Originally Posted by
Mobile 155
it also depends on what we are looking for in one of these self driving vehicles. It has been reported that close to 9 out of 10 house holds in the US have access to a car. So it stands to reason self driving cars will have to provide the same convenience as the cars people have access to now. To do that they will have to able to take people from their home to the Grand Canyon or Disney World just because someone wants to pile the family into the car and go there.
I am not sure they are as close as all that as a replacement to the private vehicle just yet. Closer to replacing mass transit, Uber and the Taxi maybe?
Not ready to start holding my breath just yet.
Excellent point because I've noticed something about ALL of the people that express excitement about this topic and now close it is to reality. The viability of the technology is ALWAYS discussed in terms of city infrastructure. Driving to rural america is not discussed. Anybody that projects a future where all the cars on the road are driverless needs to consider rural america. People have trucks and other utility vehicles that they regularly have to "drive" where there's nothing that looks like a road.
For example I lived out in the the country until about 15 years ago in a pretty sparse area. The roads were kind of rough and very poorly marked lines. Then you come to the driveway of my house. It was 1/3 mile of gravel up a steep winding hill that then loops around thru the woods upon reaching the house. Even under ideal weather conditions it will be a LONG time before you'll take a car without a steering wheel to a place like that. My driveway would also sometimes develop ruts and if I let that go on too long without resurfacing it then you end up with a few spots where you have to get off to the side of it etc. to avoid bottoming out the car and getting stuck. Think your driverless car will just look at the ruts and figure out how deep they are and what the best course across is like a human might? Think again.
But then wait till a snow storm hits and the driveway is frozen over. A human driver with some skill in conditions like that may get their car to the road and go to the store. A driverless car will behave like it's been dropped into a featureless world. Will the car simply remember where the driveway used to be and avoid getting stuck exiting the property as well as a skilled human familiar with the terrain? Of course not. The driveway is totally invisible even to the human and everything is white and it might look flat but if you head into it you'll quickly sink in and get stuck in a ditch or something. Will rural america just get used to it and decide to live within the limitations of what a driverless car can do for them? Of course not.
Driverless cars will exist before they can go to places like this but they won't replace human drivers and you won't be able to use the driverless car when you go visit grandma.