
Three-quarters of drivers don't want to own an autonomous car - jonbaer
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-04/billions-are-being-invested-in-a-robot-that-americans-don-t-want
======
gaur
I bet if you look at polls from the 1990s about the internet, you'll find a
lot of people saying they're just fine without it, thank you very much, and
they prefer the warm, personal experience of calling up a real human to book
their plane tickets or whatever instead of punching their credit card number
into some newfangled machine.

But in the end, people went ahead and developed more and more infrastructure
for the internet regardless, and now most people couldn't live without it.

~~~
duaneb
> I bet if you look at polls from the 1990s about the internet, you'll find a
> lot of people saying they're just fine without it, thank you very much, and
> they prefer the warm, personal experience of calling up a real human to book
> their plane tickets or whatever instead of punching their credit card number
> into some newfangled machine.

The enjoyment of driving is not about human warmth, it's about control and
adrenaline. I don't think the comparison makes sense. I'd be more excited
about autonomous cars if I could turn it off in the country (as some cars
today allow) for recreation.

I definitely agree with what you're saying—I know I'm probably in the minority
for enjoying driving at _all_ —but I frankly can't imagine anyone enjoying
reading their credit card over the phone.

~~~
dsjoerg
"On average, Americans drive 29.2 miles per day, making two trips with an
average total duration of 46 minutes."[1]

For how many of those 46 minutes do you think they are enjoying control and
adrenaline? I would guess approximately zero, and once you tell them that they
can spend that time instead surfing the internet, or eating breakfast, or
videochatting with their family, they will.

[1] [http://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/new-study-reveals-much-
motor...](http://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/new-study-reveals-much-motorists-
drive/)

~~~
stoozer
It's far more likely that for many people it will just mean working on your
commute to work. Personally I would rather be driving.

~~~
hexagonc
I think there's a lot of things I'd rather be doing on a commute than drive or
do work. For on thing, with a self-driving car, I could do things that many
people are already doing while driving, albeit unsafely. Things like eating
breakfast, talking on the phone, and fiddling with the radio. Hell, if the
commute was long, I might use the time to catch up on sleep.

~~~
duaneb
You can already do this on public transit; why wait for self-driving cars?

~~~
yazaddaruvala
Where does your public transit system get its funding? Does it really provide
you the same level of privacy?

Any transit system I've ever used was:

Over crowded.

Purposefully designed so no-one could sleep. Also, I really wouldn't want to
sleep on an artificially created publicly shared surface.

Frowned upon to talk on your cell phone, or eat a meal.

I definitely couldn't get any work done, even if I tried.

------
peteforde
This is pretty much the definition of a "faster horse" scenario. Most of the
population perceive the world as it is, not as it could be. (This is the S vs
N in Meyers-Briggs.)

It will actually be insurance companies that force the change at the consumer
level. Charging crazy premiums for irrational holdouts that insist that their
love of driving is better than safer transportation will force the hands of
many from "no thanks" to "well, if I can save $500/month..."

However, regardless of consumer uptake it's the long-haul trucking companies
that stand the most to gain from autonomous vehicles. I don't have a stat
handy but robot long-haul would be 25% the price and 4x faster. Something like
20% of highway accidents involve big rigs.

~~~
steego
I really don't think people will be the irrational holdouts they claim to be.
People say a lot of silly things they don't actually mean. While many of us
enjoy the feeling behind the wheel now and then, it's actually a nuisance for
most people most of the time.

One thing I'd love to see is a safe racing mode where the computer allows
people to drive like maniacs, but intervenes before the situation actually
becomes dangerous. I suspect at some point automatic drivers will become so
precise they will truly be able to scare the shit out of passengers safely.

~~~
zyxley
> I suspect at some point automatic drivers will become so precise they will
> truly be able to scare the shit out of passengers safely.

You can pretty much get that already on closed test tracks, with self-driving
cars that do 'speed runs'.

