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Moving people and cargo...
1. The most efficient - water transport
2. The most efficient, frugal, durable land transport - electric traction steel wheel on steel rail
3. The most convenient land transport - automobile / rubber tires on paved road (but ghastly expensive)
4. The current fastest mode - jet aircraft (limited by the nuisance of sonic booms to subsonic velocity)
5. Potential fastest mode - mag lev train in a vacuum tube (hypersonic velocities without those annoying sonic booms - may exceed 4000 MPH)
Redesigning cities to better integrate rail transportation will drive down costs and boost convenience, more so than transitioning to autonomous automobiles.
One unintended consequence comes from the fact that driverless cars would use some kind of video technology to record accidents or incidents. So we'd have fleets of passive surveillance cruising the streets. I'm no paranoiac but it's yet another technology--Google glasses are another--that keeps the eagle eye on the populace. There's certainly a crime fighting benefit. There's also a certain creepiness about it.
I don't think it would be that big of a leap. Its still the same car, only now it can drive itself. But there's always something new coming out. GPS, hybrid technology, self-parking technology, and now self-driving technology. Maybe a little more impressive than usual, but just add it to the long and ever-growing list of gee-whiz electronic novelty options you can get (or may soon get) for your car. I don't know if its going to revolutionize anything. But if it can get somehow get people to drive a lot less than they do now, then that could be a big step forward in transforming the urban environment.
Oops. Hope I didn't speak to soon, because if it encouraged people to drive more that would be a step backward.
This might seem like its not a big change but it really is. Our lives and cities are built around a car that we drive. One thing is traffic. More cars could be on the highways going faster with less distance between the cars. Driving 50-100 miles will be like going across town. Back in the horse and buggy era no one could of predicted the profound impact cars would have on our cities and I suspect the same is true with the driverless car. The one difference is how fast it wil happen. Life in 2020 will be advancing much more rapidly then it was in 1920 so the time it takes to fully integrate the driverless car will most likely be about 10 years. Then you add the advancements we will see in AI and how that will impact the car. The change that will bring to our cities by 2030 will be great.
Last edited by Josseppie; 07-09-2013 at 06:51 AM..
One unintended consequence comes from the fact that driverless cars would use some kind of video technology to record accidents or incidents. So we'd have fleets of passive surveillance cruising the streets. I'm no paranoiac but it's yet another technology--Google glasses are another--that keeps the eagle eye on the populace. There's certainly a crime fighting benefit. There's also a certain creepiness about it.
Get use to it this is the new normal. In fact they are already working on contact lenses that will do the same things as google glasses.
One unintended consequence comes from the fact that driverless cars would use some kind of video technology to record accidents or incidents. So we'd have fleets of passive surveillance cruising the streets. I'm no paranoiac but it's yet another technology--Google glasses are another--that keeps the eagle eye on the populace. There's certainly a crime fighting benefit. There's also a certain creepiness about it.
Who do you blame the accident on if the passenger isn't in control of the car? It's not their fault. I think that a "potential accident fee" would be included in a rental or subscription to the driverless car service. That way, in the case of an accident (much less likely than with human-controlled cars), the company can cover the cost of any damages. An ambulance could be dispatched to the spot to check on the people involved, and if they're ok, then another car arrives to take them to their destination; if they are not, then the ambulance takes them to the hospital. I don't really see a need to record a video of an accident in which no one is at fault.
Moving people and cargo...
1. The most efficient - water transport
2. The most efficient, frugal, durable land transport - electric traction steel wheel on steel rail
3. The most convenient land transport - automobile / rubber tires on paved road (but ghastly expensive)
4. The current fastest mode - jet aircraft (limited by the nuisance of sonic booms to subsonic velocity)
5. Potential fastest mode - mag lev train in a vacuum tube (hypersonic velocities without those annoying sonic booms - may exceed 4000 MPH)
Redesigning cities to better integrate rail transportation will drive down costs and boost convenience, more so than transitioning to autonomous automobiles.
This is probably the best way to go, but in several cities, I believe it's infeasible simply because of the way the city has developed. Places like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Phoenix have a CBD and also multiple business centers. Constructing a rail line would not be similar to the way they were build in cities that are more centralized (I'm guessing London, Paris, NYC/Northeast). The suburbs are very sprawled out, and a rail station would only be convenient to so many people. New residents would have to be guided to areas of increased density where future rail development is planned or will be easily accessible.
All the top auto makers have said they will have a inexpensive driverless car out this decade and some say in about 3 years. So this is not some theory that might happen in our generation this is something that we will all deal with soon. Then if you look 20 years out puts us at 2033 and with how technology advances exponentially that is very likely all the cars will be driverless. In fact I think that timetable is to conservative and it could happen sooner.
For all cars to be driverless in 2033, there would have to be no driven cars on the road. Obvious, but worth stating.
Let's assume 3/4 of cars are newer than 15 years. That would mean, to have 3/4 of the cars be driverless by 2033, no driven cars could be sold after 2018.
But, given the incrementalism of the luxury brands, much less the rest of the industry, the first fully driverless cars might not be to market until 2018. Even companies such as Volvo and BMW, which are are the forefront of automation (BMW has had 5 series running around the autobahn much like Google has Prii running around California), have not signaled that a production automated vehicle will be ready within the next few years.
Consumer electric cars are still a niche market, with less than 1% of the new car market. They have plenty of potential but will they ever break into the mainstream? Remains to be seen. Same with driverless cars. Lots of potential for it but that's all it is right now. It looks very cool but there's always a lot of hype whenever something new comes out. Can it get to the consumer market production stage and succeed? I will believe it when I see it .
Agreed.
But...IF a car was capable of being accident free via automation, the crash structure and safety features would be minimal--no need to carry useless mass--and would greatly extend the range of electrics.
2300 lbs for a car the size of a Camry isn't out of the question.
And this doesn't include weight savings due to coming advancements in metallurgy and carbon fiber production.
The major thing it will do tho is to let us quite the growth in highway construction and not in just cities. It will be come like hooking your car to a train. Besdies that in time w it will eman freight trucks operatnig 24 hrs a day with safety.
For all cars to be driverless in 2033, there would have to be no driven cars on the road. Obvious, but worth stating.
Let's assume 3/4 of cars are newer than 15 years. That would mean, to have 3/4 of the cars be driverless by 2033, no driven cars could be sold after 2018.
But, given the incrementalism of the luxury brands, much less the rest of the industry, the first fully driverless cars might not be to market until 2018. Even companies such as Volvo and BMW, which are are the forefront of automation (BMW has had 5 series running around the autobahn much like Google has Prii running around California), have not signaled that a production automated vehicle will be ready within the next few years.
I have read where the first "inexpensive" driverless car will be on the market in only 3 years, 2016. That is why everyone keeps talking about 10 to 20 years out which would mean 2023 to 2033.
Even the NHTSA is getting into the act:
For its part, NHTSA said on Thursday that it was issuing its policy now because “America is at a historic turning point for automotive travel."
“Motor vehicles and drivers’ relationships with them are likely to change significantly in the next ten to twenty years, perhaps more than they have changed in the last one hundred years,” the agency said.
This is one of the technologies that I think once becomes available will take over. So maybe it wont be 100% but I suspect it will be very close so that and we might even have highways only for driverless cars as they can go faster with less room in between the cars.
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