
Obama administration ready to put $4B toward self-driving cars - lemiant
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2016/01/14/nhtsa-detroit-auto-show-autonomous-vehicles/78792868/
======
smsm42
Why federal government needs to invest in this? I mean, when people say
"government support is necessary for fundamental research which can not be
financed by private means", ok, there's an argument there. But companies like
Google - not exactly short of money - already investing into this. Why feds
need to intervene? Of course, every company would gladly take gifts from feds
to advance their private research - but why do it? There are a lot of fields
that could use $4B and are not a focus of attention of a half-trillion-dollar
corporations.

Also, they claim simultaneously that self-riving cars are safer _and_ that
they would be exempt from safety rules. How that works? If they are already
safer, they should be able to satisfy more safety rules, not less?

~~~
circlecrimson
Did you read the article? Such a monumental change in behavours is going to
bring in massive changes to the legal framework, safety standards, insurance
practices and road markings and upgrades to name a few aspects.

~~~
smsm42
Legal framework is what the Congress and the state lawmakers are supposed to
do anyway, and they don't need $4B from federal budget to do this. As for
insurance practices, etc. - that's the business of insurance companies, and
I'm sure once Google contacts them offering the opportunity to insure world's
first self-driving car, insurance industry would be more than happy to jump on
that, and they are not the poorest industry either.

------
nefitty
"Roughly 3,000 Americans have lost their lives to terrorist attacks in the
last decade. This averages out to a loss of 300 people a year...[compared to
average annual deaths by] vehicular accidents at 40,000."

[http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/anti-
terrorism...](http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/anti-terrorism-
spending-disproportionate-to-threat/)

"Gordon Adams, a national security budget expert...estimates that the U.S.
spends at least $100 billion a year on counter-terrorism efforts."

[http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/16/news/economy/cost-of-
fightin...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/16/news/economy/cost-of-fighting-
terrorism/)

~~~
refurb
Vehicular accidents don't cause fear among the population, nor can they lead
to political instability.

~~~
kartan
I don't agree. It all depends on the press and other opinion
makers/influencers.

If you had every day reports of people that died in car accidents. If you had
their stories told, if you heard about their orphaned children, each and every
day. You can create as much panic as with anything else. I can even bet on
that if the day that big car companies wants driverless cars comes, you will
see that panic created by the press. People will vote for the banning of the
old cars and they will not even understand how people of our time are not
completely paralyzed by terror each time we go to the road.

There is people that panics about vaccination and vaccination is something
positive.

The sensationalist reporting of terrorist attacks is what makes them so
successful.

------
jhulla
Among the many things the federal could fund, one would be an organization
that would develop a uniform legal code governing self-driving cars for
adoption across federal/state/local levels. This would harmonize definitions,
requirements, liability, insurance, penalties, etc. across all legal
jurisdictions.

~~~
avar
Be careful what you wish for. Look at what's happening with drones and the
FCC.

The smaller the level of government that's responsible the more likely that
there's room for local experimentation that others can copy.

~~~
repsilat
Yeah -- as I understand it, the legal framework in most places is "The road
code says you can't be drunk and so on, but it doesn't say you have to be in
control."

[http://www.wired.com/2015/05/self-driving-cars-legal-real-
ru...](http://www.wired.com/2015/05/self-driving-cars-legal-real-rules-nice/)

> _SELF-DRIVING CARS ARE legal in the United States. They’ve always been
> legal, because they’ve never been outlawed_

...

> _New York has a law requiring a driver to keep one hand on the wheel at all
> times, but that doesn’t mean the car can’t drive itself._

I agree that room for experimentation is needed, though I absolutely believe
there should be some testing and registration involved eventually. (Though
mandatory third party insurance might solve most of the problem -- insurers
would charge an arm and a leg for unknown, unproven or untested software.)

------
haxel
If the point of this money was to develop a unified approach to self-driving
cars, then it could be a very good thing. Assuming the choice of unified
approach makes sense.

