
Google lobbies Nevada to allow driverless cars - nkassis
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/science/11drive.html?_r=1&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto
======
shrikant
I think it's sign of our technologically advanced times that the commentary
here is so level-headed.

I, for one, can't help having the mind boggled. Cars that drive themselves
coming finally coming out of the domain of Knight Rider, and onto actual
roads?! That's just _frickin awesome_! (or maybe I've just been watching this
Louis CK clip too often - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk>)

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iwwr
One interesting aspect about driverless cars is that they can be used for
traffic optimization.

<http://trafficwaves.org/trafexp.html>

tl;dr driving smoothly and leaving traffic gaps ahead can prevent traffic jams
or slowdowns

Having just a small percentage of automated cars with traffic optimizing
behavior may actually increase road capacity.

~~~
masklinn
> tl;dr driving smoothly and leaving traffic gaps ahead can prevent traffic
> jams or slowdowns

An other traffic optimization (which doubles down as a gas optimization) is
"car trains": cars following one another very closely (much more closely than
human drivers would handle)

~~~
themrbluesky
This won't be high on the feature list, as it's still really dangerous.

~~~
masklinn
> This won't be high on the feature list

You could hardly be any less correct. This is _by far_ the most major and
interesting feature enabled by auto-driven and cooperative cars:
<http://www.sartre-project.eu/en/Sidor/default.aspx>

> as it's still really dangerous.

Not really.

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Poiesis
I am always impressed by this when I read it--not because of the cars but the
motivation. Here's a company that is so desperate to increase its ad revenue
that it's willing _to build robot cars_ so that it has that many more eyeballs
to serve up advertisements to.

~~~
sien
Here's a company that is smart enough to know that they could have a major
part of a market though could explode. Google don't just have to sell ads.
They have loads of very smart people. They could wind up being the major
provide for driverless cars.

Sebastian Thrun works for Google now. He's one of the world's foremost experts
in the field.

~~~
larrik
"They could wind up being the major provide for driverless cars."

I'd say they could be the major provider for driverless car _technology_. I
don't think they should get into actual car manufacturing.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Bingo, this is going to be a big field in the future. AI is outside the core
competency of car manufacturers; they'll have to buy that tech from some one.
Google's ad revenue could look puny by comparison some day.

~~~
axylone
This sounds like the history of a company out of a Stephenson or Gibson book.
I want to believe...

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Apocryphon
Google's research into driverless cars really boosts their perception of "info
hegemon having their hands in _everything_ " and either "rock star company
trying to save the world with bleeding edge technology" or "Orwellian
nightmare come to life doling out Trojan horses so the masses fail to see the
inevitable robot holocaust", depending on your personal bias.

That said, why is Google the only high-profile company looking into this? I've
heard about the DARPA Grand Challenge, but that always seemed to be about
hobbyists and university teams. I see there are quite a few groups interested
in the concept, but it seems like only GM is the other company who bothered
looking into it: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car#Key_players> I
suppose car companies are set in their ways and don't want to create a future
that takes drivers out of the equation (though it's not as if people won't be
flocking to buy driverless cars anyways), but why not any other tech
companies?

~~~
arjunnarayan
The head of the Stanford DARPA Grand Challenge (Sebastian Thrun) left his
tenured professorship at Stanford to work at Google.

The hobbyist/university teams are an excellent staging ground to get started;
but any other company could have put in the investment that Google did. I
would have loved to have seen a CMU/Red Whittaker/GM collaboration. It would
have made for a poetic little "revive the rust belt with the robot car
industry" story too. Given the response to the Detroit Superbowl Chrysler ad,
looks like the public love that sort of story...

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jarin
I anticipate a lot of luddite rage and probably a good number of accidents
(and maybe even a few deaths), but we're not going to get to The Future by
just wishing it so.

