
Google’s Self-Driving Cars Are Going to Change Everything - robdoherty2
http://vancouverdata.blogspot.com/2012/08/googles-self-driving-cars-are-going-to.html
======
salman89
Author is missing a few important points that are highly relavent:

1) No insurance implies no liability. When people "buy" these mostly
autonomous vehicles, who is assuming liability? Google?

2) "Death of car companies" - is Google going to start making cars? Are they
going to compete against years of engineering? Just because they are building
the brain doesn't mean they will be building the entire body.

3) The auto industry is heavily regulated, and moves very slow. 5-10 years is
a very optimistic estimate.

4) Cars are moving mechanical parts. They require maintenance and repair. How
often do you go to the car shop because of an accident? How often do you go
for general repairs?

5) Sure, parking revenue might go down for the city. Traffic at those same
spots where people did not go because it was hard to find parking will go up.
How often have you considered going somewhere else because of parking?

6) Not sure what percentage of the legal system is bogged down by "driving"
related crimes. Same for health industry, vehicle related health service.

The author is making the mistake of equating Google moving into this space as
Google being able to do all. Google will not be able to manufacture cars for
the near future. They will not be able to eliminate liability. They will also
have to change driving culture and habits. Having discussed this with friends,
a fair number of people just want their own car that they drive.

~~~
Fizzer
_Having discussed this with friends, a fair number of people just want their
own car that they drive._

I've encountered the same reaction, and I believe it is widespread. But here's
the thing: even the people who insist on owning and driving their own cars,
and refuse to let it drive them, can still benefit greatly from owning a self-
driving car.

Imagine never having to park - you just get out of your car in front of your
destination and it goes and finds a parking spot.

Imagine never having to get someone to drop you off at the airport. Your car
can just go home afterwards.

Imagine getting your oil changed or other maintenance. The car can do this on
its own when you don't need it.

I believe that we'll see a lot of marketing geared towards the people who
would never let a car drive them around. This will be a great stepping-stone
to help convince these people that it's safe. They'll get it for the
convenience, but then eventually one day they'll use it when they're drunk or
tired. Eventually, they'll learn to trust it.

~~~
joering2
Well, not everyone will see it this way. My example:

> Imagine never having to park

I like knowing where I parked. Further, we have something called valley
parking, in most places that I would want to get off for a while.

But besides, in crowded cities, how do you actually imagine that? Most car
owners in the NYC take subway to go downtown, because it would either take 2
hours to find a parking spot, or it would be very far from initial
destination. With AC, I can imagine people just getting off at their
destination (right in front of the door) and won't give a damn what their car
will do in the meanwhile until they are back in 45 minute. So you will have
jam packed streets with empty cars driving around waiting for their masters to
come back -- total horror on the streets! Otherwise - what? Have the car to
drive back home empty and come back in 45 minutes?? That putting even more
traffic on the street and more pollution.

> Imagine never having to get someone to drop you off at the airport. Your car
> can just go home afterwards. Sure, or I can take a cab which will be the
> same result - I will get to the airport after all. The only difference, I
> can have one or two to relax at home with wife, before the flight.

> Imagine getting your oil changed or other maintenance. The car can do this
> on its own when you don't need it.

Yes, so I am even more disconnected from the real world. Instead of making a
Saturday trip to change an oil and chat with mechanics about good old days,
about whether, girls, beer, or whatever it is, I am sure better staying home
to chat on Facebook, while my car gets oil change on its own...

> I believe that we'll see a lot of marketing geared towards the people who
> would never let a car drive them around.

Probably not. I would guess all makers will jump ship quickly. There will be
money to spend on advertising new technology, not the old one.

> This will be a great stepping-stone to help convince these people that it's
> safe.

If its going to be safe, noone will need to be convinced. I am sure, even
reading this thread, you will find enough initial adopters for them to pass
the word to the masses how safe AC really are.

~~~
rhino42
_I like knowing where I parked. Further, we have something called valley
parking, in most places that I would want to get off for a while._

You wouldn't need to know where you parked: a quick text message retrieves
your car.

 _I will get to the airport after all. The only difference, I can have one or
two to relax at home with wife, before the flight._ The end result for the
self-driving car is identical to the cab case, you can still have your drinks
because you will not be driving the car. However, removing the cabbie from the
equation will cut costs dramatically.

