be compact, light, and similar to a Smart Car, than a Camry or SUB.

Toenex 12y ago
Uber have the right idea here; own the platform, not the infrastructure. Lets face it, a cars spends most of its life stationary, waiting for you to drive it. Not so the autonomous vehicle. Autonomous vehicles are freed from the shackles of parking so why not lease your car to Uber and have it earn money as a cab? The future will be a bad time to get into car parking.
- thanksgiving 12y ago
  > The future will be a bad time to get into car parking. Perhaps, this will be the case in the long term. However, until then perhaps we could implement some sort of price surging where rental costs of parking space skyrockets when demands get high. Uber is doing the hard work of making price surging palatable. Everyone else just needs to ride on their coat tails.
  - zevyoura 12y ago
    SF and other cities already have variable, usage based parking fees[0]; I imagine these will only become more widespread. [0] http://sfpark.org/ http://sfpark.org/
  - brc 12y ago
    That is already common in most places. Most parking structures I know have different rates for different arrival and stay lengths. A lot of street parking has free and paid times. Demand based parking has been around a long time.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    but the jutification for surge pricing doesn't make sense with parking. The entire premise (that I have not seen data to verify, but the premise nonetheless) is that surge pricing increases the number of drivers on the road. Are we going to build more parking spaces for half a day? "Price surging" would become a fancy word for price gouging.
    - eru 12y ago
      Surge pricing also limits demand. And that's a good thing; it's better if there's an expensive spot available, than no cheap spots.
      - rtpg 12y ago
        only better for rich people. Rent seeking does not follow free market principles (due to fixed supply), and so loses any form of moral highground in my opinion.
        Pyxl101 12y ago
        Surge pricing is not rent-seeking. If the surge pricing was not warranted by the situation, then it creates a trivial way for competitors to eat the business's lunch by offering the same service at a slightly lower price. "Uber is surge pricing right now but Lyft is not, so I'll get my ride with Lyft" Surge pricing is a legitimate function of a properly functioning market. When demand has skyrocketed, or supply is constrained, prices _should_ rise. This is the mechanism by which markets enable resources to be allocated efficiently. Whether someone is poor or rich, if they desire a thing more than other people do (for the sake of argument, other people of similar wealth), then they should have a mechanism by which to express that preference. That preference is the price they're willing to pay. If the area is congested, and you _really_ want to go somewhere right now, then surge pricing gives you two ways to accomplish this. (1) To the extent that capacity is fixed, the ability to out-bid someone else means that you can take the capacity from someone else who doesn't desire it as much as you do. (2) The higher price incentivizes more supply. Uber drivers who see an exceptional surge price will make themselves available in order to take advantage of higher wages. A higher surge price is pure profit for the driver, if he can make himself available to drive right now versus some other time in the week Lastly, no supply is fully constrained. If the price of parking in a city skyrockets, then this creates a strong incentive for parking businesses to find a way to make more parking available. This might mean buying existing buildings, demolishing them, and converting them into parking structures; or it might mean that in the routine course of building new structures, the high price of parking will make it economical to dig a few stories deeper and provide a few more levels' worth of parking. Price and incentives always influence the operation of the market.
- zanny 12y ago
  You won't lease or own self driving cars. That makes no sense. You will just subscribe to a drive service if you drive a lot or just pay per ride and have one pick you up. I easily see you scheduling regular events (leave for work at 8, for example) and your car will be out front waiting each day.
  - randyrand 12y ago
    No way. In the city, yes. But in the somewhat wealthier suburbs many people will spring for the "self-driving" package. It might only be a ~$10k add on or less by my estimates. Most people will want to be able get in the car without having to request and wait for a ride (most people already have this luxury).
    - erikpukinskis 12y ago
      Sure, at first. But then your daughter has the SUV and your husband has the sedan and you want to get groceries and your sons want to go to two different friends houses, so you end up using sepf-driving cars all the time anyway, and you realize it's actually quite nice not to have to worry about maintenance and cleaning and charging. And you realize you could save $300 a month. And oh, you can just order a 4-wheel-drive vehicle pre-loaded with kayaks for your camping trip? And... and... and. We haven't imagine half of what cars-as-a-service will entail. Some people will always hold onto their vehicles, but in the end I don't think a hunk of plastic and metal will be able to compete with a fleet of special-purpose vehicles supported by a staff of thousands.
      - Chronic30 12y ago
        Many rich families own (at least) one car per family member. We are talking about luxurious add-ons which is why I bring this up.
  - millstone 12y ago
    Isn't owning typically cheaper than renting? Anyways, it makes no sense that everyone on my block owns their own lawnmower, and yet here we are.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  Assuming Google wants to get into the car business, all it has to do is add a button to google Maps/now. I don't think ther's anything special about the Uber platform, and Google already integrates journey planning through the Calendar and Google Now interfaces (eg telling you that you need to leave in 5 min to catch that train). You're right on the car parking. I think the City of Chicago actually made a very shrewd decision to sell their street parking revenue to a private operator for a 75 year period in return for a fixed amount of cash up front (obviously I'm oversimplifying). It was excoriated as a terrible deal by most people, but none of them seem to have considered the probability that there just won't be the same sort of demand for parking in even 10 or 20 years.
