
Ask HN: Do you think self-driving cars are feasable at all? - alexandrerond
There are hardly self-driving trains. No self-driving planes, or ships (they always have a watching human at hand, who also performs any non trivial operations). Self-driving is not there yet for every other transportation options which have way better procedure standardization and more advanced technology (with the exception of rockets perhaps).<p>How is it realistic to think society will embrace self-driving cars in 10-15 years and that they will prove safe if we haven&#x27;t taken that step with aviation or most subway systems?
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joeclark77
I think the societies that are culturally willing to embrace self-driving cars
are the ones that already have better solutions. I'm talking about the
downtowns of major cities, Silicon Valley, university districts, etc. In most
cases bicycles, light rail, or buses are already being used and are more
efficient than a million people riding alone in self-driving cars. If
anything, these are the places that might ban private car ownership as
population density increases.

On the other hand, no self-respecting country boy is going to want to give up
the freedom and independence that he gets from driving his own vehicle.
Separating yourself from the herd is a value proposition, and self-driving
cars can't compete with it.

What's left?

1\. In some cases suburbanites might use self-driving cars to get from the
suburbs to the edge of the car-free downtown zone. It's possible the
technology would work for them, but, do any of them perceive an unmet need? Is
there anybody out there really frustrated by having to look at the road during
their commute? I would think there's a lot more incentive to find ways to
shorten the commute, than to simply make it hands free.

2\. Interstate trucking is a possible use case, if people would tolerate it.
You'd need a plurality of states to get on board with the idea of a very
potentially deadly machine going on autopilot, and you'd need to sort out
who's liable when people are killed by it. And you need to figure out the
"last mile" \-- who drives the truck after it takes the exit off the highway.
There's a real shortage of truck drivers in the world, so this is probably the
one market where there's a commercial incentive to develop the tech, though.

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tiredwired
Seems like they should start with something less risky like self-driving
lawnmowers, self-walking dog walker, self-fishing fishing rod, self-flying
kite. Every see those robot soccer matches?

~~~
atroyn
Bosch already has a line of automated lawn mowers. You can buy one today.

~~~
tiredwired
It requires a perimeter wire embedded in the ground to define boundaries. Why
aren't they using the tech the self-driving cars claim to have?

~~~
atroyn
Because that would make it more expensive than people are willing to pay for
an autonomous lawnmower. What a strange comparison to make, lawnmowers don't
need LIDAR.

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CyberFonic
Software is far from 100% trustworthy. With the current state of art we cannot
be certain that any software is secure, hack-proof and provable correct under
all operating conditions.

A self-driving car is a canonical example of lots of software, sensors and
actuators working seamlessly and robustly at all times.

The recent issues with VW, Jeep, Toyota clearly demonstrates that car
manufacturers can't even get human controlled cars to be 100% trustworthy.
What chance is there that they'll be any better with a self-driving car?

~~~
superuser2
It's utterly ridiculous that "100% trustworthy" would be considered relevant
here. All self-driving cars have to be is better than humans, who are
approximately 0% trustworthy.

If a self-driving car is better than a human who is drunk, eating, and texting
all at the same time, then it's already a safety improvement.

~~~
alexandrerond
And still a human seems to know how to deal with a 0% trustworthy human better
on the road. We are still busy making self-driving cars follow the rules, but
much of the driving is to predict how other people bend them...

~~~
GFischer
"still a human seems to know how to deal with a 0% trustworthy human better on
the road"

I don't think they cope that well. If you're under 35, a car accident is your
main worry (other than suicide):

Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death in the U.S. More than
33,000 people died from motor vehicle crashes in 2013 alone

[http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/overview/key_data.html](http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/overview/key_data.html)

