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Self-Driving Cars (1 Viewer)

How soon until the MAJORITY of cars on the road are self-driving?

  • Within 5 years

    Votes: 3 2.3%

  • Within 10 years

    Votes: 13 10.1%

  • Within 20 years

    Votes: 49 38.0%

  • Within 50 years

    Votes: 44 34.1%

  • Never

    Votes: 20 15.5%
  • Total voters
    129
Ned Ryerson

Ned Ryerson

Footballguy
I've been reading a few articles about how technology has been really moving forward in this space. Google has gotten some pub recently. I'm curious how soon people here believe self-driving cars will be a dominant market force.

I set the last option as "never" past 50 years, because clearly the technology will be there to make this possible by then. if the global populace rejects the technology as an option by that point, it will be by choice, rather than by technological inability.

 
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I don't think the general public will buy into it for a long time. All it takes is one accident where a kid dies caused by one of these cars and it will set the cause back about 30 years.

Also, I don't really understand the allure. I like driving and even if it was 100% safe I'd probably still want to drive.

 
kutta said:
I don't think the general public will buy into it for a long time. All it takes is one accident where a kid dies caused by one of these cars and it will set the cause back about 30 years.

Also, I don't really understand the allure. I like driving and even if it was 100% safe I'd probably still want to drive.
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I don't know what the time frame is but this is way way wrong. There's greater acceptance every day.

You suck at driving. Even if you're really good at it by human standards.

 
It's gonna be a long, long time. We allow people to sue McDonalds for millions because they spilled hot coffee on their balls...I can't even imagine the 1st time one of these things goes ape #### and kills someone.

 
The technology will start off to be really expensive and only the 1-2%ers will have it.

First the price would have to come down to the point where the top 30-40% could afford it.. which would take years.

Then it would take 15 years from that point for the bottom 50-60% to turn over their vehicles and start buying the used ones that the top 40% sell off.

Not to mention a large group of tech haters, older people, and the dumb who wouldn't "trust" the technology.

I think we'll a number of self-driving cars within 20 years... but it will be about at the frequency that you see high end vehicles like Merc's and BMW's.

It will get interesting to see where things will be in that 21-50 year gap.

I hope they have the tech good enough so that when I'm getting to the point where I don't feel comfortable driving at night that I can trust it.

 
kutta said:
I don't think the general public will buy into it for a long time. All it takes is one accident where a kid dies caused by one of these cars and it will set the cause back about 30 years.

Also, I don't really understand the allure. I like driving and even if it was 100% safe I'd probably still want to drive.
Click to expand...
I don't mind driving, but if I can do work, watch a movie, take a nap...why would I want to be driving. Also, the drinking and driving thing is very appealing. Driving just seems like wasted time and energy. I'm sure there will be some bumps in the road (pardon the pun), but I can't see this not being the wave of the future.

 
I would imagine that if every 'new' car purchased was self-driving, then it would still take 20 years at least until a 'majority' of the cars on the road are self-driving. Many of us only buy used cars and new cars are probably kept anywhere from 5-10 years. Change is slow. I think it WILL be the majority but a quick pace will be >20 years.

 
There will be a lot of lobbying interest here. Cell phone providers will want people spending more time with their phones so they'll be in favor. Car insurance revenue would drop to near nothing so they will be against. Tons of people and industries will come down on different sides. My guess is the tech is really "close" but widespread implementation is decades away.

 
roadkill1292 said:
kutta said:
I don't think the general public will buy into it for a long time. All it takes is one accident where a kid dies caused by one of these cars and it will set the cause back about 30 years.

Also, I don't really understand the allure. I like driving and even if it was 100% safe I'd probably still want to drive.
Click to expand...
I don't know what the time frame is but this is way way wrong. There's greater acceptance every day.

You suck at driving. Even if you're really good at it by human standards.
Click to expand...
This logic is kind of like gun laws...banning guns works best if you do it before everyone has guns. Once the guns are out there, it's tough to transition.

Robot cars work well if all the other cars on the road are also robots and they behave in a predictable robot way. Trying to program a car to deal with the guy trying to shave, text, and read the paper going 55 in the left lane is a lot more complicated...One advantage humans still have is adaptability to new situations. You can't program for every situation you'll come across on the road, just because people aren't predictable.

