[sfbsfbsfb]

It seems like these cars will have to be operable in both the manual and self driving modes. Otherwise the car will become much less flexible.

Examples: 1) immediate unplanned stop at a yard sale 2) drive "off road" to get around an obstruction 3) dealing with unstructured parking situations 4) avoiding emergency stops in unsafe locations 5) driving through puddles (is it 2 inches or 2 feet deep?) 6) etc.

And for some significant transition period the road will be populated by both manual and computer driven cars.

How does the hybrid system work? Won't many people take advantage of "dumb" cars. How would you drive if you knew many cars were computer controlled. Would people figure out how to "game" the known computer driving rules? I don't pull out in front of cars that are too close because the human might not stop and hit me. Maybe I don't worry about it if I know the computer is in control of the other car.

Long haul freeway driving does not seem too complicated. But what about high density suburban and city driving?

[icebraining]

1 is just a matter of allowing the user to issue real-time commands ("Car, stop here", "Car, go park"). 3 is less of an issue when you can get off and let the car park itself wherever it wants.

2, 4 and 5 are a matter of smarter algorithms, but I doubt they won't be able to do all that way before they become commonplace. Particularly 4, since you can't reasonably expect people to have to take control to avoid an accident. Even professional pilots can struggle with that, let alone regular drivers.

[ams6110]

There is currently a lot of talk in the professional pilot community that automation has reached the point where pilots are increasingly unable to fly manually. So when the automation fails, they can't handle it.