An example (though without passengers):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol3g7i64RAI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol3g7i64RAI)

------
hunterwerlla
This reminds me of a Planet Money episode (a great podcast).
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/29/427467598/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/29/427467598/episode-642-the-
big-red-button) . In it, they talk about people not wanting to ride elevators
not controlled by a human operator, and how companies got people to ride them.
In the same way as elevators, people will eventually adapt to self driving
cars even if the industry needs something like a manual mode for emergencies
or a big red button.

~~~
markbnj
Exactly. This article is just as silly. Wide-spread adoption and integration
of driverless cars is a long way off yet. I don't know how long, but I also
don't care since it isn't my job to predict the curve. I have zero doubt that
it will happen. Humans are horrible operators of machinery. At some point the
machines will absolutely be better at operating themselves under our
direction. So in the meantime, let's find some people who are unnerved by all
the media conversation and get some click bait out of it.

------
saidajigumi
So I'll spin the title a different way: "Billions are being invested in a
robot that will truly liberate an aging population, the injured and the
disabled, and those that simply don't care to own an automobile."

The poor title notwithstanding, the trust issues cited in the article are good
to be aware of. Nevertheless, I'll be shocked if self-driving vehicles aren't
a technology that utterly reshapes transportation in the U.S.A. in _very_
short order.

~~~
atemerev
Not much, compared to taxis and Uber already available.

~~~
ItsDeathball
The problem there is cost. Even Uber and Lyft are too pricey for most people
to rely on them for a daily commute. If autonomous cars drive that cost down
to something comparable to bus fare, that's going to cause a major shift in
the way people get around.

~~~
atemerev
The problem is daily commute. Why people are still moving from one computer to
another in 21st century?

------
Animats
From the article: _Sherman, 21, a mechanical-engineering student at the
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, trusts the technology and sees these
vehicles eventually taking over the road. But he dreads the change because his
passion is working on cars to make them faster. “It’s something I’ve loved to
do my entire life and it’s kind of on its way out,” he says. “That’s the sad
truth.”_

That group has already been obsoleted by Tesla. It's embarrassing to the gas
car guys that Tesla's family sedan has a better 0-60 time than everything
except a few supercars. Supercars that are not only insanely expensive, but
unusable for ordinary driving. (Top Gear had a funny video in which they're
trying to get a Veyron out of a driveway without scraping the undercarriage.)

If you're really into that stuff, you have to get into electric supercars.[1]
A friend of mine who grew up in a rural town fixing cars now works for the
company that makes those. Zoom is not dead, but it now sounds like "chunk-
whine", instead of "vroom".

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/9/7517291/renovo-coupe-
electr...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/9/7517291/renovo-coupe-electric-
supercar-ces-2015)

~~~
Unklejoe
[It's embarrassing to the gas car guys that Tesla's family sedan has a better
0-60 time than everything except a few supercars.]

I think the term "embarrassing" may be a little excessive here since you are
singling out only a single aspect of a car's performance (0-60 time in this
case).

Sure, the Tesla beats many (family) cars of a similar price range at short-
burst/short-term acceleration, but it falls really short when you need that
kind of power over longer periods of time [1], such as around an actual race
track with turns. For example, a GTR is known to be a few 10th's slower in
terms of 0-60 times, but would destroy any Tesla in nearly all other forms of
racing. The GTR is also a 4 seater Nissan, which can arguably be considered
just as practical as an electric car of today.

When you compare overall performance to other sport oriented family cars (such
as the M3 or M4), the Tesla isn't embarassing anyone.

That being said, I realize the Tesla isn't a purpose built track car, and for
what it is, it's one hell of a performer, but I constantly see people bringing
up the 0-60 time, saying how it destroys so many gas cars, but it's really
more complicated than that.

EDIT: Just to add (in reference to your "you have to get into electric cars"
comment), a CTS-V with under $10,000 of modifications will beat the Tesla P90D
in a drag race, and still be ~$10,000 cheaper all said and done. I don't think
it's possible to add performance modifications to the Tesla at all, so this is
another area where gas cars have the advantage.

[1] [http://insideevs.com/expected-tesla-model-s-fails-lap-
nurbur...](http://insideevs.com/expected-tesla-model-s-fails-lap-nurburgring-
full-power-video/)

~~~
semi-extrinsic
The best quote from your link IMO:

"[If the Tesla didn't go into] reduced power output mode, a B-T-G lap under
nine minutes is possible. According to the Bridge To Gantry site, that would
put it in the company of some really quick hot hatches."

So if the Tesla didn't have insufficient cooling for going around a race
track, it would be about as fast as a Honda Civic Type R. I.e. supercars are
way out of its league.

Plus, the Type R is about $40 000. How much is the Model S again?

