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"...the Google cars look like something one buys for their four year old niece or nephew. "

You have to stop thinking like some guy from Mad Men and more like somebody buying AWS instances.

Imagine that instead of buying a single car that you drive everywhere you instead reserve a car for your daily commute, you might get various options, eg:

  $500/month - Tesla Sports car, 30min journey, unshared occupancy
  $300/month - 2 seat Google-Car, 30min journey, unshared
  $125/month - 8 seat van, 40min journey, shared, up to 1 vehicle change

Now if you are a go-getter gunning for VP you'll pick the sports car. But others might not see the extra expense as being worth it.

> $125/month - 8 seat van, 40min journey, shared, up to 1 vehicle change

This is interesting -- it's basically a little autonomous bus, for essentially the same price as a regular one, that might pick up/drop off at a more convenient location, minus someone there to supervise. I kind of like having a bus driver.

But would you rather walk 3 blocks in the rain (or snow) to a bus, wait at the stop for it to come, then walk another 3 blocks to your office, or would you rather have the minibus pick you up at your door and drop you at your office? Point-to-point travel is where self-driving cars excel - even if you're sharing the vehicle with others so you don't have a direct trip.

First, I'm pretty far away from "some guy from Mad Men". That's actually quite a reach into my psyche; it would be interesting to see how you came to such an incisive reading while knowing so little about me.

But as far as the business model, as someone that does not own a car but instead utilizes a mix of public transit, bicycle, ZipCar (sometimes renting the VW Golf, sometimes the Jeep, etc.), and Uber to get around, I still think the Google car looks like something one buys for their four year old niece or nephew, and have faith that a car could check all the boxes functionality wise and still be designed to look, nice, at least. Maybe even really nice.

>Tesla has stated publicly they believe that within three years their cars will be capable of full autonomy

Tesla has stated many lofty objectives, some of which they've met, some of which they haven't. These engineering problems are hard.

I agree with the article; what Tesla has introduced with "Auto Pilot" is an improvement on current technology, like adaptive cruise control and park assist. It's cool, but it isn't in the same sphere as what Google is doing with their autonomous cars.

Google is going for a cars as a service business, Tesla is going for a cars as a product business.

That means that Google is happy with cars that only work most of the time, and only goes to some routes, as long as they are fully authonomous and reliable when they work.

Tesla, by its side, is happy with cars that are not fully autonomous, as long as they work every time, and can go to any route.

Of course their products are different, and they'll not become alike if none of them change their business.

I don't think that comparison is quite right.

As far as I'm aware, Tesla is selling cars to people who want to drive cars. Real cars, with muscles.

Google isn't selling anything, and again, as far as I'm aware, it's not settled whether they ever will, for instance there's been a lot of speculation on a rent-a-ride model.

And the prototype they have is clearly aimed at people who don't want to drive cars, i.e. more or less exactly the opposite segment.

> will open and close the door for you, you can fall asleep, and several hours later wake up at your destination.

Not going to happen. Seatbelts and upright seats meant for crashes are not going away even if the robots do all the driving. And I have yet to see any attempt at a robocar capable of understanding and interacting with today's chaotic and haphazard parking rules.

Heaven help us should all passengers be required to sign user agreements and watch in-car safety vids, but that could be a reality. I've got a BMW that already asks me to "agree" a contract for the navigation system every time I start.

Wearing a seatbelt and sitting (mostly) upright is not orthogonal to sleeping - people sleep in barely reclining airline seats all the time, on long car trips my wife and I take turns dozing in the passenger seat, with seatbelt secure and seat back only slightly reclined.

Self driving cars don't have to park where there are haphazard parking rules, they can drive to a garage or lot that caters to self-driving cars.

Why can't you fall asleep with a seatbelt and upright seat? I've done it as a passenger many times

"...the Google cars look like something one buys for their four year old niece or nephew. " They really are quite ugly. I believe that will impact adoption rate.

Their sales must be TERRIBLE.

Modern cars are styled to be aggressive because that's what sells. The Google car is almost certainly designed to look harmless, because they want people to be comfortable riding in it. My late grandmother, for instance, refused to buy a car that had an angry 'face' (i.e. the shape of the headlights).