dopamean 12y ago
The appearance of the car is really important. If it looked too fun, like a Ferrari, some may think it's not safe. It reminds me of "helper" robots in movies about the future. They always have such unintimidating appearances. This car appears to be attempting the same thing and I'm ok with it.
- jastanton 12y ago
  sure appearance can convince a person of a well designed product. But I prefer, a well designed product, especially when my life is on the line over appearence. Tesla may come out with a super shiny beautiful self-driving car, but I will probably go with a dorky Google car if it has X miles (where X is a large impressive number) under its belt.
- derefr 12y ago
  In fact, now that you mention it, this is pretty much Baymax-the-Car. It just needs to puff up when it accidentally drives into a lake.
- krapp 12y ago
  I have to be honest - the last thing I think of when I look at it is "safe." Maybe that's just because I'm an American and feel the need to put as much iron between me and everyone else as I can. It's cute, and non-threatening looking, and probably the right design for what it is, but people are still going to look at it and think "this is going to get destroyed if a real car hits it."
  - eru 12y ago
    There are (at least) two kinds of people Google needs to convince. First, people who will sit in a self-driving car; and that's already done. Second, people who share the road with a self-driving car. You are right `unthreatening' is the better word than the ambiguous `safe' here. PS I think you are too American there. They don't drive tanks on the road in every country. But I see your concern.
    - 12y ago
jnosCo 12y ago
Everyone seems to be overlooking the fact that using an autonomous car as a cab would be illegal. Current permits are rather specific about having an manufacturer's employee behind the wheel at all times. I'm not an expert, but I wouldn't expect any state to lighten up the requirement of at least having someone behind a wheel for the foreseeable future. I think most patrons of Uber don't really want to be sitting behind the wheel.
- jastanton 12y ago
  "I think most patrons of Uber don't really want to be sitting behind the wheel." - if the vehicle was self driving, then absolutely. I can imagine a scenario of 24/7 tech support VC'ing at the push of a help button or if Google notices the car has malfunctioned. Getting the laws changed will take time. When presented as a n option will it be in demand? You bet!
- oaktowner 12y ago
  This generation of cars doesn't have a "wheel" at all -- there is literally no steering wheel and no way for a human to operate it. So legislation will clearly need to change before these are street legal.
krschultz 12y ago
"It doesn't need a cool factor" That was the death knell of Google Glass (at least in its current incarnation). Seems that Google hasn't learned much.
- zanny 12y ago
  Google Glass is a camera on your face. The self driving car revolutionizes transportation internationally forever. One makes you look like a hipster. The other is primed to save tens of thousands of lives a year if it gets rapidly adopted. One weighs grams. The other can run you over and crush your skull. Perception matters. This initial design is so insanely non-threatening it achieves its appearance goals. It does not need to sell units, it needs to sell the idea.
- derefr 12y ago
  AFAIK, Google Glass was explicitly a prototype, meant to visually advertise itself as a prototype to anyone who looked at it—in the same way that, say, a breadboard or a caseless Arduino visually advertises itself as a prototype. Seeing someone wearing Google Glasses was meant to put you in mind that they were testing something and you could help them test it, not that they were using a piece of everyday consumer electronics. And this car is pretty much the same: it's meant to stand out (see my other comment above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8785463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8785463). So I wouldn't say they needed to learn anything. As the technologies are accepted and commercialized by other parties, then they can make one that looks normal-ish.
  - millstone 12y ago
    Google has tried hard to make Google Glass fashionable in its current incarnation. That's why they are inserting it into New York Fashion Week, getting designer frames, etc.
    - eru 12y ago
      That's back when they tried to be like Apple.
- 12y ago
derefr 12y ago
> The car that they put forward first needs to be non-threatening, safe, and easy to adopt. Moreover, I think Google wants their car to be recognizable as a driverless car. They don't want it to blend in, because people would (at least for now) think that was "spooky"—that any car anywhere around them could be being secretly driven by a robot. Instead, the visual distinctness means that it's instantly clear that these are their own thing, in much the same way that golf carts, scooters, and backhoes are—despite all being wheeled vehicles that can be driven in car lanes—their own thing. Because they're recognizable, it makes it possible for you to build a separate autonomous response into your subliminal "driving event loop" for the class of "driverless car", the same way that you will react separately to seeing any of the above in your lane. Which is exactly what people want, in order to feel in control: the ability to notice and compensate for the driverless cars around them if they all encounter some pathological edge-case. (Just as an example of what I'm talking about—and this is a completely untested hypothesis on my part—I bet that driverless cars come to a complete stop a lot more frequently, in surprising places, because their sensors tell them something is standing in front of the car—e.g. a pigeon. A regular driver knows a pigeon will just sit there minding its own business as the car approaches it, but fly away right before the impact would happen; a driverless car might not know that. Because of this, your driving algorithm for being behind a driverless car will likely have a component similar to driving behind a school bus: "this vehicle makes frequent sudden stops, and I need to be ready to stop too. I should be more car-lengths away from it than are strictly necessary.")
