When discussing self-driving cars, people tend to ask a lot of superficial questions: how much will these cars cost? Is this supposed to replace my car at home? Is this supposed to replace taxis or Uber? What if I need to use a drive-thru?
They ignore the smarter questions. They ignore the fact that 45% of disabled people in the US still work. They ignore the fact that 95% of a car’s lifetime is spent parked. They ignore how this technology could transform the lives of the elderly, or eradicate the need for parking lots or garages or gas stations. They dismiss the entire concept because they don’t think a computer could ever be as good at merging on the freeway as they are.
They ignore the great, big, beautiful picture staring them right in the face: that this technology could make our lives so much better.
Self-driving cars will be the biggest technological breakthrough since the advent of the computer. Beyond ‘just’ revolutionising personal transportation, it will completely and utterly change the commercial/freight transportation industry.
All of us will benefit from this technology. I cannot wait.
Of course, the industry that will get most hammered by the self-driving car is the taxi industry. I expect they’ll be fighting this for all they’re worth, since it’s effectively the end of the cabby.
Personally, I’m not so interested in owning a totally autonomous vehicle, as I am in a vehicle with advanced cruise control– if I’m on the interstate, I’m OK with throwing it into automatic and sitting back and relaxing.
Then again– I’m a driving enthusiast. I enjoy driving. I’m not interested in my car being an appliance.
I hope enthusiast will be relegated to specialized driving courses where you can enjoy driving. If the roads were 100% used for transportation without human drivers you would solve a lot of problems and save a lot of money.
And I hope you’re absolutely wrong. Part of our driving past (and I would dare say, quite of few of us in the present) enjoy driving as a journey, not a destination. I am planning a site-seeing vacation for my family around America and I plan for us to visit small off-the-beaten path type locations. Unless and until I can completely control an ‘automated’ vehicle to go *exactly* where I want to go (including unpublished or ‘local’ roads), I will want to have total control of my car/vehicle.
Edited 2014-12-22 22:57 UTC
And I hope you won’t. Most drivers are shit, and need some time off. Take control when you need to, for whatever reason, except when you really think you ought to rear-end a bicyclist. You don’t.
Edited 2014-12-23 00:26 UTC
And once again, I really hope you’re dead wrong. I don’t want to be told what to do with my personal freedom and choices. I’m not too worried however, since the only way this scenario would play out is if it were government-mandated and all non-autonomous cars were destroyed.
When you’re on public roads, you’d better be listening when you’re told what to do, or it would be better to stick you in a simulator.
<sarcasm>Because that’s seriously what I meant</sarcasm>
Don’t worry, they won’t take your “freedom and liberty” away, you’ll just have to cover additional costs about security insurance and private lane maintenance. You’ll still be free to pay.
If that’s what it takes to secure my freedom, but frankly, that would be really sad, if my freedom in this regard would be usurped by the government in this matter.
Thankfully a drivers license is a privilege, not a right.
The only things that are guaranteed by the Constitution are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. There are plenty of other examples of ‘privilege’, so what gives anyone the right to remove a privilege that is afforded to me by our Founding Fathers?
I’ll guess you live in an urban environment with a fairly high population density.
To be fair, what you’re talking about already exists– it’s called track days, and while I’d love to toss my daily driver around a safe environment, that doesn’t have much to do with how I approach driving daily.
Truth is that fully autonomous cars that require no, or little, driver input, are not feasible with current technology, or even incremental technology improvements. A major jump in technology, or a massive rebuilding of our infrastructure is required.
Finally, I would expect that those of us who really enjoy driving, and see it as something other than a necessary evil, are much better at it than people who drive because they have to. Those to whom driving is merely a method to get from point A to point B are the ones I really wish would get an autonomous car.
So what do you think Google has? A magic car? Obviously it is possible if it already exists.
You honestly are not better. You are the ones that “weave” through the traffic and are most likely to cause an accident by confusing less capable drivers and not giving them enough time to react to your actions.
Enjoy driving is not same as being a good/great driver.
It’s not just Taxis, it’s also the about truck drivers, the post man or waste disposal. This will create a huge wave of obsolete jobs and I’m extremely curious how this will be handled (my suggestion: politics will not see it coming and be completely overwhelmed).
But it’s not just about safety or making a better world, I’m so sure this will immediately catch on because the economics are just so much in favor of automation in contrast to paying someone full-time salary.
Post men won’t because there’s more to it than simply driving; so there’s a lot more that would have to be automated first and the Postal Workers Unions (f.e. American Postal Worker Union) will certainly be watching out for their workers.
Waste Disposal – same thing. There’s already enough issues with the robotic arms on the trucks that only have the driver, so don’t expect them to change over anytime soon either.
Taxis would actually be the most plausible to change over the fastest as this would provide numerous benefits:
– safety for passengers since all vehicles could be self-operating
– vehicles could auto-attend to provide the right number of taxis needed at any given time
– pay could be reduced since a human driver wouldn’t be needed
– taxis could take more people since another seat could be provided to passengers that wasn’t possible before
– regulations would move from human-time (16 hours a day max) to vehicle maintenance time, which would also require better integration with sensors to detect problems with the vehicle
Many of these same things would also affect the trucking industry.
No, the FedEx and UPS workers that deliver to your door would not need to be concerned any time soon; but the truckers driving between distribution centers most certainly would since those trucks could be in use closer to 24/7 with downtime for maintenance only.
While the above assumes the tech is 100% available, ready, and approved today – that is probably what you will see as the first roll out.
