Slashdot Mirror
Fully Driverless Waymo Taxis Are Due Out This Year, Alarming Critics (arstechnica.com)
Alphabet's Waymo is launching a driverless taxi service in Phoenix in the next three months -- and it's open to the public. But due to the limited regulations surrounding self-driving cars, many critics argue that more regulations are needed to ensure the safety of these vehicles before they roll out for public and commercial use. Ars Technica reports: If a company wants to sell a new airplane or medical device, it must undergo an extensive process to prove to federal regulators that it's safe. Currently, there's no comparable requirement for self-driving cars. Federal and state laws allow Waymo to introduce fully self-driving cars onto public streets in Arizona without any formal approval process. That's not an oversight. It represents a bipartisan consensus in Washington that strict regulation of self-driving cars would do more harm than good.
Mary "Missy" Cummings, an engineering professor at Duke, agrees. "I don't think there should be any driverless cars on the road," she tells Ars. "I think it's unconscionable that no one is stipulating that testing needs to be done before they're put on the road." But so far these advocates' demands have fallen on deaf ears. Partly that's because federal regulators don't want to slow the introduction of a technology that could save a lot of lives in the long run. Partly it's because they believe that liability concerns give companies a strong enough incentive to behave responsibly. And partly it's because no one is sure how to regulate self-driving cars effectively. When it comes to driverless cars, "there's no consensus on what it means to be safe or how we go about proving that," says Bryant Walker Smith, a legal scholar at the University of South Carolina.
Mary "Missy" Cummings, an engineering professor at Duke, agrees. "I don't think there should be any driverless cars on the road," she tells Ars. "I think it's unconscionable that no one is stipulating that testing needs to be done before they're put on the road." But so far these advocates' demands have fallen on deaf ears. Partly that's because federal regulators don't want to slow the introduction of a technology that could save a lot of lives in the long run. Partly it's because they believe that liability concerns give companies a strong enough incentive to behave responsibly. And partly it's because no one is sure how to regulate self-driving cars effectively. When it comes to driverless cars, "there's no consensus on what it means to be safe or how we go about proving that," says Bryant Walker Smith, a legal scholar at the University of South Carolina.
...Google has been testing driverless cars for years now?
These cars have been testing for years. This is not the half-assed effort of Uber with key functions turned off. Waymo cars are far better drivers than the Humans the luddites quoted in that article are begging for.
"Currently, there's no comparable requirement for self-driving cars."
Human drivers cause 6,5 million accidents per year, killing tens of thousands of people and injuring several millions.
This can only be better.
Developer data acquired over the past decade of real street testing strongly indicates self-driving cars would save lives. Is a government safety certification process going to accomplish anything these companies have not already considered? What of the lives that can be saved in the mean time?
"Self-driving car advocates argue that slowing down the development of self-driving cars could ultimately cost more lives than it saves. In 2016, more than 37,000 people died from highway crashes, with many being caused by human error, so self-driving cars have the potential to prevent thousands of highway deaths in the coming years."
Stipulate the special scenarios where the human has to take over and let the machines handle all other scenarios.
Mary "Missy" Cummings, an engineering professor at Duke, agrees. "I don't think there should be any driverless cars on the road," she tells Ars. "I think it's unconscionable that no one is stipulating that testing needs to be done before they're put on the road."
What does she assume this whole time self driving cars have just been something in people's heads? Every company who's in on this technology brags about their logged road time... Glad she ain't my prof.
I tend to rant.
I don't worry much about the cars themselves, but about the potential for legislation mandating we have self-driving cars. If you are old enough, you'll recall all the arguments about motorcycle helmet laws. How motorcycle accidents without helmets overloaded ER rooms and cost the public a lot of money in medical care. There is a clear precedent for my fears, The argument is the same. Don't forget that driving is a privilege not a right.
I think that's pretty much a given once the tech is solid. I'm sure there will still be a manual licensing process and sadly look to the FAA for an example of the requirements.
Free Software developers of the world, open your eyes! Our communities are being raped, our work pillaged.
