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Comment by SV_BubbleTime | Hacker News Reader

I remember the articles from 2018, where “up to” was buried in the details if said at all. I work in automotive and am a perpetual autonomous vehicle skeptic. All the comments (HN) about how ”it’s happening” and all the downvotes I got saying ”it’s not”.

Here is how you can tell when it’s for real... when the focus is on long haul fixed A to B routes. Trucks becoming trains. When you can learn over and over on a fixed set for all the scenarios of road and weather and light and obstacle on one path you can then expand it.

All this focus on “everywhere” development is the exact opposite of minimum viable product and it’s only for headlines and grants imo. Obviously we’ll eventually get there, but, I’m personally betting that human occupant drones “take off” faster.

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It seems so obvious to me that I think I must be missing something that the clear narrow use case of limited access highway driving (probably in a subset of weather conditions) doesn't get more discussion. Long highway drives are a thing for many people. They're boring and easy to zone out on. It would be huge for both safety and comfort. And it seems much easier to implement given the lack of pedestrians, cyclists, and unprotected left hand turns.

>It seems so obvious to me that I think I must be missing something that the clear narrow use case of limited access highway driving (probably in a subset of weather conditions) doesn't get more discussion

Welcome to my brain every single time I read this.

It makes no sense. Trucks and busses specifically have a ton more room for sensor packages, different height options, no one cares if that extends to or interrupts visible surfaces, and it makes sense to still have local past mile human drivers. It’s all there now.

The issues are that certain things available in a city aren’t there on a highway. Paint lines may be faded, over shot, missing, things are moving faster, there less reference points (think farm country), etc. But these are FAR better IMO than trying to drive in urban areas and running over people.

GM/Cadillac is the main company that seems to be focusing on highway driving (only for its own cars of course): https://www.cadillac.com/ownership/vehicle-technology/super-...

Yes and GM Super Cruise is now the market leader in autonomous driving for passenger vehicles by focusing on that use case.

https://www.cadillac.com/world-of-cadillac/innovation/super-...

What metric are you using for saying they are the market leader? Autopilot has been around for longer and is deployed to more cars and works in more situations than super cruise which still requires mapped roads. The only advantage I can see for super cruise is that they have a driver monitoring that doesnt require pressure on the wheel.

Market leader in terms of working functionality in products that consumers can buy today. Unbiased reviews have consistently shown that Tesla is inferior.

https://www.motortrend.com/cars/cadillac/escalade/2021/cadil...

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/cadillac-super-cr...

Neither of those are unbiased. In fact they are constantly biased against Tesla and towards legacy auto.

Which specific parts of those reviews are false or otherwise biased?

Inner city taxi service you can build with a relatively small number of cars on a per-city basis.

Doing highway routes as a taxi service will need more cars and/or pre-booking, otherwise you end up with a situation where no cars are in the stating city. Within a city you can redistribute relatively quickly.

This leaves an assistant mode in a car owned by an individual. There you see more and more advanced assisting systems, like distance checkers and lane keeping things and those are improving ...

For a truck it's only valuable in some situations. Generally the driver isn't only there to drive the truck, but also to load/unload and protect the goods. Also one could wonder how well people would load the truck (especially one going to different locations) if there is no driver risking his life and therefore doing at least basic safety ...

Yes, you can't have a taxi service if it isn't end to end.

So this would be a feature in a car you own. And many manufacturers are heading there incrementally with assistive driving features. Key questions are at which point you can say "Doze off if you like" (And is there a point before that where drivers will doze off anyway because the system is good enough that they stop paying attention.)

I predict that in 10-15 years, no major car company will offer self driving features (besides auto breaking and maybe "beep when out of lane"). When you get hit by random Joe in normal car, he has mortgage and $5000 in the bank. It makes no sense to sue. But when you get hit by self driving car, there's company behind it, you can sue for millions. Everybody and their dog will be doing it till they stop offering self driving features or they go bankrupt, whichever comes first.

Liability is certainly one issue that will have to be dealt with. Outside of drug side effects, there are very few products sold to consumers that, if used and maintained properly, will still sometimes randomly kill people and we shrug our collective shoulders because "stuff happens."

I imagine that before that point insurance costs for non self driving cars would be so expensive that random Joe won’t be able to afford a “normal” car.

It's the people who are currently the highest risks and paying the most who would be the first to switch to a self-driving car if they can afford it. The people with DWIs, etc.

Therefore the pool of people who drive for themselves would be getting less risky and their insurance premiums would go down.

Also, consider that right now, we have a minority of people who drive classic cars, which haven't got safety equipment, and their insurance is cheaper, not more expensive. Same with motorcycles, which have much higher accident rates than modern cars. So clearly a vehicle being more dangerous doesn't mean it's uninsurable or more expensive.

I'd really like to know if you or anyone can articulate what specific logic leads to your assumption, because people have been saying it for years. Obviously it's something people like to say. I feel like it might have something to do with a misguided analogy to health insurance.

If insurance is a profitable product today (it is), why would it skyrocket in price just because there are safer cars on the road (presumably paying lower rates)?

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