- betenoire 12y ago
  oh I sure hope it takes more than a pigeon, but I see your point
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    I hope it doesn't; consider the PR disaster that'll happen the first time a driverless car hits poor little Fluffy the cat. Nevermind that cars with drivers do that all the time.
    - 12y ago
drcode 12y ago
> the first car on the roads will just be making in town trips and will be limited to 25mph I think the rest of us are going to start loathing these timidly-driving things: "Oh f%#k! I'm stuck behind a self-driving car again, now I'll be late for my meeting."
- spyder 12y ago
  Or not: http://www.wsj.com/articles/traffic-engineers-say-slowing-down-will-get-you-through-a-jam-faster-1415386073 http://www.wsj.com/articles/traffic-engineers-say-slowing-do...
billsossoon 12y ago
This is also a prime opportunity to question the idea of traveling at 85 mph in 4,000 lb. metal boxes that get 13 mpg. In my town, many parents put their newly-licensed teenage children behind the wheels of enormous SUVs in the name of safety, simultaneously reducing the safety of everyone around them. If tanks were street legal, we'd probably have 16 year old kids barreling down the road in them.
- closetnerd 12y ago
  Actually theres been a lot of research that increasing speed limits have more benefits than not. Most accidents that happen on high ways resulting in fatalities are due to driving under the influence. A higher speed limit has been shown to decrease accidents, decrease ticket fines, and decrease fuel consumption. Making it illegal to buy SUVs is moronic even if buying them is moronic in itself. Lots of things in life are dangerous, and we're going too damn far with needing to make anything with a potential of danger illegal. I'd much rather own a Range Rover which is far more comfortable, enjoyable to drive, accommodating, while reserving the capacity to take me to Yosemite a few times a year.
- DougWebb 12y ago
  Aren't most tanks driven by teenagers already? Of course, they get very specialized training, but it still shows that teens can handle that responsibility under the right circumstances. Actually, I don't really know: how old are the soldiers in a typical tank crew? I guess they might have a couple of years in the service before they get into a tank, so maybe they're early 20's rather than teens.
  - nickik 12y ago
    Real tanks mostly do not drive threw dense citys, so its mute.
    - jshevek 12y ago
      > Real tanks mostly do not drive threw dense citys, so its mute Tanks are not usually quiet, whether driving or throwing.
graycat 12y ago
Do they really have driverless cars or just cars that run on essentially electronic tracks very carefully determined? If someone moves the location of a traffic light, can a Google car still find the traffic light? Wbat if a bulb in the traffic light is burned out; is the car smart enough to negotiate the intersection with the failed light? What if a bucket of white paint fell on the road yesterday; is the Google car's image processing good enough to recognize this or to tell the difference between wet paint and dry? Heck, when I drive, there is a lot for me to watch and analyze. A Google car can do that?
- moe 12y ago
  A Google car can do that? Yes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsaES--OTzM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsaES--OTzM
  - 2muchcoffeeman 12y ago
    They have videos of their cars handling common cases. But what about the corner cases? I've had a sign disappear on me over night which changed the roads rules at a tricky intersection. There has been a lot of construction in my area so 2 lane roads had a lane closed off and a traffic controller managed traffic across a single lane. I've even seen a road that you could drive into and out of, become a road that you can only drive into. There had been traffice controllers during road works managing a single lane all through construction and then the day that it was finished, one direction became a dead end.
    - moe 12y ago
      Did you even watch the video? The google cars have no memory of what was "yesterday".
- tonylemesmer 12y ago
  or if someone parks a flatbed with a ramp in the road with lines painted up. Will the Google car just drive onto the back of the truck? Would this be how you kidnap the cars and occupants?
Shivetya 12y ago
I don't care how it looks, it if still cannot drive in bad weather, snow, and worse needs detailed up to date maps, its not truly autonomous driving, its like programmed driving with a few extras. When the cars can come to you where ever you may be, broke down on the side of the road for example, and take you anywhere regardless of conditions then it can be heralded. As it stands now its nothing more than the automated cars shown as high tech in Jurassic Park.
- beaner 12y ago
  This is silly. I bet you can't drive through a swamp in a jeep, because you haven't acquired the skill. But that doesn't mean the rest of your driving doesn't qualify as real driving.
- agildehaus 12y ago
  Perhaps because what you describe is not autonomous driving, but human driving. And it's been through a 100 year trial and found to kill over a million people worldwide each year, prevent the elderly and disabled from living full independent lives, and be a huge time and money sink that many humans have to accept. Snow, heavy rain, being able to go everywhere with up-to-date maps -- these are problems which will find solutions in time. I have no doubt that up-to-date maps will be no problem, considering these vehicles constantly collect centimeter-accurate 3D maps of where they drive and upload them to Google. And being able to pull over to the side of the road to pick someone up? A simple software feature. There's nothing preventing that NOW. Don't get caught up in thinking that these things have to be perfect upon release to have a huge benefit.

