Agreed. I believe the jump from "fantastic driver's aid" to "fully autonomous" in the consumer auto market will take a decade or more.

And even when there are true AVs available, adoption won't come without some pains and legal changes. If my AV runs over a pedestrian, who is at fault?

I hope we see AVs available for limited uses in the 5 year time-frame. Possibly limited to restricted areas and designated roadways. Or, maybe faster adoption in the commercial space, as there are potentially huge cost savings for shipping/transport companies.

I'd be totally satisfied with just an advanced cruise control for highways that gets you within a kilometer of your exit before handing back control.

In daylight and dry weather. As a CA resident this would allow the AI to take over the vast majority of the miles I drive throughout the year.

They will be there but they won't be autonomous. Not now, probably not ever.

They will be remote monitored and remote controllable.

Instead of having a driver per car you will have a team in some control center that monitors all the driverless cars and can take over if any get into trouble.

Full autonomous is a pipe-dream, but cars are a symbol of freedom in America, and just the idea of giving up control to a computer is enough to put off most people.

If people knew that autonomous cars will require giving full remote control to a corporation or government agency the idea would be dead in the water, so this part is kept in the fine print.

The aspect of freedom derived from cars is based on ones ability to get themselves from where they live to the point of destination at anytime, no matter where that location may exist. Self driving cars only increase the degree at which that freedom operates, as they will always be able to let you out at your final destination as you will no longer have to spend 30 minutes finding parking as is the case in many cities today.

Yes, people will be skeptical of shared self driving cars, but to suggest the problem is the self driving aspect seems a bit off.

>The aspect of freedom derived from cars is based on ones ability to get themselves from where they live to the point of destination at anytime, no matter where that location may exist.

Not necessarily. Part of the freedom is that you don't have to have a destination in mind. You can simply drive to wherever you want, whenever; you can explore. This also does not mention issues about surveillance, corporate control, privacy, etc.

You are thinking of things only from a utilitarian perspective, not an emotional and psychological perspective.

Driving provides a very real sense of freedom and power to people that they may not find in many other aspects of their life.

Most people will also remember being teenagers and having their parents controlling the keys.

Autonomous cars are like going back to being a teenager except now the government or some corporation owns the keys and tells you what is allowed.

Tech people don't always think about these things but they will have a major impact on how the technology is adopted or not adopted.

Personally speaking I feel very different as I grew up in NYC but then later moved to the suburbs during high school. In NYC, a 6th grader has the same level of freedom that you only have once you get your license in the suburbs, and it's very possible that with the advent of self driving cars that such freedom will later exist in the suburbs.

Additionally, I just think we'll have to see about that later part. For me the freedom is freedom of transport, the cars are just an expression of that.