Now it might be augmented by the companies having centers with people where one person may watch two or three vehicles, much like the UAV flight centers.
To add to this, the lift trucks and pallet trucks at the distribution centers will be autonomous as well. I work for Crown Equipment Corp. and we have a group thats been working on this for the past 2-3 years. Our PC series trucks can already drive down an aisle and center itself.
Mines are already using automated trucks.
Really? I really can’t wait for when self driving cars have Full autonomy. And have no requirement for having a qualified/licensed meat suit behind the wheel “just in case”.
I want it to be able to pick me up from where ever, drop me at work or any other appointment, and let me sleep in the back. Or pick me up drunk after a night owt, and again sleep in the back and wake up at home! how great would that be. As long as he remains good KITT and not the evil cousin.. 😉
I understand your point, but the cabby lobby is already dead. They just don’t know it yet. Uber & lift are killing them. This would deprive any human drivers of Uber & lift of their current occupation, but that’s progress I guess.
I’d think long hall truck drivers would be put out of buisness too, which means the teamsters will be against this. Oh man are they going to mess up those marshmello cars… Angry teamsters against defenseless cute cars, thats not going to be pretty.
Uber is just a cab company that doesn’t pay as well.
Right, but for the purpose of this discussion, they’re also a cab company that isn’t invested in humans doing any work. They’d prefer not to have humans driving. No capital invested in medallions that they have to protect. No cars owned and leased to drivers.
Uber and Lyft are probably not killing the taxi industry anywhere except NYC. Just about everywhere outside the US they are under siege. I doubt if they will still be around in 2-3 years.
In Australia Uber drivers are being caught in stings and given large fines. The state governments are already planning on seizing the cars and cancelling the drivers licences of anyone providing an unlicenced taxi or hire car.
Bigger than the internet?
“Breakthrough” is the key word.
We’re not there yet. It may be another 20 years (or more) before we are.
We are here. The problem is all the hype makes people not understand what here is. Self-driving cars are trams on rubber wheels. That’s it.
Right, in much the same way that a Lion is really just a land shark that breaths air.
Or in the same way a Komodo varan is a dragon without wings. The Komodo varan is the actual practical existing animal that survived evolution, the dragon is what people wish it was or pretend it is.
A 2 hour trip from berlin to halle… I think I would rather drive myself then sit in a google noddy car watching google adverts for 2 hours
Edited 2014-12-22 20:11 UTC
Are you watching Google Ads all the time on an Android phone?
Once they get you in their cars their won’t be much to do… They will probably come with in car entertainment but no open wlan so you have to use the in-car system. Guess what . no ad block… if you think this won’t be how it will be you are dreaming.
Edited 2014-12-22 20:13 UTC
Oh well if we’re just going with “Hypothetically what I think might happen” then let’s all be thankful Microsoft aren’t building self-driving cars (“They’d crash all the time, lol!”), or Apple (“You’d have to pay $20 just to get out of the car at your destination, lol!”).
Wow, you seem to have forgotten about books, tablets with films and games, laptops so I can write code or a document.
The car basically becomes like public transport and people seem to fill their time on trains and buses with all sorts of entertainment.
You sound a lot like someone’s idea of what a Google phone would be like before android was released. It will be all ADS!!!!! SOMEONE SAVE US!!!!
bleh,
It won’t be that bad.
I don’t have an android phone
You won’t have to worry about that because the batteries will go dead, leaving you stranded about halfway between your origin and your destination. Hopefully the ads turn off when the battery’s dead, but in reality they’ll probably have a backup system for ad delivery.
Read a novel. Grab your gameboy. Take a nap. Plug your laptop into the cigarette lighter and get some writing or coding done.
If reading on the move makes you carsick, take some ginger before you depart. If Google gets heavy-handed enough to 1984 telescreen their ads, buy some earplugs (in-canal ones for a buck at the dollar store, $20-30 for over-ear construction-grade hearing protectors, or both).
Aside from the cost of mobile broadband, treat it as functionally in the same class as “teleport to your destination and then enjoy the time you saved”.
EDIT: Oh, yeah. I forgot that, outside of Canada, people have grown used to connectivity on the go being affordable. Unplug for a moment. It’s not hard to find tools to download your fiction, periodicals, or API references beforehand and offline alternatives to Google Docs do still exist.
Edited 2014-12-22 20:15 UTC
Or spend 80 minutes on a self-driving train (while playing Grand Theft Auto on your laptop)?
– Brendan
Yeah, and I’d rather watch MTV than watching BBC and paying taxes all the time. (idiot)
Don’t put yourself down… you’re probably not an idiot.
Am I the only one who doesn’t really care about automatic driving cars? I just want decent public transport… don’t really care who drives it. If all you have is public transport on the roads/rails/waters there is no congestion anymore. We need to get rid of this system that everyone has their own car and wants to drive it just by him/herself.
Trying to solve a problem with more technology is not always the most obvious and cheapest way to go on a bigger scale
Public transport works fine in large cities, but outside of the cities, it becomes an ever more complicated mess to solve, until you eventually realise that the first/last kilometers still require a car.
A fleet of electric, automated cars is quite, quite efficient. Remember, congestion isn’t a problem caused by capacity – it’s a capacity problem caused by human error. Automated cars would not produce congestion (assuming the amount of cars stays the same).