Detestable villains - mean spirited, belligerent, racist, unprincipled - are using underhanded tricks to force hypocritical "Codes of Conduct" on the projects we built.
These petty-authoritarian CoCs are always imposed anti-democratically. There is never free debate, and usually no public discussion at all. They are imposed by force without a vote. If the CoCs were put up for a fair democratic vote by project contributors, they would always lose by a landslide.
The purpose of these CoCs is to allow so-called "Progressives", who have contributed nothing to the project, to conduct witch hunts against anyone who opposes their hate-driven agenda. Thereby they plan to steal our work for their shadowy corporate paymasters.
You can readily tell these CoCs are not about "just being nice" - because they are ALWAYS supported by the very LEAST NICE, most aggressively mean and shamelessly bigoted people you can imagine. Look know the CoC-mongers treat anyone who disagrees with them as subhuman.
If a project to which you contribute has been raped by CoC-mongers there is a simple solution: WALK AWAY. Never contribute again. If you have a patch almost ready, count the time you spent on it as a loss and throw it away. If you see a security issue, remain silent and do nothing. IT'S NO LONGER YOUR PROJECT. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME THERE.
If you are evaluating new software, don't even consider any projects burdened under the tyranny of a CoC. Their technical attributes do not matter - just don't consider them. Never be openly political, always make up a technical reason for rejecting CoCed projects.
Don't argue in public about the CoC. Doing so only exposes you to needless risk. You might be dis-employed, blackballed, and even set up for a #MeToo purge. Just stay far away.
Comrades: Individually we are powerless, and easily crushed beneath the iron boot of Corporate Social Just-Us. But together in solidarity we are millions and we are strong. The Internet itself depends on our collective labor. If we stop working, the internet stops working.
Free Software developers, save yourselves and save your communities! Just WALK AWAY from any project with a CoC. Without our labor they are nothing.
It is inevitable that they pass laws allowing machines to kill x number of people. It can be no other way. And that will be a major devaluing of human life.
E Proelio Veritas.
I used to work for a medical device manufacturer. While having to deal with a lot of regulations was certainly annoying (mostly because they are written by lawyers and you need to be a lawyer to really understand them), the great thing about them was that once you complied, you didn't have to worry nearly as much about liability. If there were no regulations (basically a form of self-regulation), then how exactly do you prove that you were not negligent? Maybe you think all the tests you did were enough. Maybe the lawyers you hired for advice thought so too. But you'll never know until it is tested in court. With regulations it is more-or-less black and white as to whether you have done enough to absolve yourself of responsibility for unforeseen events.
Another important point is that regulation creates a powerful barrier to entry in a market. The infrastructure required (in terms of processes and procedures) is immense, and large companies can gain economies of scale for these work. While the tech is enough of a barrier to entry right now, as time goes on this will change for driverless vehicles as well.
I think more testing is needed, and wonder why this is not happening? What is the hurry in getting these vehicles on the roads? The risk for everyone is that is goes badly, causes major traffic issues and possible accidents which leads to governments banning them. This has already occurred and should remind Waymo that a rush to market may not be a good thing.
Found APK.
They wanted to be treated like employees!!!! Lol
If a company wants to sell a new airplane or medical device, it must undergo an extensive process to prove to federal regulators that it's safe. Currently, there's no comparable requirement for self-driving cars.
How are these things comparable? We require medical devices to prove that they work because quackery is a real thing with real consequences. As such we require medical device manufacturers to prove that they actually provide therapeutic value. It's expensive but the alternative of people not being able to trust the treatment is FAR more expensive. People who are ill and in need of treatment aren't routinely able to determine for themselves whether a device works or is well made and most medical treatments aren't really voluntary. I freely admit I have no way to tell if an EKG machine is providing useful information or not and unless you have the letters MD after your name chances are you haven't a clue either. So we have regulation because market forces won't result in a good outcome.
