"Right to Drive" vs. autonomous vehicles

bobzilla said:

mtn said:

 

 

I stand by my point that the technology is not that expensive. 

I still stand by the point that the maintenance and durabilty will be the key issue with these. We all know what it's like when cars aren't maintained properly. Imagine hopping into that $5k autonomous car that has been "serviced" by Jim-Bob's backyard shop. for the last 10 years. With your kids. 

Absolutely.  Look at the notorious Takata Airbag Disaster,https://www.consumerreports.org/car-recalls-defects/takata-airbag-recall-everything-you-need-to-know/

wherein a relatively simple system designed to protect life was more or less directly responsible for at least 24 deaths worldwide.

As the systems in autonomous cars age, they will fail, with predictable outcomes. 

Ultimately, I suspect that sellers of autonomous cars will adopt a "subscription" model where you will pay a monthly fee to use a vehicle.  That vehicle will be subject to regular recalls and refits and reprograms.  No way they can allow private ownership and deal with the liability of antique self-driving systems.

Ian F said:

The article ignores the 800 lb gorilla that can push the general public towards self-driving cars far faster than any laws could: Insurance costs.  When self-driving cars become more common and real-world safety numbers can be quantified, the insurance companies will have the power to make human driven cars unaffordable to all but the wealthy, save occasional-use classics. 

Federal, state and local governments won't need to be involved.

I disagree. The first time a fully-autonomous car kills somebody it's going to be a total bloodbath in the courtroom. Where does the individual liability lie? The car "operator", the manufacturer, or the rider? Insurance companies don't like risk.

mtn said:

Nick Comstock said:

mtn said:

Grizz said:

In reply to mtn :

I'm talking feasibility, not where benefit lies. Or at least for the idea of "pool of auto vehicles that just go out when you call them" instead of privately owned ones. My town doesn't even have buses, and barely has taxis, because there's not enough use for them, low pop areas would get told to pound sand because there isn't enough cashflow to justify the cost in servicing them

Also a better solution to the issue of piss poor drivers is to actually teach people how to drive. Drivers ed here is 4 days of telling people what road signs mean and then a day telling people not to drive under the influence or look at their phone. And it's not even a matter of the cars getting better so we don't need to teach X anymore, it's just laziness.

That is one of the reasons I'm not convinced about the "fleet" of vehicles instead of privately owned ones. That, and the tech isn't going to be that expensive in 10 or 20 years. Hell, a $75k Tesla has autopilot NOW. $75k isn't that expensive when you consider that a Camry can come in at $35k.

And that $35K  Camry is more than my yearly wage. More expensive than I'm willing to go in debt for. And I'm slightly above the median wage. For more than half of the country a $35K car is out of the question, let alone an "isn't that expensive" $75K one.

 

I own a car that I paid $3,000 for. Actually, the seller would likely argue that I paid about $2,000 for the car, and $1,000 for an extra set of wheels that came with it. That car cost $47k new, 18 years ago. With inflation, that is approximately $68k today. Give it 20 years. By that point, the expensive cars will have depreciated and the Corollas, Elantras, and Cruze's of the world will likely have the technology. 

 

For a similar illustration, in 1983 an Apple Lisa was about $10k. Probably $25k after inflation. In 1990, an Apple Powerbook was $2k; $4k adjusted for inflation. 1998, iMac was $1k, inflation $2k. Today, I can buy an iPad Pro for $800, an iPad for $330, a Mac mini for $800, Macbook for $1000.... And these are the "Tesla's" of the computer world. I can get a Corolla--an HP laptop, for $250. Right now, we're in the "Apple Lisa" stage of self-driving vehicles. 

 

I stand by my point that the technology is not that expensive. 

Okay, I see where you're coming from. 

But that brings up another question. As quickly as new protocols and other ways these technologies communicate with each other improve and old systems become obsolete overnight will an 18yo autonomous car even be viable? 

In reply to Nick Comstock :

Yeah. All those 18 year old computers and cellphones work great these days. They've got tons of factory support too! The future for the 3rd and 4th owners that buy 15 year old autonomous vehicles for peanuts is surely bright!

STM317 said:

In reply to Nick Comstock :

Yeah. All those 18 year old computers and cellphones work great these days. They've got tons of factory support too! The future for the 3rd and 4th owners that buy 15 year old autonomous vehicles for peanuts is surely bright!

right, just like factory parts support for our 20 year old luxo-barges? Just another of the MANY reasons a 20 year old autonomous car will be CHEAP!

I don't think autonomous cars will become obsolete too quickly, in fact the only aspect that COULD become obsolete would be V2V comms, which aren't strictly necessary, and when factory support ends it would be wise to turn it off to reduce attack vectors on unsupported software. That's another reason why it would be helpful to be able to repair, modify, and change the software on an autonomous car - when it gets old you could retrofit it with new aftermarket or libre software.

