[blindriver]

I have predicted this for years. I think they will make city cores self-driving cars only, with no other cars, or even bicycles because they are too chaotic. China should have done this with those ghost cities, so that they could have dominated with full self driving before other countries.

Someone will own the platform that coordinate car movement, and then all cars will need to pay to get onto this coordination platform that will tell each car how to drive, which route to take, etc. Each car know what all the other cars in its area will be doing, so that mass coordination is possible. This is how you can get a completely full highway but all traveling at 65 mph 1 feet away from each other.

[trainsarebetter]

No bicycles? That is ridicules. Many city’s are now trending towards people centric design. Bikes are a key part of that

[Svip]

I surely hope not. I'd rather have a city centre without cars than one filled with constantly self-driving cars. Pedestrians and animals are still "chaotic elements". At 105 km/h (still slow by European standards), what happens when a deer suddenly runs onto the motorway with a distance of ~30 cm between the vehicles? Talk about carnage.

I suppose the solution is to seal in all roads then with high walls; what dystopian future.

[fracus]

Imagine all the land being used for parking that wouldn't be needed anymore. Car accidents will be like plane accidents where a full investigation will be launched to improve the car and coordination software.

[seanmcdirmid]

Ghost cities are really just ghost districts, and they simply aren’t economically viable which is why they are deserted, traffic won’t make something economically viable, and it’s quite the opposite, economic viability brings traffic. Self driving isn’t going to make Kangbashi or Tianjin’s new financial district popular.

China is demoing a lot of self driving cars in their suburbs however, so not core Beijing, but out in Daxing or Changping, for example. China could and will mandate self driving cars in dense city cores when they become viable to optimize traffic flow in cities that can’t really fit many more new roads. And Chinese companies are working hard to make mass produced Lidar economical, while America will probably just put high tariffs on that.