[glenra]

That is a movie-plot threat; you're being silly. Vehicles can stream audio and video and GPS tracking data to dispatchers who would know where and how the car got broken into and could dispatch security. The cars don't need windshields and can be hardened to making breaking in more difficult. With cameras and GPS tracking in all the other cars in the area, not to mention surveillance drones and police helicopters, getting away clean is likely to be tricky.

[yoster]

Actually, you are being silly. You have never been in "the hood" then where cops take forever to get there. Ever been to L.A., NYC, etc.? All that stuff cost extra money to equip a vehicle. Cameras can't do much with someone that has a bandana and shades on. You think the police will actually dispatch a helicopter for a driver-less vehicle? You sound like YOU have been watching too many movies. The cost to run drones in the air would end up being astronomical. I hope you are not being serious....

[glenra]

You are postulating a group that is willing to hijack an unmanned truck in order to steal the goods being delivered and doesn't mind the risk of being seen because they "have a bandana and shades on". Question: What is so special about an unmanned truck given that circumstance? Wouldn't it be at least as easy for a group like that to hijack a manned truck? Why don't the same gangs pull a gun on the UPS guy and take all his stuff? That would be in some ways easier than taking stuff from an unmanned delivery van. The unmanned van can go into lockdown mode and doesn't have a driver who can be threatened to make him give up the key to the back.

The cost for any private party to send up their own monitor drones is coming down very quickly and will likely be insignificant by the time unmanned delivery vehicles are common. If one unmanned delivery car sends out a distress signal, other unmanned delivery cars in the area could release drones monitored by a local security firm to go see what's happening, follow the bad guys, and tell the cops exactly where they went.

The sort of drones I'm talking about might look like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4

(You can already get copters of that sort with at least a 10 minute battery range for a mere few hundred bucks.)

[yoster]

Who said anything about hijacking a truck? This is called grab and go. You obviously have never heard of shoplifting or beer runs. This would be a crime of opportunity which happens all the time with or without surveillance. You have gone off the deep end if you think those drones are practical for security use. A 10 minute battery range is laughable.

[glenra]

Is THAT all you meant? That criminals would grab the delivery at the delivery location? Bah.

I'm sorry, but anybody building an unmanned delivery system will have thought of that right away and dealt with it any number of ways. For instance, consider this scenario:

You order a pizza using an app on your phone. You get a text message "the car is 5 minutes away from your address - please meet it outside. Your unlock code is 537." You go outside. You get another text message "the car is pulling up to your address now; your unlock code is 537." You see a delivery van pull up and pause in front of your address. There is a well-marked door on the right side of the vehicle. The door is locked, but there is a keypad. You enter the code 537 (or alternately just wave your phone or credit card near the reader, authenticating with RFID or bluetooth. Or insert the card you used into a card reader.) and the door opens, your pizza boxes are revealed - one or more pizzas are dispensed like a stack of money showing up from a slot at an ATM. You take your pizza(s). The door automatically closes and the vehicle drives to the next delivery location.

If you don't show up on time, the car texts you once or twice more, waits for another 5 minutes or so, but eventually gives up and goes off to make the next delivery.

If some hoodlums show up first, they don't know the code and don't have the phone/credit card that was used to make the order, because they are not you and weren't told by you to pick up the pizza from the car. They cannot open the locked door so they cannot "grab and go" without defeating the physical security of the car, which would in all likelihood be stronger than would the physical security of a MANNED delivery vehicle. They could of course mug the recipient to get the pizza, but that's no different from mugging a delivery guy now.

[yoster]

Pizza deliveries cannot wait 5 minutes or so. You are now talking out of your ass. That is one of the worst ideas I have ever heard and pizza companies will never do this. They can just hire people who are down on their luck to drive for them for chump change. You ever see a pizza delivery person take their time? Hell fucking no. You honestly fucking think they will spend thousands of dollars on a vehicle to equip with all this automated bullshit? The costs would be astronomical, so much fucking wasted R&D, and to top it off, this is not some Back to the Future bullshit. This is the dumbest shit I have read on HN in a long fucking time....

[glenra]

> Pizza deliveries cannot wait 5 minutes or so. [...] You ever see a pizza delivery person take their time? Hell fucking no.

Before they move on, existing pizza delivery drivers delivering to an apartment have to: park the car, walk to the door, get buzzed in, wait for an elevator or climb the stairs, walk down the hall to find the right apartment, knock on the door, wait for someone to come to the door, drop off the pizza, walk back to the elevator/stairs, go back down to the ground floor, go back out to the street, get back in the car. In short, current pizza deliveries today often spend more than 5 minutes at each site just making a normal delivery. So yes, an automated truck that just stops at the curb at street level and expects the customer to pick up their pizza can afford to wait several minutes and still be ahead on time compared to the old system.

> You honestly fucking think they will spend thousands of dollars on a vehicle to equip with all this automated bullshit? The costs would be astronomical

Automated driverless delivery vehicles will ultimately cost less than vehicles that have drivers. You don't have to waste space on the driver area so the vehicle can be smaller and lighter or carry more cargo per unit size. They can skimp on safety equipment too - no need for seat belts and airbags or even an internal dash display. Fewer parts = more reliable. There's also the difficulty of hiring reliable people who can work exactly the shifts you need and the cost of paying them. It might be cheaper to hire people now but that won't always be the case.

So I do expect future companies that need to deliver stuff will want to buy or rent the use of a standard off-the-shelf driverless vehicle, possibly adding standardized accessories like a selective-opening side door. I don't expect they will make one themselves. They'll buy the finished version from some other company that specializes in making them. That way the R&D expense is spread across millions of customers and thousands of firms, not just one.

>This is the dumbest shit I have read on HN in a long fucking time....

You seem very angry. Is there something else upsetting you that you want to talk about?

[3825]

Google might have to license Microsoft's "avoid ghetto" patent and then just blacklist certain areas. No grocery deliveries for Gotham City!