A self driving car that doesn't function as a self driving car is going to be almost immediately self evident and market forces (and lawyers) will do what they do rather quickly. Your decision to get in one is pretty much 100% voluntary and most people are perfectly well qualified to determine if it functions properly for the purpose of transportation. Current cars carry a risk of injury just like driverless cars so there isn't much of a difference there aside from who is the liable party in the event of an accident. Yes there are going to be some injuries and fatalities in the development of the technology but that is true for literally every transportation technology ever invented.
Umm, no.... It definitely COULD be worse with driverless cars. There are a lot of numbers bigger than 6.5 million. Obviously there is no point to the endeavor if the driverless cars have a worse accident rate than human driven cars but it's certainly among the possible outcomes. And there definitely will be fatalities and injuries with driverless cars. We're just hoping for (substantially) better than current technology.
I don't worry much about the cars themselves, but about the potential for legislation mandating we have self-driving cars. If you are old enough, you'll recall all the arguments about motorcycle helmet laws. How motorcycle accidents without helmets overloaded ER rooms and cost the public a lot of money in medical care. There is a clear precedent for my fears, The argument is the same. Don't forget that driving is a privilege not a right.
Eventually it WILL be better for everyone that EVERYONE be mandated to have a self-driving car.
I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. Probably not for at least another 30 years or more... but eventually yes, people won't drive themselves... and that's a good thing.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
What came first, the automobile or traffic laws? The airplane or the FAA?
The nature of safety regulations is such that they must be reactive. Some issues can be predicted, like liability in case of a crash, but most will only be revealed after implementation.
How did you calculate 30 years? If you take into consideration exponential growth and previous examples of technology improving faster than predicted, you can't use intuition to predict the timeline for future tech.
In other words, I and people who have a history of predicting tech correctly, think that you are wrong.
One clear proof should be Waymo. Single accident would cause huge PR damage. Do you really think they want to test it how it goes without being absolutely sure that it works? So yes, seld driing cars in good driving conditions is here today. For bad conditions it might take more time, perhaps even a year or two.
It is inevitable that they pass laws allowing machines to kill x number of people. It can be no other way. And that will be a major devaluing of human life.
The statistics for car accidents are no mystery and are objectively rather appalling yet we seem to be largely ok with the current state of affairs. We are letting machines operated by humans kill X number of people even though we have the technical ability to reduce this number any time we want. Whether a person is killed by a programmed machine or killed by a mistake a human makes directly operating a machine is really of no consequence to the dead. Insurance is literally a valuation of human life and we can give you a figure for what it is worth. This makes some people uncomfortable but it's an objective fact.
Here's the thing. The machine didn't kill anyone. There is no such thing as a machine error. There are only human errors. It might be the human operating the machine or it might be the fault of the engineer who designed the machine or it might be the fault of the human who assembled the machine but at the end of the day it was a human decision that is to blame. The fact that a program designed by a human is steering the vehicle rather than a human operator physically turning the wheel is not logically any different - that is the means not the cause. It creates a few new wrinkles on who is liable but at the end of the day it's still a human decision that is the root of the problem.
The standard shouldn't be "Is it perfectly safe" - it should be "is it safer than humans"...
Humans make shitty drivers...
"Partly it's because they believe that liability concerns give companies a strong enough incentive."
Even if safety is "covered", doesn't anyone notice how often abnormal road situations occur? (Pay attention next time, you'll see what I mean.) Anything out of the norm would snarl these things and all the traffic behind them, daily.
Those things have no emotions. They aren't going to get angry (and thus potentially dangerous) if I intentionally step into their way. And they'll be potentially much better at braking when I do.
So perhaps... this could be developed into a (somewhat risky) sport?
Yeah, looking forward towards that. And the biggest fun in it will be watching the people inside the car, all of 'em degraded to the status of passengers, getting their pants in a knot and next to unable to do anything about it. Har, har, har.
As you know, then, the FDA changed it's rules on adverse effect reporting a few years ago, putting the burden on device manufacturers to figure out if their devices are causing issues or not. These changes came with little to no guidance on how to properly report on these incidents. The FDA will let you know you are doing something wrong when they fine or sue you.