Toenex 12y ago

Uber have the right idea here; own the platform, not the infrastructure. Lets face it, a cars spends most of its life stationary, waiting for you to drive it. Not so the autonomous vehicle. Autonomous vehicles are freed from the shackles of parking so why not lease your car to Uber and have it earn money as a cab? The future will be a bad time to get into car parking.

thanksgiving 12y ago
> The future will be a bad time to get into car parking. Perhaps, this will be the case in the long term. However, until then perhaps we could implement some sort of price surging where rental costs of parking space skyrockets when demands get high. Uber is doing the hard work of making price surging palatable. Everyone else just needs to ride on their coat tails.
- zevyoura 12y ago
  SF and other cities already have variable, usage based parking fees[0]; I imagine these will only become more widespread. [0] http://sfpark.org/ http://sfpark.org/
- brc 12y ago
  That is already common in most places. Most parking structures I know have different rates for different arrival and stay lengths. A lot of street parking has free and paid times. Demand based parking has been around a long time.
- rtpg 12y ago
  but the jutification for surge pricing doesn't make sense with parking. The entire premise (that I have not seen data to verify, but the premise nonetheless) is that surge pricing increases the number of drivers on the road. Are we going to build more parking spaces for half a day? "Price surging" would become a fancy word for price gouging.
  - eru 12y ago
    Surge pricing also limits demand. And that's a good thing; it's better if there's an expensive spot available, than no cheap spots.
    - rtpg 12y ago
      only better for rich people. Rent seeking does not follow free market principles (due to fixed supply), and so loses any form of moral highground in my opinion.
      - Pyxl101 12y ago
        Surge pricing is not rent-seeking. If the surge pricing was not warranted by the situation, then it creates a trivial way for competitors to eat the business's lunch by offering the same service at a slightly lower price. "Uber is surge pricing right now but Lyft is not, so I'll get my ride with Lyft" Surge pricing is a legitimate function of a properly functioning market. When demand has skyrocketed, or supply is constrained, prices _should_ rise. This is the mechanism by which markets enable resources to be allocated efficiently. Whether someone is poor or rich, if they desire a thing more than other people do (for the sake of argument, other people of similar wealth), then they should have a mechanism by which to express that preference. That preference is the price they're willing to pay. If the area is congested, and you _really_ want to go somewhere right now, then surge pricing gives you two ways to accomplish this. (1) To the extent that capacity is fixed, the ability to out-bid someone else means that you can take the capacity from someone else who doesn't desire it as much as you do. (2) The higher price incentivizes more supply. Uber drivers who see an exceptional surge price will make themselves available in order to take advantage of higher wages. A higher surge price is pure profit for the driver, if he can make himself available to drive right now versus some other time in the week Lastly, no supply is fully constrained. If the price of parking in a city skyrockets, then this creates a strong incentive for parking businesses to find a way to make more parking available. This might mean buying existing buildings, demolishing them, and converting them into parking structures; or it might mean that in the routine course of building new structures, the high price of parking will make it economical to dig a few stories deeper and provide a few more levels' worth of parking. Price and incentives always influence the operation of the market.
zanny 12y ago
You won't lease or own self driving cars. That makes no sense. You will just subscribe to a drive service if you drive a lot or just pay per ride and have one pick you up. I easily see you scheduling regular events (leave for work at 8, for example) and your car will be out front waiting each day.
- randyrand 12y ago
