Self-driving cars is one of the biggest boondoggles of all time. How much money, time, effort, amd resources have been spent on this? And yet, there's barely anything to show and the end goal is still not even clear.
* Drastic reduction in the >1 million annual worldwide vehicular deaths. ~40K/year in the US. ~20K/year in Europe.
* Also, drastic reduction in damage and loss of productivity from traffic accidents.
* Better utilization of roadways, e.g. from more responsive start/stops, and smoother acceleration/deceleration on highways to prevent phantom traffic jams.
* Convenience.
How should I get there? By foot? Sprout wings and fly? Drag myself there by my tongue?
Also, I have bad news for you. You know that human you see sitting at the front of buses, trains, and subways? They aren’t just there to collect your fare.
It's probably much easier to construct a self driving train/subway than it is to build a self driving car. Driving a vehicle on rails is so simple that people use the phrase "on rails" to indicate simplicity (e.g. Ruby on Rails). Buses of course don't get to reap the benefits of this simplicity though since they drive on roads rather than on rails.
It’s easier for a reason - the utility is diminished.
So if you're following the same path every day, you probably don't need a complicated steering system, rubber tires that constantly wear out, and a large expensive battery. It's simpler to just have the vehicle operate on rails, and supply power through the third rail. Otherwise you end up with a bizarre situation like the "Vegas Loop", where you have cars driving back and forth along a predetermined path, lugging heavy batteries around with them.
It's not difficult: we build more. That is instead of spending however many billions on a pipe dream.
> Also, I have bad news for you. You know that human you see sitting at the front of buses, trains, and subways? They aren’t just there to collect your fare.
That's immaterial to me and the dozens of passengers. If anything, it's preferable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_the_United_S...
and given the current growth trends promises to play a smaller one in the future. (I just returned from a trip to the southwest - ever seen Phoenix? Given the growth trends that mess is as likely to be the future as anything else is.) As someone living in a city who likes the idea of transit (and walking and biking), I think the sort of prescriptive attitude (transit is the solution to all questions!) you are displaying is part of the reason American's have such a poor (and declining) opinion of it.
Autonomy opens up possibilities - of taming the roads, of enabling more responsive transit that can reach deeper into medium density suburbs, etc, but none of that is going to happen without a wide spectrum of constructive criticism.
as a result they went deep into investing into the idea of driverless car technology, more for show than in reality. yes, hundreds of millions (billions overall) where dumped into this sector but it was really motivated by the incentive to keep a valuation high.
this "driverless" story picked up steam because it resonated with a lot of tech companies, similarly looking to move the needle in their valuations. for big giant tech companies this was alluring as there aren't that many single plays or markets you can do to move the company share price. so here came in google, head first, and apple still tentatively.
and then crucially, for established dinosaurs like Ford or GM, the opportunity to create tech valuations for themselves similarly appeared. so they jumped in.
all in all, we are still feeling the after effects of this uber story play out, with dwindling returns and ever reducing pile of money behind it.