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It makes sense inside cities and for highways. But what about off road, towing, etc? I think it'll be a feature but with a manual mode remaining for such use cases. It'll be a few decades before most vehicles on the road are fully automated.

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Why would anyone be towed anymore? Nobody will park where they're not supposed to anymore.

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Imagine how much easier parking would be. Get out. Send car to some remote lot.

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parking could get a lot better too...cars could park in a lot tighter space with nobody having to exit the car...and cars could box themselves in and then rearrange as needed when a car needs to exit (they would have to be networked to communicate some way).

I'm just glad they're testing it in California and not here.

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I've imagined a city having a fleet of driverless cars that everyone in the city leases. You put in where you want to go and when, and a car arrives, and carpools you and someone else going similar places. Software would know how many people are at an activity, when it ends, where everyone is going after, and how many cars to have waiting when the activity ends.

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No thanks...not getting into a driver less car with some random stranger.

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This is uber's end goal.

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It makes sense inside cities and for highways. But what about off road, towing, etc? I think it'll be a feature but with a manual mode remaining for such use cases. It'll be a few decades before most vehicles on the road are fully automated.

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Why would anyone be towed anymore? Nobody will park where they're not supposed to anymore.

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that's far from the only time towing is required.

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It makes sense inside cities and for highways. But what about off road, towing, etc? I think it'll be a feature but with a manual mode remaining for such use cases. It'll be a few decades before most vehicles on the road are fully automated.

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Why would anyone be towed anymore? Nobody will park where they're not supposed to anymore.

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I think he means towing a load, not your car being towed.

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It makes sense inside cities and for highways. But what about off road, towing, etc? I think it'll be a feature but with a manual mode remaining for such use cases. It'll be a few decades before most vehicles on the road are fully automated.

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Why would anyone be towed anymore? Nobody will park where they're not supposed to anymore.

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Boats, trailers, campers etc.

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i enjoy driving for the most part, but automated driving would/will be awesome.

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I'd get caught up on so much Netflix.

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i enjoy driving for the most part, but automated driving would/will be awesome.

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I'd get caught up on so much Netflix.

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true! also, I honestly wouldn't even care to fly nearly as much. knowing I could nap or play a game or watch a movie. it would take a big sting out of cross country road trips.

Wow, hadn't even thought of that. Great point. Road trips would be a lot more enjoyable as you can just sit back, put your feet up, and admire the view. Not to mention speed limits would probably be 90+ at this point.

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Wow, hadn't even thought of that. Great point. Road trips would be a lot more enjoyable as you can just sit back, put your feet up, and admire the view. Not to mention speed limits would probably be 90+ at this point.

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Or just get to spend time with the family in the car instead of driving the car.

Imagine the possibilities for interiors, if you take the risk of having an accident out it completely changes the paradigm for car interiors.

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Wow, hadn't even thought of that. Great point. Road trips would be a lot more enjoyable as you can just sit back, put your feet up, and admire the view. Not to mention speed limits would probably be 90+ at this point.

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Or just get to spend time with the family in the car instead of driving the car.

Imagine the possibilities for interiors, if you take the risk of having an accident out it completely changes the paradigm for car interiors.

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Accident risk doesn't go to zero with self driving cars. Not to mention that if these vehicles magically replaced all new models today it would still take a couple of decades to eliminate at least shared roads with manually driven cars if that even happens at all.

It will happen eventually, at least I hope.

Simply eliminating drunk, texting, and drowsy drivers should decrease vehicle related deaths by a few orders of magnitude I would imagine.

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It will happen eventually, at least I hope.

Simply eliminating drunk, texting, and drowsy drivers should decrease vehicle related deaths by a few orders of magnitude I would imagine.

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It will be a good feature but I'm skeptical of removing all driver controls. I wonder how it will be controlled for areas with poor or no roads (like driving around our land or other unpaved areas).

It's fantastic for inside dense cities but there are a lot of issues that will need to be ironed out before it's viable.

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I think there will be major political push from the auto makers to stop this from happening. If you take out the sport of driving it makes it much harder to sell the nicer vehicles.

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I think when we do get to full automation there won't be an affect on luxury. People will want to ride in the most comfort with TVs and mini bars and seats that lay flat into beds and all that. Imagine your automated Tahoe that is layed out more like a mini living room than its current configuration. Just a driver's seat and steering wheel for the rare occassions it is needed. Even that will probably be retractable or something to create the largest lounge space possible.

