Slashdot Asks: How Long Before Self-Driving Cars Become Mainstream?

Here's the thing, regardless of one's stand on self-driving cars, they are no longer a futuristic idea. Major car companies such as Tesla, BMW, and Mercedes have already released an autonomous vehicle or plan to release one soon. Sergio Marchionne, an Italian-Canadian executive who is currently the CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, recently said: It isn't pie in the sky. People are talking about 20 years. I think we will have it in five years. ZDNet has published its interview of Jim McBride, technical leader in Ford's autonomous vehicles team, who thinks self-driving cars are five years away from changing the world. At the same time, we must acknowledge the talks about these smart vehicles killing many jobs, and the security vulnerabilities we read every once in a while. What's your take on this?

Comments

Osborne?

[p.g.king]

I think we will have it in five years

Sounds like a good candidate for the osborne effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Wha' happen!? To the NASA story?

[msmash]

I pulled it because we had already run it a week ago. A few readers submitted it today (actually, plenty of outlets have run the story today), hence the confusion.

Re:Of course

[ShanghaiBill]

Maybe if I could travel an interstate with no interaction, that might qualify.

You can. Tesla autopilot doesn't do intersections, or on-ramps, but once you are on the freeway, you can engage it, and it will self-drive until you reach your exit.

In Teslas with Autopilot, all the hardware is already present for full self-driving, and new features will be added as the software matures.

Re:I'm leaning toward the 20 years estimate

[sims 2]

"Volvo has announced it will accept "full liability" for accidents when one of its cars is driving autonomously"

https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...

This has actually been discussed here before. The manufacturers seem to have a pretty good idea of how they want to do it. So at this point I don't see insurance being any significant hurdle.

Re:I'm leaning toward the 20 years estimate

[Firethorn]

Color me skeptical but I don't buy the manufacturers being altruistic - especially in the US. Case in point GM's ignition switch, or Ford's Pinot.

They're not being altruistic. Over in England/Europe there are a number of companies selling 'starter' cars that come with X years of free full coverage insurance. Insurance costs for new drivers over there have reached the point that it's often cheaper to buy the new car with included insurance than it is to buy an older used vehicle and pay.

Personally, I think that's a sign of a distorted market that isn't pricing risks right, but there you go. Companies offering insurance as a feature to sell the car.

Now introduce a self-driving vehicle that the company knows is going to get into accidents at 1% of the rate of traditional cars, much less the new driver cars. "Don't have to worry about liability insurance" can be a huge load off the mind of new drivers, drunk drivers, bad drivers, etc...