There are good regulatory regimes and there are bad ones. With the government structured the way it is, it's a bit of a crap-shoot as to what you get.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
A year or two for bad conditions. You don't really understand the engineering of hard cases. The solutions for easy cases are often dead ends or worse, if you're trying to solve the hard cases.
Or do you think "courts" follows your reasonable ?
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
Oblivious to law, caring nothing for the concerns or rights of others. Doesn't surprise me at all if Schmidt's arrogant and psychotic ass is involved. I bet it doesn't happen, though. They only *think* they are ominpotent, the asswipes.
Book taxi to drive somewhere quiet for a pickup.
Put bomb in dummy on back seat while dressed head-to-toe in black.
Set taxi destination to some sensitive location, or as near as damn it.
Boom.
Wait for the fallout as they realise the only thing they have is a rural location and a pre-pay credit card to link it all back to.
Who is this engineering professor who says they need to do "testing"? What do you think Waymo has been doing for the past 2+ years. I live in SE Phoenix and I see Waymo's vans driving CONSTANTLY on the streets here (with people inside of them). They have been logging tens of thousands of miles doing testing. Driving during rush hour. Driving at night. All sorts of driving.
The better question back to these people freaking out is what KIND of testing are you arguing for, and HOW MUCH testing is needed to make you feel better? Because Waymo has been doing lots and lots of testing.
Google has a good reputation on their cars because the process that happened before they went on the road was quite extensive, and their models have hundreds of thousands of hours of training at the very least (probably a lot more than that). The situation with Waymo is exactly that of Uber. If you don't test, you've got a situation on your hands, somebody's going to die.
the rule should be "For the purpose of liability and insurance requirements, any self-driving car is considered as being driven by the CEO"
So when Jack Krafcik goes to jail for one of the cars killing a pedestrian or passenger then maybe they'll slow down the rollout.
-a.e.mossberg
Self-driving car is cool. Car that reports everywhere you go to Google, because they don't have enough information about you, is very much not cool./p.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
What came first, the automobile or traffic laws? The airplane or the FAA?
Wrong question. The right questions are, "How long did commercial passenger flights operate before the government started creating aircraft safety regulations?", and "Whose idea was it to have the Federal government get into the business of creating aircraft safety regulations?" By the way, the FAA wasn't created until 1958. The Department of Commerce was the original regulating authority, and actually took over some functions from the Post Office Department.
The first scheduled commercial airline flight was in 1914. The Air Commerce Act of 1926, gave the Federal government the power to regulate civil aviation. This legislation was passed at the urging of the aviation industry, whose leaders believed the airplane could not reach its full commercial potential without federal action to improve and maintain safety standards.
So, if you want to draw parallels between airplanes and self-driving cars, you should be asking why Waymo and other developers of the technology aren't asking for government regulation, not maintaining that no regulation should be required.
I'm all for car drivers and pedestrians to wear crash helmets. As well as offering protection from impact, making HUDs mainstream would be safer than walking or driving around looking down at smartphone screens.
I think we're about to see just how good humans are at driving.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
it's a taxi service. They can always limit service to areas they're comfortable driving in. 80% coverage would still be plenty profitable. Heck 50% would.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The regulations are mostly for safety, such as proving that the device cannot deliver an electric shock from the mains supply, while wires are attached to your body.
Of course the regulations are for safety but there is a lot more to it than that. My company makes wiring harnesses for heart and lung machines so I'm more familiar than I really care to be with what is required. There are a lot of requirements regarding how they are made, the quality systems, traceability of materials and processes, calibration of equipment, and more. Product design is of course a piece of the puzzle too but it's not the only piece by a long shot. I've seen the FDA crawl up the ass of one of our customers who weren't meeting requirements the way they should have been and it's not just physical device safety I can assure you.
I agree that a lot of regulation will come after. We have no idea what protections will need to be in place to make it safe. There's going to be some trial and error.