Edited 2014-12-22 21:23 UTC
It’s easier to extend public transportation than to replace human driving cars with self driving ones though. It’s even easier than maintaining the current roads. The only problem is funding and politics, the same problems self driving cars will face. Technically the better short and long term solution is public transportation.
Remember, congestion isn’t a problem caused by capacity – it’s a capacity problem caused by human error.
Not always.
Congestion is most often caused by having too many people at the same time on roads, going to/from work, school,…
Electric cars could only worsen the problem, by encouraging people to abandon public transportation or efficient means like bicycles, motorcycles.
Nonsense. congestion is a mathematical property that arrises automatically. Unless you somehow beleave congestion doesn’t exist in networks? All those automatic routers must mean that congestion can never happen in network. The internet is NEVER slow.
Edit: Automated cars can dissolve congestion faster though once the congestion conditions disappear. Human drivers doesn’t seem to grasp they need to accelerate aggresively out of the congested areas to relieve it.
Edited 2014-12-23 11:53 UTC
No, Treza’s right. Computer networks and roadways with human drivers are not directly comparable.
I live (and drive) in the 4th largest city in the US, and my observation is that most traffic problems are caused by human error, not too many vehicles on a given road at a given time. I see slowdowns all the time, even to a dead stop, with no proximate cause — no accident, no onramp funneling a large volume of cars onto the roadway, no lane closure, nothing.
If humans were able to maintain a given appropriate speed 100% of the time, most traffic congestion (as opposed to the network variety), most traffic problems would disappear. In networks, each packet doesn’t decide how fast it’s going to traverse the network, and then randomly vary that speed depending on whether or not it is talking on a cell phone.
Autonomous cars would largely solve this problem. They would all drive the same speed, with the added benefit that they could follow each other more closely since their reaction times are an order of magnitude better than ours and they can (in theory) all communicate with each other. They won’t rubberneck at accidents and stalled vehicles, they will match speed of traffic in the main roadway prior to merging, they won’t let non-essential communication be a distraction. They may even stay out of the left lane while not passing
The roadway will then become more like the mathematical model used for computer networks.
I think the tech has promise, though I’ll reserve final judgment for when it is more widely deployed. But I do believe that if humans were as consistent in driving as Google’s cars, much of our congestion on higher-speed, limited-access roadways would disappear.
Yeah, no shit. Right now car traffic problem are caused by cars driven by humans because those are the only ones that exists, but in a world with automated cars they will be caused by cars driven by computers. The current ones are MUCH MUCH more likely to cause congestion issues than human drivers are (programmed to drive on a track and just wait for cars in front, and easily stuck in dead-locks).
Edited 2014-12-23 20:50 UTC
Highway engineers model traffic flows using fluid dynamics (vehicles effectively behave like compressible fluids and roads act as pipes).
Totally agree. The self driving car is very cool technology. I understand the challenge is very interesting to engineers. However, it’s just anthropomorphism. It’s not practical. It reminds me of a story with paper pen in space. Totally over-engineer of a simple problem. The roads and cars are designed for humans. The signs are human readable, the roads are large enough so humans are safe from other lanes and from borders, and there are several lanes so faster drivers can pass slower ones. it’s all very expensive. Making robots fit in this is kind of stupid. If you want to replace cars with robots, put them on rails. Robots don’t need to pass each other, they don’t need big signs and they don’t need expensive roundabouts. I understand it’s cool to make robots that look like humans but that’s not going to shape our future (I hope). Rail is cheaper, safer and easier. Or if they really want to an interesting challenge they could design humanoids to drive cars with the wheel. Equally pointless but even more challenging.
Edited 2014-12-22 21:28 UTC
A good public transport infrastructure would be very nice, but there’s always going to be a need for cars on roads I’m afraid. Something as simple as ferrying anything big enough that you can’t actually carry in your own hands rules out most forms of public transport.
Also, timetables are often very limited outside weekdays in daylight – some public transport doesn’t even run on Sundays or late into the evening (or beyond midnight) at all! And, yes, public transport can turn up late or not at all…
Still beats non existent self driving cars.
Only in some magical future where
a) Public transport ALWAYS picks you up and drops you off precisely where you want to be.
b) Public transport ALWAYS takes the most efficient and quickest route.
c) Public transport is no more than 5% slower than not taking public transport.
d) Public transport is the same, or cheaper, than not public transport.
e) Public transport is always under-subscribed so that you can GUARANTEE me a seat, every time.
f) Public transport runs precisely when I want it to.
Then yes, in that hypothetical magic land, public transport will be able to totally replace cars.
In another hypothetical magic land we will have flying cars. In another hypothetical magic land we will have self driving cars. Problem with public transportation is funding. Your self driving cars will face the exact same problem.
Why would self driving cars face a funding problem? They’re currently funded by people who are developing them, and they’ll be funded by people who purchase them.
The cost of the car itself is not the only thing. You have to fund recharging parking slots, adapt the law, maintain the roads and adapt them for self driving cars. The cost of the car is nothing. The cost of the infrastructure to have it drive is huge. Public transportation is ALWAYS cheaper. Maintaining a rail is way cheaper than maintaining a road, ALWAYS as you put it. The problem is funding and politics. Nobody want to fund the rails because the road makes big oil and big car industry happy.
Edited 2014-12-23 11:45 UTC
You seem to have confused “electric” with “autonomous”. There is no requirement that autonomous cars be electric or that electric cars be autonomous.
Maybe it’s different where you live, but here our law makers already spend quite some time adapting law, and my taxes already maintain the roads.
Since when? The exact point of the Google autonomous car is that it can drive itself on a normal public road.