[http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/mortality-statistics--
de...](http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/mortality-statistics--deaths-
registered-in-england-and-wales--series-dr-/2012/sty-causes-of-death.html)

~~~
alexandrerond
In fact you're right.

The thing is, can you imagine sitting on a self-driving car minding your
business in a busy road shared with human drivers?

Since not all cars will be automated, the success depends on convincing
everyone that they're still safer in a world dominated by all the other shitty
drivers.

I read somewhere that Google cars accidents had always been caused by the
other person. Question is, would a human have "seen it coming"? Can a human
judge that someone is driving agressively, or shyly better than a computer?
Can a human infer from a slow-driving car that it is probably trying to park
despite not using the blinkers? And which such informations, make better
decisions to avoid others being imprudent?

Still, probably most accidents are to blame on the drivers themselves and
their own mistakes and self-driving cars would fix that, but what probably is
really going to count if you want to sell such car is probably the "sense of
security" you can get rather than the hard stats.

That's why I don't see fully self-driving cars being adopted by anyone anytime
soon as some pretend, and it is much more realistic to think of forms of
"assisted driving" (where you still have to drive and pay attention) and still
need driving controls in the vehicle.

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firebones
Here's the deal:

Self-driving cars will succeed, but only when relegated to dedicated,
communal, self-driving equivalents of HOV lanes. In a controlled environment,
when it's only necessary to deal with exceptions, self-driving cars will rule.
Outside the HOV lane, self-driving cars will be more like GPS-Assist++. Human
required, but the broadstrokes navagation off-loaded to the computer. The last
mile problem of figuring out where to park, last minute adjustments, etc.,
will still be human-led.

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J-dawg
I don't know how many years we are from truly autonomous cars that can take
you door-to-door with no human intervention other than keying in the
destination. There seem to be so many hurdles to overcome that any prediction
is likely to be wrong.

However I think we're going to see more and more 'driver assistance' like
Tesla's autopilot mode where the driver remains responsible for the car. This
kind of tech will get more reliable and trickle down to cheaper models, to the
point where most highway / motorway driving is done in semi-autonomous mode.
When this happens (and accident rates go down), people and governments will be
much more ready to embrace fully autonomous cars.

Has anyone here experienced the Tesla autopilot? There are some fun videos on
YouTube. It seems impressive but still a little unreliable.

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infamouscow
I'm waiting for someone to write about the incredible privacy that we are
going to have to relinquish when municipalities have their own fleets of self-
driving cars and they are the only way to get around. But nobody wants to talk
about it yet.

~~~
kspaans
Your smartphone already tracks everywhere you go. Similarly it's not hard for
someone to watch you if you walk/bike and possibly also if you drive (license
plate recognition or OnStar type tracking).

How is it materially different to give ownership of that to your local
municipality (who already knows where you live and probably how much
water/electricity you use)? Municipal government is probably the one you have
the most control over.

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atroyn
A lot of the discussion in this thread focuses on culture annd safety, but I
think the main lever of autonomous vehicles will be economics.

For example, cargo vehicles not carrying any passengers or a driver would
represent a huge cost savings in logistics.

There will be some class of autonomous vehicles, perhaps remotely supervised,
regularly on the road within a decade. They may not be consumer passenger
vehicles, but they don't need to be to make a huge impact. To focus on just
whether your car will dive itself is static thinking - what new opportunities
could autonomous transport create?

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mod
Given their track record, I think they're very feasible.

Public adoption & trust is another story.

~~~
CyberFonic
With the recent problems with VW, Jeep, Toyota, Fiat, et al. I'd say the level
of public trust is at rock bottom.

~~~
jack9
You think so? Trust in measurements to qualify for government regulation are
in question, not car performance or appearance. Toyota sales have not dipped
surreptitiously (demand increased in oct).

[http://www.autoblog.com/2015/11/04/october-2015-the-
better-t...](http://www.autoblog.com/2015/11/04/october-2015-the-better-than-
looks-edition/)

------
ams6110
I think truly autonomous self driving cars are 20-50 years away.

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Peroni
>There are hardly self-driving trains.

Almost all of London's tube network is self-driving. The human operator
controls opening and closing of the doors and that's about it.

~~~
alexandrerond
Yes:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems)

And many others, but not so many compared to the whole list:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems)

At least, I'd like to think this is a success, but it's taken how many years
to get here, and it's a closed system with so many variables under control
compared to a car.

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smt88
There are self-driving planes and trains. Commercial planes mostly drive
themselves.

People had the same qualms about automated elevators when those were new.

~~~
CyberFonic
The Air France crash over the Atlantic demonstrates exactly why auto-pilots
are far from ideal. The plane got into a situation which was outside of the
auto-pilot's envelope of operations. It gave control back to the pilots who
were jarred by the sudden reversion to manual control, panicked and did one
wrong after another.

Trains and elevators are different - they run on tracks/guides and do not have
any unforeseeable obstacles, operating conditions thrown at them. Furthermore,
there are several mechanical safety interlocks that will stop any out of
control situations. Planes and cars have to operate under conditions with far
more uncontrollable variables.

~~~
stephenr
> Trains and elevators are different - they run on tracks/guides and do not
> have any unforeseeable obstacles

I don't think it's really true that they "do not have any unforeseen
obstacles". A lot of random shit can happen on a train line, even when it's
got limited access lines like the underground driverless trains linking the
terminals at Hong Kong airport. I think its more that they "do not have any
possible choices except go, and (try to) stop".

If a Train is "automatic" it has three tasks: start when loaded. stop at pre-
determined locations. __try __to stop if something is detected in the way.

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satuim
Yes. But not in 10-15 years.

As everyone else is saying they need to be much more thoroughly tested and
approved.

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m0llusk
The most reasonable expectation would be for incremental improvement. There
are already a wide range of self-driving small cargo carriers in warehouses,
manufacturing facilities, hospitals, and large archives. Currently product
distribution is dominated by men driving trucks and using hand carts, but for
high density locales and basic stocking tasks these jobs are being targeted
for automation using existing technologies.