I suspect I big part of the lack of regulation is that the government doesn't know how to regulate it properly. That is to say, when the government designs the test, people are rightly or wrongly going to assume that it is safe. They can put whatever disclaimers they want on it, that will be the perception of people and companies. Companies will also view the government test as the testing they need to do.
On the surface, I fully agree that there is a lack of government testing. Just grab a few of these cars. drive around some small test track. Throw in obstacles. Pedestrian crossing illegally. Construction changes to road patterns. Rapid breaking... whatever. It can act as a good baseline for testing. But since no one knows what testing is 'good enough', the government isn't going to do that because then it's testing will be taken as bible.
It's a human behavioral problem and once you get the government tests, many people will view that as THE TEST of safety. It's unfortunate, but that's life. I've worked in enough industries to know that's the case.
need to test in cold and rainy citys as well + snow!
How did you calculate 30 years? If you take into consideration exponential growth and previous examples of technology improving faster than predicted, you can't use intuition to predict the timeline for future tech.
In other words, I and people who have a history of predicting tech correctly, think that you are wrong.
One clear proof should be Waymo. Single accident would cause huge PR damage. Do you really think they want to test it how it goes without being absolutely sure that it works? So yes, seld driing cars in good driving conditions is here today. For bad conditions it might take more time, perhaps even a year or two.
10 years to get the technology to be
a) I figure there are at least 10 years of development before the technology is ready for the masses.
b) Average car on the road is 10 years old- so even when the technology is ready there will be a long transition before the majority of cars on the road are self driving.
c) Government will give a long grace period for people with human driven cars that are late to the self-driven technology to switch over.
It's not going to happen in less than 30 years.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Should say 10 years to get the technology to be ready for mass-consumer.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
... gooole is typically comfortable with launching full fledged products in beta. Don't worry, they will come out of beta in few years.
over-the-air update need to be free and no roaming fees.
OR you really want an car the need to go the dealer each X mouths for an $200 software update. (60 software + 140 labor) and maybe even BS like the map data is needs more HDD space come the dealer for an $260 500GB SSD + 150 labor to install it.
That's what Harvard and Yale are for. Or the University of Chicago.
black box need to be safe from manufacturers deleting data so they can't cover up when there software fails.
Chicago city driving + Chicago land highway driving is the real test as well. They better be ready to do 70+ in a 55 speed limit
im driving myself forever. agenda 21
black box need to be safe from manufacturers deleting data so they can't cover up when there software fails.
Yes, I said that.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Don't need to get mowed down by a runaway 'self driving taxi'. Sad, and condolences to surviving family members of the inevitable tragic deaths that will occur. Oh well, their deaths won't be totally in vain at least, it'll prove that this 'technology' has been rushed to market and is not anywhere near safe or usable in real-world situations. Then we can ban them, and get to the real solution of vehicle safety: driver education, training, and testing reforms, nation-wide.
Aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves? :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
They could use this algorithm:
https://youtu.be/GQAnAevywFc
Since I don't live in AZ, I'm okay with Arizonians voluntarily being guinea pigs. When bot-car co's get the kinks out via real world trial-and-error, my state then can have the benefits without the possible high accident rate of new tech.
I just hope Arizonians are not hypocrites such that they don't panic and rant if there are too many accidents. I will even solute the Arizonians who sacrificed their lives so mine can be better as I step into my first ever bot-car ride. Thank You, oh brave flatties of AZ!
Table-ized A.I.
If this were a new drug, there would be clinical trials. These taxis are a drug being dosed on the general population.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
While all of the LIVES SAVED by autonomous cars will be wonderful, the number of people actually killed by the cars will be a real number. At some point, 10 people will have died in accidents involving autonomous cars. Then 100 people. Then, if the corporations keep pushing the technology, 1,000 dead bodies and more due to self-driving technology.