~~~
jpr
What makes you think machines would be even deadlier drivers than humans?

~~~
Natsu
I read that comment as saying that people would get upset about the driverless
cars and there would be bad PR for every accident, not that the driverless
cars would actually be less safe. They won't be perfect, and every single
failure will place the blame on the manufacturer, similar to the difference
between public perception of airplane safety vs. car safety. Most people
_feel_ safer in cars, because they're in control. But people _are_ safer in
airplanes.

Honestly, I predict that people will hate the way driverless cars drive, as
well. For many reasons, including liability, such cars will have to drive in a
nicer (more defensive) way than most people do.

A driverless car won't tailgate and so it let people in, even if they're
"cheating" in heavy traffic. Some people will absolutely _hate_ that, even if
it helps traffic flow better.

~~~
snprbob86
Hopefully, people will be too busy surfing the web to notice that their cars
are politely improving traffic flow.

~~~
paganel
> Hopefully, people will be too busy surfing the web to notice that their cars
> are politely improving traffic flow.

I actually did that while traveling to work this very morning :) No need to
dive into the future for that. It's called public transportation.

~~~
nkassis
I drove to work today because my wife ankle was sore. I have a book I've been
trying to finish and the 30 minute drive sorta annoyed me. I could have been
so much more productive during that time.

I also drive from Canada to Florida multiple times a year. 24 hours wasted but
it's better than flying, more freedom to stop and relax, better food and less
stress overall and more space to carry stuff. With these cars I'd be in heaven
(not literally).

------
nchlswu
I wonder how they're getting over any stigma culture shock. In their own
products, they're careful to reduce any "creep factor" by not using our
information in ways that provide too much immediate feedback, like ads that
are _too_ highly targeted. Unlike ads, a "robot car" is a significant jump. In
the public's eye, I think Google's driverless cars last year seemed like a
sudden leap.

There are obviously safety measures that will be in place, but I want to know
how robust they're going to be and how much PR they're gonna put into this.

------
mousa
I hope some smart people are trying to figure out how our economy is going to
work when transportation is outsourced to robots. Obviously it'd be great but
the idea that everyone needs a job is going to start unravelling.

~~~
cma
Its been that way for decades. Carpet used to be the most luxurious thing in
the world; as soon at it got cheap, the old, undesirable hardwood became the
preferred sign of wealth.

If robots start taking over a lot of the work, people will start wearing coats
made out of solved captchas or something.

------
yuhong
I have thought of driverless buses for a while now. These may be even better
than driverless cars because buses always follow a defined route.

~~~
pyre
I would be more inclined to try out automated light rail/subways first, seeing
as they don't need to navigate traffic.

~~~
kristiandupont
The Copenhagen Metro is driverless (and there are probably many others around
the world). Works like a charm.

~~~
writetoalok
The [London Docklands Light
Railway](<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway>) is also
driver-less. However travelling everyday on it, the journey is not smooth.
Especially when it starts or stops, the acceleration and deceleration is very
jerky. And also the train lurches forwards quite a few times.

Not what one would expect on any train especially an automated train.

~~~
jsharpe
Vancouver's SkyTrain ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)> )
is driverless and very smooth. I have a feeling the unpleasantness of the ride
of the LDLR has more to do with characteristics of the track or technology,
rather than the driver's actions.

~~~
rojoca
After riding this train I started to wonder why driverless trains are not more
prevalent. It seems so obvious now.

~~~
jff
You can't tell the transit unions, "you all have 1 year of employment left
before we replace you with computers."

------
arthurgibson
Sounds like Vegas would be a good starting point, no one remembers what
happens there (zing). In all seriousness, Google is going to drop a ton of
money into Nevada to make this happen and drive more people to Vegas again. I
call this a stimulation package, hope it passes.

~~~
ktsmith
I don't think Vegas would be the starting point. Nevada is in the midst of
massive unemployment numbers and a massive budget crises. There are a lot of
people employed in Vegas as drivers of cabs, limos and other private services.
Launching driverless car services in Vegas would likely meet with massive
public resistance. I could see it as another tourist attraction for the strip
I suppose but I wouldn't want to test autonomous vehicles there given the
crappy traffic and idiotic/distracted drivers there.