  No way. In the city, yes. But in the somewhat wealthier suburbs many people will spring for the "self-driving" package. It might only be a ~$10k add on or less by my estimates. Most people will want to be able get in the car without having to request and wait for a ride (most people already have this luxury).
  - erikpukinskis 12y ago
    Sure, at first. But then your daughter has the SUV and your husband has the sedan and you want to get groceries and your sons want to go to two different friends houses, so you end up using sepf-driving cars all the time anyway, and you realize it's actually quite nice not to have to worry about maintenance and cleaning and charging. And you realize you could save $300 a month. And oh, you can just order a 4-wheel-drive vehicle pre-loaded with kayaks for your camping trip? And... and... and. We haven't imagine half of what cars-as-a-service will entail. Some people will always hold onto their vehicles, but in the end I don't think a hunk of plastic and metal will be able to compete with a fleet of special-purpose vehicles supported by a staff of thousands.
    - Chronic30 12y ago
      Many rich families own (at least) one car per family member. We are talking about luxurious add-ons which is why I bring this up.
- millstone 12y ago
  Isn't owning typically cheaper than renting? Anyways, it makes no sense that everyone on my block owns their own lawnmower, and yet here we are.
anigbrowl 12y ago
Assuming Google wants to get into the car business, all it has to do is add a button to google Maps/now. I don't think ther's anything special about the Uber platform, and Google already integrates journey planning through the Calendar and Google Now interfaces (eg telling you that you need to leave in 5 min to catch that train). You're right on the car parking. I think the City of Chicago actually made a very shrewd decision to sell their street parking revenue to a private operator for a 75 year period in return for a fixed amount of cash up front (obviously I'm oversimplifying). It was excoriated as a terrible deal by most people, but none of them seem to have considered the probability that there just won't be the same sort of demand for parking in even 10 or 20 years.

dopamean 12y ago

The appearance of the car is really important. If it looked too fun, like a Ferrari, some may think it's not safe. It reminds me of "helper" robots in movies about the future. They always have such unintimidating appearances. This car appears to be attempting the same thing and I'm ok with it.

jastanton 12y ago
sure appearance can convince a person of a well designed product. But I prefer, a well designed product, especially when my life is on the line over appearence. Tesla may come out with a super shiny beautiful self-driving car, but I will probably go with a dorky Google car if it has X miles (where X is a large impressive number) under its belt.
derefr 12y ago
In fact, now that you mention it, this is pretty much Baymax-the-Car. It just needs to puff up when it accidentally drives into a lake.
krapp 12y ago
I have to be honest - the last thing I think of when I look at it is "safe." Maybe that's just because I'm an American and feel the need to put as much iron between me and everyone else as I can. It's cute, and non-threatening looking, and probably the right design for what it is, but people are still going to look at it and think "this is going to get destroyed if a real car hits it."
- eru 12y ago
  There are (at least) two kinds of people Google needs to convince. First, people who will sit in a self-driving car; and that's already done. Second, people who share the road with a self-driving car. You are right `unthreatening' is the better word than the ambiguous `safe' here. PS I think you are too American there. They don't drive tanks on the road in every country. But I see your concern.
  - 12y ago

jnosCo 12y ago

Everyone seems to be overlooking the fact that using an autonomous car as a cab would be illegal. Current permits are rather specific about having an manufacturer's employee behind the wheel at all times. I'm not an expert, but I wouldn't expect any state to lighten up the requirement of at least having someone behind a wheel for the foreseeable future. I think most patrons of Uber don't really want to be sitting behind the wheel.

