That was at he height of the self driving autonomous car dream. The corporate theme of that time was "mobility" subscription. Essentially they wanted your monthly payment to go to an autonomous ride hailing service. It was a socialist dream that never materialized. The mantra was likely driven by left leaning venture capitalist funding. Then Covid hit and everything got turned upside down. Autonomous driving will never be fully realized anyway.

His point of view, based on the times seemed reasonable. It is also an indication how fast things can change, and how lofty predictions of constantly evolving tech are not necessarily going to come true.

 

Wanna bet some $$ on that? I've had self flying drones for a few years. If I'm flying manually and the drone encounters an obstacle, it will take control of itself and maneuver around the obstacle then release control back to me. If I hit the home button, it will fly around trees, buildings, basically any obstacle and land where it lifted off from completely autonomously. If it loses radio signal, it automatically homes itself flying autonomously around obstacles all the way home.

The technology is already there, it just needs refinement for road navigation, I believe Tesla already has pretty good head start on how that plays out for personal vehicles, and....

https://apnews.com/article/autonomou...a604c7ee13a128
https://www.cnet.com/tech/i-rode-the...c-bus-service/
https://www.apta.com/research-techni...mous-vehicles/

Etc... etc... etc...

 

I am glad you mentioned the San Francisco robotaxis

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/27/busin...ice/index.html

Fact is so far autonomous testing has only been done in good weather conditions, and it is problematic, to say the least. When the self driving cars can handle entire minnesota winters, we will talk.

Also, in your article

Ah yes, progress. We have evolved from a steering wheel to a hand held controller.

 

The infrastructure maintenance that meed to be constantly done to support autonomous driving is not sustainable economically. It can go months without raining here, making lines on the road difficult to read. The city I live in had a Google test route that has since been abandoned.

I’m glad your drones perform so well in a 3D field of operation. But thats not a fair comparison.

And yeah, I’ll bet we wont see wide scale autonomous vehicle operation in the foreseeable future

 

Ahh my friend, you need to open your mind to options your eyes have yet to see. It's going to happen.

 

how’s that replacement for lithium in EV battery coming along? Any day now? 5 years away?

 

I think we’re talking over each other.

There are a number of issues that need to be overcome before fully autonomous cars replace human drivers, not least of which is how far society is willing to trust them. Inclement weather is another matter; I don’t know how you can make a system that safely deals with ice and snow. The public is incredibly intolerant of self-driving accidents, and they’re held to a far higher standard. California just shut down Cruise over a single accident that they weren’t even at fault for. There’s no balancing of risk. Nobody asks how many accidents that many human drivers would have caused, and I think that’s a shame.

I’m sure that fully autonomous driving will eventually replace human drivers, but probably not for the foreseeable future. I’m 38, and I’d be surprised it it happened within my lifetime. I think the tech will get there long before society does.

 

The public pressure to revoke the Cruise permit is not just about that one accident.

here in the bay area we are fully aware how much Cruise cars screw it up for everyone by regularly blocking intersections by parking two or three of their cars side by side when they are confused. It has been such a regular occurrences that people are no longer surprised when the Cruise cars just sit two abreast at two line single direction intersection, or when dozens of them huddle together like scared sheep in a thunderstorm on a clear night and no one threatening them.

Last July
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/01/self...o-streets.html

In August

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...o-a-standstill

My understanding is that they were doing the same thing in Austin earlier too.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/cruise...strian-traffic

A few weeks ago in Houston

https://www.iowa.media/2023/10/16/dr...o-malfunction/

Each time this happened, Cruise just issues some generic boiler plate response of "we are working with relevant authorities" and it keeps happening, in many cases blocking police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, etc.

 

I think Cruise made a big mistake by not being more transparent. I’m a huge believer of the technology, but I don’t think it’ll be common outside of major metro areas for a long time. It’ll take generations before we’re willing to trust even the most reliable system.

I think it’ll get there, though.

 

I hope you don't bet your savings.

 

Getting a bit wishy washy ain'tcha? lol You know the tech is there and it's going to blow everyones minds when it's fully realized.

 

I wouldn't say you're entirely wrong. From everything I've seen and heard, Tesla is successful in their market space. The point here is they're not delivering an EV product for the general public and that's fine...no one else is either. Tesla has chosen their target customer and are succeeding with their business model. It's just not a product for a broad market. I don't think there is a need to rehash all the details why.

The network is definitely part of it but there are many more reasons current EV's don't fit for a broad market. As nice as the Teslas are, they are no Ford Model T when it comes to meeting needs of the general population. The model T enticed lots and lots of people who knew little about cars to give up their horse and buggies. The current offerings of EV's play to a much smaller percentage of the crowd.

EV's need an easily swappable energy storage device...something the size of a 20lb propane tank or 2 liter pop bottle with 200ish mile or better range. Invent that and watch EV sales explode. Convert gas stations to drive-thru battery swap stations. No waiting to charge and the car would maintain its value much longer with no expensive worn out battery to replace after 10 or so years.

 

When is it going to happen? Where? Are you speculating, guessing, wishing or do you know? How do you know? Show me the facts. And as you say, I don't believe random dudes on the net. No one here knows your credentials.

Here, in San Antonio, the test streets where they were running them, the cars were constantly confused. They were unable to read the stripes on the road due to them becoming to dirty to read over a period of time. The solution was to constantly clean the streets or paint the stripes anew every few weeks. The cars were also having problems reading the reflective devices placed for them to scan due to sun deterioration, or direct sunlight washing them out. There were also other minor issues with traffic signal and stop sign reading. It's not uncommon at this latitude for road signs to fade due to deterioration. The city determined that the cost to maintain infrastructure to a satisfactory level for autonomous vehicles was not cost effective.

I worked for the city as a police officer during the test time, so they kept us informed of the situation and the issues they were having, and to be on the lookout for the test vehicles and the traffic problems they could cause.

 

what tech?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/t...ving-cars.html

if you think other autonomous developers are doing much better, I know of some beach front property in Inner Mongolia that you should buy. waymo is rumored to be doing a bit better but at this time no one knows how many people Alphabet has working monitoring those cars in remote offices

 

Thought we we were trying to exclude politics in this discussion?


I like the comparison of EV's in their current states of affordability, availability, driving ranges and so far unknown real longer term costs of ownership and operation to the Model T, how so far Tesla's are perceived to be more of an elite personal vehicle rather than something soccer mom's et al, aka "general population" . i would guess automobiles just before 1908 were also considered more for the rich, perceived to be playthings rather than the future of personal travel or serious replacement contenders for the horses and wagons/buggies.

Sure EV's are NOT YET serious competition for ICE's or even hybrids----but the full story of their incorporation into American lives has not yet been finished.