Those places are also very far from the cutting edge of technology.
Even if self-driving cars are confined to US highways, cities, and suburbs they have terrific potential. The future doesn't have to be evenly distributed to arrive on time.
Seriously, I don't even understand you argument. Why would the existence of challenging backwaters in Peru prevent the development and deployment of self-driving cars in the US?
Even if self-driving cars were confined to only the USA that would still be a massive market and provide a huge ROI for the developers.
Thinking self-driving cars have to work everywhere or even most places to be useful is myopic. It's like saying cell phones will never work because you can't get reception in Antarctica.
I'm not saying that China and India will never have self-driving cars. There's obviously tremendous profits to be made in bringing cars to those markets.
My point is that a self-driving car doesn't have to be ready for those markets to be launchable as an excellent and profitable product. The iPhone very successfully launched in only select markets—and then made even more money after expanding to China. It'll probably be similar with self-driving cars.
Why exactly do you think a self-driving car has to be globally deployable before launching in the US?
I think it can launch in the US all-right, but I don't think it will easily export to the other markets because of the above reasons. In iPhone's case that was easily fixable by people in said markets reaching middle-class status, but in case of self-driving vehicles I don't see that happening because one would have to change very ingrained cultural traits (basically you'd have to re-teach most than half to three-quarters of the world on how to drive sanely, good luck with that).
I'd say that for such a capital-intensive market like the car industry only relying on the US and some select Western European markets (+ Japan and South Korea) won't be profitable on the long term, hence my pessimism that self-driving cars will conquer the world.
This is already happening in the wealthier parts of the world.
I don't think current self-driving cars will work very well in India. But I think they'd work just fine in the rich parts of Pune, to name one area I know well. That's because driving norms in this region are already becoming quite sane. From what I've seen the same is true in the wealthier parts of Mumbai. Lane discipline isn't quite as good as in the US, but I'm perfectly comfortable driving a two wheeler on these roads.
(I'd be a lot more scared driving in Delhi.)
I question whether "sane" driving is actually cultural. Is it possible that "sane driving" is actually just the natural human reaction to good roads and homogeneous vehicles capable of driving at similar speeds (as opposed to a mix of cars, auto rickshaws, pedal rickshaws, 3 wheeled mini trucks, etc)?
The difference in driving styles from Switzerland to its neighbor Italy is quite big, at least from my own experience as a tourist of both countries as a driver and as a pedestrian. The roads in Switzerland are a little better, I can agree with that, but the vehicles present on the roads of both countries are from the same class (no rickshaws and I don't think I've seen 3 wheeled mini trucks in Italy, though AFAIK they used to be quite popular in there not that long ago).
Perhaps the rest of the world will see the benefit and adapt to the cars.
More like 40,000 deaths yearly, these days. In 2015, it was 38,300 [1], and it had increased 8% (or 2067 deaths) in the first nine months of 2016 [2].
[1] http://www.newsweek.com/2015-brought-biggest-us-traffic-deat...
[2] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/traffic-deaths-surg...
Signage is absolutely atrocious, there's too many signs, some of them wrong, some of the rules are implied(speed limit ends at any intersection, but if a road is going to a private property, then it's not an intersection, so good luck knowing where a speed limit ends), people drive like crazy, there's loads of unpaved roads.....and yet a person from a very rich western country(say UK or Germany) can drive over there in few hours driving time.
Every time someone makes an argument for self driving cars, I keep thinking if they would work back home - the answer is, they wouldn't.
On a separate note, try replacing "self-driving cars / normal cars" with "cars / carriages and horses" in such discussions. It make many answers obvious. (Hint: I am sure there were people who pointed out that the cars couldn't drive over narrow winding paths where horses ruled)
Secondary to this, it can be handled by GPS and history imaging. I think GM is doing this to handle snow conditions if I am not mistaken.
And experience the same issues that a self driving car could. But at least on the journey there and back they would be considerably safer.