------
arosenbaum
The stats were driven by the "Vehicle Hacking Vulnerability Survey". " How do
you feel about autonomous or self-driving vehicles?" was asked alongside
questions like "How big of a problem do you feel vehicle hacking will be in
the future?"

If the questions were "How safe a driver is your 75yo mother?" or "Do you
think autonomous cars will increase or decrease deaths caused by drunk
driving?" the survey might have shown different results.

~~~
zardo
TMT is a great way to manipulate survey results.

------
bcherny
I know quoting Jobs is passe, but this seems relevant: "But in the end, for
something this complicated, it's really hard to design products by focus
groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to
them."

~~~
jessaustin
In Henry Ford's (apparently apocryphal) words, “If I had asked people what
they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” One is reminded of how much
preferences can change when faced with options they couldn't previously
imagine, every time one hears of grimly determined "in-control" rush hour
commuters.

~~~
molecule
_> We have no evidence that Ford ever said those words._

[https://hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-
fast](https://hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-fast)

~~~
jessaustin
Hence, the parenthetical remark.

------
erobbins
I would love a completely autonomous car that I could get into, enter a
destination, and read a book while it takes me for a ride.

I am TERRIFIED of the "semi autonomous" cars that require the driver's
attention to take over if the computer gets confused, like current tesla or
mercedes models... because the people driving these cars are NOT going to be
able to take over when required. Many people are terrible drivers when they
are pretending to pay attention because they are doing the driving, there is
NO way they will have the situational awareness to take over in an emergency.

~~~
Avernar
I agree. Having a vehicle that requires me to take over in an emergency
defeats the whole point of a driverless vehicle. I'd just rater drive myself
then as I prefer to be a driver and not a passenger.

Basically there should be two modes. Full auto when I'm too tired to drive (or
sleeping) and semi auto where it takes over in an emergency. And a third mode
of full manual for off roading.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>Basically there should be two modes. Full auto... and semi auto

You'll need to come up with better names if they're ever going to be sold in
Commiefornia \s

------
EdSharkey
I wonder if there's going to be a lot of weird social side-effects to self-
driving cars like call screening was when answering machines came into wide
use on phones.

For example, as it has been explained to me, self-driving car software will
drive defensively by default, and offensively/efficiently when they judge it
safe.

Okay, so say self-driving car driving hits critical mass. In this scenario,
most people in cars are free to amuse themselves with their phones or reading
books, etc while riding their self-driving cars to work. Many are looking
down, not at the road, perhaps they're not even in the drivers' seat.

What will happen if there's that one lunatic who opts to drive himself to work
and drives in the most offensive, reckless manner? Won't all of the self-
driving cars he encounters slam on their brakes to avoid collisions? There
likely won't be any accidents, but there will be MANY frightened or startled
commuters!

What will this phenomena be called? Road Trolling? And, will there be
collective Twitter hashtag outrage that develops as a result?

I can imagine in the most extreme Los Angeles commuter scenario, a serial Road
Troll being hunted by one hundred fellow commuters that he rudely cut off on
his drive - their auto-drive cars set to "follow that car!", eventually
becoming cornered in some residential area when he runs out of gas and then
beat to death by the angry mob.

~~~
infogulch
Nope. When blatant law-breaking like this happens, every car that observed it
will send a detailed record of the event to the police including the license
plate. (Maybe after their passenger hits the big flashing "Report reckless
driving" button.) Using street cameras the car will be automatically tracked
until it stops (possibly alerting other autonomous cars to the upcoming
presence of a dangerous driver which in turn drive extra defensively), where
the police will arrive minutes later to arrest the driver if the infraction
was serious enough or the driver will receive a letter/email with a ticket for
reckless endangerment.

~~~
EdSharkey
Hmm, I suspect there is a big gray area here and not the Brave New World you
describe.

One can be an intensely rude driver and still fall within the law. Trolls
might randomly hit their brakes hard just to see the auto-driver behind
reflexively lurch and enjoy the passenger's reactions. Probably no one gets
hurt, and there's no way to prove the troll wasn't legitimately trying to
avoid hitting something.

~~~
leohutson
Doesn't even need to be a traffic infringement, most jurisdictions have loose
catch-all minor crimes like "disturbing the peace" or "disorderly conduct",
with pretty low burdens of proof.

------
dragonwriter
That's okay, when autonomous cars are mature, most people who ride in them
_won 't_ own them. They'll use a device to signal a ride service which will
send the car.