If we’re going to raise that argument though, I’d like to point out all the money spent to adapt roads with things like dedicated bus lanes, or the stupendous cost of embedding rails for trams.
Prove it. Show me the cost per. mile of rail v’s cost per. mile of public road. and that the cost of the rail is ALWAYS cheaper.
Ah, conspiracy theories. The last bastion of a failed argument. I bet the reverse vampires have something to do with this.
Electric is the cheapest option. What do you suggest?
Nowhere on earth are the law ready for autonomous cars, not in this decade. Maintaining the roads for autonomous cars is quite different than maintaining roads for human drivers.
Google cars can not drive when the weather is not sunny. They can drive on some roads when the signs are perfectly readable and the road is in perfect condition. If there is a cop making signs with its hands, the car doesn’t understand anything. Don’t kid yourself, the autonomous cars won’t run on less than perfect traffic conditions.
And that’s how you spend money wisely. Replacing roads with rails is the way forward. Then you can put autonomous vehicles on rails safely, cheaply and efficiently.
http://www.ptua.org.au/myths/capcost/
Road: $55m/km
Rail: $6m/km
That’s just the initial investment, it doesn’t even take into account the massive amount of money needed to maintain roads in a usable state in the long run.
The US government subsidies close to $3000 per car produced in the US. Every single car producing country has similar subsidies for their car industry. It’s millions of jobs, that’s why they do it. It’s not conspiracy, it’s a proven fact. The car industry is the single most subsidied industry in every single car producing country. What do you expect? It’s all political, of course. The industry if fed by government and it uses the money to make people spend money on cars, since it’s their only reason to exist. They fund a massive marketing industry aimed at making people love their car and spend a lot of money on SUV they don’t need. The people buy those cars and in turn vote for the government to fund the car industry more. There is no conspiracy, it’s just history and inertia.
Edited 2014-12-23 16:15 UTC
You just said it wasn’t the cheapest option. Make up your mind.
Yes they are. There are several places which already have laws in place which allow trials of self-driving cars. How do you think Google do it? Just hope nobody notices?
What does any of that have to do with the state of the road?
Those figures are from a pro-rail website, comparing a 6-lane highway to light rail, and plays hocus pocus with some imagined “capacity” figures. Oh and gives no primary sources. Cool.
Every rail vehicle producer also receives subsidies and preferential contracts from their local governments. That’s because those industries employ people and manufacturer things, and politicians don’t tend to get elected if people have lost their jobs and you have a trade deficit.
See, no New World Order RAND Corporation Brain Eating Aliens required.
Autonomous cars on road, autonomous, not electric. I said rail was cheaper, didn’t talk about electric. You said autonomous cars didn’t have to be electric. I said what then? Steam? That’s even more expensive. Electric is the cheapest option FOR AUTONOMOUS CARS.
Trial is the key word here.
The point is the road must be in perfect condition for autonomous cars and that’s not even enough. You have to add a way for cops to communicate with autonomous cars and you have to add markers autonomous cars can see when it’s raining.
Then just use your common sense. Try to figure for yourself what’s needed to make a road and what’s needed to make a rail and compare the cost.
Edited 2014-12-23 22:44 UTC
Why ALWAYS ?
There is no need to be exclusive, totally replacing cars.
Anyway, in many situations, with subways, tramways, trains, busses with dedicated lanes, public transportation can be faster than cars, particularly during peak traffic hours.
Because “We need to get rid of this system that everyone has their own car and wants to drive it just by him/herself.”
“We need to get rid of” is the same hyperbole.
There is nothing so difficult in computer programming, as compensating for the unpredictable nature of people. If you’ve ever written a piece of code, and not tested a particular input, or feature, because “no one would do that”, I guarantee 10 minutes after releasing the code, someone will do that.
The biggest problem with autonomous cars is that there are people who run red lights, who change lanes with no warning, who may lose consciousness while driving, who don’t understand 4-way stops or roundabouts or right-of-way. Even taking out the idiot factor, there are things like tire blowouts, or loss of control of the car.
When I drive, I assume every car is aiming for me, and is driven by a blind person (can you tell my other vehicle is a motorcycle?).
It’s very difficult to teach a computer to be that paranoid.
One is a matter of availability. If there were more demand (less cars), then you would get more direct routes. A lot of cities now are trialing smaller local bus networks to complement the larger city wide ones.
Second is a matter of people not being lazy fuckers too scared to walk or wait a bit.
When you see all those cars in traffic, do you think “they’re taking the most efficient and quickest route”? “Efficient” and “quick” is not just to do with road layout.
Trains are pretty damn fast. And, at least in my city, buses have dedicated lanes. But if the number of cars were reduced, buses would not be too much slower.
That will happen with less cars and more availability with rising demand. Unless you count bikes and walking in the set of “not public transport”, then no, buses will never be cheaper. But then, people could do with more bike riding.
Stand, you lazy fucker.
Because with cars, traffic jams disappear when you want it to.
We must be living in some magical future where cars perfectly do all these things.
They may not be, but I’m turning off to take a back route that I know. Which of course, is precisely the thing public transport can’t do.
No. I can sit in my car. Why should I give up comfort just to make you feel better?
They still do it a hell of a lot better than public transport ever will.
If that was the case, then why do traffic jams even exist? Here’s a hint: there has to be cars for which they couldn’t take a back route for the jam to exist.