You can't go after every single market at once with the same product. Building and selling for the high end to bring costs down and expanding the market is econ 101.
It's part of the reason the more-powerful-than-Apollo-computer I'm typing on was $1400.
Or to put it another way: "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed."
That's why, when the Uber self-driving car blatantly ran a red light, the joke was that it was learning from its environment.
Self-driving cars "confined" to anywhere are not self-driving cars, because you obviously need a human driver to get to and from that special place.
Millions of cars spend their entire existence confined to US highways, cities, and suburbs. In what way is a car not self-driving if it can successfully drive you on you everywhere you go in your daily life?
You don't "obviously" need a human driver if the car is used entirely in that "special place" (ie. where most cars spend their entire existence).
Your argument makes about as much sense as claiming cell phones aren't truly mobile because you can't use them in Antarctica.
Well, simply because I don't know everywhere "I would have to go in my daily life" when I am buying the damn car.
>Your argument makes about as much sense as claiming cell phones aren't truly mobile because you can't use them in Antarctica.
By that logic, your argument also makes only as much as sense as calling a walkie talkie with 100m range a mobile phone.
You can rent or take a cab or an uber. I don't own a car. I get around just fine at home or when traveling.
If your time for commute is that much valuable, just hire a driver or call a taxi. Like most people who's time is actually valuable, have been doing for years...
Quite honestly, it is quite a joke when people on HN brag about how "valuable" their time is....
* Safety - they'll be safer. Period.
* It's a natural extension for cos like uber - how else can they bring costs down enough?
* It meshes well with other aspects of tech reducing friction - deliveries will be cheaper (think dinner, groceries, taskrabbit)
* They damn near already exist.
No. I don't think so. Not in the foreseeable future at least..
>* It's a natural extension for cos like uber - how else can they bring costs down enough?
I don't know or care.
>It meshes well with other aspects of tech reducing friction - deliveries will be cheaper (think dinner, groceries, taskrabbit)
Well, why do you think the providers will reduce the cost? They can always add to their profit, instead of making the service cheaper.
>* They damn near already exist.
So does cold fusion.
> No. I don't think so. Not in the foreseeable future at least..
According to the NHTSA[1], they already are.
>>* It's a natural extension for cos like uber - how else can they bring costs down enough?
> I don't know or care.
The point is that they're dumping money into the tech for their own purposes, regardless of effectiveness as a consumer product
>> It meshes well with other aspects of tech reducing friction - deliveries will be cheaper (think dinner, groceries, taskrabbit)
> Well, why do you think the providers will reduce the cost? They can always add to their profit, instead of making the service cheaper.
I sure hope they do; I'd doubt any of those comapanies make any profit as is. And again, they'll be willing to spend lots of money on the cars, making them a viable product without the consumer market.
[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/19/nhtsas-full-final-investig...
You would think a level 5 autonomous car would not try this; unlike some human drivers.
Because there are still ripple effects to doing this affecting areas with edge cases.
So let's say you've reduced the number of manual-driven cars. That has implications for:
* Economies of scale. Autonomous cars will likely be of a different design than manual ones so the price of a manual-drive will likely increase- where will the increased money to buy them come from?
* Insurance costs. Drivers in less-dense cities are currently safer than the national average: what does the risk and cost for a safer driver become now that the bad urban driver benchmark disappears?
* Government regulation and other politicking. What happens to everyone else in, say, California or New York State or a European country if an urban-focused legislature creates laws restricting ownership/use of a manual-driven car in some way (anything from a tax to an outright ban)?
Whether these implications are small or large (or whether they cancel each other) isn't adequately answered right now; but I suspect that at least one (or all 3) will turn out to be a major hindrance to autonomous car deployment. Or they don't, and some section of the population gets screwed anyway.
I'm not sure how big of a threat that is. The design ought not need to be so different that the same production lines can't easily make both versions. Relative to many newer cars (anything drive-by-wire), autonomy probably only requires the addition of sensors and a computer. Even getting rid of the steering wheel and all driving controls could probably be done modularly on a car model that's offered in both self-driving and traditional options.