Variably-autonomous cars operating in swarms (and thus requiring standard
communication and sensor packages) seem to be superior than having dozens of
car and tech companies each striving for full autonomy. In swarms, the degree
of autonomy would be directly proportional to the size of the swarm a vehicle
belongs to. Those on the edge of the swarm would contribute sensor input while
the interior vehicles would contribute processing power. Thus achieving
greater ability than a solitary vehicle, whether autonomous or not.

The advantage of variable-autonomy is that there's much less need to
specially-modify roads, change the way we view liability, or have to get all
the way to full autonomy.

I wrote more on the topic here: [https://medium.com/@SteveHazel/let-s-do-semi-
autonomous-cars...](https://medium.com/@SteveHazel/let-s-do-semi-autonomous-
cars-instead-10e1f93c20f4)

If the $4 billion was spent on developing the standard communication and
sensor packages, and promoting them amongst manufacturers, and promoting the
development of compact-form-factor vehicles, it might have significant impact.

~~~
CamperBob2
Likewise, with batteries for EVs. Government-enforced standards for swappable
batteries would be a massive win, if the standard were flexible enough.

------
ppod
Is there any talk of installing some kind of guideline along existing roads
that would help navigation or vision? Something like a bright line or a buried
magnetic (or radio?) 'rail' for the cars to follow? I've read that vision is
still a big challenge in poor conditions.

~~~
dclowd9901
It's a big challenge for non-self driving cars too. If road maintenance
programs aren't willing to repaint on occasion or provide lane keeping
alternatives for more fallible humans, what hope do we have of them doing it
for machines.

~~~
vonmoltke
Indeed. Try driving in certain parts of Dallas at night or in the rain.

------
codyb
This is great news. Over 30,000 people die annually due to motor vehicles in
the United States alone [0] and the number would be far greater without the
steady improvements to vehicular safety over the years.

To reduce that number to as close to 0 as is possible absolutely should be a
top priority for our nation as a whole.

The technology is there, much of the infrastructure is there, and the rest is
on the way.

Autonomous cars promise to revolutionize the way humans use cities in a
positive way. Here in NYC where automobile traffic is quite a bit more
abundant than anyone could particularly desire I yearn for the day when we can
reclaim all that parking space for green and pedestrian use.

I anticipate the lack of diesel fumes, the reduction in engine and siren
noise, and the ready availability of autonomous vehicles to take me to my
destination, probably with a quick action to my smart watch, phone, etc.

Autonomous electric vehicles can stay in use for extremely long durations of
time thus reducing the overall numbers of cars on the roads at any given time.
To reduce emissions will reduce incidences of asthmatic and respiratory
illnesses in urban centers.

To park themselves outside of major urban areas during non peak hours allows
for repairs, and the reclamation of space I mentioned.

To run with electric engines means far fewer maintenance costs in general due
to much fewer moving parts than traditional combustion engines.

To coordinate flows of traffic ensures traffic moves more efficiently, and the
loud sirens and flashing lights of emergency vehicles can be a thing of the
past.

And of course there are the wonderful cartoons from thw New Yorker in which a
police man is at the window of a civilians car

"Does your car know why my car pulled it over?"

If this is done right it will be one of the greatest achievements of our
modern era and will truly usher us into a new world of clean air, reclaimed
public spaces, silenter cities, and tremendous mobility.

What an exciting time to be alive!

~~~
refurb
_To reduce that number to as close to 0 as is possible absolutely should be a
top priority for our nation as a whole._

Of course it should be a goal, but you a cost vs. benefit analysis is
required. If you can save 30K lives per year for $4B, could you save even more
lives if you spent it another way?

20x more people die of heart disease in the US every year as compared to
vehicular accidents. In fact, car crashes isn't even in the top 10.

~~~
ericd
If cars ever got sufficiently good at driving, one could make them much less
crash-proof, thereby saving much more than $4B/yr in energy costs by making
them lighter. They're much heavier than they were 30 years ago.

Also, keep in mind that car crash victims on average have many more expected
years of life ahead of them than the average heart attack victim.

Also, we have a fairly clear path ahead of us for doing this, afaik the same
can't be said about curing heart disease.

------
bsbechtel
So at the start of the Obama administration, tax payers paid for a multi-
billion dollar bailout of the American auto industry, which paid off for
taxpayers but was not without significant risk. Now at the end of the Obama
administration, tax payers are putting $4B towards self-driving cars that,
depending on who the winners are, could potentially destroy the same industry
that was bailed out just a few years ago?

