It seems like self-driving cars may not (and maybe should not) become commonplace until the roads are built for self-driving cars – that might be a better thing to focus on, instead of systems that mimic human judgment.
When developing the self driving tech, a company retains all IP associated with research/development costs. Would they ever instead pay for development of public infra? Would a municipality build roads that conform to Company A's standard of self driving roads, omitting the requests of Company B?
By that logic, railways would have never been built.
"Why would I invest in constructing a special road for that engine of yours? Make it go on dirt roads as well as a horse does, then we'll talk"
It wasn't until the railroad that travel by land was possible at scale. For the USA and Canada the railroad was seen as the only way to keep the vast land together as a single nation which is largely why it was subsidized. Further much of the subdisdy was land grants to land which would otherwise be economically useless without the railroad to allow transport of goods.
While self driving vehicles may improve efficiency of our roadways it is unlikely to be anywhere near the same scale of improvement that railroads brought, and the need to connect the country for political reasons is not there.
Their press-release for it is here, and has a couple of minor technical details:
https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressrele...
I kind of liked the idea - it's basically a higher-tech line-following robot concept, and doesn't look too expensive to roll out compare to other proposed infrastructure changes.
However, I haven't heard anything about it since the 2014 press frenzy over the release linked above. Maybe getting road maintainers to make changes like this really is too much to ask.
The thing that made the recent wave of self-driving vehicles exciting was that they claimed to work on existing roads. Giving that up is giving up their achievement over previous self-driving tech.
Too expensive compared to what?
Any kinds of transit system requires dedicated infrastructure. Humans in particular need signs, road markings, traffic lights, etc.
Decades of research and optimization went into building that infrastructure so that it would be easy for humans to use safely and effectively.
Why is it surprising that this infrastructure simply doesn't work well for computers to operate in?
We aren't trying to run trains on unmodified streets. We build rails first. We should do the same for self-driving cars.
This weekend I drove from my home in the bay area to my Dad's home in central California. I could see a very useful system that goes like this
- Manually drive to the 101.
- Let the car take over until I reach the exit for the 152.
- Manually drive over Pacheco pass and get on the 5.
- Let the car take over once I'm on the 5.
- Car alerts me and I take over manual driving through a construction zone.
- Car takes over again until I reach the exit for the 58.
- Manually drive the rest of the way.
This scenario only involves automation on two of the major N/S arteries in California, yet it would have made my drive much easier.