The people who continue to buy manually driven cars, I presume.
> Insurance costs. Drivers in less-dense cities are currently safer than the national average: what does the risk and cost for a safer driver become now that the bad urban driver benchmark disappears?
They will be benchmarked against more dangerous suburban drivers (e.g. Marylanders) instead.
I am not sure if an autonomous car will be safer. I mean, can they even do panic breaking right now (For example, if someone or something jumps in front of the car?). You know, safety is often not about having the fastest reaction time, but also about having good anticipation that any decent human driver will develop in a short time....
I think any hopes that cars will be better than humans at it is quite naive...
Even if we assume that cars won't be as good at stopping from people jumping in front of them, I would bet the number of accidents that happen from something like that are significantly smaller than the number of accidents from human error like texting while driving, being drunk, or just not paying attention due to fatigue or whatever else.
Not to mention, how can you really even tell the difference between someone who's walking towards your car but will stop and someone who isn't? Not even humans can do that since we can't read minds.
Pretty sure they can handle it if someone jumps in front of them simply because people play chicken with them.
In India, in majority of roads you don't just have to look sideways, you also have to see if some stupid idiot is driving at the speeds of higher than 60 while you cross an intersection. Plus in places of high traffic the self driving car would be deadlocked because here, nobody gives anyone a lead, you have to "earn" the lead by stopping others, no way a robot is going to do that.
It's still driving, just with different degrees of freedom.
Well, a sufficiently advanced AI would be able to "force someone to stop".
Perhaps the tolerable accidents rate will be increased for India.
Or, even simpler, India wont get self-driving cars -- the same way countries in the developing world don't get lots of modern services and/or conveniences until they have the infrastructure for them.
Precisely my point. But one has to note that the TATA group is going to start testing self driving cars in india.
I expect a truly intelligent AI to navigate around such issues in fact, such issues will provide playing field to create robust AI since it will learn to handle & respond to unpredictability.
As with many technologies, it is the infrastructure that is important ( cell phones vs cellular network, ethernet-enabled computers vs the ISP broadband installations, iPhone vs iTunes store, etc...).
Here it is similar and it is not so far fetched to think that in some future the road system will be modified in some ways in order to accommodate level 5 autonomous cars and people.
For example, the city of Drachten in the Netherlands has no traffic lights, road signage (stop signs, etc...) at all. They modified their infrastructure and got better pedestrian security.
From Wikipedia:
"Drachten received international attention for a traffic experiment known as shared space, a concept pioneered by Hans Monderman. Almost all traffic lights and signs have been removed in the town's centre in an effort to improve traffic safety, based on the theory that drivers pay more attention to their surroundings when they cannot rely on strict traffic rules. Previously the town's centre had an average of 8 accidents per year. In the first two years after the system was introduced, yearly accidents were reduced to 1."
It would be very interesting to see how level-5 autonomous cars would fare in Drachten...
Replacing highway driving with autonomous vehicles is still completely game changing for the transportation industry. It means that 90% of truck drivers are out of a job. (Truck drivers of the future will just handle the last mile).
That is certainly something that is going to be disruptive.
Just like with electricity, the Internet, and air travel, the poor will be last. And a lot of people can do very well for themselves by putting the poor last.
Should we arbitrarily stop development of self-driving cars until poorer countries' infrastructure can support them? How would that help anyone?
You make some good points, as does this article. In the article though, I think at least some of these points will just involve more visual indicators on cars themselves that people will need to get use to (and yes, I do realize that won't solve many of the other class issues the author raises).
I have my own concerns. So much money, even tax money, is being poured into this tech that I don't see as viable for at least 7 ~ 10 more years. We could be building automated trains, which do exist, are viable and can operate even on late night runs without drivers or strikes. All of Singapore's lines are automated and several of London's are; both which have trains arriving on platforms at less than two minute intervals at peak hours.