That is a good point. I was thinking more of the sports car/handling market.

The danger would still lie in tire blowouts or other mechanical failures.

There's gonna be a lot more than just road head to stumble on after self-driving cars make it to the market.

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The danger would still lie in tire blowouts or other mechanical failures.

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Yes, but imagine how much better serviced the cars will be, on average. You won't have to worry about Joe Schmoe in front of you who waited to long to replace his tires or didn't have the check engine light looked at.

Assuming the AI driving the cars can be improved enough, it might be an improvement over a human in the event of a blowout or similar accident, because it won't panic.

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The danger would still lie in tire blowouts or other mechanical failures.

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Yes, but imagine how much better serviced the cars will be, on average. You won't have to worry about Joe Schmoe in front of you who waited to long to replace his tires or didn't have the check engine light looked at.

Assuming the AI driving the cars can be improved enough, it might be an improvement over a human in the event of a blowout or similar accident, because it won't panic.

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Wait! People actually get the check engine light looked at? that's...wow! Who knew!?!

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The danger would still lie in tire blowouts or other mechanical failures.

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Yes, but imagine how much better serviced the cars will be, on average. You won't have to worry about Joe Schmoe in front of you who waited to long to replace his tires or didn't have the check engine light looked at.

Assuming the AI driving the cars can be improved enough, it might be an improvement over a human in the event of a blowout or similar accident, because it won't panic.

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I guess you're thinking people won't own their cars then? Maintenance will still be an issue. Those outside the heart of a city and those with families aren't going just start using a glorified taxi service.

just wait for the iCar from Apple...

• people will pay twice as much to use it, and month over month it never ends like your phone contract
  
• it will have giant apple logos all over it
  
• you can summon one with the tap of your watch - or maybe just thinking about it
  
• you'll wait in long queues for it to show up but you won't care cuz the queues are where the cool people hang out anyway
  
• they will put out new cars every 18 months and you have to upgrade your contract or you get picked up by the older models
  
• the cars will already have all of your personal info and you can talk to them
• simple retina scan to activate and recognize you
• they will know all your usual addresses
• you'll be entertained while driving by apple ads, or pay extra to have apple TV or itunes content streamed from your icloud account
• your social media sites will be updated automatically about where you are and who you are with
• they will look pretty sleek, but only come in one color of course - gray

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The danger would still lie in tire blowouts or other mechanical failures.

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Yes, but imagine how much better serviced the cars will be, on average. You won't have to worry about Joe Schmoe in front of you who waited to long to replace his tires or didn't have the check engine light looked at.

Assuming the AI driving the cars can be improved enough, it might be an improvement over a human in the event of a blowout or similar accident, because it won't panic.

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I guess you're thinking people won't own their cars then? Maintenance will still be an issue. Those outside the heart of a city and those with families aren't going just start using a glorified taxi service.

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But for routine maintenance, you could program your car to go to the shop at night and a whole industry of graveyard shift mechanics could form.

Get home, car drives itself to 1Ags Mechanic 4Lanes Shop and then drive home when it is finished in time to ferry you to work in the morning.

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The danger would still lie in tire blowouts or other mechanical failures.

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Yes, but imagine how much better serviced the cars will be, on average. You won't have to worry about Joe Schmoe in front of you who waited to long to replace his tires or didn't have the check engine light looked at.

Assuming the AI driving the cars can be improved enough, it might be an improvement over a human in the event of a blowout or similar accident, because it won't panic.

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I guess you're thinking people won't own their cars then? Maintenance will still be an issue. Those outside the heart of a city and those with families aren't going just start using a glorified taxi service.

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But for routine maintenance, you could program your car to go to the shop at night and a whole industry of graveyard shift mechanics could form.

Get home, car drives itself to 1Ags Mechanic 4Lanes Shop and then drive home when it is finished in time to ferry you to work in the morning.

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By then the mechanic jobs will be automated as well.

I wonder how much less maintenance we'll see with an electric motor as well. No oil changes, no radiator, etc.

Gotta imagine that the thing that will push driverless cars into the mainstream is aging baby boomers. If you give them a way to maintain independence once they can no longer safely drive, they will line up and hand over those SS checks.

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The danger would still lie in tire blowouts or other mechanical failures.

