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Comment by randyrand | Hacker News Reader

> Legal liability will shift to the manufacturers

Why? If you're operating a vehicle with known and manufacturer specified risks, thats on you.

It's basic product liability law. The liability is actually on both the owner and the manufacturer (and the dealer, and anyone else involved in that chain of transactions...). And as the deeper pocket, realistically the liability is all on the manufacturer.

You're not operating a vehicle. You're a passenger in a vehicle operated by waymo.

I thought we were talking about your own vehicles. If you own a self driving vehicle, and it crashes because you neglected maintenance then that's on the owner not manufacturer, just like it is with existing cars.

Sure, but what if I had done all the maintenance I was supposed to and it crashes. Should that still be on me or on Waymo?

I wonder self driving car manufacturers are going to try to get around this making the required maintenance and 'pre-flight' check list so onerous that basically nobody is completely in compliance and thus they're never responsible.

Yes, if you drive around and suddenly your spring coil breaks making you swerve and hit someone else, that's still on you, even if you have followed the maintenance booklet precisely. You can't sue the manufacturer for that, they will just say the part has worn out and you were supposed to spot that(somehow, even though the law requires an annual inspection at best).

if you drive around and suddenly your spring coil breaks making you swerve and hit someone else, that's still on you

Yes, but is it on me, the drive, or me, the car owner? Or if someone else is driving my car who's fault is it then? In the self driving scenario couldn't you make the argument that while it's my car, I'm only the passenger and Waymo is in fact the driver.

But you are the owner of the vehicle, right? Then you are responsible for its technical state, even if someone else, be it a person or a machine, is driving.

Like.....if you let your friend drive, and the tyre bursts and you end up hitting another car for example - no one will be at fault(most likely), but your insurance will still end up paying for it. I don't see why it would be any different with AI driving the car, in essence it simply doesn't matter. An object belonging to you has damaged an object belonging to someone else - therefore your insurance has to pay for it.

But you are the owner of the vehicle, right?

Then I won't own the vehicle, I'll rent it and leave the maintenance up to the rental company.

Who would pay to own a car that sits around parked >90% of the time anyway? A rental company could have that car out making deliveries and ride share pickups until it's time to pick me up at the end of the work day.

Then sure, absolutely, but there will always be people who will want to own the car not rent it for a plethora of different reasons that perhaps do not apply to you. And the argument here is that those people who chose to own self-driving cars will still have to insure them - the fact that the car drives itself doesn't change the fact that you could be liable for any damages that happen when it's on the road.

And as an aside - how is this different than a taxi then, at that point? If that model already works for you, then uber fills that niche already. Unless there is some assumption that somehow it would end up being cheaper than uber? I can bet it would be cheaper for me to take ubers to work than own my car, and yet I'd prefer to have my own person vehicle and not deal with shared vehicles.

uber fills that niche already.

Uber doesn't fill that niche. I'm talking about a long-term rental whereby the car is guaranteed to be available to me during specific time windows. Uber is only for one-off trips, not a long-term replacement for my commuter car.

I feel like that's a distinction without a difference. If I call an uber, it will arrive in 5 minutes max and take me to where I need to go. I can call one in the morning to go to work, and another one after work to get home. It could 100% replace my commuter car that I have right now.

Then why haven't you replaced your commuter car with Uber?

Because I like having my personal car, where I hop in and the seats, temperature and music are set to what I like, there's no weird smells and I have privacy and comfort. Besides, I think that about 60% of taxi drivers should never be in charge of any motor vehicle and are completely incompetent at driving, I don't feel safe at all. But that's beside the point and will be fixed by autonomous cars. But being in a vehicle shared by others will not, and I have no interest in doing that, just like I have no interest in taking a bus.

But yes, I have just done the calculation and it would in fact be cheaper for me to uber to work than to own my car. Yet I still prefer to have my own car that yes, does absolutely nothing for 95% of the month.

I still think fully autonomous cars would let you have your cake and eat it too. Maybe you don't want smelly passengers in your car or to have it unavailable at certain times of the day or week. That could be done. Maybe the rental car is available to you during the day but moonlights as a driver for Amazon packages?

It could all be spelled out in a service level agreement.

Yeah absolutely, that sounds completely fine to me.

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