Ask HN: Do you think self-driving cars are feasable at all?

[alexandrerond]

There are hardly self-driving trains. No self-driving planes, or ships (they always have a watching human at hand, who also performs any non trivial operations). Self-driving is not there yet for every other transportation options which have way better procedure standardization and more advanced technology (with the exception of rockets perhaps).

How is it realistic to think society will embrace self-driving cars in 10-15 years and that they will prove safe if we haven't taken that step with aviation or most subway systems?

[joeclark77]

I think the societies that are culturally willing to embrace self-driving cars are the ones that already have better solutions. I'm talking about the downtowns of major cities, Silicon Valley, university districts, etc. In most cases bicycles, light rail, or buses are already being used and are more efficient than a million people riding alone in self-driving cars. If anything, these are the places that might ban private car ownership as population density increases.

On the other hand, no self-respecting country boy is going to want to give up the freedom and independence that he gets from driving his own vehicle. Separating yourself from the herd is a value proposition, and self-driving cars can't compete with it.

What's left?

1. In some cases suburbanites might use self-driving cars to get from the suburbs to the edge of the car-free downtown zone. It's possible the technology would work for them, but, do any of them perceive an unmet need? Is there anybody out there really frustrated by having to look at the road during their commute? I would think there's a lot more incentive to find ways to shorten the commute, than to simply make it hands free.

2. Interstate trucking is a possible use case, if people would tolerate it. You'd need a plurality of states to get on board with the idea of a very potentially deadly machine going on autopilot, and you'd need to sort out who's liable when people are killed by it. And you need to figure out the "last mile" -- who drives the truck after it takes the exit off the highway. There's a real shortage of truck drivers in the world, so this is probably the one market where there's a commercial incentive to develop the tech, though.

[tiredwired]

Seems like they should start with something less risky like self-driving lawnmowers, self-walking dog walker, self-fishing fishing rod, self-flying kite. Every see those robot soccer matches?

[akg_67]

Yep. Ask this question again, once you find a self-driving golf cart that navigates golf course without problems.

[dvdcxn]

This is a bit of a fallacious to be honest. How much insight will these endevours offer to self driving cars? I don't think there will be a lot of overlap.

And why do the low hanging fruit first when we have the technology and manpower to go for the juicer stuff?

[atroyn]

Bosch already has a line of automated lawn mowers. You can buy one today.

[CyberFonic]

Software is far from 100% trustworthy. With the current state of art we cannot be certain that any software is secure, hack-proof and provable correct under all operating conditions.

A self-driving car is a canonical example of lots of software, sensors and actuators working seamlessly and robustly at all times.

The recent issues with VW, Jeep, Toyota clearly demonstrates that car manufacturers can't even get human controlled cars to be 100% trustworthy. What chance is there that they'll be any better with a self-driving car?

[superuser2]

It's utterly ridiculous that "100% trustworthy" would be considered relevant here. All self-driving cars have to be is better than humans, who are approximately 0% trustworthy.

If a self-driving car is better than a human who is drunk, eating, and texting all at the same time, then it's already a safety improvement.

[firebones]

Here's the deal:

Self-driving cars will succeed, but only when relegated to dedicated, communal, self-driving equivalents of HOV lanes. In a controlled environment, when it's only necessary to deal with exceptions, self-driving cars will rule. Outside the HOV lane, self-driving cars will be more like GPS-Assist++. Human required, but the broadstrokes navagation off-loaded to the computer. The last mile problem of figuring out where to park, last minute adjustments, etc., will still be human-led.

[J-dawg]

I don't know how many years we are from truly autonomous cars that can take you door-to-door with no human intervention other than keying in the destination. There seem to be so many hurdles to overcome that any prediction is likely to be wrong.

However I think we're going to see more and more 'driver assistance' like Tesla's autopilot mode where the driver remains responsible for the car. This kind of tech will get more reliable and trickle down to cheaper models, to the point where most highway / motorway driving is done in semi-autonomous mode. When this happens (and accident rates go down), people and governments will be much more ready to embrace fully autonomous cars.

Has anyone here experienced the Tesla autopilot? There are some fun videos on YouTube. It seems impressive but still a little unreliable.

[infamouscow]

I'm waiting for someone to write about the incredible privacy that we are going to have to relinquish when municipalities have their own fleets of self-driving cars and they are the only way to get around. But nobody wants to talk about it yet.

[kspaans]

Your smartphone already tracks everywhere you go. Similarly it's not hard for someone to watch you if you walk/bike and possibly also if you drive (license plate recognition or OnStar type tracking).

How is it materially different to give ownership of that to your local municipality (who already knows where you live and probably how much water/electricity you use)? Municipal government is probably the one you have the most control over.

[atroyn]

A lot of the discussion in this thread focuses on culture annd safety, but I think the main lever of autonomous vehicles will be economics.

For example, cargo vehicles not carrying any passengers or a driver would represent a huge cost savings in logistics.

There will be some class of autonomous vehicles, perhaps remotely supervised, regularly on the road within a decade. They may not be consumer passenger vehicles, but they don't need to be to make a huge impact. To focus on just whether your car will dive itself is static thinking - what new opportunities could autonomous transport create?

[mod]

Given their track record, I think they're very feasible.

Public adoption & trust is another story.

[CyberFonic]

With the recent problems with VW, Jeep, Toyota, Fiat, et al. I'd say the level of public trust is at rock bottom.

[ams6110]

I think truly autonomous self driving cars are 20-50 years away.

[Peroni]

>There are hardly self-driving trains.

Almost all of London's tube network is self-driving. The human operator controls opening and closing of the doors and that's about it.

[alexandrerond]

Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...

And many others, but not so many compared to the whole list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems

At least, I'd like to think this is a success, but it's taken how many years to get here, and it's a closed system with so many variables under control compared to a car.

[smt88]

There are self-driving planes and trains. Commercial planes mostly drive themselves.

People had the same qualms about automated elevators when those were new.

[CyberFonic]

The Air France crash over the Atlantic demonstrates exactly why auto-pilots are far from ideal. The plane got into a situation which was outside of the auto-pilot's envelope of operations. It gave control back to the pilots who were jarred by the sudden reversion to manual control, panicked and did one wrong after another.

Trains and elevators are different - they run on tracks/guides and do not have any unforeseeable obstacles, operating conditions thrown at them. Furthermore, there are several mechanical safety interlocks that will stop any out of control situations. Planes and cars have to operate under conditions with far more uncontrollable variables.

[ksherlock]

planes are much simpler -- the first autopilot was in 1912, the first auto landing in the 1960s.

[satuim]

Yes. But not in 10-15 years.

As everyone else is saying they need to be much more thoroughly tested and approved.

[m0llusk]

The most reasonable expectation would be for incremental improvement. There are already a wide range of self-driving small cargo carriers in warehouses, manufacturing facilities, hospitals, and large archives. Currently product distribution is dominated by men driving trucks and using hand carts, but for high density locales and basic stocking tasks these jobs are being targeted for automation using existing technologies.