And driving a manual car will be an expensive luxury, comparatively, because
once autonomous cars are mature (which includes being significantly safer to
operate), the total cost of riding an autonomous car vs. the total cost
(including insurance) of driving will heavily favor the former.

~~~
jordwest
Agreed. For me, the cost of taking an Uber 4 or 5 times a week is already
lower than the cost of owning a car, all things considered.

------
Olscore
I don't want driverless cars because half the time I don't even know where I
am going. I routinely drive aimlessly around to discover new locations, listen
to music and explore. Could driverless cars be programmed for a "scenic mode"
and take me on curated tours by other people? Sure, yeah that might be cool.
Though nothing will replace the spontaneity of deciding street by street, if I
should go left, right or straight at an intersection; where I should stop to
enjoy food or drink in an unfamiliar place; or accidentally discovering a part
of town I never knew existed. Driverless cars, to me, feels like a small death
in the spirit of human exploration.

~~~
Namrog84
So why can't you just say turn left or turn right etc... Just not being the
one driving.

I've done exactly what you've described but also had the passenger telling me
spontaneity saying go left right forward.

There is nothing inherent that says you can't do that with autonomous cars.
But also it's likely that there will always be cars you can drive for fun just
like you can still ride horses for fun.

~~~
ph0rque
Even better options:

"pick a random route"

"pick the least-traveled route over the last three months within 50 miles of
my location"

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Just because it's a on a map doesn't mean it's actually a maintained road.

I think you'd very quickly wind up going down an unmaintained dirt road and
getting stuck.

------
brianmcconnell
Safety sells. Let's say it's 2025. You can buy a Tesla Model Z, or GM's latest
sedan for about 30 grand. In addition to the E-MPG rating, there's also a new
sticker for deaths and injuries per mile driven. The Tesla auto-drive enabled
car has a death rate one tenth that of the GM car. Which one is your spouse
going to insist that you buy?

I personally like to drive, especially on road trips, but I like the idea of a
car that has much better reaction time that can correct if I do something
stupid, or it sees something I can't (via vehicle to vehicle reporting).

Speaking of which, there will be many many opportunities to reduce impact
severity. Example: a vehicle pulls out in front of you unexpectedly. If the
car can react instantly where you'd take a fraction of a second, it can shed
enough speed to reduce the severity of impact significantly (if not avoid it
altogether). Reducing speed by 25%, will reduce the impact energy by almost
half, so even small improvements will result in big differences in injuries
and fatalities.

~~~
ams6110
What if the GM has a better rating? Will you find some reason that it's wrong,
or didn't account for X, Y, and Z, to rationalize your desire to buy the Tesla
regardless?

------
cygnus_a
What a lame article title.

The actual article presents evidence that Americans are getting more
comfortable with self-driving cars, and points out that peoples' concerns
aren't very valid.

Honestly, I almost didn't read the article because of the title. Fortunately
there was a tiny fit of rage in me that clicked to see what the author
actually was saying.

~~~
gaur
My first thought when I saw the title was "that's a really mean thing to say
about Hillary Clinton."

Edit: for posterity, the original HN title was identical to the article's
title: "Billions Are Being Invested in a Robot That Americans Don't Want".

------
fernly
Hah! Found it! This discussion reminded me of Robert Heinlein's rant against
the automobile. Turns out it is from the YA novel "The Rolling Stones"[1]:

"Despite the name 'automobile' these vehicles had no auto­control circuits;
control, such as it was, was exercised second by second for hours on end by a
human being peering out through a small pane of dirty silica glass, and
judging unassisted and often disastrously his own motion and those of other
objects. In almost all cases the operator had no notion of the kinetic energy
stored in his missile and could not have written the basic equation. Newton's
Laws of Motion were to him mysteries as profound as the meaning of the
universe.

Nevertheless millions of these mechanical jokes swarmed over our home planet,
dodging each other by inches or failing to dodge. None of them ever worked
right; by their nature they could not work right; and they were constantly
getting out of order. Their operators were usually mightily pleased when they
worked at all. When they did not, which was every few hundred miles (hundred,
not hundred thousand) they hired a member of a social class of arcane
specialists to make inadequate and always expensive temporary repairs.

"Despite their mad shortcomings, these 'automobiles' were the most
characteristic form of wealth and the most cherished possessions of their
time. Three whole generations were slaves to them."

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones_\(novel\))

------
billforsternz
I am really fascinated by how this is going to play out. I am actually
somewhat skeptical that fully autonomous (in the sense of arbitrary A to
arbitrary B) is really going to happen anytime soon. I heard John Siracusa on
his podcast outline convincing reasons why it wouldn't happen "in our
lifetime". Conventional wisdom at this point seems to be that Siracusa is
wrong, but his doubts resonated with me. I hope I'm wrong!