These threads are SO predictable. 

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

I agree that cars will be “bought” on a subscription basis.  Just like a lease it’s another way to lower monthly payments to make more expensive seem cheaper. 

Actually I suspect they will be trip rented. More like Uber.  You’ll set your phone to have it delivered when you need it. Go where you need to and when finished it will return to its garage to be charged and cleaned. ready for the  next user. 

Javelin said:

Ian F said:

The article ignores the 800 lb gorilla that can push the general public towards self-driving cars far faster than any laws could: Insurance costs.  When self-driving cars become more common and real-world safety numbers can be quantified, the insurance companies will have the power to make human driven cars unaffordable to all but the wealthy, save occasional-use classics. 

Federal, state and local governments won't need to be involved.

I disagree. The first time a fully-autonomous car kills somebody it's going to be a total bloodbath in the courtroom. Where does the individual liability lie? The car "operator", the manufacturer, or the rider? Insurance companies don't like risk.

That risk is already calculated in and will be adjusted as experience warrants 

A few years ago, I did the math to see what it might look like if I converted my small transport company to autonomous vehicles.   It was a purely theoretical excercise. (Since they don’t yet exist)

The question I was trying to answer for myself was to see if could they be profitable. 

I assumed a purchase price of $150,000. I would have had a small fleet of 6 vehicles. 

It would have been immensely profitable. And for the record, it would have been a zero cost to the users (all of whom were rural poor)

I don’t buy some of the money arguments in this thread.  Several of you are making bad business assumptions.  (Like Senator Orrin Hatch wondering how FaceBook can remain a free service)

In reply to Javelin :

Maybe. I would guess that sort of thing will be figured out before autonomous cars hit the road in mass numbers.  It's not exactly a new question.  Either way, it's all conjecture at this point, but if I were to give a WAG, I'd say they will follow/modify other mass-transit insurance models where the operator may be held responsible, but not necessarily liable - taxi cabs, for example. Another reason why a corporate ownership of these cars may become more common, with a large corporation having the resources to centralize insurance costs. 

SVreX said:

I don’t buy some of the money arguments in this thread.  Several of you are making bad business assumptions.  (Like Senator Orrin Hatch wondering how FaceBook can remain a free service)

This gives me a mental image of passengers in autonomous cars, each with an iPad screen in front of them, getting inundated with ads as they are transported to their destination (I think this is already happening in NYC cabs). Don't want to see these ads? Well, there's this extra fee you can pay... 

In reply to Ian F :

No. No ad selling. 

In reply to SVreX :

Your business model yes, but I could see others going that route.  

If Amazon wants to have a fleet of self driving vans that roam your area and deliver your purchases , it will happen.

They have the money to push it thru , 

And around here that would probably be a good thing as there are delivery vans everywhere these days.

And maybe there is a 3rd option we do not even know about yet !

7-11 beam me my 12 pack of beer and some chips !

Ian F said:

 

This gives me a mental image of passengers in autonomous cars, each with an iPad screen in front of them, getting inundated with ads as they are transported to their destination (I think this is already happening in NYC cabs). Don't want to see these ads? Well, there's this extra fee you can pay... 

I can easily envision a scenario where you are riding in your autonomous vehicle at highway speed, and a dispassionate, pleasant-sounding female voice says "Attention.  We are about to collide head-on with that large truck.  Initiating evasive manoeuvre.  But first, please check out the latest offerings at materialistic-fetish dot com."  Crash.

Ian F said:

In reply to SVreX :

Your business model yes, but I could see others going that route.  

That’s perfectly possible. 

My point was to a creative businessman, there are dozens of ways to make a profitable business revenue stream that are viable no matter how expense the cars, and they don’t have to cost the end users a penny. 

Its very possible that more people could have a better transportation system at a much lower cost than what they have right now. 

Safer, cleaner, more efficient, cheaper, private, faster, point-to-point. 

Every time a thread like this starts it takes very few posts before somebody is crying about how the poor would be left out. But a community of smart gearheads like this is EXACTLY the kind of people who could network together and offer tremendous solutions that serve people far better. 

But we never will.  We’d  rather bitch about shifting our own gears, riding horses, and prying the steering wheel from our cold dead hands. 

Nobody cares whether we like it. It’s coming. We can be part of the solution, or part of the problem. 

In reply to SVreX :

I don't see it happening in my lifetime.

A long time ago, many cities used to have trolleys and trams that went around on tracks. As cars became more popular, away went the trolleys and trams.

For all the talk of self-driving cars, maybe the better solution is to bring back the trolleys and trams. 

Nick Comstock said:

In reply to SVreX :

I don't see it happening in my lifetime.

I do. And I’m almost 20 years older than you. 