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Yes, but imagine how much better serviced the cars will be, on average. You won't have to worry about Joe Schmoe in front of you who waited to long to replace his tires or didn't have the check engine light looked at.

Assuming the AI driving the cars can be improved enough, it might be an improvement over a human in the event of a blowout or similar accident, because it won't panic.

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I guess you're thinking people won't own their cars then? Maintenance will still be an issue. Those outside the heart of a city and those with families aren't going just start using a glorified taxi service.

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But for routine maintenance, you could program your car to go to the shop at night and a whole industry of graveyard shift mechanics could form.

Get home, car drives itself to 1Ags Mechanic 4Lanes Shop and then drive home when it is finished in time to ferry you to work in the morning.

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By then the mechanic jobs will be automated as well.

I wonder how much less maintenance we'll see with an electric motor as well. No oil changes, no radiator, etc.

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I don't know. I think we are further from 100% battery power being affordable than auto-driven cars being affordable. And a robot to change oil on multiple different types of cars would be a lot more expensive than the hourly wage of a HS drop out.

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The danger would still lie in tire blowouts or other mechanical failures.

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Yes, but imagine how much better serviced the cars will be, on average. You won't have to worry about Joe Schmoe in front of you who waited to long to replace his tires or didn't have the check engine light looked at.

Assuming the AI driving the cars can be improved enough, it might be an improvement over a human in the event of a blowout or similar accident, because it won't panic.

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I guess you're thinking people won't own their cars then? Maintenance will still be an issue. Those outside the heart of a city and those with families aren't going just start using a glorified taxi service.

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My dream utopia is that every neighborhood shares a fleet of self driving cars that form an on-demand service. You have the future-uber app on your phone, say "I want to go dinner", and a car comes and picks you up. I suppose there's nothing preventing someone from having their own self-driving car always available but I feel like it wouldn't be necessary, at least not in cities with more than 100,000 people.

The vast majority of the time our cars are just sitting there. Even if you had an hour commute each way, your car is still parked for almost an entire day. That time would be better spent driving other people around. If the cars are centrally owned, then maintenance would be much more efficient as well.

Rush hour would still exist. There wouldn't be heavy traffic but there would need to be enough cars to handle the "peak" load. Centrally located vehicles could plan optimized carpool routes, for example if a bunch of people from your neighborhood work in the same area you could ride together. I was talking about this with my wife the other day. She works for Michaels Stores at the corporate office, and there's a good chance that someone could live in our neighborhood who also works there and she doesn't even know.

I fully understand that my dream would be the culmination of many years of technological improvements, societal and cultural acceptance, and legislative changes.

That makes some sense for singles or couples without kids living in densely packed areas. Not necessarily for families, those living in suburban areas, those with trailers, boats, etc. It's an on demand super taxi service - that's great for some use cases just not all.

Why wouldn't it work for families? Just curious about your reasoning. I like thinking through all the different use cases and pros/cons.

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Why wouldn't it work for families? Just curious about your reasoning. I like thinking through all the different use cases and pros/cons.

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Car seats, carrying all the normal gear, etc. With 3 kids even a sedan isn't all that useful. We have a midsize SUV and a crew cab truck. Both have sets of car seats + random gear.

I don't want to wait for a car and we can't always schedule down to the 5 minute window when we want to leave. I don't want to call up a car just to run to the store or the park or the pool. And I don't want to get in a car that some other family just made a mess in. The value just isn't there considering that you're likely not saving much paying on a per use basis.

I see automatic control as great for full automation inside dense cities - basically super taxis. But car ownership continues as it does today in the suburbs (if taxi service was so great we'd see it used more already, but it's not). It'll be a great feature to turn on once you get in high traffic areas / highways, etc. and then resume manual mode close to the house for custom parking, or for off road use, towing, etc.

It's all fun until China, Russia or ISIS hacks the cars and causes everyone to crash. Hell, we can't even keep our banking data safe.

At the very least, your average family goes from owning two cars to one, then using self drive Uber for commuting.

Or, you own your car but license it to Uber for use when you are sitting at work.

This is happening, and soon. It will be the norm in less than a decade. That slightly weirded out feeling that we have is the same one that Americans had when giving up horses for cars, I'm sure. We have an emotional attachment to our automobiles, but the new norm will be superior in every other way.