OT: Autonomous cars. Do you believe the hype?

They technology exists. The price tag is the issue.

Honestly a lot of you guys will be dead before the technology is commercially available and affordable. There's a huge liability issue to be sorted out. But I imagine by the time my kid is my age they will be the norm.

Admittedly, I should probably stop using Apple Maps, but I don’t trust the GPS technology perfectly either. It works most of the time, but when there’s errors—such as when it tried to navigate me to drive in the wrong direction of a one way street, that I don’t feel comfortable just yet.

That, and it seems like something like that would be easier to implement in a dense city rather than a country area. I guess consumers would have the option of switching modes?

That being said, I’d absolutely love the idea of it. Driving is a huge PITA sometimes.

I love the idea of self driving cars in bumper to bumper freeway traffic. Let me tuscl while I'm commuting!

I think the only way it works to scale is if the government allocates portions of the city or road lanes as autonomous cars only. I do not see how a mix can work effectively.

They can do it with air planes now. Anybody want to get on a flight without pilots?

Haven't researched it but the media makes it sound like it's eminent as in 5 to 10 years.

I always thought the right infrastructure would make it more viable - i.e. having "smart roads" decked out with plenty of sensors to help the self-driving cars - but I've never heard this point made.

The GPS comparison is a good one - works well most of the time but not always.

It’s coming it’ll make the roads safer and make transportation even more accessible than it is now.

I don't think there's much question that the cars will be driving themselves. The points you bring up -- there will be some government regulation; there might be a requirement to have a driver behind the wheel as a failsafe for a while -- is not some kind of insurmountable obstacle. Unless there's some spectacular failure that sets things back, widespread in 10 years for sure, would be my guess.

I think we will gradually see a very slow increase in autonomous vehicles in the next 5 years followed by a quicker increase in 5-10 years as prices drop and people become more comfortable with the tech. Within 15 years I doubt any new car will be sold without autonomous driving being at least an option.

By all serious reports I've read, fully autonomous cars are still decades away. Right now car sensor technology is nowhere near advanced enough to interpret a wide variety of abnormal road conditions and traffic issues, nor is it capable of reading non-verbal communication normally passed from one driver to another. Also, GPS services are nowhere near developed enough, in terms of connectivity or street level map accuracy, to be fully relied upon. Net-net we are going to need huge leaps in both AI tech and GPS coverage before fully autonomous cars become a reality on our roadways.

IMHO Papi is right that "smart" roadways would probably speed this up, but it is probably cost prohibitive. It can cost over $1 million just to repave a mile of existing road and several million to build a new mile of roadway. With over 4 million miles of roadway in the U.S., who would pay for it? We're probably talking about trillions just to cover a fraction of existing roads when we include the cost of the sensors themselves, which is probably why we never hear this option.

I wish we we closer. I love the thought of being able to go out to a club, drink as much as I want, and then get back in the car without a worry. I also love the thought of avoiding planes more often and instead working in my car between city stops. Imagine going on vacation and not having to rent hotel rooms in between stops because the car can do the driving overnight. But realistically this will probably not be a reality in my lifetime.

Rick - I concur with your assessment.

The media hype makes it sound like we are just a few years away when it is probably decades best case.

You can code autonomy for a simple and straightforward driving situation. Like some cars can be hands-off once they are on a freeway.

Autonomy for any situation, like a construction zone, is at least 20 years away.

It's coming. All this autonomous/robot technology scares the hell out of me and what it will do to employment.

They claim truck drivers will be hit hard and likely eliminated but who knows when that would be.

These things are hard to predict- I recall when I was in 7th-grade circa 1983, that my science textbook which had been written in 1973, predicted in 10-years (from its writing) that electric-cars would be common-place.

I don’t think it’s as far off as many of you guys think, technology is doubling our knowledge in less and les time, I believe before 2030 there will be applications where driverless vehicles are more than common, I don’t think that it’s going to take very long between the first use and common use, I believe that this technology is pretty close to ready to use, there’s so much money behind it it is inevitable.

Papi - when I was in 7th grade I remember a teacher saying someday we would all have our own computers. That was when only IBM had a super computer.

I hope he invested wisely.

25, I hope you are right. It would only take one functional fully autonomous car hitting the road to be a complete game changer. Inception would be quick like smart phones.

I don't think it is that far off either. But the implementation and adoption will be key. It seems like it would be really dangerous during the transition period.

25 posted: "I don’t think it’s as far off as many of you guys think, technology is doubling our knowledge in less and les time, I believe before 2030 there will be applications where driverless vehicles are more than common, I don’t think that it’s going to take very long between the first use and common use, I believe that this technology is pretty close to ready to use, there’s so much money behind it it is inevitable."

To Papi's point, there has been endless billions spent on electric vehicles over many decades and they are still seriously constrained by battery technology limitations. Almost all of that was spent on battery technology, yet even today battery cars still have about 1/3 of the range of electric cars and take half a day or longer to fully recharge at home. Imagine the tech needed to make a self driving car work in the real world, with unpredictable humans driving or, worse, walking near these cars. Then there is road construction, faulty traffic lights, bad weather like heavy rain and snow, accidents, human crossing guards, etc.,etc.

Maybe my sources are wrong, but everything I'm reading indicates that our technology is nowhere near up to the challenge. Many experts have changed direction and are now saying that fully self driving cars will only be a reality if all cars, as well as roadways, are somehow linked to communicate with one another.

The ethics behind how the safety algorithms would work is extremely controversial as well.

^ Huh ?

They need to program logic into how to avoid accidents. If a collision is imminent, how are things prioritized... Protect the passengers above all else? Prioritize pedestrians over vehicles? Protect smaller pedestrians over larger ones? How about animals and propery?

You definitely dont want the shit truck to be autonomous and fuck up

I also think self driving cars are further off than folks think. Subra says 2030, I'll try to remember that. 11 years, I seriously doubt it.

For consumers now I believe Tesla has the closest thing to self driving. On the freeway there's plenty of videos of folks putting the thing on autopilot and watching a movie or even playing chess while the car navigates freeway traffic.

But fully autonomous, I think it'll be quite awhile. But I do think eventually, humans driving will be outlawed once they're able to prove that computers can drive much safer.

Tesla autopilot in moderate traffic youtu.be

Playing games during Tesla autopilot youtu.be