Also, with more cars on the road and smartphone apps telling people alternate routes, alternate routes are ALSO getting clogged. And people in residential areas do not appreciate that the traffic jam has moved to the front of their residence.
Because you are also ask people to give up their comfort just to make you feel better. Case in point, the example I gave above. You would rather people get traffic jams right on their own street just so you don’t have to stand for half an hour on a bus.
They still do it a hell of a lot better than public transport ever will. [/q]
So? Your disapproval of public transport was based on a standard of perfection that is not achievable.
Do you know what we call it when you have one standard for one thing and another standard for your personal preferences?
Your entire argument appears to hinge on inventing imaginary people who are undergoing hardship as a strawman for you to knock down by trying to colour me as a bastard who just doesn’t care about those poor imaginary people you’ve invented.
I’ve imagined that they’re not stuck in traffic and all arrived at their destinations safely, comfortably and on time, so you can stop concerning yourself with them now.
No. Since you didn’t get the hint, let me make it doubly clear.
My argument is that your criteria is a double standard. If public transport can’t meet your perfect criteria, that magically allows you to hold, shall we say, private transport, to a much lower standard and claim it’s better.
It amazes me that I continue to encounter people with technical backgrounds who continue to fail to understand the importance of comparing like with like.
Nope, I’m holding it to the exact same standard. Do cars get stuck in traffic jams? Yes. So do buses and trams. So that entire argument is a wash.
All you’re doing is applying your own personal biases to the argument; you like public transport, therefore it is The Answer, therefore anyone who doesn’t share your view must be Wrong. If they argue with you, their argument must be Wrong.
It should, but doesn’t, amaze me that not a single person here in this entire thread has even asked the most obvious and simple question: “Do you use public transport?”
Yes I do, by the way. Hence how I know it’s not comparable.
Demonstrably not true.
When you say things like “until buses can take you exactly where you want”, while completely discounting the fact that the problem with finding parking affects cars in similar ways, you are definitely not using the same standard.
The pattern of your criteria is this: “if public transport doesn’t do X perfectly, then cars is better for imperfect X”.
A car can take me exactly where I want. Where’s the double standard?
Ah, I see. You’re just applying your own experiences and local problems to everyone else.
It’s very simple: “My car can do X. Public transport has to at least do X before I can consider it to be equal”. I know it pains you deeply that public transport isn’t a fits-all solution, but you’ll have to learn to get over that.
This is not even a counter argument. “My experiences” are not mine alone, nor are they local. They apply to millions of drivers. It’s perfectly reasonable to use a general experience.
Or do you really mean to argue that public transport as a whole is not viable based on YOUR own experiences and local “successes”? Is this a double standard I see before me?
No it isn’t! There’s an equal number of drivers to whom it very much doesn’t apply, which is exactly the thing which is pissing me off: you refuse to accept that your experiences and concepts are not universal.
The vast majority of the world populations do not live in cities. Even in the western countries, there are millions upon millions of people who live in rural areas where public transport is a total non-starter, and “congestion” is when Farmer Giles is driving his sheep down the lane. For these people, a car is not just the sensible option, it is the only option.
So when I see someone whining and bleating about how “we need to get rid of cars” I know they’re clueless and almost certainly live in a densely populated city.
Gosh darn you’ve got me. I hate public transport and never use it. Anyone who uses public transport is a pleb who deserves nothing but my scorn.
Oh wait, that’s not true at all is it? I do use public transport! But because you’re too busy waving your arms in the air you’ve never bothered to stop and actually ask, so you’ve just assumed instead. You know what happens when you assume.
You know what pisses me off? People pulling numbers out of their arse. No, the numbers are not “equal”, because the majority of driving happens getting in and out of cities.
Yes, and it’s PERFECTLY REASONABLE to assume that the situation will stay EXACTLY THE SAME… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization
Because when we are discussing THE FUTURE, we should ALWAYS use the situations as it is RIGHT NOW and NEVER the PROJECTIONS of population statistics. Because EVERYTHING ALWAYS STAY THE SAME.
Where did I say “we need to get rid of cars”?
My arguments don’t depend on whether you take public transport or not, you idiot. My argument applies to global situation.
Why do I care? There are still a significant number of people who do not drive in and out of cities regularly. Millions of them. They count too.
Wait. Are you claiming that the countryside will descend into an uninhabited desert wilderness? Or will it be farmed by robots?
Right at the start of this thread, fkooman said “We need to get rid of this system that everyone has their own car and wants to drive it just by him/herself.”. I don’t care if you said it; that was the argument I responded too, and that was the argument you waded into. Either you’re supporting that view or you’re clueless about what you’re arguing about. Choose one.
No it doesn’t. Your argument applies to “Well I live in a city and I guess it’s like this everywhere.” and you refuse to admit it.
And, like I said, we’re not talking about NOW. So the keyword in “still a significant number” is “still”.
Automated farming is coming, just like automated cars are. But in the end, it doesn’t matter how it happens. All it matters is it IS happening. Why are you skeptical of empirical fact? People are leaving the countryside and some even do just abandon their land to live in cities.
Do you have trouble reading the original quote? Even the ORIGINAL quote isn’t talking about getting rid of cars. It’s talking about getting rid of the system (by which it seems he means social attitude) that EVERYONE has their own car.
That does NOT mean get rid of cars. That means not EVERYONE should expect/aim to own a car. That sentence has a completely different meaning that any primary school student would would be able to parse, you idiot.
He ALSO mentions the “by him/herself” part. So not only is he talking about EVERYONE wanting to own a car, but EVERYONE in a 4+ seat car ON THEIR OWN on the road.
