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I think you're correct. I can vividly remember a local news story from at least 15 years ago that talked about self-driving cars being just around the corner. A

by jonlucc 11y ago

I think you're correct. I can vividly remember a local news story from at least 15 years ago that talked about self-driving cars being just around the corner. All it would take is putting sensors in every roadway and having dedicated lanes for them. I was pretty young and excitable, and I could not figure out why we weren't putting those sensors in as roads were replaced around the city. Google requires none of that insane retrofitting, and is therefore much more likely to be useful.

walshemj 11y ago
I can rember a local agricultural college in the UK (silsoe now part of cranfield) experimenting with self driving tractors back in the late 70's
netcan 11y ago
I think this is a valid approach, in theory. IE, find some limited use case for a self driving cab service in a city and try to make the problem more like an agricultural field. OTOH, it would require a city or state to actively pursue this kind of a bleeding edge technology, make decisions and possibly even develop the technology. Maybe there are some municipalities out there with the competence for this, but not many. I'm not as down on government abilities as some on here, but I think you have to admit that making such a technologically innovative, blue sky project a public one seems like a recipe for disaster. The self driving cars can just develop on the free market. If the cars are good enough to go on normal roads people will buy them. I imagine that if they are prevalent enough, cities will then gradually tailor the infrastructure for them. Still, there must be someplace where the smarter infrastructure could take some of the hard problems away for self driving cars and get a nice demo going. Some small town, large army base, some specific city hoping routes?
dworin 11y ago
The vision of self-driving cars using special roads has actually been around since the 50s. Here's a commercial GM put together about it (admittedly using different technology at the time): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2iRDYnzwtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2iRDYnzwtk

by jonlucc 11y ago

walshemj 11y ago

I can rember a local agricultural college in the UK (silsoe now part of cranfield) experimenting with self driving tractors back in the late 70's

netcan 11y ago

I think this is a valid approach, in theory. IE, find some limited use case for a self driving cab service in a city and try to make the problem more like an agricultural field. OTOH, it would require a city or state to actively pursue this kind of a bleeding edge technology, make decisions and possibly even develop the technology. Maybe there are some municipalities out there with the competence for this, but not many. I'm not as down on government abilities as some on here, but I think you have to admit that making such a technologically innovative, blue sky project a public one seems like a recipe for disaster. The self driving cars can just develop on the free market. If the cars are good enough to go on normal roads people will buy them. I imagine that if they are prevalent enough, cities will then gradually tailor the infrastructure for them. Still, there must be someplace where the smarter infrastructure could take some of the hard problems away for self driving cars and get a nice demo going. Some small town, large army base, some specific city hoping routes?

dworin 11y ago

The vision of self-driving cars using special roads has actually been around since the 50s. Here's a commercial GM put together about it (admittedly using different technology at the time): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2iRDYnzwtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2iRDYnzwtk