Car accidents (and unmanned vehicles). But mostly car accidents.

That’s awesome news. I agree that there’s no place quite like Montreal in terms of the combination of winter driving, and disastrous road care, but central MN definitely can speak to harsh conditions! Thanks for the link.

I can’t wait until we start seeing news reports of self-driving cars crashing into each other intentionally for insurance scams.

Self-driving cars are largely dependent on software, and that improves at software velocity, not infrastructure or automotive velocity. I think it’s very plausible that self-driving cars could be completely mainstream in 4 years. Not to imply that they’ll be common by then, but they’ll be a $5k addon to a 2024 Honda Civic.

I’m anxious for self-driving cars but my experience with the driving assistance in my 2017 Accord makes me wary. The “lane assist” feature is easily confused by any extra lines on the road (there is a portion of my daily commute that’s under construction and they’ve re-routed the lanes. Every time I drive through that section I get warned that I’m drifting out of the lane and the car helpfully tries to route me onto the shoulder). The feature that warns me to brake if there’s an obstruction ahead frequently mistakes a car coming around a curve for a car that I’m about to hit.

These systems need a little more work, I think.

Honda is one of the weaker companies as far as driver assist goes, and way behind the curve on true autonomy. Surprisingly Ford and GM are at the top because they invested in lidar. But the tech is moving so fast that it’s anyone’s guess who comes out the leader. Autonomous vehicles will be truly transformative to our economy and really society as a whole.

Well, after reading this thread, I’m really hoping that my daughter (and I!) never have to go through anything like it. I will happily give up driving if it means we’ll all be safer and more efficient. I just hope it happens as quickly as you guys believe!

Don’t get too carried away with driverless cars because Tesla is up to something new.

You won’t have to give up driving; it will be strictly for enthusiasts. If you enjoy driving or are a car buff, you buy a certain type of car that costs more but is fun to drive or stylish in the manner which you prefer.

For those of us that look at the vast majority of driving as frustrating, annoying, drudgery, we can tap our way to a car on the GM app and get picked up by a driverless '24 Chevy Malibu to take us and our kids directly to grandma’s house 3 hours away on the cheap. Then when we arrive at Chez Nana, it drives off to pick up someone else.

I assume that will be technically true for a while, but probably not indefinitely, and long before the option is legally removed to operate a vehicle yourself, it will be effectively removed by insurance premiums.

Not arguing for or against it, but I think it will quickly become very difficult even for enthusiasts.

By “quickly” I mean once self-driving hits a mainstream tipping point. On that, I actually think it will be much further out than your predictions.

Oh I don’t think the option to legally drive will be taken away for a very long time. Insurance premiums will certainly react if you take the wheel yourself, though.

I do think people will simply stop buying cars, and call up rides on an app instead. This will lead to dramatically less cars on the road, no traffic, and reconfiguring cities and urban areas which are concrete wastelands today due to every average family of 4 having 2.3 cars.

And I think it will happen so quickly that you could blink and miss it.

I think the only way that happens quickly is if insurance premiums or some type of government fee makes it just to damn expensive for the average person to drive.

So how do you think states will make up for the lost taxes they make from drivers, gas, registration etc?

A lot of those taxes are spent to service infrastructure like roads and bridges. With dramatically less cars on the road, they won’t have to spend that money in the first place. For the rest, they can of course tax the self-driving limo services.

I don’t see how this is even possible in areas with virtually no public tran. Uber can’t drive everyone to and from work every day. I drive on back road to several places. How doe sit respond to animals suddenly being in the road. Last I heard these cars didn’t do well white tractor trailers.

A service like Uber without human drivers can easily and cheaply drive everybody back and forth to work. In fact, predictable commutes are the easiest routes to game out with regards to carpooling/ridesharing as well.

Autonomous driving isn’t ready for mainstream yet. We’re talking around 5 years here.

You think there will be a fleet large enough to take everyone to and from work at the same time? That’s a huge fleet that probably won’t have much to do the rest of the day. Where are these cars being stowed? I mean we’re talking about areas that don’t even have good buses or such a large population that public tran can’t even accommodate them all if they tried to use it.

I see these people useful around cities but not for regular routine stuff.

5 years? We can’t even get a train to run without crashing and that has a track. You’d think this date and age we’d be able to send a train down a track and keep it on a track. There is always a problem with this approach, and that’s the company and the people running it.

https://www.amazon.com/Wheels-John-Jakes/dp/B000GRL3WQ

With ride-sharing, sure. Imagine a minibus with no set route, that makes stops to pick up and drop off specific people at their destinations.

Trains are old technology that need to be refitted. Think about telecommunications; the USA is far behind many 3rd world countries because we have outdated infrastructure. Cars are quickly replaced and roads don’t need to be refitted for autonomous driving, so that doesn’t apply.

You ever seen an LA freeway at rush hour. Single cars with single people in them, somehow being replaced by single cars with only a passenger?

This will only happen in the near future if people are forced into it.

I want my flying car first.

Sure, why not? If it’s faster, easier, and cheaper than driving yourself, why would you own a car? Do you enjoy sitting in traffic on the 405?

We don’t have buses now in this city. You’e talking about sharing a commute with people going to different places which is basically a bus… except instead of bus stops they take you to your building, I guess. Why do you think that would be widely adopted?

And why would I get in a car with strangers at 10pm at night. Unless you’re talking one person per car which is actually more cars on the road than we have now.

When I commute, it’s 25 minutes… because I am going 28 miles or so… there’s no traffic of note. Fortunately I don’t even have to do that now.