[ghaff]

Although that article also makes it unclear the degree of autonomy we're talking about here, using Lidar or otherwise. The big challenge, as noted in the link) is that there's this space between drivers still needing to drive (with assistance) and true driverless 99.999% just works. And within that gap, you potentially don't want to introduce certain automation because it will make drivers inattentive even though the machinery isn't quite up to the task of handling every contingency on its own. The billion dollar question is the timeframe for the 99.999% case--which enables a whole lot of radical use cases which the 99% case does not (such as no driver or no attentive driver). Just because the 99% use case could be here relatively soon doesn't mean that the 99.999% case couldn't be much further off (as in many decades).

[bentcorner]

> which enables a whole lot of radical use cases which the 99% case does not (such as no driver or no attentive driver)

I'm excited for this. Car ownership and operation could be an interesting historical note 200 years from now. Family scheduling would become much more flexible and children incapable of operating a vehicle will be empowered to travel long distances.

[ghaff]

I'm not convinced about car ownership. There are a lot of benefits in owning a car that you can keep "stuff" in. But just as Zipcars have presumably eliminated some car ownership use cases at the margins, fully autonomous cars would have a significant effect.

[bentcorner]

> But just as Zipcars have presumably eliminated some car ownership use cases at the margins, fully autonomous cars would have a significant effect.

The big big thing I see about driverless cars is:

a) You can use it on-demand, even more easily than Zipcars. No need to physically be located near a lot, I can "hail" a driverless car and have it waiting for me when I need it. Smart routing and allocation can ensure that capacity is used smartly - it could drop somebody off while picking me up.

b) People who can't or won't drive can benefit from this. From young children to the elderly, transportation becomes much much easier. Have to take your kid to an appointment in the middle of the day? A driverless car can pick them up from school and bring them directly to the appointment and you can meet them there. You go to the appointment together, then driverless cars can take each of you back to your daily work, saving time all-around.

Yes - it's useful to have a car to keep stuff in. I can imagine you could keep one "on call" for a day out, and you can meet the car (at whatever exit is closest to you!) throughout the day to get supplies or drop things off.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic about what driverless cars can give us. Realistically I think hands-off driverless cars are within the next few years, but FUD and lawsuits will prevent more radical forward progress. It's certainly not unimaginable that it will take an entire generation of people to die off before truly autonomous cars are common and accepted.

[sremani]

Car ownership on itself may have some benefits but most of the people who own car is not by choice. US cities are planned around cars. Walking and Biking are not only out of option for many, they are actually unsafe once you leave the neighborhood streets.

[dragonwriter]

> There are a lot of benefits in owning a car that you can keep "stuff" in.

So, combine driverless cars with depots with loading/unloading robots, then you can leave stuff in your driverless car, and have access to it with the next driverless pickup.

[bdamm]

Security is an interesting aspect as well. What's to stop someone from planting a location tracker on a shared car, then learning the locations of subsequent users? Or a bomb?

[joshuahedlund]

What's to stop someone from doing those things on cars now?

[krapp]

The most likely novel vulnerabilities with these will be in the way they network with one another and municipalities. Also, doubtless people will try to carjack them or steal the hubcaps and stuff.

[Thrymr]

Elon Musk thinks autopilot will come before driverless, too: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-07/tesla-ceo-talking-w... (or at least he did last year). I tend to agree. More cars have things like lane detection and adaptive cruise control that are steps towards autopilot. Truly driverless is not just a hard engineering problem, it is a huge unsolved social and legal problem.

[Retric]

One option for a 95+% driver-less cars is simply having a remote driver that handles a fleet of them.

[ghaff]

Depends on the cases that aren't reliably handled by the computer. "Last 100 feet" problems associated with, say, parking could potentially be handled remotely. The bigger issue though is circumstances that require quick decision making by a competent human.