But even if you’re right, it still doesn’t justify standing in the way of progress and stamping our feet. 

This community is massively skilled at identifying glitches and foreseeing things before they happen. So why don’t we try offering solutions to those problems, instead of whining?

Sometimes you gotta plant seeds that won’t bear fruit in your lifetime. 

SVreX said:

These threads are SO predictable. 

Are you saying the commentors are...

autonomous?

SVreX said:

Nick Comstock said:

In reply to SVreX :

I don't see it happening in my lifetime.

I do. And I’m almost 20 years older than you. 

But even if you’re right, it still doesn’t justify standing in the way of progress and stamping our feet. 

This community is massively skilled at identifying glitches and foreseeing things before they happen. So why don’t we try offering solutions to those problems, instead of whining?

Sometimes you gotta plant seeds that won’t bear fruit in your lifetime. 

Well said!  

In reply to SVreX :

I have nothing at all against autonomous car tech. I certainly am not standing in the way of anything or stamping my feet. 

All I'm saying is aside from the early adopters who have the money and a few companies trying to find a way to make it work. I don't see autonomous cars taking over. 

I don't see the government or insurance companies doing away with self driving cars in my lifetime, if at all.

I don’t see fully autonomous vehicles coming anytime soon, especially in a crowded urban environment.  Our management would love to have them as labor is our biggest issue as far as money and trying to maintain a schedule.  So far nothing has proven capable of dealing with unpredictable movements like pedestrians and cyclists, poorly painted road markings, and snow.  The rightfully err on the side of caution and and up paralyzed unable to determine how best to work through a stubborn crowd, cheat a light, etc.  Getting a robot to make the easy decisions isn’t a problem but where humans beat them every time is weighing risks to keep moving in imperfect scenarios. Even the driver assist technologies we’ve tested like pedestrian warning systems have not been terribly help with enough false warnings to make a driver start to ignore them.  It’s going to be a long time before this gets sorted out.

Nick Comstock said:

In reply to SVreX :

I have nothing at all against autonomous car tech. I certainly am not standing in the way of anything or stamping my feet. 

All I'm saying is aside from the early adopters who have the money and a few companies trying to find a way to make it work. I don't see autonomous cars taking over. 

I don't see the government or insurance companies doing away with self driving cars in my lifetime, if at all.

I don't see human driven cars ever going away entirely. I can imagine them getting more costly to use due to various market forces. Technology will get better, as it always does. Autonomous cars will be able to talk to each other and recognize cars it cannot communicate with and give them a wider berth.  Will mistakes and crashes happen? Will people die as a result? Yes. But crashes and deaths occur now and on the whole it is likely a case will be made that autonomous will be safer.  Does being able to blame a death on a human somehow make it OK?  We can see some of this play out in the news right now with the 737 Max. The automated system berked up and people died. Boeing will likely pay a hefty price for that at some point. But rest assured, all other tech companies involved with autonomous development are paying attention and taking notes: "don't make any safety system dependent on some option the customer has to choose - got it."

Me personally, I take issue SVreX's blanket statement about the comments. I don't believe I've stated that at all. Exactly the opposite, in fact. Do I want an autonomous car for myself?  Maybe. Sometimes. Especially when I'm sitting in traffic on the PATP going to work.  Do I see it being viable in my lifetime (I'm 49 this year)? Definitely. Before I retire and can truly take advantage of it? Probably not and for many of the reasons Wally mentions above. The real break-through will occur when the AI has the ability to learn like a human. To watch a human and learn how to make those snap decisions. That will take time, but maybe not as long as we think. Once they figure it out, it won't be one AI doing the learning. It'll be dozens or them. And that data will be compiled and disgested and reloaded into all of the AI's to continue learning. Exponentially. 

Here is what I think the 800 lb gorilla is. They won't really be autonomous. They will all be networked. Which means they will be under *someone's* control. Just not yours. 

Climb into your 5th level, steeringwheel-less, pedal-less, transportation appliance. "Car, take me to the Teamsters strike picket line". "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that". "Well take me to Joe's Bar". "Sorry Dave, your medical records indicate that this would be unhealthy for you". "Car, I wanna go up the pass and see the sights". "Sorry Dave, this has been deemed a frivolous journey." "Dammit, take me to the CEO of Skynet's house!" "Sorry Dave, but I am locking the doors and taking you to the nearest thought control station for questioning". With the enormous drive toward central authority across vast swaths of what was once a free society, with China's "social credit" system being held up as a good idea in some scary circles,  with unelected busybodies in positions of power advocating closing off sections of interstate to driverless vehicles only, do you really want to centralize control of the entire transportation grid into the hands of a small cabal of egomaniacal insurance wonks and technocrats? Bah. I gotta go tape a rip on my tinfoil hat. Get off my lawn.