~~~
monk_e_boy
This. For sure. Most roads will need to be upgraded to 'robo friendly' the
little English lanes, hedges either side, one track with passing places (got
to do a lot of reversing or bumping up the hedge to get past.) These will all
be tricky for robots to navigate.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
Yes. Roads are built things, so they are designed to be usable for the
vehicles that use them. When most of these are robot cars, then the roads will
be optimised over time to match.

------
ck2
The grandchilden of millennials won't even understand what the fuss is about
or why they have to learn to drive in the first place.

~~~
tuxdev
Already starting to happening. I know a kid in high school who's annoyed by
his parents insisting that he learns to drive. Some of that is because he
believe the tech is going to get good enough by the time he gets out of
college, the rest is because I've set an example that it's possible to achieve
a car-free lifestyle already if you make it a major priority.

------
cwbrandsma
I don't want a first generation autonomous car...but around generation three
I'll probably all in.

* First Generation: expensive, mostly working, in very few cars

* Second Generation: bug fixes, slightly less expensive, in more cars

* Third Generation: an add-on option for the vast majority of cars, work 99.9% of the time.

* Forth Generation: politicians stop complaining about all the people having sex in cars.

------
sologoub
>Sherman, 21, a mechanical-engineering student at the University of Minnesota,
Twin Cities, trusts the technology and sees these vehicles eventually taking
over the road. But he dreads the change because his passion is working on cars
to make them faster. “It’s something I’ve loved to do my entire life and it’s
kind of on its way out,” he says. “That’s the sad truth.”

I don't fully agree - horses didn't disappear, but instead are now mostly kept
by people that just love horses, love interacting with them and love riding
them.

The same is likely to happen with cars. Most likely people that race them will
continue to do so, provided they have the means. If at some point driving a
non-autonomous car becomes illegal to drive on certain roadways, they will be
trailered to where they are legal to drive. Horses are legal on regular road,
but you cannot have them on a Freeway because it's no longer safe.

------
efuquen
I'm sure horseless carriages freaked people out when they first came out too.
And driverless cars don't mean nobody will ever drive for fun, just like
autopilot on airplanes didn't eliminate getting pilot licenses for recreation.

The history of people being scared and unprepared for technological change is
pretty thorough:

[http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-
tech/12-technologi...](http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-
tech/12-technologies-that-scared-the-world-senseless-1249053)

~~~
Spooky23
Not really.

My grandfather grew up in a rural part of Ireland that had no electricity
until the late 1920s. One of his earliest memories was when a man came to town
in a car with a battery powered lantern. It was the first most people had ever
seen if either, and everyone around went to the pub to see the car and light.

The car was an obvious improvement over a horse, in terms of speed, cost and
versatility. Very few people voyages more than 10-15 miles from their place of
birth pre automobile.

Autonomous cars are not that. They will clearly be expensive, and being a
service with complex liability problems will most likely be an Über-style, pay
by the drink model. As amazing as Uber is, riding them is a lot more expensive
than leasing a Honda Accord.

They also make occasional distance trips prohibitively expensive. I do a 1,000
mile road trip every year -- which costs about $500. What would a robot Uber
cost?

IMO, they are a solution looking for a problem. Negative effects will include
undermining public transit, and making suburban sprawl worse.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Wouldn't a 1000 mile trip be far more cost effective to do by flying? A round-
trip flight plus some Ubers on the other end could easily end up being under
$500.

~~~
Spooky23
4 people from Albany, NY to most places is $3000 + rental car. Plus my wife
and I are tall, and sitting in a airline seat and dealing with the airport
drama sucks.

Or I drive for 20 hours and get another week in a 5 star hotel.

------
raldi
And they probably never _will_ own one. But they also won't own a regular car
anymore, either.

The promise of self-driving cars is that, for less money than you're spending
to own a car today, you'll summon a self-driving taxi whenever you want, of
whatever type you want right at that moment (convertible, economy car, four-
door, pickup truck, SUV, limo...), and then after it drops you off, you never
see it again.