~~~
joering2
Again -- where all those cars will be parked, knowing before I would either
take a cab, or take a public transportation?

Will we get millions of parkings underground built the same time AC hit the
streets? Dont think so.

Further, you saying that removing cabbie will cut the cost. Hmm.. my take is
that it is the city that makes the most money out of cabbies. I can bet my
left arm (Im lefty) that if the city will realize they losing large chunk of
money due to AC driving everywhere, I am sure they will smack you with such an
AC ride tax that taxis will become again a reasonable alternative!

------
DividesByZero
The changes the author proposes will not occur for the vast majority of the
population of the earth - not in China, or in India, or anywhere in Africa and
not in many places in south east Asia or south/central America. He has the
first world, US-centric view of most futurists. In places where people don't
have reliable access to electricity, or even safe drinking water, absolutely
no one would be interested in self-driving cars.

He also raises a disturbing point, but masks it as an advantage - "People said
it would take years to get these things on the road. It took Google a few
months of lobbying Nevada for it to happen. The US states and cities are
broke, and Google has $43 billion in cash." In other words, he implies that
this will happen quickly because corporations are able to strongarm broke
government institutions into policies favouring them, a trend that is
dangerous for the average citizen.

He also misses that self-driving cars becoming a norm leads to more car-
centered infrastructure over public transportation, leading to a continuation
of the vicious circle of over-reliance on cars.

~~~
achal
> self-driving cars becoming a norm leads to more car-centered infrastructure
> over public transportation

Out of curiosity, why would this be? I can see that commuters who despise
driving may switch to cars from public transport, but at least from personal
experience, I don't see this as a major reason for people using public
transport in the first place.

Is there another reason I'm missing? I'd imagine it would be more likely that
self driving vehicles end up improving public transport (both in quality of
service and popular usage).

~~~
DividesByZero
I think there would be a feedback loop in place where self-driving cars demand
better infrastructure to support them, and as this infrastructure improves,
self-driving cars become more convenient to use, leading more people to want
to use them, leading to more such infrastructure. Since this infrastructure
gets funded, it's not much of a stretch to think that most transport money
would go there.

Some of the technology might make public transport more efficient (self
driving buses seem like a good idea), but cars would probably dominate.

------
illumin8
It will eventually happen, but in order to do so, you first need a catalyst -
a major metropolitan area such as Manhattan that converts to 100% robocars
within a geographic area. The problem is that if you mix human and robocar
drivers, any car company making a robocar is going to get sued into oblivion
when they collide with a human driver, regardless of who is at fault. And,
there are definitely ways that humans can cause robocars to have unavoidable
accidents (swerving across the double yellow line at the last split second,
etc).

I think that's a really good solution, honestly. Just deploy 100,000 robotaxis
the size of smart cars in Midtown and ban all other vehicles.

On a side note, NYC pedestrians are already pretty aggressive at jaywalking
and the fact that robocars stop on a dime when they sense a pedestrian in
their way will create all kinds of new ways for pedestrians to harass
robotaxis.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Doesn't even have to be a major metro area. Start small. Someplace without
snow (Google cars still have problems with snow). Puerto Rico. The Bahamas.
Hawaii. These are all small places where you can shake out the major issues
before expanding.

Also, other places to start would be Nevada (as Google is doing), Texas, and
other large states where there is a benefit to having something automated do
the driving for 3-6 hours across large stretches of highway.

You're never going to have a major metro just ban human-driven cars overnight;
you win by attrition, small bites very quickly.

~~~
callmeed
I don't think tourist-heavy locations like Hawaii and the Bahamas would be
good. Lots rental car business and airport traffic relative to the size.

~~~
toomuchtodo
You'd be replacing those rental cars with your self-driving cars.

------
badragon
The laser guidance system costs $70K by itself.
[http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/consumer&i...](http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/consumer&id=8703278)

It makes sense on long haul trucking but it is going to have to get a LOT
cheaper before it goes on passenger cars. 10+ yrs is my guess before you see
it on luxury cars. Same as Tesla.

