
Ford to skip past level-3 autonomy because its engineers kept falling asleep - Futurebot
http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/ford-robocar-to-ford-engineers-wake-up
======
techdragon
And is anyone familiar with even a basic understanding of human attention
psychology surprised? I think not.

Level 3 was doomed from the start.

~~~
slv77
I want to believe a level 4 vehicle is possible but it feels too much to me
like the flying cars if the 1950's. Even if the technology gets 99.9% of the
way there who is going to assume liability for the car packed full of kids
being sent autonomously to school?

This liability could potentially extend to literally decades and is what
killed small private plane manufacturers in the US. In the 1950's it was
assumed that the families "third car" would be a small private plane and the
biggest challenges would be how to get around once you'd flown there (hence
the need for the flying car. Today a Plane like the a Cessna is outside the
reach of middle class families because of liability costs. Each Cessna sold
has to factor in liability costs for every plane still in the air. It's the
reason that prices for decade old planes appreciate over time.

The only market that I can see a level 4 vehicle being viable (assuming its
possible) is fleet vehicles for taxis and where and for how long they operate
can be strictly dictated and the private vehicle market would be left with
very advanced driver assist.

~~~
FabHK
The General Aviation Revitalization Act was supposed to shield GA
manufacturers from product liability to an extent and revive the moribund
industry: Cessna basically stopped building small airplanes in 1985.

But it's really remarkable how costs have soared (average unit costs, not for
the "same" airplane) and the number of general aviation planes shipped has
dropped since the 1970s, see the graph here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalizatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalization_Act)

