Your reaction is not irrational at all. This sort of abuse of public space to test technology that is nowhere close to being ready should make you angry. They are trying to progress more rapidly by externalizing the costs of experimentation onto the public. They've hit a plateau and don't have a clue how to get beyond it, but they've got billions of dollars of pressure on the backs of promises they made, so they can't admit their fundamental approach is unsuitable to reach what is actually a questionable end-goal in the first place--namely, self-driving taxis. Why is that the first problem they are trying to tackle? That's the hardest problem to solve. I think it all goes back to Uber struggling to defend its business model. To justify their nine- and ten- figure quarterly losses, they had to promise a world where the labor costs would go away (how driverless Ubers could ever pay back all the money they've lost, I have no idea--if they replace contract labor with their own capital and the maintenance involved... how is this a profitable company?). They convinced their investors it was possible. And then everyone else assumed it was possible and bought into that same fantasy. I hope we're finally waking up. But those billions have left a major hangover and no one is thinking clearly quite yet.

it used to be way worse when waymo had they had those tiny electric cars driving similar routes but below 30mph

At least those were adorable, they were like local wildlife.

A very conservative lower bound is that every day we don't have self-driving cars costs the country $1 billion in lost value. Every single day.

> A very conservative lower bound is that every day we don't have self-driving cars costs the country $1 billion in lost value. Every single day.

And every day we don't have solar cells are 2000% more efficient than current technology costs us tens of billions in lost value. What exactly is your point?

The point is that the inconveniences being described by stevenwoo are utterly trivial. It's like listening to someone who lived in Cape Canaveral during the '60s complain that they dislike the whole Apollo program because one of the engineers once left a 5% tip in a local restaurant. Acknowledging that this feeling is irrational doesn't make it a useful HN comment.

I see your point. I'm left wondering if there aren't real impacts to testing this technology in the real world though. Like if there have been any deaths due to emergency responders being stuck behind these vehicles or something similar.

well there is a known upper bound on solar cells efficiency. and even then we are pouring all the moneys into improving solar cell efficiency

It's even higher for the cold fusion we're missing, and teleportation technology.

If you think those three techs have comparable likelihood of existing in our lifetimes, I'd quite seriously like to make a bet with you.

Source?