[falcolas]

With the following caveat, I'll bite: "Not available in adverse weather conditions or outside service zones". Said service zones wouldn't include anyplace where increased crime is a concern.

The cars would also probably have to be inspected and possibly cleaned between each use...

I'm also uncertain the tech is advancing quickly enough to justify a 5 year timeline. Not to mention ensuring society and the government is onboard with this. It would suck to be stuck in an automated car by a picket line of displaced drivers.

[wpietri]

Why do you think crime is a big deal?

If you just want to steal a car, cities are littered with them. If you want to rob people, humans are also not hard to find. And an autonomous vehicle will have excellent video recording, fast notification of police, and hard-to-disable vehicle tracking.

Weather, though, is a giant issue. Chandler, AZ has 90% dry days and rarely gets more than an inch of rain per month [1], so I think it's no coincidence they've started there. As a Michigander, I grew up driving in all sorts of shitty weather, so it's astonishing to watch San Francisco drivers fall apart in heavy rain. I expect auto-automobiles to be no better.

[1] https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/arizona/united-states/...

[Canada]

Automated cars will be better than most of us in these conditions. If you live somewhere that only snows a few days each year, you can't drive in it very well. You don't even have the right tires.

Fleets will change their tires for the conditions and the automated system will be just as good at driving in adverse conditions as it would be if it drove in them all year. The sensors will see things human eyes can't.

I don't know how long it will take to happen, but it's inevitable.

[wpietri]

Sure, eventually it will be better. But I wouldn't be shocked if bad-weather automatic driving lagged at least a decade behind what they can get away with in Arizona. It's a significantly harder problem, and much more difficult to generate reams of data to test against.

Worse, the risk shoots way up, and people will be much less tolerant of risks that aren't under their control. "Driver Ends Up In Ditch" is never news in places with real winter. But "Google Almost Killed My Family" sure will be.

[alkonaut]

Places that only get a few days of snow are typically paralyzed by that snow (schools close etc), so the autonomous cars being paralyzed aren't really a problem in those areas.

But for a lot of northern and central europe, northern US, canada etc where people are used to changing tyres and driving for several months in snow, the autonomous cars will have a harder time.

On one hand like you say, they can see things we can't. But on the other hand, there are zero lane markers, and sensors are typically covered in snow.

For example: I have parking sensors and a rear camera on my car and those are completely covered a lot of the time in winter. I still use my car and just ignore that the parking sensors scream constantly and the rear camera shows the inside of a wad of snow. That situation would be worse for an autonomous car because those sensors aren't just nice-to-have, they are fundamental to to the operation of the car.

[falcolas]

Vandalism.

Rocks thrown, sensors spray-painted over, side panels (and sensors) graffitied, interiors damaged, forced into stopping and their chassis stripped (or their occupants held up).

And while the police may be quickly notified, they will not be so quick to respond. Ask someone in a big city about the police's response time to their car being vandalized or stolen... Not to mention, all those fancy cameras? Ask a small business owner with CCTV how useful it is to catch robbers.

[sumeno]

> Said service zones wouldn't include anyplace where increased crime is a concern.

What? Is someone going to try to steal a car without a steering wheel?

[falcolas]

How about forcing the car to stop and rob the occupants? Or stripping the car of all those expensive electronic components?

[eru]

The electronics would be locked down. You can't even steal a phone these days and use it without the owner's password.

[rorykoehler]

Inspections can be automated with computer vision and gas sensors

[kozak]

Or just cameras and some "is this car clean?" UI.