People who can afford a driver will replace them with Google Bots who won't
sell their story to People.

------
ForrestN
I think this is missing one major thing: private car ownership will
drastically decrease. It will be a luxury to own a car, almost everyone will
be driven in available commodity cars. I personally hope this becomes public
transit: available public cars just like some cities have available public
bikes. Request it via your handheld (a la Uber), take it anywhere, hop out and
it will either remain where it is or head to where it's needed. But it could
just as easily by all private robotaxis.

Human drivers will be regulated and confined to certain areas. No amount of
"but I like the feeling of driving!" can justify unnecessary death and
destruction for too long, and anyway people will grow up not driving. It's
more or less like paper books.

Eventually the infrastructure and car design will change, too. Our system is
built for human drivers and cars. Obviously we won't abandon existing roads,
at least not for a long time, but a lot can be changed cheaply that will have
major effects once robocars are ubiquitous.

------
zoidb
Without car accidents i bet the supply of organs will decrease dramatically, I
wonder (in theory) if it might be enough to push them to sell on the free
market.

Another thing it will due is drastically reduce the need for state police, I
assume the majority of their work is traffic and traffic accident related.

~~~
philwelch
The problem with organs is that for most of them, you need freshly-killed
young people. Old people's organs are usually no good, as are the organs of
those who die of natural causes (if their organs were any good they wouldn't
have died), but healthy young people on motorcycles provide top-notch organs,
assuming they weren't damaged in the accident itself.

~~~
coopdog
Luckily it's harder to automate motorcycle driving : D

Plus there's less incentive because they usually only injure themself unless
something goes terribly wrong. <darkhumour>

~~~
zoidb
YEah true, though I wonder in the new world of self-driving cars whether some
incentives for motorcyle driving will go away.. that and I imagine a decent
tranche of motorcyle accidents are caused by cars.

------
the_cat_kittles
I have hoped/dreamed of this for 10 years. It will happen.

Another thing thats nice is we will be able to route efficiently. Tim
Roughgarden came up with the "price of anarchy" of when we route selfishly
(one of the most interesting papers I have ever read) check it out here:
<http://theory.stanford.edu/~tim/papers/optima.pdf>

Braess's paradox: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox>

just incredible!

------
joshsegall
I understand the googly eyed take on "the way of the future" of cars, but
self-driving cars are going to be too impractical to become ubiquitous for
much longer than 5-10.

Maybe this all works great in metro areas with mild weather, but it's not
going to work well in severe weather, poorly/wrongly marked roads, "offroad"
areas, and construction zones, which is still a lot of the country at this
point (and most of 3rd world). I've driven in some backwards places where
there are no maps or GPS, and I've driven in near-whiteout conditions, and I'm
sorry but no robotic system today can deal with all those variables.

It's also not going to handle human trade-offs well--e.g. sometimes it's
better to crash your out-of-control car than to ram into a schoolbus full of
kindergarteners.

You can argue these are all low probability situations or that eventually AI
will solve them all and you're probably right, but I'd argue these situations
are going to prevent full adoption for much longer than 5-10 years. It's going
to take near-human intelligence to overcome all of them. Until then, humans
will still drive cars, and probably a lot more often that you can imagine,
even if everyone wanted the utopian vision to be true.

------
bengl3rt
Sorry but I will always want to drive myself. I have a great car that I love
and because of the way the world has changed since it was made (20 years or
so) I don't think they'll ever make anything quite like this again. I intend
to keep it forever.

Plus driving is way too fun. Driving != commuting... go find yourself a nice
deserted mountain road, roll down the windows, and feel the breeze.

~~~
kkowalczyk
He addressed this point: you'll be able to drive yourself but it'll cost you
much more than giving the control to the car (due to cost of the insurance)
and much more than today (insurance spreads risks and in order to work, needs
a lot of buyers, in this case drivers; if most people switch from current
"person driver", expensive insurance to much cheaper "auto-driver" insurance,
the "person driver" insurance will become more expensive because there will be
no benefits of scale).