Self driving cars also will not solve the capacity problem at all:
http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol...
You'd have to have self-driving car only motoways to even being to approach the theoretical maximums of car capacity, and it still pails in comparison to train capacity, or even bus capacity for that matter.
The other thing I don't think people realize is that we (most likely) won't be owning self driving vehicles. I feel like if States get their acts together, we're going to need FAA style regulations. Cars need to be inspected at regular intervals to ensure all the sensors are functioning. Software updates need to be audited, and safety algorithms will need to be shared. I mean, do you want to live in a world where Audi claims their driving algorithms are safer than Nissan's, or Honda charging extra for more comprehensive sensor packages?
I don't think we can have a self driving where people own vehicles, which goes well against the OSS creed of "Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?"
"The new, maintenance-free iCar! So reliable, we welded the hood shut!"
Add a better copywriter, and an actual product, and I think a lot of people would buy that. Same with car-as-service. A lot of people don't actually want to own a car, they just want the transport capabilities and convenience.
Sure why not? When do most people open the hood on their car? To top up fluids and, occasionally, to jump start the battery. Both of those things could be done without opening the hood with a slight redesign. Modern cars are both so reliable and so complex that there is hardly anything under the hood that most people either can or have to do, and this is only getting more true for electric cars.
And a switch to a transport-as-a-service model can make the advantages of the train much more apparent. Open Google Maps and ask for directions: Do you want to take a single 1 hour drive, or a 30min train ride with 5min connections at each end that costs less?
And then when people in the office hear about how your commute is 20mins shorter thanks to the new train line, maybe they want one too...
Why then, is there no similar service with human drivers right now?
And I think Google Maps starting to integrate things like Uber is a sign of a more integrated market for transport. If you can say "directions to work" and get a one button option to book the whole 3 part journey, alongside the other options, it suddenly becomes a lot more practical.
Why do you think removing human drivers will make enough of a difference? From the numbers I have seen (I can look them up when I'm not on my phone) the driver is only about half of the non-tip cost of a hired car. Do you think cutting the cost in half is sufficient?
If you charge close to linear pricing over short distances, I think it could be very affordable.
And another advantage is that the service doesn't have to be immediately popular to be cost effective, since you don't need to pay drivers to sit around to provide availability.
The issue of profitability again is orthogonal to drivers. How do you pay for vehicles and maintenance of your service is not profitable?
In any case, to answer your original question: Yes, I think halving the cost of taxis will make a significant difference to their viability in many use cases. I think costs may also fall further than that, as regulations have been limiting competition in taxi markets. (And just intuitively, one would expect that sharing a car should be cheaper than owning one.)
Moreover, I think taxi markets were stagnant for a long time, so the lack of such a service in the past doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't have been viable, and the new players may simply not have explored this kind of service yet.
>How do you pay for vehicles and maintenance of your service is not profitable?
The point is that without a driver, your ongoing costs (i.e. fuel and maintenance) are more proportional to usage. A driver sitting doing nothing is costing you money, but a car sitting doing nothing barely does.
Think it is too obvious to miss...
>The point is that without a driver, your ongoing costs (i.e. fuel and maintenance) are more proportional to usage.
isnt it the same with a driver too?
People are way overestimating how much time it's going to take to retrain them for cities in new locales.
Will they sell in India to start? No, of course not. Most tech in the US takes a few years to launch internationally. But I think it will transfer much faster (5 years for internationalization) than the doom and gloom prophets on here say.
Having been to several countries in Asia, it would be no bad thing to have a stepwise reform in how driving is done in these countries - think of the number of accidents that would be reduced.
No, you just won't own your own car, you'll car share via a service like Uber. It would be way cheaper since you would no longer carry the maintenance and insurance costs for a vehicle. That's why it would lead to fwer cars on the road.
Don't kid yourself, if car driving gets cheaper people will do more of it. Or will you not be more likely to take a cab ride when it's $1 than when it's $20?