 
Ned Ryerson said:
kutta said:
I don't think the general public will buy into it for a long time. All it takes is one accident where a kid dies caused by one of these cars and it will set the cause back about 30 years.

Also, I don't really understand the allure. I like driving and even if it was 100% safe I'd probably still want to drive.
Click to expand...
I don't mind driving, but if I can do work, watch a movie, take a nap...why would I want to be driving. Also, the drinking and driving thing is very appealing. Driving just seems like wasted time and energy. I'm sure there will be some bumps in the road (pardon the pun), but I can't see this not being the wave of the future.
Click to expand...
Agree.. I don't mind driving, but I'd almost always prefer to do something else.

I wonder how long it takes for the tech to be good enough to navigate snow/ice types of conditions.

I suspect I'd never be able to use it for trailing my boat, launching the boat, etc.

 
roadkill1292 said:
kutta said:
I don't think the general public will buy into it for a long time. All it takes is one accident where a kid dies caused by one of these cars and it will set the cause back about 30 years.

Also, I don't really understand the allure. I like driving and even if it was 100% safe I'd probably still want to drive.
Click to expand...
I don't know what the time frame is but this is way way wrong. There's greater acceptance every day.

You suck at driving. Even if you're really good at it by human standards.
Click to expand...
Of course we suck at driving. Just like we suck at flying airplanes but the general public still is not comfortable getting into a plane with no human pilot.

It doesn't matter what I think or you think. It matters what the general public thinks, and I still say they will not accept it for a long long time.

 
Don't see it happening anytime soon. I don't even think we're at the point where the majority of cars are hybrid yet and those have been around for what 10+ years?

 
Dentist said:
Ned Ryerson said:
kutta said:
I don't think the general public will buy into it for a long time. All it takes is one accident where a kid dies caused by one of these cars and it will set the cause back about 30 years.

Also, I don't really understand the allure. I like driving and even if it was 100% safe I'd probably still want to drive.
Click to expand...
I don't mind driving, but if I can do work, watch a movie, take a nap...why would I want to be driving. Also, the drinking and driving thing is very appealing. Driving just seems like wasted time and energy. I'm sure there will be some bumps in the road (pardon the pun), but I can't see this not being the wave of the future.
Click to expand...
Agree.. I don't mind driving, but I'd almost always prefer to do something else.

I wonder how long it takes for the tech to be good enough to navigate snow/ice types of conditions.

I suspect I'd never be able to use it for trailing my boat, launching the boat, etc.
Click to expand...
LOOK AT ME, I HAVE A BOAT!!

Are we still doing this?

 
I think one hurdle is insurance and determining if the manufacturer is liable when an accident occurs. If you can sort this out, the insurance premiums for a driverless car will be so much less than that for a 16 year old new driver that the economics would make the driverless car very favorable. Given that, I think this switch happens relatively quick - within 20 years.

I'd love to have one - you can text and drink while driving.

 
MattFancy said:
Don't see it happening anytime soon. I don't even think we're at the point where the majority of cars are hybrid yet and those have been around for what 10+ years?
Click to expand...
exactly... also would the vehicle industry even want it?

Why would anyone ever purchase a sports car again if you are going to be driverless most of the time then the "thrill" of driving is gone... almost everyone would want a glorified "couch" at that point...

UPS and the like would have to be way for it... no more restrictions of when their vehicles can drive... they could be 24/7

 
Dentist said:
The technology will start off to be really expensive and only the 1-2%ers will have it.

First the price would have to come down to the point where the top 30-40% could afford it.. which would take years.

Then it would take 15 years from that point for the bottom 50-60% to turn over their vehicles and start buying the used ones that the top 40% sell off.

Not to mention a large group of tech haters, older people, and the dumb who wouldn't "trust" the technology.

I think we'll a number of self-driving cars within 20 years... but it will be about at the frequency that you see high end vehicles like Merc's and BMW's.

It will get interesting to see where things will be in that 21-50 year gap.