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you will do, but what majority of people
will do and his article is about those big-picture changes. Cars replaced
horses as mode of transportation, with many consequences to society. Very rich
people can still ride horses as a hobby, but that doesn't nullify the
magnitude of changes brought by replacing horses by cars.

~~~
shardling
In the long run, hopefully person driver insurance won't be _too_ much more
expensive, simply because they'll be less accidents.

------
hrktb
Cars won't change 'Everything', self driving or not.

Thinking and building the infrastructures to handle smoothly different types
of transportations for different purposes, managing the energy consumption and
pollution problems, making efficient public transportation work in high
population density areas, have smarter roads in the more rural areas and keep
in mind communities' safety and well being while designing it all.

All these are large problem that cost a lot, require cooperation from big
players from everywhere, and need to be done gradually and consistently over
decades.

There was a very very interesting talk by Horace Dediu on this topic on his
podcast [0]

Solving the low level infra problem changes everything, having self driving
cars is the icing on the cake at best.

[0] <http://5by5.tv/criticalpath/40>

------
veb
How will this technology work in say, New Zealand? There's a lot of backroads,
gravel roads and roads that don't appear in Google Maps.

I guess it would be interesting to see a Google Car, flying around on some
back gravel road in New Zealand at 100km/hr without crashing. :) (Google rally
driving anyone?)

~~~
plywoodtrees
They can recognise road edges visually. Best-guess routing to off-map
destinations. Cars can feed back trip data to improve the map database.

------
joering2
To me, there are still so many questions left unanswered...

First and foremost, the majority that believes AC will resolve heavy traffic
in the cities is wrong. At the end, its about people, not cars. Think how you
behave nowadays in the city crowded with cars -- you are perfectly aware not
to f*ck with the driver, because if you step in his way you may get killed. We
are humans, we make mistakes. Now, I would imagine those super cars must see
everything around -- otherwise noone in the GOV in their sound mind would have
approved AC to drive around humans. Therefore, I can imagine hoards of people
taking advantage of this and just simply walking in front of a riding AC just
because they know its not a human steering the wheel and that the car has no
other choice than stop in front of the pedestrian, regardless if he stepped in
and force the right of way or not. Heck, most likely the car will not even
hunk or course at the pedestrian. Awesome! In the crowded cities, people will
establish this behavior: before walking into the street, check the car - oh
its AC, fine I am stepping in, no worries! And whos gonna enforce those
violators? 100 more cameras at each corner??

Second, I still have no idea how on Earth would AC riding on a highway know
that it is a black cat, not a black bag laying on the street. We humans see
the difference faster than a blink of an eye. Are you telling me that Google
invented perfect image recognition system that will be always right? What if
someone paints a black cat on a bag that flies low on the highway?? -- will
the car stop or not? I can see the news: google AC ran over Missis Jennings's
cat -- noone is liable; noone will be responsible.

The bottom line: sooner or later AC will make a mistake. Hope it won't be in
front of you.

Last, who is liable when the system makes a mistake? When you crash into other
vehicle and there are victims. Are you liable? Can you go to jail? Will google
go to jail? or car manufacturer? Are you telling me there are NO chances
whatsoever that this will happen again?? [1] [2]

[1] [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35589163/ns/business-
autos/t/toy...](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35589163/ns/business-
autos/t/toyota-revelations-may-free-man-jailed-crash/#.UCsX6LRfElQ) [2]
[http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-02-22/news/27057005_1_s...](http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-02-22/news/27057005_1_sudden-
acceleration-floor-mats-camry-owner)

