> 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?