I hope they have the tech good enough so that when I'm getting to the point where I don't feel comfortable driving at night that I can trust it.
Click to expand...
This sounds like an argument against Tesla and it's stock price.

The average car on the road is over 11 years old - it will take a long time for the average car to be drivierless.

The technology is there today - most of the recent cars have telematics built in that can communicate with other cars on the road - they just haven't been turned on.

 
Dentist said:
MattFancy said:
Don't see it happening anytime soon. I don't even think we're at the point where the majority of cars are hybrid yet and those have been around for what 10+ years?
Click to expand...
exactly... also would the vehicle industry even want it?

Why would anyone ever purchase a sports car again if you are going to be driverless most of the time then the "thrill" of driving is gone... almost everyone would want a glorified "couch" at that point...

UPS and the like would have to be way for it... no more restrictions of when their vehicles can drive... they could be 24/7
Click to expand...
Why would someone buy a go-kart or ATV nowadays? You can't drive it on a road.

There will be a number of difficulties that have to be sorted out, but I think the economics and safety of driverless make it really compelling.

 
Nugget said:
The technology is there today - most of the recent cars have telematics built in that can communicate with other cars on the road - they just haven't been turned on.
Click to expand...
Link to this? I haven't read this. I find it hard to believe that auto-makers would spend money on something this advanced without turning it on.

 
Brony said:
Dentist said:
MattFancy said:
Don't see it happening anytime soon. I don't even think we're at the point where the majority of cars are hybrid yet and those have been around for what 10+ years?
Click to expand...
exactly... also would the vehicle industry even want it?

Why would anyone ever purchase a sports car again if you are going to be driverless most of the time then the "thrill" of driving is gone... almost everyone would want a glorified "couch" at that point...

UPS and the like would have to be way for it... no more restrictions of when their vehicles can drive... they could be 24/7
Click to expand...
Why would someone buy a go-kart or ATV nowadays? You can't drive it on a road.

There will be a number of difficulties that have to be sorted out, but I think the economics and safety of driverless make it really compelling.
Click to expand...
i think driverless cars are very compelling.. just over 20 years today before "mainstream" use.

It took a many years before internet and cell phones and HDTV had mainstream use and those have significantly lower price points to get started.

As for your go-kart or ATV argument.. that's not an apples to apples comparison. A sports car and minivan arguably do the same thing... get you from one place to the next... just a variance amongst how many people can fit, and how stylish it is and how it "performs"

But if you're using "driverless" most or nearly all of the time and your vehicle isn't allowed to exceed the speed limit and you aren't stomping to pedal to out-gun people at stoplights... well... why even buy said sports car?.. it just changes a vehicle in my opinion from a "status symbol" type of thing and a "look at me while I"m driving" type of thing.. to a car almost being more like a microwave or an oven. Sure there are nicer microwaves and nicer ovens.... but at the end of the day they just cook your food and they just aren't as "defining" a purchase as they may have been in the eyes of some.. after all you are just riding in it like a subway rider and probably sitting there texting or playing Chess Time whilst in the car

 
For the record, I'm all for driverless cars. I think it would be awesome to not have to drive to/from work and can just hang out and watch Netflix or read the news on my way in. I just don't see it happening anytime soon. I mean, we still have a decent amount of people in this country without cell phones (let alone smart phones), HD TVs and broadband internet.

 
You'll have to pry control of my car from my cold, dead hands...

:drive:

 
MattFancy said:
For the record, I'm all for driverless cars. I think it would be awesome to not have to drive to/from work and can just hang out and watch Netflix or read the news on my way in. I just don't see it happening anytime soon. I mean, we still have a decent amount of people in this country without cell phones (let alone smart phones), HD TVs and broadband internet.
Click to expand...
Exactly my point.

I think the average messageboard guy doesn't realize how many poor/dumb people there are out there who are scraping by with 80's technology to this day... it was a massive long government project to push people to those government digital TV boxes so that dumb people could still get their over the air TV... can you imagine what it would take to get driverless cars into some of those people's hands?

 
I totally get that there's more to the car culture than purely getting from point A to B. It's one of the many things that make watching this technology acceptance fascinating to observe.