~~~
vasilipupkin
I disagree. I would like to own a car, so that I can have my stuff in it and
not have to wait for it, etc. but it's nice not to have to drive it myself

~~~
raldi
You're not the "they" my comment was referring to.

------
atemerev
I don't want a self-driving car either. I enjoy driving. I like to be in
control.

But for commercial purposes, self-driving cars are inevitable, of course.

~~~
oh_sigh
Do you fly your own airplane as well?

~~~
erobbins
if I could rent a jet + fuel for the same cost as say, a first class ticket?
yes, I would.

~~~
atemerev
You are in luck — there are some startups on track to deliver that in a few
years. Still have to get the pilot license, though.

~~~
sokoloff
I doubt the underlying economics will ever deliver a rental jet at an all-in
cost under $4/mi. My piston single-engine airplane (wildly cheaper than a
turbine to purchase, maintain, and operate) runs over $1/mi.

When I poke around Google flights at my common trips, it's hard to estimate
tightly the cost of a first class ticket, but it seems around $1/mi for most
of my routes (some Carribean routes are much cheaper than that). There's no
way to operate a jet for that amount. Even if you take a family of four (where
the personal airplane cost doesn't go up much, but the first class tickets
obviously do), you can't quite cover even the variable costs of the Cirrus
SF50 (the cheapest variable cost jet). That doesn't leave anything for
maintenance, positioning flights (which require crew), capital costs,
insurance, hangaring while not rented, training, or profit for the rental
outfit.

I'd love to be proven wrong, because I'm absolutely in the target market for
even a $2/mi all-in rental jet (and already have the pilot quals/hours to
qualify, except for the type-specific type-rating). I doubt it can be done for
under $8/mi to the end user.

------
fernly
Put me down as one who does not want to OWN an autonomous car. I don't. It is
ridiculous to tie up so much capital in a vehicle I use no more than 1-2 hours
a day, max.

But I would LOVE a world in which I can call an autonomous car to my door
whenever I want one, just like I'd call Lyft today. Or book one in advance to
drive me a greater distance and wait to bring me back.

------
Multiplayer
I think the success of driverless cars will depend on the experience. If the
cars are incredibly slow/cautious and you look like a segway riding dork but
just inside a glass cage.. then I don't think it works.

Get the user experience right. The youtube videos of tesla drivers drinking
coffee and reading the paper at high speeds looked like great fun to me.

------
tropo
I'm expecting "Minority Report", not "car that drives better than me" from
this.

First priority is not getting me hurt. Second priority is not getting me in
trouble. Third priority is not causing damage that costs me. Fourth priority
is to go fast.

I thus want a car that can figure out potential hiding spots for cops. When
there are no cops, I expect the car to disobey the law. I want it to go 2x the
speed limit, drift around corners, and take winding roads faster by sometimes
going into the wrong lane.

------
guelo
Makes sense. People don't even want to give over control of their social media
feeds. "The algorithm" is never designed for the end user's interests.

------
JulianMorrison
98% of drivers would refuse to drive a flying saucer[1].

Let them see it, as a reality and not an abstraction, and then lets see if
their minds change.

I have a feeling it's like, in the early IBM PC era, people would have said,
why would I want a portable handheld computer with a Star Trek touch screen
and a global network, that sounds useful for engineers and nerds and maybe
executives. And it doubles as a phone? How very Buck Rogers.

[1] may not contain actual statistics.

------
kharms
>Three-quarters of drivers don't want to own an autonomous car

Means that there's a market of ~60 million people that would buy an autonomous
car.

------
awqrre
One problem with autonomous cars and most modern cars is that they are
connected to the network all of the time (which can be a security and a
privacy issue). Take this for example: [http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-
exec-gps-2014-1](http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1) .

------
pbhowmic
Self-driving will transform personal cars but it will come second. the first
industry it will transform is long-haul trucking.

------
awinter-py
4/5 of autonomous cars don't want to carry around a pesky human but you don't
hear them complaining

~~~
zyxley
If you were to really anthropomorphize cars, I imagine that they'd consider
humans as useful symbiotes that repair injuries and retrieve fuel from the
deposits found here and there on the asphalt seas.

~~~
awinter-py
You don't need to anthropomorphize autonomous vehicles for them to talk.

The last barrier to their legalization will be 'what happens in a crash'. To
deal with that, they'll have to be permitted to develop moral opinions _as
well as_ the ability to testify about those in court. It's a core feature.