Learn to read.
[/q]
Yes it does. You’re too stuck in your little world to see it.
Edited 2014-12-25 13:16 UTC
The irony, perhaps, could be that these new automated cars will appeal the most to big-city urbanites who can finally have an affordable and convenient alternative to public transportation. Can’t afford the taxes, fees, and parking for owning a nice automobile in the city? And hate the stench, crime, grime, and lack of privacy and personal space on crowded buses and trains? These Google cars used as automated taxis will be an attractive option, luring people away from public transport.
Suburban and rural motorists will find electric mini-cars hugely impracticable and so will still prefer their personal vehicles. Eventually though the technology could work itself into all categories of vehicles from personal pickup trucks, SUVs, and sports cars.
To be honest; I want fast and reliable Internet, employers that let you work from home, video chat that supports “virtual rooms”, good online shopping web sites and reliable parcel pickup and delivery.
Once I’ve got all that, the only reason I’d have to leave the house is sex (where 2 or more people need to be at the same location and you can’t just do it remotely); and I’d be fine with using public transport for that case (it’s not like it happens often enough to justify the expense of a personal vehicle).
– Brendan
…will you still need to pass a driving test? Will the authorities insist there is some way for a human to take over driving control of the vehicle (hence the need for a test/licence)?
25 mph max, 100 mile range and not handling snow or rain really limits things to city centres in the sunshine and not much else. Until those issues are overcome, I can’t see much of a takeup myself.
…and really, if you limit these to city centres, we should just go back to trolleys.
The speed limit here is 75mph. Gas stations can be 100 miles apart (I once rode a motorcycle 187 miles between stations). And we frequently have bad winter weather.
I’d be curious what a Google car would do out in the middle of a snowstorm 50 miles form the nearest town. Would it keep driving? Or turn itself off until the snow melted, leaving the motorist to freeze to death?
Maybe show ads for Bermuda vacation destinations?
Edited 2014-12-23 20:03 UTC
I won’t trust a fully-automated self-driving car. The road is too unpredictable. I would only trust a train or something similar.
The self driving car will be looked back upon as the greatest invention of 21st century. Mechanization not only of transportation but of all menial aspects of our lives will continue throughout the century. By the beginning of the 22nd century all farms will be automated, all restaurants, all bakeries, all shopping, everything. The only remaining work will lie in the Arts (in the classical sense), either in science of advancing our understanding and capabilities or the creativity of expanding our horizons and, not to be left out, entertainment.
Edited 2014-12-22 22:06 UTC
It’s idiotic to call those questions superficial. Automated cars only takes off if people buy into it and those questions represent what the average Joe (and driving majority) wants to know. It’s wonderful that automated cars will help the disabled and elderly. But, most people out driving around aren’t either of those.
It doesn’t matter how much of a cars lifetime is spent parked. In no way will automated cars “eradicate the need for parking lots or garages or gas stations”. I’ve never heard a single person say they don’t think a computer could be better at merging than a human. In fact, I’ve only heard the opposite from people.
The article fails to acknowledge probably the single most important piece of the automated car puzzle. People want to own cars and they want to drive. Driving is not simply a method of transport, it’s much more than that to many people.
There’s no question automation could lead to far greater efficiency & safety in many aspects. But who’s actually fighting for that? Insurance companies? The oil industry? The auto industry? Nope. On the contrary they tend to fight against regulations or advancements that would have negative impact on their sales or bottom line.
At the end of the day automated cars may be worth it for the greater good. So do I buy into comments like, “Self-driving cars will be the biggest technological breakthrough since the advent of the computer”? Hell no. Comments like that are either grossly overestimating the value people place on automated cars and their desire to own/use one, or grossly oblivious to all the other technological breakthroughs, `since the advent of the computer`, that are shifting the course of humanity.
Much of todays transportation is already automated whether it’s planes, trains, trams, ferries, ocean vessels, spaceships, etc. Automating your car or public busses will not revolutionize transportation. But, it will get you where you want to go more safely and hopefully a little faster.
Edited 2014-12-22 23:21 UTC
These Google cars, especially, since they’re electric, will need to park for hours at a time for charging. Drive for two hours, park for four (or whatever). Taxis are parked less.
They get rid of parking lots because the only reason they NEED a parking lot now is that the people (including the driver) are no longer in the car. With an automatic car, when you get out of the car at work, your car goes home where the wifey can then use it to go shopping, take the kiddies to school, run over the neighbors yapping dog (there’s an app for that!), and eventually come back to your work and pick you up. No more parking lots, and it recharges at home, so no more gas stations. The automatic car is the suburban dream. That’s where it will start. It won’t spread everywhere, but in a couple decades, they’ll dominate the urban and especially suburban environments.
If the Google car drove someone to work then drove itself back home, no one could use it because the battery would be dead. It would need to charge for several hours before driving back to pick the person up at work and bring them home again.
So two round trips instead of one, twice as many cars on the road, and twice the wear-and-tear. Makes more sense to have the car parked for the day and charging where the person works.
And even though legislation may allow these self-driving cars to operate on public streets, that’s a huge leap from allowing these cars to drive themselves unmanned from one location to the next. I can’t imagine that ever being permitted.
