We've seen a number of threads at this site, and in several categories, regarding the possibility of a "self-driving car". The subject is usually initiated by younger members who don't have too much exposure to the process whereby a new technical process adapts itself to the marketplace, and for that reason, I've remained very skeptical.
But I found a little free time this weekend and took the opportunity to review some of the more business-oriented articles in the trucking industry (where I first started out, over forty years ago) and was pleasantly surprised.
http://blog.caranddriver.com/the-tru...ous-semitruck/
The point that needs to be emphasized here is that the adaptation of available technology to the desires of the public (and the gains will be immense
if you can deliver what a lot of people -- and entrepreneurs -- can actually use), is a slow and roundabout path. We might be able to describe our dreams and desires to the innovators among us. but such progress tends to develop using individual components -- a part here, a piece of the puzzle there, and a new idea to link the processes and tools together in the form of something which actually works.
The article, (and several parallel stories in other publications) likes to depict the quest for autonomous vehicles as a five-stage process, with antilock braking, which emerged in the Seventies, as Stage I and cruise control, or sensors such as the device used to identify hidden obstacles when backing as Stage II. The newest innovations such as devices to aid in changing lanes on open highway, are being touted as stage III, but if so, I tend to think that a lot more "stages" remain to be identified and negotiated.
The non-technical gadflies who have raised (and overhyped) the possibilities discussed here have tailored their message to the most impressionable, and the most likely to be disappointed; we're not likely to have something that will relieve Suburban Soccer-Mom from her role as chauffer to both kids and aging ancestors anytime soon. But we might see something that will reduce a lot of the frustrations and risks of the "line-haul" -- the 90+ percent of the journey between individual origin and destination -- and that might create opportunities at the end points. To borrow an admittedly-oversimplified parallel from trucking, the new innovations might ease the boredom and stress of the trip, but for now, somebody will still have to back that thing into a dock door.
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