Prepare to be Underwhelmed by 2021’s Autonomous Cars

[FrodosPet]

Prepare to be Underwhelmed by 2021’s Autonomous Cars

Ford, Uber, and BMW promise fully self-driving cars in five years—but they will probably only work in very limited areas.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602210/prepare-to-be-underwhelmed-by-2021s-autonomous-cars/

by Tom Simonite August 23, 2016

BMW, Ford, and Uber have all recently said they plan to have “fully autonomous” cars ready to drive themselves on the road in 2021 (see “2021 May Be the Year of the Fully Autonomous Car”). Ford says its fleet of vehicles will lack steering wheels and offer a robotic taxi service.

But don’t expect to toss out your driver's license in 2021. Five years isn’t long enough to create vehicles good enough at driving to roam extensively without human input, say researchers working on autonomous cars. They predict that Ford and others will meet their targets by creating small fleets of vehicles limited to small, controlled areas.

“Probably what Ford would do to meet their 2021 milestone is have something that provides low-speed taxi service limited to certain roads—and don’t expect it to come in the rain,” says Steven Shladover of the University of California, Berkeley, who has worked on automated driving for more than 20 years.

Shladover says many media outlets and members of the public are overinterpreting statements from Ford and other companies that are less specific than they appear. The dream of being able to have a car drive you wherever you want to go in the city, country, or continent remains distant, he says. “It ain’t going to be five years,” says Shladover. “The hype has gotten totally out of sync with reality.”

~ snip ~

[msongs]

1. so who gets sued when auto car kills your family and you survive...? nt

[FrodosPet]

3. My understanding is, the manufacturers and designers of the systems

When they do finally start retailing, they will be VERY expensive, just to pay the cost of the liability insurance the makers and designers will need.

[longship]

2. Can hardly wait for autonomous semi-trailers traversing the Cajon pass in winter.

Or even worse, traverse the Sierra Nevada on any Interstate in winter.

Those passes are treacherous even in summer.

Good luck with autonomous vehicles. Sounds like a recipe for mayhem.

[BlueStreak]

7. What we could see in th enext 10 years

is highway "trains" of trucks operating on the less dense stretches between the major population areas. It is entirely possible that there will be "trains" of trucks with one driver in front and possibly a "caboose driver", with robotic trucks in the middle. these would not go deep into city streets. This would be terminal-to-terminal all on limited access highways.

[longship]

8. The insurance companies will never allow it.

The risk is too high. And there are places where the risk is over the top, literally. Like the mountain passes on the Interstates.

[BlueStreak]

11. Volvo is promising to take all the risk

Well see what that means. But the Volvo system can only be activated on roads that are approved by Volvo. In others words, nothing like fully autonomous driving. We will see variations on that theme for 15-20 years.

[LanternWaste]

9. No doubt, the same was said of the automobile by carriage drivers in 19th century New York.

"Sounds like a recipe for mayhem..."

No doubt, the same was said of the automobile by carriage drivers in 19th century New York. One imagines those carriage drivers would envision the worst scenarios possible, and would then predicate their entire premise on something easily gotten around (as many horses may yet still traverse areas cars and jeeps are unable to).

The steady and consistent advancement of technology is a frightening thing to many people... I empathize.

[rainy]

4. This technology is still stuck in profit making for the same

players. I was invisioning a future where transportation was developed that would benefit the masses, be funded by taxpayers with no profit and no damage to the environment. Transportation that would be very safe, low risk to consumers. Where are the visionaries for more technology for community transportation? I'm not feeling good about a future of billions of self driving singly owned cars.

[FrodosPet]

5. The cars will be primarily fleet vehicles - taxicabs

Between the technology and the liability insurance required (at least initially), they will cost from high 5 to low 6 figures. I doubt there will ever be billions on the road.

As far as your vision of "transportation was developed that would benefit the masses, be funded by taxpayers with no profit and no damage to the environment." - I think the closest we will ever come to that is walking. And even that has an enviromental impact - the more you walk, the more you need to eat.

[BlueStreak]

6. The whole thing is a gigantic con. They are all just trying to match Elon Musk

but you can't con the best con man since PT Barnum.

What will be possible is automatic steering on limited access highways on very well mapped sections. But by 2020, these cars won't even be able to handle common situations, such as cone zones, blizzards, new pavement with missing or ambiguous lines, or a cop trying to poll over the autonomous car.

True do-anything, go-anywhere, no-driver-ever-required cars will not happen before 2035 at the earliest. In reality, it is more likely that true driverless cars won't happen until we implement substantially new modes of transit with significant infrastructure put into place to manage the traffic flow.

[whatthehey]

10. Likely true. Early cars were shit too. Give it a decade though...