Have there been any studies on whether people actually want autonomous cars (a quick google search only shows one: http://www.alpineautotrans.com/?p=326)? I think it's a good idea, and I bet most people on HN would agree, but what's the downside? How many people in the general public would trust a robot driver? Can you still speed -- if you're late for work -- if you need emergency medical care? Can you take manual control of the vehicle -- would that raise insurance rates if you did so? How many people in the general public would be ok with that?
Good questions, but overcoming consumer resistance is not a new science. The autonomous car will be just another in a long line of products that were initially dismissed by consumers.
Many cars you can buy today are practically autonomous anyway. You may still feel like you are in control, but the computer systems will take over in many cases. Going fully autonomous is the natural leap. The trick is only one of marketing to get the people comfortable with the idea. These frequent announcements is one way to build that comfort level before the first production units are ready to be sold.
A robot-driven version of my personal car (and how I use it today), is moderately appealing. But as a stepping stone to a future where an autonomous robot-driven (flying?) cab pulls up curbside, picks me up, and smoothly, safely speeds me through a city where the absence of any manually driven vehicles allows for safer more efficient use of road-space, well, that's very exciting to me.
> A robot-driven version of my personal car (and how I use it today), is moderately appealing.
Really... you wouldn't find never having to park again very appealing? Having your car pick you up somewhere, or go get serviced while you're shopping?
Moderately appealing. I guess I'd better give the context... I ride my bike whenever I can, which is >90% of my journeys (I live in SF; the same was also true in London). I've only ever commuted to work by car for a brief period of time, and I plan on avoiding it in the future. I prefer to combine train (CalTrain) and bike for commuting. I occasionally use my car to do a big grocery shop - it's 5min each way, so I can take or leave a robot there. The reason I own a car (Subaru) is to get to very remote places in the Sierra Nevada mountains, to go white water kayaking. The drive across the Central Valley is very boring, and for that I would love a robot. The bits on hairy mountain roads (often broken dirt roads), I'd be amazed if we see a robot car capable of that in my life time (we're talking reading individual boulders to figure out the line through). What I really need is a helicopter, and pilot..
So that's why I'm only moderately excited for my personal car - I just avoid using it so much that its not a big deal.
Now, if we could remove SF's rude and navigationally challenged taxi drivers* from SF'd taxi's, then I'd be happy..
Interestingly, I frequently heard the idea of not needing parking because your car would drop you off at work, drive home, then pick you up at the end of the day. But since almost all cars on the road right now are gas or gas hybrid, you are doubling your miles driven, thereby halving your effective fuel economy. You are also doubling the amount of time on the road, so now rush hour lasts twice as long. From 7-8 in the morning driving everyone to work, and then 8-9 empty driving home. This may potentially have infrastructure issues--road capacities, paving, etc.
I didn't say you don't need parking, I said you don't have to do it. The car can drop you off and then go park on its own. Driving home would be stupid.
Take a trip down to the nearest suburban elementary school to see whether "getting dropped off and picked up at the door" necessarily translates to "never having to park again".
In many situations, you won't have to hunt for a spot. And that'll be great. But for an awful lot of trips, you'll wind up walking just as far due the line-up of cars. Or waiting an awfully long time.
Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely sold on an autonomous car for its other benefits. But the auto-parking/pickup bit is ... overstated in its applicability.
Kids getting out of school is a special case. Most things I do don't involve mass arrivals or departures. When my car drops me off at the mall and then parks, then picks me up at the door, I don't think I'll run into that problem.
At the mall, probably not. But going to or leaving work? Or a theatre? Or restaurants [1]? Or a party? Or your beer-league bowling/darts/softball games? [2]
Pretty much anything with a predictable schedule would be quickly swamped and delays will compound quickly.
Which isn't to say it's a non-feature. It's just to say, again, that it's being oversold.
[1] Fixed schedules alone won't be in trouble. Anything with a 'busy period' will manifest this.
[2] To say nothing of professional sporting events, concerts, tourist traps and things like theme parks -- precisely the places where parking is such a bummer in the first place.
You won't have much of a choice after 5 years, all new cars will be semi-autonomous. A few year after that, people will enjoy the benefits so much that, that there won't be much demand for driveable cars. It's the same story as the horse to car, letter to telegram, paper to radio, radio to tv, tv to flatscrren, flatscreen to 3dtv... Okay, maybe not the last one.
