If there is one thing we can be sure of, looking at the past couple decades of wireless tech, it's that there will be a profusion of mutually incompatible standards, each spanning multiple HW generations. It may not experience the same physical wear, but it will be an expensive maintenance issue nonetheless.

Definitely. If it was clear that external beacons were necessary, you would have the Tesla beacons, you'd have the European manufacturer associated beacons, you'd have the Japanese manufacturers associated beacons... installed at manufacturer's cost (or as a partnership), leading to duplication some places, total absence in others, and exclusivity in the rest. And the EU would do better than the rest of the world, having cars with different receivers (manufactured only for the EU market, of course)

"Paint is a wear item, the example of beacons would not be a wear item"

I am extremely skeptical that beacons, sitting out in the heat, and the sun, and the cold, and the rain, and exposed to whatever we use to maintain roads at that juncture, will not be "a wear item".

They'll get hit and sheared off by plows and over-size loads, or just by drunks or idiots still driving dumb cars.

I do not think people have a solid grasp of how many millions of miles of road would need to be technified for self-driving cars to be widely viable.

Most likely, it's going to be a niche thing, tightly restricted to certain places that can afford to build and maintain the infrastructure.

I, for one, already fail to grasp where we manage to get the funds required to clear and level the land and butter a fresh layer of asphalt on top of it regularly enough to build and maintain that many roads to begin with.

Don't know about the US, but most roads in Europe already have coded reflectors to aid identification of lane geometry. Roadside reflectors have become a standard feature even on small rural roads, they're just hollow plastic half-tubes with reflecting strips on them. Cheap to install, cheap to maintain.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=road+reflectors&t=ffab&ia=images&i...

Sure, but in the sense that road signs or traffic lights are a wear item. They wouldn't be exposed to the real causes of damage to roads (at least in my area) - transport trucks and road plows. They would need to be replaced at 5-30 year intervals, rather than 4-12 month intervals.

Traffic lights seem to have a pretty long lifespan.

The primary deployment potential for self-driving cars is long haul freight, which could be done exclusively via the interstate system.

If we're going to beacon up a road, they easily make the most sense.

> which could be done exclusively via the interstate system.

The interstate system already has working self-driving, even without any beacons. Inherently-safe roads like interstate freeways are already almost solved, and you can already buy a Chevrolet today that can self-drive the interstate system 99% of the time.

It's all the dangerous roads that need the help. The ones with bicyclists and pedestrians and parked cars and uncontrolled access and such.

this might be true for the US, but in many parts of europe, roads are far more crowded. not to mention this doesn't solve the last mile problem.

Pavement is a wear item.

Yes, the top lift of pavement is a wear item in the decade time frame. Paint is a wear item in the sub-one year time frame (where I live, with low-VOC paint and frequent winter plowing)

Curbs, signage, lights, poles, drainage infrastructure, lower lifts of asphalt and granular material, ...are all non-wear items. This doesn't mean they never need to be repaired, but rather that they tend to get replaced after unintentional damage. Off-surface beacons (what the original comment suggested) would be in this category.

All it takes is a little bit of rain and hundreds of traffic lights go haywire in my city. What makes you think those beacons would fare any better? Politicians don't a crap for long term maintanance of little visibility infrastructure like that, so they're poorly funded.

And you say "private contactors will save the day", please, stop drinking the Ayn Rand Cool-aid.

What is wrong with the traffic lights in your city would be the much more interesting question here. Everywhere I know, traffic lights work as long as their power supply is intact

Shitty maintenance on top of lower bidder supplying sub-par equipment because half of the money went to corruption. The result is water getting in the circuits and shorting them out.

Alright. I work with roads and traffic infrastructure, and have never seen that situation before. The active equipment (in my experience) is all stored in above ground cabinets - just simple grey metal cabinets, elevated on foundations or poles, sealed with a gasket but with vent holes to prevent heat buildup. It would take almost deliberate misconstruction to cause a short.