~~~
zyxley
This is a weird claim to make when there are already legal self-driving cars
out there that have no such capabilities.

~~~
awinter-py
testing only

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Legislation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Legislation)

------
happycube
The flip side is that even if only 25% want self-driving cars, that's still a
pretty damn big market.

------
limeyx
You can probably draw a very similar chart of people who wouldn't buy a car
when it replaced the horse & cart

Or people who would "never" drive an automatic car or ... blah blah blah

It's going to happen at some point here ... just like HDTV finally did :)

------
recursive
I don't want to own _any_ car, but I'd like to ride in an autonomous car.

------
dang
We changed the baity title, as the HN guidelines ask. In this case a neutral
subtitle was available.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
gfodor
yet people ride automated trains at the airport all the time. i bet if you
asked them right after riding these trains if they'd ever ride a train driven
by a robot, they'd say no, right after just riding one.

~~~
shopkins
Except those people have probably never _driven_ a train before. It's
different.

------
vasilipupkin
Wow, 25% of car owners are ready for autonomous cars. That's a huge market

------
linkregister
I'm just happy that the author of this article broke up the generations as
Boomer, X, Y, and Z. I've always found the term Millennial to encompass too
large of an age group to be meaningful.

------
Gys
30 years ago most cars in the Netherlands had shift gearing. Automatic was
more expensive and considered not cool, 'not for real driving'. Nowadays
everybody prefers automatic shifting...

------
zck
I wonder how this compares to airplanes -- when the first commercial airlines
came into existence, did people complain that they weren't able to fly the
plane? What about autopilot?

~~~
atemerev
Lots of people are on their way to learn and get their pilot licenses, because
freedom and excitement of flying do matter to them.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Compared to the number that drive their own car or the number that take
commercial flights, there are a very, very small number of people who do that.

------
willvarfar
The general public will quickly start wanting self driving cars when they
realize they can drink and get home. No more taking turns to be the
responsible driver etc.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
You have basically described Uber (1). No co-incidence that Uber is interested
in self-driving cars. "Do I want to _own_ one?" is the wrong question, why
bother owning one when you can summon one when you want it?

1)
[https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249958](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249958)

~~~
willvarfar
(I'm living in Europe, in the countryside, and I think a car that can drive me
home will be a big win. I think taxis etc are for built-up areas.)

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
There will be cases where "owning your own self-driving car" will make sense,
they just won't be the majority of what's now covered by "owning your own
car".

I'm living in Europe, in a city, and looking forward to being driven to and
from social engagements this weekend, because drinking. There is going to be a
human behind the wheel of that taxi but that's incidental. I don't own a car
because the costs greatly outweigh the benefits and there are always
alternatives.

~~~
willvarfar
I've lived in several European cities and owning your own car has been a
liability full-stop.

Interestingly, everyone I know in a city in the US has a car. All they do is
complain about traffic, but they own one nonetheless.

For everyone owning a car today, I think tomorrow they'll want a car with
self-drive feature.

Its not strange that a survey conducted by car interest groups find their
readers uninterested in self-driving cars, as their readers are car
enthusiasts. The kind of people who aspire to owning sports cars. The kind of
customer who probably doesn't want an automatic either, nor cruise control
etc? ;)

------
mlinksva
I don't want to/think I'll ever _own_ an autonomous car. But I want one
someone else owns to pick me up at the snap of my fingers.

------
pteredactyl
Wait until they charge a toll to leave your garage. If the traffic is bad, for
instance

~~~
undersuit
Why even have a garage? Tell the car to park down the street with-in range of
the security cameras from a local business and plant a garden where your
garage used to be or turn it into a billiard room.

------
nvader
I'm really glad that it's not up for a popular vote, then.

------
smarinov
And three quarters do.

------
forrestthewoods
Americans also wanted a faster horse.

------
joesmo
Who cares? They'll accept it eventually. And if they don't, it won't matter
because they'll have no choice. This isn't an election. Self driving cars are
coming and they will reduce accident rates amongst many, many benefits. If
people are stupid cowards, let them walk.