edit: not to mention all the suiciders -- now its not only trains, but I can
throw myself under riding AC.

~~~
qxcv
> 100 more cameras at each corner??

There are cameras on the autonomous cars, I'm sure they'd do the trick just
fine.

> Second, I still have no idea how on Earth would AC riding on a highway know
> that it is a black cat, not a black bag laying on the street.

LIDAR. A black bag laying on the street is virtually invisible to it.

> The bottom line: sooner or later AC will make a mistake.

True, but they'll have to make a lot of mistakes to be worse than humans.

> Last, who is liable when the system makes a mistake?

That's a good question, and not one that can be answered categorically for all
classes of motor vehicle accident. I'd imagine that the driver of an
autonomous car would be liable for their actions in the same sense that a
pilot is when they place their plane on autopilot (or a skipper when the use
an autotiller to steer their ship). If it can be proven to be poor engineering
on the manufacturer's part, then likely the manufacturer will be held
responsible. Otherwise it will probably be the driver getting sent to jail. Or
maybe a mixture of both if both parties can be proven to have acted
negligently.

> ...but I can throw myself under riding AC.

Yet you're incapable of throwing yourself under a normal car? Doesn't this
contradict your previous point about sabotage?

Though admittedly sabotage is a very common concern with automatic cars - what
if somebody papers over a street sign or throws rocks at the car whilst it is
on a sharp corner? In reality, malicious third parties are of concern, but not
any more than if the vehicle was not autonomous. Human drivers can still be
distracted by noisy passengers, intoxicated by alcohol and blinded by lasers;
all you're doing by putting a robot in control is swapping the weaknesses of
one system for the weaknesses of another. Ideally, there would be a mechanical
backup system which could be controlled by the driver in the case of an
emergency, which would effectively make autonomous cars more reliable than
normal ones.

~~~
joering2
> LIDAR. A black bag laying on the street is virtually invisible to it.

so when the cats lays in front of it -- it will just run over it, not being
able to see it?

> If it can be proven to be poor engineering

Usually after 10 years of deep investigation, given the parties have enough
monetary resources to keep the momentum on the law wheel. Read the case I sent
about the guy wrongly jailed. Had they not discovered, eventually that it was
a car malfunction, he would have still been in jail.

> Yet you're incapable of throwing yourself under a normal car? Doesn't this
> contradict your previous point about sabotage?

I guess what I was trying to say is that I think getting killed by a car
driven by machine feels easier on your conscious than being killed by a car
who is driven by a human. I cant explain why.

~~~
qxcv
> so when the cats lays in front of it -- it will just run over it, not being
> able to see it?

LIDAR stands for Light Detection And Ranging. Much like sonar (which is also
used on an autonomous car) it is used to map 3D environments, producing models
which can then be analysed by the computer. A plastic bag lying perfectly flat
on a road would look like sensor noise, whereas a cat would be a noticeable
obstacle (much like a fallen garbage bin or a basketball). This clip[0] from
Udacity's CS373 class is great if you want to find out what an autonomous car
"sees". In short, if you're a two dimensional cat, you're in trouble.
Otherwise you should be fine :)

> Usually after 10 years of deep investigation,

What? I said "I'd imagine..." because that part of my post was pure
speculation since AFAIK nobody has ever been in a serious autonomous car
accident.

> I guess what I was trying to say is that I think getting killed by a car
> driven by machine feels easier on your conscious than being killed by a car
> who is driven by a human.

Touché, fair point.

[0]: <http://youtu.be/XZL934YQ-FQ> \- you can skip to 0:55 if you just want to
see the LIDAR-generated model

------
andyjsong
>Long-haul truck driving will cease to exist. Think how much money trucking
companies will save if they don't have to pay drivers or collision and
liability insurance. That's about 3 million jobs in the States. Shipping of
goods will be much cheaper.

Does this mean there won't be anyone inside the truck guarding valuable goods
inside?

1\. Find a truck carrying mobile devices

2\. Stand in front of it since it's programmed to stop for pedestrians

3\. Partner uses blow torch to get the goods

4\. $$$$

I think there will always be someone at the wheel even with self-driving
technology. Just think of other forms of commercial forms of transport aka
trains. Why aren't their unmanned trains, couldn't we deploy the same tech and
incorporate it with a flying drone that has sensors to see what's ahead on the
track or even satellite imagery?

------
anthonycerra
I've also thought about how self-driving cars will affect crime. If police
don't have to enforce moving violations does that give them more time to
patrol areas with higher crime OR do those departments shrink because of the
lack of revenue from said moving violations?

------
spdy
This is the next big thing and it will happen. Just imagine a city full of
robotic cars were you dont have to own a car anymore because you can always
call one. Less traffic jams because they can drive at peak efficiency and can
plan ahead because they all know where everyone wants to go and all of them
will be electronic cars.

This has so many ups on society and our environment if i could buy/use one
tomorrow i would do so.

One of the biggest downside of this a lot of people like cab/truck driver will
lose their jobs due to this "revolution"

~~~
orangecat
_One of the biggest downside of this a lot of people like cab/truck driver
will lose their jobs due to this "revolution"_

In the medium to long term, that's a benefit.