jastanton 12y ago
"I think most patrons of Uber don't really want to be sitting behind the wheel." - if the vehicle was self driving, then absolutely. I can imagine a scenario of 24/7 tech support VC'ing at the push of a help button or if Google notices the car has malfunctioned. Getting the laws changed will take time. When presented as a n option will it be in demand? You bet!
oaktowner 12y ago
This generation of cars doesn't have a "wheel" at all -- there is literally no steering wheel and no way for a human to operate it. So legislation will clearly need to change before these are street legal.

krschultz 12y ago

"It doesn't need a cool factor" That was the death knell of Google Glass (at least in its current incarnation). Seems that Google hasn't learned much.

zanny 12y ago
Google Glass is a camera on your face. The self driving car revolutionizes transportation internationally forever. One makes you look like a hipster. The other is primed to save tens of thousands of lives a year if it gets rapidly adopted. One weighs grams. The other can run you over and crush your skull. Perception matters. This initial design is so insanely non-threatening it achieves its appearance goals. It does not need to sell units, it needs to sell the idea.
derefr 12y ago
AFAIK, Google Glass was explicitly a prototype, meant to visually advertise itself as a prototype to anyone who looked at it—in the same way that, say, a breadboard or a caseless Arduino visually advertises itself as a prototype. Seeing someone wearing Google Glasses was meant to put you in mind that they were testing something and you could help them test it, not that they were using a piece of everyday consumer electronics. And this car is pretty much the same: it's meant to stand out (see my other comment above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8785463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8785463). So I wouldn't say they needed to learn anything. As the technologies are accepted and commercialized by other parties, then they can make one that looks normal-ish.
- millstone 12y ago
  Google has tried hard to make Google Glass fashionable in its current incarnation. That's why they are inserting it into New York Fashion Week, getting designer frames, etc.
  - eru 12y ago
    That's back when they tried to be like Apple.
12y ago

derefr 12y ago

> The car that they put forward first needs to be non-threatening, safe, and easy to adopt. Moreover, I think Google wants their car to be recognizable as a driverless car. They don't want it to blend in, because people would (at least for now) think that was "spooky"—that any car anywhere around them could be being secretly driven by a robot. Instead, the visual distinctness means that it's instantly clear that these are their own thing, in much the same way that golf carts, scooters, and backhoes are—despite all being wheeled vehicles that can be driven in car lanes—their own thing. Because they're recognizable, it makes it possible for you to build a separate autonomous response into your subliminal "driving event loop" for the class of "driverless car", the same way that you will react separately to seeing any of the above in your lane. Which is exactly what people want, in order to feel in control: the ability to notice and compensate for the driverless cars around them if they all encounter some pathological edge-case. (Just as an example of what I'm talking about—and this is a completely untested hypothesis on my part—I bet that driverless cars come to a complete stop a lot more frequently, in surprising places, because their sensors tell them something is standing in front of the car—e.g. a pigeon. A regular driver knows a pigeon will just sit there minding its own business as the car approaches it, but fly away right before the impact would happen; a driverless car might not know that. Because of this, your driving algorithm for being behind a driverless car will likely have a component similar to driving behind a school bus: "this vehicle makes frequent sudden stops, and I need to be ready to stop too. I should be more car-lengths away from it than are strictly necessary.")

betenoire 12y ago
oh I sure hope it takes more than a pigeon, but I see your point
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  I hope it doesn't; consider the PR disaster that'll happen the first time a driverless car hits poor little Fluffy the cat. Nevermind that cars with drivers do that all the time.
  - 12y ago

drcode 12y ago

> the first car on the roads will just be making in town trips and will be limited to 25mph I think the rest of us are going to start loathing these timidly-driving things: "Oh f%#k! I'm stuck behind a self-driving car again, now I'll be late for my meeting."