~~~
euyyn
The cars are self-driving but not self-manufacturing :)

------
ChrisNorstrom
This is unnecessarily dangerous. Investing in "pilot programs" might
artificially push self-driving technology through quicker than it's ready for
and might result, not only in death and accidents, but damaging the image of
self driving cars and pushing the technology back even further. Just because
you want something doesn't mean you should artificially push it faster than it
can be produced. That's like injecting your children with steroids because you
"want them to grow fast so they can be happy quicker and get a head start".

Government is great at creating incentives and opportunities through laws and
letting the business, creators, investors compete for the top stop. But
choosing winners, artificially jump-starting pilot projects that would under
normal market conditions not be created, is not what governments are meant
for. We've talked about this on HN before during the Solyndra bankruptcy.

If they really want to help, give a tax cut for companies doing research, and
sit down with all the parties interested in self-driving cars and ask them
what laws or regulations are holding them back.

Plus we don't want this to turn into another Solyndra.
[http://www.dailytech.com/500+Million+Wasted+on+Bankrupt+Sola...](http://www.dailytech.com/500+Million+Wasted+on+Bankrupt+Solar+Panel+Company+White+House+was+Warned/article22735.htm)

~~~
circlecrimson
>This is unnecessarily dangerous.

Bullshit. If one car running with "CarOs 1.0" has a collision you can be sure
that engineers will ensure that this specific case will never happen again in
the future. Autonomous cars have already clocked up over 100k miles from
multiple vendors. The government is needed to step in now because this tech is
going to hit the roads in the next five years anyway, whether they get out of
the way or not.

------
boneheadmed
We need to consider that the potential for abuse on the part of the government
is also great. When the car communicates with roadside electronics, you can
easily be tracked, your car can be told where you can and cannot go, and (if
you do not comply with state) your vehicle may not be driveable at all.

------
c3534l
And if the next big thing in technology never occurs like countless other
next-big-things before it? This is part of why command economies fail so
miserably.

------
jakeogh
Roving mini-prisons that record and report on their surroundings and
occupants? Why wouldn't power invest? They want their killswitches.

krapp has it right: "Self-driving cars are potentially the greatest threat to
human freedom since the advent of the internet."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6982537](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6982537)

------
barneygumble742
I really hope companies like Lockheed Martin do not get into the autonomous
infrastructure or self-driving vehicle business. LM already has their
tentacles into federal/state governments with traffic monitoring programs, 911
operations, etc.

Since silicon valley got into the SDV game much early on, I hope they, rather
than defense companies, also provide solutions for the infrastructure.

------
uvesten
They seem a little late coming to the game. 4B is not much compared to how
much money and effort are already going into autonomous cars. Seems pointless.

But it seems there's also willngness to discuss future rules and ethics for
self-driving cars, which is good.

------
Grishnakh
They should spend that money on developing and building SkyTran instead.

------
maloney
Too much federal money goes to subsidizing the automobile/roads as a means of
transportation. Drivers should bare more of the cost of driving, then a real
market could emerge in mass transit. This would also eliminate an immense
amount of energy usage

~~~
serge2k
uh huh, and we are just gonna ignore the continuing need to actually move
stuff around?

~~~
maloney
Spending vast amounts of money on interstates is a waste. Railroads are a much
better solution than a fleet of 18 wheelers. If you had to pay the actual cost
of driving accross the country, high speed rail becomes a viable option.

~~~
specialist
Auto multimodal would be cool.