------
dm8
I love Google's Self Driving Cars. But do you think auto industry will allow
self driving cars without any problems? For simple concept like Uber, we are
already seeing so many hurdles. For any radical innovation to happen lots of
naysayers and incumbents will try to kick innovators at every opportunity.
Unfortunately, auto industry will use some sort of machination to lobby for
evil regulations.

EDIT: To downvoters, I'm in favor of self driving cars but I'm worried about
auto industry spoiling the party.

~~~
brc
Self driving cars have the ability to increase the number of passenger miles
driven.

The auto industry profitability depends on passenger miles - less miles, less
cars + parts, less revenue.

Google isn't going to get into the car assembly business. One or more of the
innovative car firms will just licence the self drive technology into an
existing platform as a first step.

Car makers themselves have been experimenting with this stuff for decades. If
you google around you'll find BMWs doing high speed laps of race circuits with
no drivers.

A modern S-Class Benz can literally drive itself already - it has brake
assist, lane assist, steering assist, parking assist and radar guided cruise
control. It knows where it is going and how long it will take to get there.
The driver really is only a small part of the driving equation in a car like
this.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Why would Google license the tech when they could buy Tesla (TSLA market cap
is $3 BB; CHEAP for the value they deliver) and turn out Google cars
themselves? They then control the entire ecosystem, similar to Android, versus
having to cede control to car companies who drag ass on innovation.

~~~
brc
Tesla doesn't have the capacity to build large numbers of cars. Even if it
wanted to ramp up, it would take a long time to build a large-volume car.

GM could licence the tech and punch out 500,000 cars in no time at all. That
is the difference.

Google will not want to become an auto-maker. Of that I am almost certain.

~~~
plywoodtrees
Google went from zero to making a large amount of computer hardware in a
decade, partly through using the large existing contract manufacturing chain.
The auto industry is not entirely different: Bosch, Rotax, ZF, etc would all
design and build parts for Google...

------
poblano
FYI, the article suggests self-driving cars have been approved in Nevada and
California, which is true -- but in both states, a human passager (presumably
with a driver's license) has to be in the vehicle. In Nevada, you actually
have to have _two_ passengers, which in some cases makes it more inconvenient
than regular driving.

So ideas like sending your car home instead of parking it, or sending tractor
trailers across the country without a driver, aren't going to be legal for the
time being.

------
mynegation
Very good points. Almost all of them. This, however...

> Think how devastating that would be to the car industry. People use their
> cars less than 10% of the time. Imagine if everyone in your city used a
> RoboTaxi instead, at say 60% utilization. That's 84% fewer cars required.

Somehow that does not ring true. 84% number assumes that no matter the
utilization, car lifetime will be the same. As a driver, I know this is
definitely not the case, especially in colder regions.

------
plywoodtrees
I doubt that car insurance is dominated by fixed costs - istr payout rates are
over 70%. Even if the number of policy holders falls by half (which is
unlikely to happen in a decade) premiums shouldn't skyrocket.

More robot cars on the road likely make it safer for the remaining humans,
which will tend to lower premiums.

The only problem is if the most dangerous humans prefer to drive themselves. I
can see factors in both directions.

------
callmeed
The other day I was driving 2 of my kids (6 and 7) to one of their Summer rec
programs. I told them that they would be driven by robotic/self-driving cars
someday soon. The questions never stopped after that:

"How will the car know where to take us?"

"How will the car know to stop at stop signs?"

"What if there's a cat in the road?"

"Will the car take us to get frozen yogurt?"

~~~
shasta
At first the robot cars will take you to get frozen yogurt. Then they will
begin to refuse, citing your weight and the three laws.