I would probably start testing in the Carson City, Reno, Sparks area. You can
get a flight from the bay to Reno that takes 45 minutes. If you need to take
cars back and forth to Mountain View it is only a 3-4 hour drive. The capital
is Carson City so if you need access to the legislature you have it. There's
also very diverse geography and lots of public roads available for testing. If
you need populated areas or unpopulated areas everything is here all while
being a lot closer to Google than Las Vegas is.

~~~
gkelly
California's budget deficit is larger, but a large sum of money from Google
can probably buy much more legislation in Nevada.

~~~
ktsmith
Nevada is much less hostile to corporate interests than California so the
amount of legislation they can buy with via lobbying is only part of the
issue. I only mention the budget and employment issues because I believe they
are relevant to the use of autonomous vehicles in Las Vegas which I believe
the parent poster was implying. That would be seen as killing jobs (even if
not true) by the local population and could end up being very bad for the
legislators that approved the legislation allowing autonomous vehicles. As far
as Nevada's budget deficit goes, the issue could be resolved relatively simply
however no one in the legislature is even willing to talk about the steps
necessary to do so.

------
spenrose
“What if I could take out my phone and say, ‘Zipcar, come here,’ ” he asked an
industry conference last year, “and a moment later the Zipcar came around the
corner?”

So nice to see an organization with so much wealth and power spending it on
important problems.

~~~
zasz
Driverless cars could:

1\. Save lives by eliminating drunk, distracted, and sleepy drivers. 2\.
Greatly increase fuel efficiency. 3\. Permit commutes where people can work,
sleep, or watch movies, enabling greater freedom to live where they wish. This
is more economically efficient by allowing more people to take jobs they
otherwise would not have.

Yes, I'm very glad to see Google working on problems that save lives, save the
environment, and make everyone happier. I'm glad you're glad too!

~~~
spenrose
Did my terseness come across as sarcasm? I was actually quite sincere, and
agree with everything you've said.

~~~
zasz
Yeah, it did, plus you were downvoted, so it seemed like other people agreed.
Sorry.

------
andrewcanis
This technology has the potential to save so many lives. Does anyone know how
much these cars cost? I would expect the radar system and servers to be pretty
expensive. Presumably the higher cost could be offset by lower insurance
rates.

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webXL
We already have cars that parallel park themselves. I just saw an SUV do it in
a commercial last night. I think it was a Ford Exploder. We also have adaptive
cruise control on a lot of cars. You combine those technologies, plus with
something that keeps you in a lane, you got a car that can drive itself.
Autopilot.

That "keeps you in your lane" technology is the last piece of the puzzle, and
shouldn't be a tremendous legal hurdle if the other two pieces are already
legal.

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nasmorn
BMW is not going to like this, but it sounds good for Audi. At least based on
their company slogans.

~~~
ktsmith
Audi/VW are actively investing in driverless car technology including the lab
at Stanford.

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baconserker
Does Nevada have stop lights?

~~~
ktsmith
Is that supposed to be a serious question? Of course Nevada has stoplights.
There are nearly two million people in the Las Vegas area and around two
hundred fifty thousand people in the Reno/Sparks area. Then there are LOTS of
smaller towns with populations as low as twenty five up to fifty thousand.
Sure there are huge amounts of unpopulated or sparsely populated areas but
that's not much different than the central valley in California as an example.

~~~
baconserker
Boom - it wasn't serious! It was meant to spark discussion on how on earth do
these cars handle trickier aspects of driving on unmodified grids, such as
traffic lights.

~~~
ktsmith
I would assume since they've already logged lots of hours driving around CA
that the various sensors and cameras can already detect traffic lights. On
that same line of thought I'd love to know how they adjust for speed in
construction zones with non standard speed limit signs, the randomness of
other drivers etc.

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drivebyacct2
The last bit at the end makes me think that Google must have laughed at the
Kinect.

------
xnerdr
Who would be responsible if an accident happens?

~~~
ugh
Whoever is liable now when an accident happens because of a technical failure.
My guess is that insurances will love driverless cars, so it's really not a
big deal.

~~~
ordinary
I'm awaiting the first autonomous car to get its driver license. I imagine the
day is not far off.

~~~
dodo53
I bet the first time robots are legally recognised as sentient (not saying
they are now!) will be in court for a liability claim :oP