Edited 2014-12-23 19:56 UTC
You live more than 50 miles from work? In your case, you probably need a regular car. But most (sub)urbanites are far closer to work than that, so it is not a problem. And you totally ignored how the car left so that the rest of the family can use it. Instead of having two or three cars, this makes having only one feasible for many folks. My scenario assumed a urban or suburban life where the family drives less than 100 miles in the whole DAY, not someone living 100 miles from work.
I’d love to see some dream-like place where no two members of a family never have to go different places at the same time. Mom driving to work, dad driving to different work, kids going places… it all happens at the exact same time of the day. LOL.
So a family with three adults will still need two or three vehicles. Whether they’re Google cars that have to sit for hours and charge after each short trip or whether they’re the current style of cars that refuel in two minutes…
Kids are commonly in school before work starts… or the other way around depending on the school and your work shift. I’ve rarely met anyone who HAS to be at work at the same time the kids have to go to school. Or the other way around after school. Most school districts try to schedule schools to avoid hassles with the largest shift changes because parents WILL complain if they require the kids to go at the same time they will be headed to or already at work, because then the kids are left by themselves. I’ve seen this all over the US, and where I currently live, schools start at 6:45 to make sure kids are in school before the parents have to go to work.
Parking lots don’t become obsolete for one simple reason – people want access to their vehicle when their ready to get in and go. Be it for lunch, deciding to leave work early, an emergency, or any other of a billion reasons, a car that drops you off and returns at some point in the future could easily be a tremendous inconvenience to a person who wants or needs their independence. Count me out.
Where most suburbanites live and work, your car can come from home and be ready within 10 to 20 minutes. If you have an “emergency” that requires less time than that, you should be calling 911, not heading for the car.
Again, what I described was NOT a situation where you live an hour from work/school/whatever. It’s the far more common situation where you live 10 to 20 minutes from work/school/whatever. I live in a city of over 50,000 (permanent residents, over 250,000 transient), and NO ONE is more than 20 minutes from home/work/school/whatever, with most of the folks being 5 to 10 minutes at most.
None of that is a compelling response to my previous post. If anything my position is strengthened by it. I want the freedom to come & go as I please. I don’t want to spend any time waiting around for my car to show up, hoping that it doesn’t run into traffic or any other delays on its way. I don’t want to pay the extra expense of having my car drop me off and come back later to pick me up. An autonomous car for me is a terrible idea. I simply don’t want one. I only speak for myself but rest assured there are millions of people who would agree.
I don’t see widespread interest in autonomous cars. There are niche markets for such cars but the general public & vast majority isn’t asking for them that I’ve seen or heard of.
Btw, not all emergencies justify a call to 911. For example, if your kid gets hurt at school you shouldn’t expect to call 911 for a ride to the school/hospital. You’re not going to want to call a taxi and wait around for it to show up any more than you’d want to call you car from home and wait that `10 to 20 minutes` for that to show up either.
Also, of the 3 people in my house, we go 3 different directions in the morning. I’m not interested in paying for an autonomous car to be running around all over the place.
As an mechanic (automotive service technician today) the only downside of this technology is the vast array of sensors and systems that have to operate in unison without failure. A breakdown of a single Lidar or Radar proximity sensor could render the car useless unless there are redundancies for almost every essential component.
I’m not saying this is hard to do, I’m just saying the cost of this equipment and the servicing is going to be large. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of cost on a lot of these extras that Google is adding onto the vehicles.
Right now a lot of modern cars have Electrontic Power Steering and are almost all Drive by Wire throttle systems, so you can steer and accelerate without driver input, but most vehicles don’t have a 100% built in system for stopping, while some do it’s expensive to have a system that can apply complete braking force down to a stop. That’s why most adaptive cruise systems just have a following distance and can brake a vehicle down to a certain speed, they have a pressurized chamber in the ABS module that is solenoid activated to apply pressure (like is used in most traction control).
Long story short, I’m not against these systems. It’s already almost all there anyways on a lot of vehicles minus the extra proximity sensors and extra modules to make it autonomous. Some Luxury cars will find a parking spot for you or drop you off in front of the office or mall and find your parking spot or a free one. They’ll even come find you with a push of a button.
From my point of view, a self driving car would be like a dream coming true (I often need to get from point A to point B when public transportation is not good enough) but don’t expect it to be a viable option *for me* during my life time, so I don’t care much about it.
Skynet Marshmallow Bumper Bots… I like that!
I look forward to this and think it will be an amazing revolutionary advance. Not on par with computers or the internet but still.
“They can’t drive in the snow or heavy rain, and there’s a variety of complex situations they do not process well, such as passing through a construction zone”
Add heavy fog and sandstorm to that list and the cars become useless for too suddenly in many many countries. Still, those are just problems. And problems can be solved.
Radar will allow the cars to see perfectly fine in heavy fog, no different from ships and planes.
Planes and boats are not on a road, let alone in traffic jams. Radars won’t help cars see human readable signs and not confuse them. And it won’t make the car read written warnings either.
Radar will easily see objects through heavy fog. And for signs, warnings, etc., all of that can be broadcast or done via beacon – more technology already in widespread use today.
If an airplane can taxi out to a runway, take off, return, land and then taxi back to the terminal, and do all this is extreme weather conditions, I think we’re capable of making a car that can manage to make it down the highway without crashing.
But if you have to adapt the road for autonomous cars, you might as well put rails in there and make it an autonomous train. Autonomous cars are pointless if they can’t run on vanilla roads, therefore they are pointless.
Adding things like beacons and transmitters to roads so autonomous cars can navigate more safely is hardly asking much. To say you may as well just lay down rail instead for a train is plain silly. That would be far more expensive and far more limiting.