Autonomous car price will be higher, maintenance will be higher due to more costly electronics, insurance will be lower due to lower collision rate. Given these 3 unknown variables, how have you definitively concluded car price must be lower?
Finally, your economic argument is incomplete. When renting a resource is much cheaper than purchasing it outright, renting always wins.
Owning a car will be the domain of car enthusiasts, not the typical consumer.
As for maintenance/cost of hardware, I've heard that the LIDAR kit is under $10,000. Given how expensive new cars are and how cheap the same car becomes 10 years later, and given that that's a starting point, I'm not too concerned about depreciation cost.
In the western world there are also already so many suckers willing to pay the initial depreciation by buying new cars and then immediately selling them 5 years later for much less so they can pointlessly upgrade again, so the used car market will be filled with affordable self driving cars a few years after they come out. Like, you can already buy a car for less than the combined value of all its parts, because people put a negative premium on old cars. Why would it be any different in the future?
And given that LIDAR doesn't have moving parts, I'm not too concerned about the cost of maintenance. When you buy a 15 year old car, it's rarely the ABS or ECU or radio you need to replace, it's always moving parts like parts of the valvetrain, transmission, suspension.
And that's if you even use LIDAR. Tesla's cars apparently just use good old cameras. And we know how cheap and reliable those are
In the greater NYC commuter area, people already willingly pay more to live near a train station so they can more easily commute without having to "waste" the time they'd spend driving. (I'm sure this is true elsewhere) People are obviously already putting a price on this. Why pretend the cost of driving yourself is zero? It's absolutely not, unless your time is worthless.
Thought experiment: What's the longest commute you'd be willing to bear, if you drive yourself? How about if the car is self driving? If the answer to the latter is larger, you just proved you'd save literal money with a self driving car, not just figurative -- because you could move further away to cheaper housing.
And why should we support and enable unacceptable infrastructure and a broken culture? Isn't it better to force everyone else to conform to a single well-thought-out and managed system?
Even assuming your anecdote is at all relevant, why would any of these factors impact the ability of an autonomous vehicle to navigate these streets? The car knows where it has to go, and it senses its environment more frequently, with more precision, and with faster reaction times than a human ever could. Either the objects surrounding it are on vectors that will impact its chosen path or they won't. If they don't, then it proceeds. If they do, it must slow, stop, or find an alternate path that avoids those vectors. There's nothing earth shattering here.
As to garbage trucks: ever seen people pull U-turns randomly in the middle of the road in a busy city, or dive across 4 lanes to make an exit? Garbage trucks seem simple by comparison, and at significantly lower speeds.
And yeah I expect that the jump from level 4 to level 5 (assuming that level 4 does not include the most chaotic of world streets) will take decades, but that's fine.
You talk about technological problems, which, while formidable, are not insurmountable. Surely they are hard but at least we have a direction of attack (as opposed to say teleportation or time travel or AGI, where we don't even know where to start). Just as in the case of Go, the performance of artificial systems will at first be borderline acceptable, then it will be on par with strong amateurs, and then it will surpass performance levels of the best of humans.
The post in contrast talks about social problems and shows how they will cause much strife and friction and will delay the adoption of driverless vehicles even after all technological problems are solved.
I also remember run-down suburbs where massive potholes and ditches make navigations of certain streets a puzzle by itself, compounded by garbage trucks ahead just doing their thing, improperly placed signage ahead, and those badly-designed intersections where you can totally count on drivers misjudging distances.
As the designers move away from the relatively trivial confines of well-maintained urban spaces and into different countries and cultures, I seriously question their ability to keep things reasonable for the rest of the human drivers. So far nothing in the near-future horizons of this technology indicates that the software would be able to navigate in many of these adverse situations without incurring huge time penalties or causing unacceptable delays.
I really do think that a lot of the hype happens to be because certain actors (Uber comes to mind as the most significant) have basically placed all their bets in these edge cases being small enough that a small number of human drivers should suffice to get around them. I remain skeptical.