My point in the ATV / go-kart is that there are outlets for fun driving that exist today so the whole "you're taking away my right to have fun" doesn't have much weight (to me at least, not to Joe 6-pack).

If you are just looking at driverless cars being a straight replacement for existing cars, then yeah, this could be slow adoption. When you start to imagine a world where you don't need to own a car and can transport anywhere on demand via a smartphone, or where you can sleep in the back of your car and wake up at your beach house the next morning that's 800 miles away, I think it starts to become more interesting.

 
Dentist said:
MattFancy said:
For the record, I'm all for driverless cars. I think it would be awesome to not have to drive to/from work and can just hang out and watch Netflix or read the news on my way in. I just don't see it happening anytime soon. I mean, we still have a decent amount of people in this country without cell phones (let alone smart phones), HD TVs and broadband internet.
Click to expand...
Exactly my point.

I think the average messageboard guy doesn't realize how many poor/dumb people there are out there who are scraping by with 80's technology to this day... it was a massive long government project to push people to those government digital TV boxes so that dumb people could still get their over the air TV... can you imagine what it would take to get driverless cars into some of those people's hands?
Click to expand...
Don't forget about "Cash for Clunkers" too. Alot of people don't value things like cars/tvs/houses/etc. Unless there is some incentive for them to change what they currently have, it's not gonna happen.

I chose the 50 year option, mainly because that's what I'm hoping for. Would love to see it sooner, but people don't like change.

 
Once the technology hits the road and is stable, it will still take a few generations (of people) before it is fully adopted.

I would liken it to an automatic transmission. The manual stick shift has been fading for years because people just don't know how to do it anymore.

 
We'll see. These comparison adoption technologies weren't responsible for 30,000 deaths per year. Cigarette smoking to me is a more reasonable comparison (safety, economic and cultural effects all at play) and that certainly took a long time.

 
kutta said:
roadkill1292 said:
kutta said:
I don't think the general public will buy into it for a long time. All it takes is one accident where a kid dies caused by one of these cars and it will set the cause back about 30 years.

Also, I don't really understand the allure. I like driving and even if it was 100% safe I'd probably still want to drive.
Click to expand...
I don't know what the time frame is but this is way way wrong. There's greater acceptance every day.

You suck at driving. Even if you're really good at it by human standards.
Click to expand...
Of course we suck at driving. Just like we suck at flying airplanes but the general public still is not comfortable getting into a plane with no human pilot.

It doesn't matter what I think or you think. It matters what the general public thinks, and I still say they will not accept it for a long long time.
Click to expand...
People fly with no human pilot all of the time. It's called auto-pilot.

And I don't think the suggestion is that the car is going to go out driving on it's all K.I.T.T. style. But there's definitely room for highway driving on complete autopilot, almost as an extension to cruise control. I could also see "autopilot" lane to start, much like the carpool lane until there is large implentation of it.

That being said, I still see it a couple decades out, much of the reason being that people just keep driving their old cars for awhile.

 
I enjoy driving... I don't drive drunk, but if I could set an autopilot button if I was drunk that would be great, but outside of that, I usually find the open road relaxing.

 
kutta said:
Also, I don't really understand the allure. I like driving and even if it was 100% safe I'd probably still want to drive.
Click to expand...
The allure is the constant auto-pilot. A car shows up, you get in it, it takes you where you want to go, and you don't have to do anything.

Also, once enough other cars are on the road, you'd never stop moving. There's no need for stoplights or stop signs. The car would "talk" to the other cars on the road and the flow of traffic would just zoom around you as you crossed it. It'd be a fun ride, missing collisions by milliseconds as you zip straight across a busy street.

 
Sarnoff said:
kutta said:
Also, I don't really understand the allure. I like driving and even if it was 100% safe I'd probably still want to drive.
Click to expand...
The allure is the constant auto-pilot. A car shows up, you get in it, it takes you where you want to go, and you don't have to do anything.

Also, once enough other cars are on the road, you'd never stop moving. There's no need for stoplights or stop signs. The car would "talk" to the other cars on the road and the flow of traffic would just zoom around you as you crossed it. It'd be a fun ride, missing collisions by milliseconds as you zip straight across a busy street.
Click to expand...
Computers are prone to errors too.