------
scoofy
Never underestimate the Kronos Effect that Tim Wu talks about in The Master
Switch. If what this article predicts starts to pan out, I'd expect a lot of
lobbying dollars to scare people into keeping it illegal. Even if it is
safer/better.

~~~
brc
Too late

[http://jalopnik.com/5934213/autonomous-google-cars-will-
kill...](http://jalopnik.com/5934213/autonomous-google-cars-will-kill-you-old-
lady--a-florida-political-ad)

------
maxxpower
I am a firm believer that if the car was never invented until 2012, we would
not be in control of them, they would be computerized and autonomous.

I welcome the day when unnecessary deaths due to car accidents is a reality.

------
cargo8
Interesting thoughts, but you're ignoring the demographic that enjoys driving
for driving.

Driving a car is a fun experience for a lot of people, when you're not just
commuting and putzing along to work.

~~~
randomdata
People still ride horses and enjoy doing it, but I don't see anyone advocating
using horses for their daily driver (the Amish excluded). Driving for pleasure
doesn't have to go away.

~~~
orangecat
Exactly. And I can see a new sport/hobby of semi-automated driving where you
can perform maneuvers that are difficult or impossible for the best humans
today. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY93kr8PaC4> is a simple example;
imagine what you could do with a high-performance vehicle.

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the_cat_kittles
Does anyone have a good summary of the actual monetary costs associated with
human drivers? That would be really compelling.

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philsnow
Come on, let's not get swept away in the hyperbole and be reasonable for a
minute: MADD will never go away.

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GFKjunior
How would a young programmer get into this field?

Are PhD's a prerequisite?

~~~
shriphani
DSP, Decision Theory, Machine Learning.

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senthilnayagam
Also these cars would be mostly electric, which have fewer moving parts

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autophil
Self driving cars is such a dumb, short-sighted idea. We don't need more cars
on the road, and we don't need more roads either. It's not sustainable.

Let's think beyond cars and envision better ways of living that don't punish
the Earth and the atmosphere.

The emperor is in the buck on this one.

~~~
alexqgb
Speaking of dumb and short-sighted, how do you fail to see that robotic
drivers can make vastly more efficient use of existing infrastructure than
humans? How do you not see that reducing traffic jams lowers the amount of
gasoline burnt idling, and carbon emitted to no effect? How do you not see
that the same technology can be the basis for a very different transportation
system? Can you not imagine a world where few people own cars (which are
parked most of the the time) and, instead, rely on fleets of robotic taxis
simply pick people up and drop them off where and when they're called? If
crashes were a thing of the past, do you see how dramatically engineering
would change? How much smaller and lighter cars could become? How much less
fuel they'd use?

I mean, I'm all for envisioning better ways of living. I'm even more in favor
of the guys who are not only envisioning it, they're actually building the
means.

What are you building?

~~~
philwelch
autophil probably goes too far, but he isn't entirely wrong--even perfectly
efficient robotic cars powered by pixie dust are inefficient and not a panacea
for the problems of traffic and pollution that car-centric infrastructure has
caused.

~~~
kkowalczyk
True but assuming the future is that of mostly robo-taxi companies (and not
individually owned self-driving cars), there will tremendous business pressure
on robo-taxi companies to make their cars as efficient as possible, as the
cost of gas (or other energy) will be part of their cost of providing the
service.

Today car companies sell cars based on many criteria. Fuel efficiency is one
of them but when gas prices aren't too high, individual customers don't care
about that very much.

Someone who operates a fleet of 10.000 cars will make fuel efficiency their
top-most priority because that will drive down the cost of their service and
the cost will be a major reason why customers will pick one provider over
another, not how stylish the car is or how fast it goes from 0 to 60.

E.g. if they realize that by putting solar panel on the roof of the car they
can save money in the long term, they'll immediately put solar panel in every
car. The progress in making cars more efficient will be much faster.

~~~
philwelch
Anything like a car is always going to be space and weight inefficient. A
Smart car has an order of magnitude more weight than a person, and occupies
two orders of magnitude more space on the ground--you're not going to get
significantly below that, so propelling those cars and fitting them all on the
street already adds a bunch of overhead on top of the original problem of
people-moving. That's _before_ tackling engine efficiency or energy sources.

This isn't to say self-driving cars are useless. They might be just the kick
needed to get people out of car ownership, which will enable the fundamental
land use and infrastructure changes necessary to make more sustainable
improvements. But they aren't the endgame for sustainability.

