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I've spoken out against self driving cars in the past but really I think someday they will be a wonderful thing. My problem with them is how aggressively their proponents want to implement their ubiquitous usage on us. We've got people saying that between 5-10 years not only will they be commonplace, but you won't even be allowed to drive your old car anymore. You'll either have to purchase an extremely expensive self driving car, or, as some suggest, you won't even be able to own one and you'll be forced to ride share. (But it will be great we promise!)
I don't think the technology will be ready for such a drastic changeover in such a short amount of time and even on the off chance that the tech is ready, society won't be. I know, I know, muh horse and buggy, but this is not the same thing. Not everyone is going to want this ride sharing autonomous vehicle utopia and for people who don't live in large cities it won't even be practical. And no, you won't be able to force everyone to abandon the countryside and move to your urban paradise. There are people who will literally fight and kill/die before allowing themselves to be forced to do that. It's simply not a lifestyle for everyone.
I don't think the technology will be ready for such a drastic changeover in such a short amount of time and even on the off chance that the tech is ready, society won't be. I know, I know, muh horse and buggy, but this is not the same thing. Not everyone is going to want this ride sharing autonomous vehicle utopia and for people who don't live in large cities it won't even be practical. And no, you won't be able to force everyone to abandon the countryside and move to your urban paradise. There are people who will literally fight and kill/die before allowing themselves to be forced to do that. It's simply not a lifestyle for everyone.
Count me in that group. Too many aspects of our lifestyle are completely dependent on having a certain type of vehicle parked out in the driveway and available for us to use anytime we want, to take us anywhere we want to go, stay as long as we like, and come back whenever we choose. I'm not giving that up. Giving that up would mean giving up way too many aspects of our lives that are neither dispensable nor negotiable to us.
Sorry, all you naive, futuristic utopians out there with your heads in the clouds. This one isn't happening.
It will be great to see self-driving dominate the roads in Canada where winter can last up to 6-8 months in certain provinces. Are there any right now in States where there's actual heavy rain or light snow or it is only limited to sunny terrain?
Not differential GPS, actual metal rails somewhere buried in the road, kind of like guide by wire. (In addition to regular GPS.
The insurance is a very interesting point.
In 20-30 years, if they have perfected AV, will they just make cars that only drive themselves and no manual controls for those that dont want to bother learning how to drive? Would there be a need for more AV taxis because people wouldnt need to own cars, just summon one on the phone? That would make the insurance go up pretty high for manual drivers, and the cars. Hmmmmm...
Why would you ever bury metal rails in the road when GPS gives your precise location? You supplement that with image recognition on all the cameras and radar so you know your location to the centimeter. With the next generation of wireless, the cars all talk to each other in a mesh network so you don't have moron humans doing unanticipated things.
In 30 years, I doubt most people will bother owning cars and most 20-somethings won't have a license. You hail a driverless Uber car on your smartphone. The application tells you to the second when the car will show up. If you insist on driving yourself, at some point you'll have to install a transponder to put your car on that mesh network with all the autonomous cars. My car has adaptive cruise control and anti-collision braking. I imagine the minimum requirement for driving yourself would be to let the network engage your anti-collision braking to stop you from doing a moron human thing.
Think about how disruptive this will all be. In many states, the #1 occupation category is "truck driver". That vanishes. Mailman? Gone. FEDEX/UPS driver? Gone. Pizza delivery driver? Gone. With delivery costs dropping to near-zero using electric delivery vehicles, most retail that hasn't already been crushed by Amazon will be totally destroyed. The things that will survive are things where people are happy to pay for the service and the experience. The restaurant will never go away. The spa will never go away. I'd be happy to never go into big box retail again.
This is all going to happen. It's a matter of when, not if. So much R&D money is being poured into this that I think it's sooner rather than later.
It will be great to see self-driving dominate the roads in Canada where winter can last up to 6-8 months in certain provinces. Are there any right now in States where there's actual heavy rain or light snow or it is only limited to sunny terrain?
What makes you think you can't program a car to drive in the snow better than a human can?
Mary and the entire BoD and upper management are not only delusional, but incredibly cruel in the way they've "let people go." Cruel cruel and humiliating. Shocking.
They're doing the PC thing. Mary is already wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. She's banking on selling massive quantities of electric cars in China. That's like selling snowballs to Eskimos. China already has overproduction capacity for electric cars, they've gotten what they need from GM they don't need them any more.
Mary and the rest will be safely retired and possibly even safer six feet under, by the time the extent of the disaster they've visited upon a once-great corporation is realized.
I wouldn't be surprised to see GM bankrupt--in a real sense this time--within 10 years. Or broken up and sold.
Just about anything you can imagine. Can. And will.
Dreams dreams dreams. About a month ago my Garmin, just at a critical turn-off point in an unfamiliar area, went bizarro and the screen shifted to some nonsense for about 15 seconds.
I missed my turn, but no worries, the scenic route is just fine.
Driving is the most complex activity most of us engage in. Hundreds of visual inputs, hundreds of decisions are made unimaginably quickly, subconsciously.
When visibility is limited, when conditions change rapidly, this is nothing but a tort attorney's fondest dream.
A boat in relatively uncrowded waterways vs. a vehicle in complex, crowded traffic are like playing with children's blocks vs. playing a game of chess. Playing chess well, where the contestants look out six, eight, 10 moves ahead with all possibilities.
It wont work if there are SD and manual drive cars on the road at the same time, however if all cars were SD, I think it would flow smoothly, the biggest hurdle to overcome is humans accepting this, When the transition from horse and buggy to the motorized car happened, people were arguing these same exact points.
Why would you ever bury metal rails in the road when GPS gives your precise location? You supplement that with image recognition on all the cameras and radar so you know your location to the centimeter. With the next generation of wireless, the cars all talk to each other in a mesh network so you don't have moron humans doing unanticipated things.
In 30 years, I doubt most people will bother owning cars and most 20-somethings won't have a license. You hail a driverless Uber car on your smartphone. The application tells you to the second when the car will show up. If you insist on driving yourself, at some point you'll have to install a transponder to put your car on that mesh network with all the autonomous cars. My car has adaptive cruise control and anti-collision braking. I imagine the minimum requirement for driving yourself would be to let the network engage your anti-collision braking to stop you from doing a moron human thing.
Think about how disruptive this will all be. In many states, the #1 occupation category is "truck driver". That vanishes. Mailman? Gone. FEDEX/UPS driver? Gone. Pizza delivery driver? Gone. With delivery costs dropping to near-zero using electric delivery vehicles, most retail that hasn't already been crushed by Amazon will be totally destroyed. The things that will survive are things where people are happy to pay for the service and the experience. The restaurant will never go away. The spa will never go away. I'd be happy to never go into big box retail again.
This is all going to happen. It's a matter of when, not if. So much R&D money is being poured into this that I think it's sooner rather than later.
When the first one hits something/someone, watch the scumbag lawyers have a field day.
If you’re run over or seriously maimed by one of these things, why shouldn’t they? Don’t the manufacturers assume these risks are going to occur when they introduce products like this?
That sounds like a personal issue that you need to dive deep on
Cruising is fun. Seems like you might have one.
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