spyder 12y ago
Or not: http://www.wsj.com/articles/traffic-engineers-say-slowing-down-will-get-you-through-a-jam-faster-1415386073 http://www.wsj.com/articles/traffic-engineers-say-slowing-do...

billsossoon 12y ago

This is also a prime opportunity to question the idea of traveling at 85 mph in 4,000 lb. metal boxes that get 13 mpg. In my town, many parents put their newly-licensed teenage children behind the wheels of enormous SUVs in the name of safety, simultaneously reducing the safety of everyone around them. If tanks were street legal, we'd probably have 16 year old kids barreling down the road in them.

closetnerd 12y ago
Actually theres been a lot of research that increasing speed limits have more benefits than not. Most accidents that happen on high ways resulting in fatalities are due to driving under the influence. A higher speed limit has been shown to decrease accidents, decrease ticket fines, and decrease fuel consumption. Making it illegal to buy SUVs is moronic even if buying them is moronic in itself. Lots of things in life are dangerous, and we're going too damn far with needing to make anything with a potential of danger illegal. I'd much rather own a Range Rover which is far more comfortable, enjoyable to drive, accommodating, while reserving the capacity to take me to Yosemite a few times a year.
DougWebb 12y ago
Aren't most tanks driven by teenagers already? Of course, they get very specialized training, but it still shows that teens can handle that responsibility under the right circumstances. Actually, I don't really know: how old are the soldiers in a typical tank crew? I guess they might have a couple of years in the service before they get into a tank, so maybe they're early 20's rather than teens.
- nickik 12y ago
  Real tanks mostly do not drive threw dense citys, so its mute.
  - jshevek 12y ago
    > Real tanks mostly do not drive threw dense citys, so its mute Tanks are not usually quiet, whether driving or throwing.

graycat 12y ago

Do they really have driverless cars or just cars that run on essentially electronic tracks very carefully determined? If someone moves the location of a traffic light, can a Google car still find the traffic light? Wbat if a bulb in the traffic light is burned out; is the car smart enough to negotiate the intersection with the failed light? What if a bucket of white paint fell on the road yesterday; is the Google car's image processing good enough to recognize this or to tell the difference between wet paint and dry? Heck, when I drive, there is a lot for me to watch and analyze. A Google car can do that?

moe 12y ago
A Google car can do that? Yes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsaES--OTzM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsaES--OTzM
- 2muchcoffeeman 12y ago
  They have videos of their cars handling common cases. But what about the corner cases? I've had a sign disappear on me over night which changed the roads rules at a tricky intersection. There has been a lot of construction in my area so 2 lane roads had a lane closed off and a traffic controller managed traffic across a single lane. I've even seen a road that you could drive into and out of, become a road that you can only drive into. There had been traffice controllers during road works managing a single lane all through construction and then the day that it was finished, one direction became a dead end.
  - moe 12y ago
    Did you even watch the video? The google cars have no memory of what was "yesterday".
tonylemesmer 12y ago
or if someone parks a flatbed with a ramp in the road with lines painted up. Will the Google car just drive onto the back of the truck? Would this be how you kidnap the cars and occupants?

Shivetya 12y ago

I don't care how it looks, it if still cannot drive in bad weather, snow, and worse needs detailed up to date maps, its not truly autonomous driving, its like programmed driving with a few extras. When the cars can come to you where ever you may be, broke down on the side of the road for example, and take you anywhere regardless of conditions then it can be heralded. As it stands now its nothing more than the automated cars shown as high tech in Jurassic Park.

beaner 12y ago
This is silly. I bet you can't drive through a swamp in a jeep, because you haven't acquired the skill. But that doesn't mean the rest of your driving doesn't qualify as real driving.
agildehaus 12y ago
Perhaps because what you describe is not autonomous driving, but human driving. And it's been through a 100 year trial and found to kill over a million people worldwide each year, prevent the elderly and disabled from living full independent lives, and be a huge time and money sink that many humans have to accept. Snow, heavy rain, being able to go everywhere with up-to-date maps -- these are problems which will find solutions in time. I have no doubt that up-to-date maps will be no problem, considering these vehicles constantly collect centimeter-accurate 3D maps of where they drive and upload them to Google. And being able to pull over to the side of the road to pick someone up? A simple software feature. There's nothing preventing that NOW. Don't get caught up in thinking that these things have to be perfect upon release to have a huge benefit.