Fully Driverless Cars Could Be Months Away (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Real driverless cars could come to the Phoenix area this year, according to a Monday report from The Information's Amir Efrati. Two anonymous sources have told Efrati that Google's self-driving car unit, Waymo, is preparing to launch "a commercial ride-sharing service powered by self-driving vehicles with no human 'safety' drivers as soon as this fall." Obviously, there's no guarantee that Waymo will hit this ambitious target. But it's a sign that Waymo believes its technology is very close to being ready for commercial use. And it suggests that Waymo is likely to introduce a fully driverless car network in 2018 if it doesn't do so in the remaining months of 2017. [...] According to a report on The Information, Waymo's service is likely to launch first in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb where Waymo has done extensive testing. Waymo chose the Phoenix area for its favorable weather, its wide, well-maintained streets, and the relative lack of pedestrians. Another important factor was the legal climate. Arizona has some of the nation's most permissive laws regarding self-driving vehicles. "Arizona's oversight group has met just twice in the last year, and found no reason to suggest any new rules or restrictions on autonomous vehicles, so long as they follow traffic laws," the Arizona Republic reported in June. "The group found no need to suggest legislation to help the deployment." According to the Arizona Republic, a 2015 executive order from Gov. Doug Ducey "allows universities to test vehicles with no driver on board so long as a licensed driver has responsibility for the cars and can take control remotely if the vehicle needs assistance." Waymo is getting ready to take the same approach.

Comments

Could be

[Anonymous Coward]

But won't be. I'm 28 (and healthy) and I doubt we'll see widespread driverlese cars in use within my lifetime.

Re:Could be

[losfromla]

I too disagree, I'm conservatively estimating that about 10% of cars will be driverless in about 20 years time (+/- 5 years). My guess is that a lot of these will be fleet or co-op owned vehicles.

So many reasons why adoption will go rapidly.

[SuperKendall]

What all of you luddites are missing is a very simple point - a driverless car only needs to be a little better than the average human driver, and it will take over like wildfire from humans.

Not only is there the obvious savings of not paying every increasing salary and taxes to pay a human driver, but there's the massive hidden savings on insurance costs as driverless cars ratchet up the quality of performance relative to again, the average human.

The demand will be enormous, not only driven by taxi/trucking companies, but by an aging population who no longer have to worry about driving as senses and reflexes deteriorate.

As for the examples you list - most of the deployments would be hard pressed to be confused by much, they will not need ANY network connection because on-board they will have the entire system they might be driving within already stored for comparison with external sensors. And the examples you gave? Why would any *human* driver not be equally confused by a bag or a ladder, plenty of accidents have been caused by people swerving to miss something innocuous - a computer system can classify and react to something WAY faster than human can, while also knowing with certainly if cars are to either side to maneuver - something most humans cannot handle.

I cannot believe how behind the times most Slashdot readers seem to be of modern performance and capabilities of neural networks, to the point where calling this place a technical site anymore seems pretty questionable. I never really bought fully into the idea of the Singularity, but there are facets of life like driving where that concept is obviously valid.