To expect no enhancements to the roads at all for autonomous cars is unrealistic. The need for safeguards doesn’t make autonomous cars pointless. There are plenty of advantages to autonomous cars. No, they’re not for everyone, but then again they don’t need to be.
When autonomous cars do become a part of daily life, I hope they’re made to detect a person who is driving drunk or texting-while-driving. Then they car automatically pull over and turn off, keeping the rest of us safe from their idiocy.
What is the advantage then? Rail is cheaper, safer and more efficient. I don’t understand what could be the advantage of autonomous cars. In many cities cars have been banned already. They are replaced with public transports like subway, trams and trains. The trend is not in favor of cars, and when autonomous cars are ready they may well be obsolete.
Trains have a static destination. Cars do not. Trains operate on scheduled stops. Cars do not. A car can take me from my house to nearly anywhere I want to go, direct, non-stop, and when I decide I’m ready to leave. A train can not. If train tracks are damaged, in most cases all travel is halted. If a road is damaged, you simply, and usually easily, reroute around it.
Rail being safer? That’s not impossible. Cheaper? You can debate that without any effort. And more efficient? Not for the average Joe. I notice you didn’t even try to claim trains are a convenience. Good call.
I have just about zero interest in autonomous cars but I’m not foolish enough to suggest they’re already obsolete. And by subways, trams, and trains no less. Sorry but I’m definitely not buying what you’re selling.
In my city a car will drive you to a parking lot about 20 km away from city center. The subway will drive you anywhere you want to go inside the city. They are already autonomous. The city center is a lot better since they banned cars about 3 years ago. In big urban areas cars have become useless since at least 10 years. One can walk faster than cars there. Many young people don’t get a license to drive because they don’t have any need for it. Cars were convenient 20 years ago but they became a hassle when everybody got one. They might become convenient again as people stop using them but can we still afford to maintain roads for the few that still drive them? And adapt them for autonomous cars on top of that?
Edited 2014-12-24 23:09 UTC
What you’re describing is small towns and old European cities with roads & layouts that are ridiculous for cars. Yes, places like that exist. But, European countries are small and so are distances. Here in America you’ll find just about the opposite. Big highways, massive cities, and etc etc etc. Not to mention most places here have less-than-stellar public transportation. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, and certainly not for little towns and enormous metropolitan areas.
Anyone who gets the slightest bit injured by using or being hit by one of these things then the maker will be sued out of existance in a flash.
Remember that Cars once had to have someone walking in front of them with a Red flag.
The phalanxes of lawyers (esp in the USA) are smiling gleefully and ordering plenty of supplies of yellow pads and pencils. These cases will take years during which all those expensive cars will be sitting idle and the operators will be going bust.
IMHO, in the US it might even take something akin to a constitutional ammendment to let them be legal.
I would be betting that these will be commonplace within the next 10 years.
In my mind, fully autonomous cars will need to have the processing power of the human brain and perhaps take on some artifical intelligence to be able to account for all the unexpected things on the road, such as snow, black ice, dense fog, construction zones with flaggers directing traffic, and maneuvering around accidents when cops give hand signals to direct traffic.
Perhaps these can be solved with time but then you have cost to factor then politics when taxi and trucking industries takes notice. Regulations will need to be in place to protect workers from having nearly all their jobs replaced by robots and self-driving cars. By the time a fully autonomous car is feasble, there will be advanced enough robots to take on many other roles: perhaps teaching classes, customer service, fully automated assembly lines (which actually already exist in some sense), fully robotic staffed fast food restaurants, etc.
Edited 2014-12-23 17:01 UTC
The interesting thing about the article, is it really brings to mind – or at least for me, the idea that we aren’t free today.
We are used to the way things are, it may feel free, but it is really restrictive, the current situation with transportation – truly not living up to the potential of ‘freedom’
A woman can be attacked by a Taxi driver, or an uber driver – but in a self driving car, there is no human driver, and so, no attack…that is more freedom, not less.
Safety in general – this car is being engineered, at least the potential is less people die, or suffer less serious injury, like being paralyzed – because its safer. Nothing removes your freedom like being killed or paralyzed – this car represents more freedom, not less.
Cars aren’t used 95% of the time – what a waste, and you pay for that waste with your salary. Having to work to pay for waste, isn’t freedom – don’t get me wrong, nothing wrong with work, love working – but what I am saying is, if you literally have to work all the time, to pay for waste, that doesn’t feel like freedom the way, working because you love it, and have a passion for your work – rather than a need to pay bills feels. Anytime you get the cost down and become more efficient, that lends itself to more freedom – not less.
The freedom to travel, is a real freedom. I think people are unnecessarily worried about the self driving car. Nobody is making you buy one, calm down.
Edited 2014-12-23 18:42 UTC
Automated cars provide more freedom for people who aren’t capable of driving themselves. And people who would rather be texting than watching the road. And people who have no business driving because horrible at it.
However… For people who enjoy driving, who prefer to be in control, and who want to just get in and go where ever the wind takes them, automated cars are very restrictive. The last thing cars are to those people is a waste.
There are pros & cons for and against automated cars. There’s room for them in society but as an alternative, not a replacement.
You’re in a Johnny Cab!
“Citizen… it has been determined that you are in violation of section 129764.45496-B. Your car will now drive you to the nearest police station for processing. Resistance is futile.”
No, thanks. The new remote kill switches were already one step too far on the road to easy, tech-supported tyranny.