 
MikeMan said:
I would imagine that if every 'new' car purchased was self-driving, then it would still take 20 years at least until a 'majority' of the cars on the road are self-driving. Many of us only buy used cars and new cars are probably kept anywhere from 5-10 years. Change is slow. I think it WILL be the majority but a quick pace will be >20 years.
Click to expand...
Dentist said:
The technology will start off to be really expensive and only the 1-2%ers will have it.

First the price would have to come down to the point where the top 30-40% could afford it.. which would take years.

Then it would take 15 years from that point for the bottom 50-60% to turn over their vehicles and start buying the used ones that the top 40% sell off.

Not to mention a large group of tech haters, older people, and the dumb who wouldn't "trust" the technology.

I think we'll a number of self-driving cars within 20 years... but it will be about at the frequency that you see high end vehicles like Merc's and BMW's.

It will get interesting to see where things will be in that 21-50 year gap.

I hope they have the tech good enough so that when I'm getting to the point where I don't feel comfortable driving at night that I can trust it.
Click to expand...
Individuals won't buy self driving cars, companies will. The expense of it doesn't really effect the adoption.

There's no point in an individual buying a self driving car. It barely makes sense to buy a normal car when you think about it. 95% of the time it's off and sitting still, either in your garage or your parking space at work. It's a huge investment into something you don't really use that often.

The thing with self-driving cars is you don't have to buy one. You can buy into a sharing service. Like taxis. The car would self-drive for you or whomever else needed it whenever.

A taxi company would buy a fleet of self-driving cars and people would just have the service available to them. Send a text from their cell phone "Leaving here in 5 minutes" and an empty car would pull up outside and wait for them to get in, then take them wherever, and then leave to go pick up someone else. Home to work. Work to a restaurant. Restaurant to the mall. Mall to home. Whatever. 4 different cars could make those trips and the individual customer won't care.

 
fantasycurse42 said:
Sarnoff said:
kutta said:
Also, I don't really understand the allure. I like driving and even if it was 100% safe I'd probably still want to drive.
Click to expand...
The allure is the constant auto-pilot. A car shows up, you get in it, it takes you where you want to go, and you don't have to do anything.

Also, once enough other cars are on the road, you'd never stop moving. There's no need for stoplights or stop signs. The car would "talk" to the other cars on the road and the flow of traffic would just zoom around you as you crossed it. It'd be a fun ride, missing collisions by milliseconds as you zip straight across a busy street.
Click to expand...
Computers are prone to errors too.
Click to expand...
Google's cars have driven over a million miles without a computer-caused incident. The can make errors, sure, but the draw is that they make them far less often than humans would, and speed up commutes on the side.

 
belljr said:
Sweet so I can't go above the speed limit
Click to expand...
The "new" versions go below the speed limit. They're automatic golf carts, basically, never going above 25MPH. But that's a great speed for city driving... if you never had to make stops at lights, you'd get there faster than in a car on a "normal" road going 35 but waiting a minute at every intersection. Plus, at 25MPH, safety is a much smaller concern--it's hard to have fatal accidents when that's the top speed.

 
The one thing I haven't seen as far as Google's testing to date is decision making in a guaranteed accident. Like, some kid jumps in front of the car and it's either hit the kid or swerve to avoid and hit a light pole or something. I guess it just hasn't been in that situation yet, but it would be interesting to see how it would handle a situation where it's getting into an accident one way or another.

 
MattFancy said:
For the record, I'm all for driverless cars. I think it would be awesome to not have to drive to/from work and can just hang out and watch Netflix or read the news on my way in. I just don't see it happening anytime soon. I mean, we still have a decent amount of people in this country without cell phones (let alone smart phones), HD TVs and broadband internet.
Click to expand...
Psst...its called a train.

 
My guess is we will see transportation companies push this. Not just taxis but semis. Think of no longer worrying about a guy driving tons of truck on no sleep and a good bit of speed. They could run 24 hrs a day with stops for fuel. Cost of transporting goods drops a lot.

 
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