------
owly
Probably because of the Google to Govt employment loop.

~~~
huac
You sound snarky about this, but it's actually probably good - the government
desperately needs tech talent and knowledge. With how these networks are
formed, it seems pretty logical that Google/Microsoft/Apple employees would
end up in gov't more than those from other companies.

Investment banking <-> public service is the classical revolving door. What's
wrong with tech getting in the same game?

------
dev360
How long until truck drivers disappear?

~~~
interesting_att
What's really interesting about this is that being a truck driver is one of
the most common jobs in America. Most of these drivers have limited ability to
do many other decently paying jobs. By getting self-driving countries, we
would be dramatically changing the economic + social landscape of the country.

We have already gotten rid of the factory worker and that has led to withering
away of Middle America. Removing the truck driver would be a huge nail in the
coffin of Middle America. (If lab grown meat + vertical farming takes off, we
can potentially drastically reduce the number of farmers in this country.)

I am all for these technical innovations, but we must be aware that this can
dramatically change the economic/political/social landscape. Radical
regressive ideologies spring out of such environments.

~~~
jqm
Maybe they can monitor the trucks with video feeds. Get a union together and
demand only one monitor per worker and have laws passed that all trucks must
be monitored with video feeds.

I think dock workers used to unload ships and my understanding is, that while
not as extreme, they have done something similar. (Not that I see this as the
best approach....).

~~~
cududa
Kind of like freight elevator operators. Utterly pointless trade I discovered
while living in New York the last year. You can't bring boxes in through the
lobby, only use the union operated freight elevator between designated hours.

------
astazangasta
Just give the money to the NSF instead. Why spend $4 billion on this
(pointless, worthless) technology that Silicon Valley is already running
headlong to create?

~~~
bosdev
Saying this is pointless and worthless is insane to me. More than thirty
thousand people die in motor vehicle deaths in the US every year. The amount
of pain and suffering this technology will eliminate is incalculable.

~~~
astazangasta
Those problems can be solved without the ridiculous effort of creating self
driving cars. People die mostly because of drunk driving accidents. More bus
passes and free taxis can save people much cheaper. Plus, how many more die of
cancer and heart disease? Are you really arguing that driving deaths are a
major problem that requires intensive effort to solve?

~~~
Grishnakh
Buses are crap and should just be eliminated. If you want good public transit,
you need to build SkyTran. $4B could do a lot of good in developing SkyTran
and getting it so that cities spend money on deploying it instead of wasting
that money on roads.

~~~
astazangasta
Buses are crap in the US. Try a bus in Geneva; they are a wonder of
cleanliness and efficiency.

~~~
Grishnakh
No, they're not. They might be better if they're electric (but we have those
here in the US too in some places, like NYC), but they'll never be efficient.
The only efficient system is an automated personal rapid transit system which
can move people between arbitrary points without any stops in between. Only
something like SkyTran can do that. As long as you have to stop and pick up
other riders in-between, or have to stop for traffic lights, you'll never get
an efficient trip.

------
droithomme
No doubt this will primarily benefit Tesla Corp. which seems to be based
around subsidies.

------
beambot
Want to help? Forget subsidies and test programs. Just pass sweeping national
legislation (eg. tie state programs to federal incentives) that makes roads
autonomous car friendly and that don't pander to "jobs, jobs, jobs."
Otherwise, states (like California) are going to make unfriendly laws, like
the recent DMV draft proposal:

> At issue is the requirement that DMV-certified “autonomous vehicle
> operators” are “required to be present inside the vehicle and be capable of
> taking control in the event of a technology failure or other emergency.” In
> other words, driverless cars will not be allowed on California roads for the
> foreseeable future.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2015/12/18/california-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2015/12/18/california-
slams-the-brakes-on-googles-driverless-car/)

~~~
kwelstr
The Executive can't pass laws, that's the job of Congress. Good luck with
today's type of legislative bodies, too much political posturing and not
enough common sense laws. Getting Congress to agree on anything is like
herding cats. Actually herding cats is more doable with practice :/

~~~
beambot
Executive Orders. If they're going to abuse them for evil (my view; YMMV),
then they might as well use them for some good too.

Executive may not be able to pass laws, but they do control the flow of $$ in
the DOT.

