If the lines aren’t painted on the side of the road, they can’t drive.
If they meet a road sign they don’t know, they can’t drive. We have several “special” signs In Denmark, but a lot of the times it’s because the sign was too faded/dirty/covered in snow.
Of leaves, branches and some such are on the road, they can’t drive.
If traffic misbehaves, they can’t drive.
If road quality drops, or there is big pools of water on the side of the road, they can’t drive.
Basically they can’t drive.
I can’t tell you what tech we are testing, but we are trying two different manufacturers and they are both “cutting edge” and we’re testing a fleet of 16 cars over 3 years.
Another municipaly managed to get an autonomous bus going in its city center though, so it’s definitely still coming, it’s just really really far away.
About 10 years ago, I read a paper from an Institute of Transportation in Australia about the use of low power microwave transmitters along the lanes of the highway which can "guide" the intelligent cars along the highways and also the idea of a car mesh that can communicate learning( as in I found a pot hole here that wasn't in our map, be careful!) That sounds a very practical approach of course with the government investment on roads. After all, it is the government's charter to build public infrastructure! The car companies need to work with public policy and not try to make something within their bounds.
Imagine a system that munches visual clues + RADAR/LIDAR data + Microwave or RF transmitters embedded in the road + GPS/SATNAV + data from other cars via local mesh network. Now, that I'd think about trusting a little bit. Also, I'd definitely be watching 007 movies while my car drives me :-)
it does nothing for the people who don't want to own a car and just want a car and computer driver at their beck and call.
If you could make a Tesla owner's commute from SF to Sand Hill Road a much better experience (via autonomous-only toll road), I'd say that's one hell of a start.
But it might be another of those the perfect is the enemy of the good type situations.
I had a motorcyclist riding on the shoulder of the highway going in the opposite direction as traffic only this Saturday.
I bet i could use a bored child and a drone to stop level 5 cars.
Fully Autonomous vehicles are a fools errand. Volvo has it right.
The problem is that, while this would be a really nice car feature (and probably great for safety), it does nothing for the people who don't want to own a car and just want a car and computer driver at their beck and call. Unfortunately for these folks, the autonomous highway driving is relatively near-term while door-to-door autonomy is probably decades away.