I didn’t really think it was really possible to develop a practical driverless car. Until Google did it:
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And I still wonder what the lawyers will do to it when the first serious accident happens. But nonetheless, it looks like it’s on its way. Indeed, we’re already seen the arrival of the ‘self-parking’ car.
So does this mean that the streets will be crammed with driverless vehicles, particularly if they’re electrically powered? I expect just the reverse.
A car remains idle about 95 percent of the time – not a particularly efficient return on your investment. But what if you could send it out into the world to earn money until you need it? And then the obvious question: why do you need a personal car at all? If there are literally tens of thousands of quasi-taxis or car-shares all around you, immediately available with a click on your smart phone, why not just pay for the service, not the hardware?
It would be relatively easy to get around concerns about safety, hygiene, taxi regulation, etc: Just become a member of a vetted private pool, rather like car-sharing today, that might number in the thousands. The ultimate car co-op.
Yes, it’s possible that increased and more affordable mobility may encourage more sprawl. But I’m sceptical, for two reasons.
Think about the impact on parking. Rather like trucks serving Costco and Walmart that act as on-the-go warehouses, who needs parking lots when the cars are in close-to-continual motion, especially when there are dramatically less of them needed to serve the population? And it’s parking that creates sprawl to a great degree – all that asphalt separating all the other tilt-up boxes. Land prices would quickly adjust to create more compact commercial villages, and other forces might shape our residential communities to complement them.
Secondly, since the car would not be your personal vehicle, it will be easier for government to implement the inevitable: road pricing. The technology would be built in, and the accounting would be even easier – with the trip priced according to distance and time of day, thereby encouraging shorter trips.
I expect the real impact would be to reduce the need for short-haul transit, and the elimination of the taxi-driver as a profession.
While we’re at it, here’s another observation from Adrian Holovaty:
For years now, Google has been sending Street View cars around the world, collecting rich data about streets and the things alongside them. At first, this resulted in Street View imagery. Then it was the underlying street geodata (i.e., the precise longitude/latitude paths of streets)…
Now, I’m realizing the biggest Street View data coup of all: those vehicles are gathering the ultimate training set for driverless cars.
I’m sure this is obvious to people who have followed it more closely, but the realization has really blown my mind. With the goal of photographing and mapping every street in the world, Street View cars must encounter every possible road situation, sort of by definition. The more situations the driverless car knows about, the better the training data, the better the machine-learning algorithms can perform, the more likely it is that the driverless car will work. Brilliant ….
The next question is, as Street View data improves the driverless cars, will the driverless cars get good (and legal) enough to eventually gather Street View data without humans, which will then lead to more driving experience, which will lead to smarter driverless cars, which will lead to more efficient Street View data gathering, in a vicious cycle of driving and learning?
And then there’s this: Can ditching your car make you feel more free?
Why, yes it can! Thank you for asking.
But the car sharing doesn’t really require the cars to be driverless… what’s the key difference?
I suspect the key difference is just the extra convenience. A driverless car will be able to go, on it’s own, to wherever it may be needed.
Just speculating here but could the driverless car ultimately be the triumph of rail?
Think about it for a second: steel wheels on rail is a lot more efficient than rubber on asphalt, making electric vehicles for city a lot more practical. Computer control, with onboard computers and a central computer system to manage track switching would eliminate the problems of individuals driving small rail vehicles. Hypothetically, it could even overlap with the ongoing usage of rubber tired vehicles.
The big question is whether the infrastructure costs would be worth it or not. The cost of effectively laying track almost everywhere and then maintaining it vs the cost of maintaining asphalt everywhere. Theoretically as rubber tired automobile usage fell the wear on asphalt and therefore cost would drop. It would also be feasible to rebuilt streets with alternative materials since they’d have less wear and tear. I wonder if that’s something that could work….
Even better, delivery of goods by automated vehicle. No more driving to the store for a loaf of bread in a 1000kg car large enough to fit four people. Just have the loaf of bread delivered by a small loaf of bread sized vehicle. Trucks no longer have to be large to optimize the expense of a driver. They can be much smaller delivering small loads as needed. For fresh food, this means less wasted. Food can be delivered right from the farm to the home even.
Given the potential to save money, energy and improve service, it would not surprise me that it is trucks that go automatic first.
Automated vehicles can also drive closer together meaning more road space for bike lanes and wider sidewalks. The vehicles can park much closer together without even needing lanes between all the spaces as the vehicles can just pack themselves together and unpack when a vehicle needs to get out of the middle.
They should be much safer too. They should be required to follow all laws. Zero fatalities would be more than a reasonable target.
I agree that for most people, there would be little need to own a car especially in a city. Instead of a consumer product, vehicles will become a shared service.
People still don’t get it. That video is just ilke: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsLuQM5V3FA If that speaker really cares about saving lives, it’s time to get rid of cars altogether. The solution is NOT driverless cars, it is NOT super long distance commutes into sprawl with ultra safe cars, the future does NOT belong with cars, no matter how safe, environmentally friendly they are. Cities are for people, not for machines. And we must build it for people for machines.
I’m disgusted at all the support for driverless cars on this blog.
Hmmm, how about driverless mini-tankers, with each tanker carrying a small load of oil that, if spilled, could be entirely cleaned up in a day.
Interesting discussion here. Just wanted to jump in on a few points.
1. Why does the existence of parking lots make you sceptical?
2. Regarding road pricing, it’s wayyyy harder for Governments to target corporations than to target individuals for taxation. The current Australian government has just learned that the hard way. Big corporations can afford lobby groups and mass media advertising.
@ Jack Hope – we already have asphalt everywhere so the money has already been spent. Also, rail removes flexibility. Rail is doomed.
@ Kyle. Disgusted? Mmk. It’s not smart policy to try and herd a people to your utopian vision, against their will. It’s much smarter to accept human nature and to work with it. In this case, this will mean safe, clean transportation for the blind, elderly and disabled. Not such a disgusting goal in my view.
Matthew Newton
Driverless Car HQ