It took over 30 years to go from, say, the Model T (1908) to the 1st automatic transmission in a mass-produced passenger car (1939).
The 1st "DARPA Grand Challenge" was in 2004 – when not a single entrant made it further than 8 miles on a 150 mile course of some early stationary obstacles then some straightforward highway driving.
Now, just 19 years later, unattended driverless cars are offering reliable commercial service in a real, challenging urban environment. Of course, at times hyperoptimists & promoters had expected this milestone ~5ish years ago. But that's still pretty quick progress!
They don't have to work everywhere to be incredibly useful. I'm pretty sure they'll have problems on things like snowy roads, & exceptionally poor roads or extreme-outlier traffic tie-ups, for perhaps another decade. But for many uses, they're already "here".
“Here” in two American cities, and as I understand it (correct me if I’m wrong) only in low-traffic conditions, and by a company that has almost limitless financial backing and is prepared to lose whatever is necessary.
How much is it going to cost to make them work in London? Tokyo? Beijing? Sydney? Delhi?
* 24/7 in San Francisco, over most of the city for their test riders, over part of the city at night for paid customers. (I see their cars all over at night, and occasionally during the day, through every kind of street & congestion.)
* evenings in Austin, downtown/campus central area
* evenings in Phoenix, central area
They've given hints Dallas is next. The maps & hours declared on their website have sometimes lagged actual availability in their app.
GM doesn't quite have "limitless" financial backing – it doesn't have its mid-20thC dominance any more! GM was bankrupt as recently as 2009, and has been lagging other companies in some important ways. But yes: it's an important project for GM, which strikes me as a reason to expect rapid progress in tech and rollout will continue, rather than a reason to expect a slowdown.
Though SF is where they have the largest fleet, & most testing, bringing on the initial Austin zone/service supposedly took just 90 days from project-start to 1st rides. I used to live in Austin, & was there (& noticed Cruise's cars operating there) a few weeks ago. The central zone they're covering is one of the more congested & idiosyncratic areas to drive – as opposed to newer/wider/calmer roads further out.
I've driven a bit in Sydney; don't recall it being any harder than SF. I've walked & otherwise travelled lots of the busiest parts of London, Tokyo, & Beijing. There's more of everything, including megawide avenues, giant intersections, & narrow old alleys – but nothing totally different from what's already been mastered among SF's hills, alleys, illogical intersections, dedicated streetcar/bus lanes, unruly traffic, assertive pedestrians & cyclists, and erratic jaywalkers/skaters/derelicts.
Here's an illustrative video of a self-driving Cruise navigating San Francisco's North Beach – a difficult area any time or day – on a busy St Patrick's Day night with streets filled with cars & revelers: https://twitter.com/kvogt/status/1641123102858919953
Can't speak to Delhi, or Kiev, or Moscow, or Havana, or Port-au-Prince. Everyplace has its difficulties. But autonomous cars are working well, right now, in tough places, as the whole stack of sensors, logic, data, & computation keeps getting faster, better, & cheaper. Remaining political & social challenges are likely bigger than technical blocks.
The 1st "DARPA Grand Challenge" was in 2004 – when not a single entrant made it further than 8 miles on a 150 mile course of some early stationary obstacles then some straightforward highway driving.
Now, just 19 years later, unattended driverless cars are offering reliable commercial service in a real, challenging urban environment. Of course, at times hyperoptimists & promoters had expected this milestone ~5ish years ago. But that's still pretty quick progress!
They don't have to work everywhere to be incredibly useful. I'm pretty sure they'll have problems on things like snowy roads, & exceptionally poor roads or extreme-outlier traffic tie-ups, for perhaps another decade. But for many uses, they're already "here".