The numbers will only go up, and eventually everyone will see that the promises of this wonderful and safe technology are total crap. The only way that autonomous cars will change anything is if we directly confront the issues that create the risks already caused by cars. I mean if everyone starts to use autonomous cars as an excuse to drink, because they won't have to drive home, what do you think all of those drunk passengers will do when all of the autonomous cars are full of drunk people? Those idiots will figure out a way to crash the cars, just to see if they can do it. Tell the car to go faster! Push the emergency stop button! Don't worry about getting hurt, there are all those safety features built in.
If these things cause just one less accident than its human counterpart it's a net win. After that it's just about time for the system to learn, get better, make even fewer mistakes. The long run here is that it will eventually be seen as reckless to drive your car yourself not the other way around.
I'm more worried about what these changes signify for peoples financial security and less about their physical. There are 30,000,000 odd people in the transportation industry. Self driving systems don't need to see their kids, get sick, need to sleep, need to eat, need anything. A big set of unskilled labor is about to disappear from the economy, over the next ten years, and government / society at large doesn't seem to understand that.
30 years is about the minimum, because there are a significant number of people driving 25 year old cars.
This space intentionally left blank
It's icy there, you should understand why they drive kind of slow.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Eventually it WILL be better for everyone that EVERYONE be mandated to have a self-driving car.
I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. Probably not for at least another 30 years or more... but eventually yes, people won't drive themselves... and that's a good thing.
I basically agree, though I would guess 50 years instead of 30. But that's just a guess.
The major issue is that the transition to requiring self-driving cars can't be done in one year, and the current politicians in the US lack any ability to put together a plan that goes beyond the next election. It's the kind of thing that needs to be planned years, probably even a couple decades, in advance. Self-driving cars are most effective when the only other cars that they have to deal with are also self-driving, but they may not be any better, or maybe even slightly worse, when all of the cars around them are human-driven. So you may need a plan where you mandate all new cars have the capability, especially regarding hardware, for self-driving by 2040 (to pick an arbitrary year), and then mandate turning on the self-driving functionality in 2065.
He pulled 30 years out of his ass.
Self driving requires cars that can understand what all the actors around it are _planning_.
That requires strong AI. Which will require a breakthrough. You can't schedule breakthroughs. It could be much longer, very unlikely it will be shorter. We don't know where to start.
Highways are done. 25 mph residential streets may _never_ be done. Because of the variety of actors the car will need to understand.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The Tesla that killed the dude by driving straight into a crete highway barrier had just gotten an update. The previous version wouldn't have wrecked like that.
That was just lane following, a much simpler problem than general autonomous driving.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Stand at an intersection and wait for one of these vehicles to stop. Then you stand in front of it and a friend stands in back of it. Or maybe just slide some large objects in front of/behind it. Don't let it move. A human driver could get out and discuss with you or call the police. Driverless? Will at least take some time for it to figure out it's been trapped.
Captha: deletes
Driverless will progressively develop like most tech , so surprised there is not more attention on initial limited scope application. For instance Tokyo has a set route. If roads can be better equipped to handle driverless vehicles with signs, sensors and other safety controls should help progress.
I think that the FAA has an given scrip for testing safety and for the most part that works.
That said, you already answered your last question. There was a 12 year gap between the first commercial flight and the passage of the Air Commerce Act, which means it could have taken the industry 10 years to start thinking that regulation would be to their benefit. In other words, the industry likely started off not wanting regulations, developed in their absence, and only over time discovered where regulation was needed and how it was beneficial.
So the reason Waymo isn't pushing for regulations is that it's a new industry and that neither it nor the government know what or how to regulate. After a few years, that will become clear and the industry will start asking for rules.
I think you should be careful about comparing the introduction of commercial aircraft into mostly empty skies, with the introduction of self-driving cars into an environment already crowded with cars and pedestrians.
Although the Air Commerce Act wasn't passed until 1926, commercial air travel didn't become routine until after World War II, and wasn't truly accessible to the masses until the late 1950s or early 1960s.
One interesting footnote regarding the FAA: Both the general public and the airline industry agitated for government intervention following a collision between two passenger aircraft over the Grand Canyon in 1956, killing 126 people. There was a great deal of public outrage over the antiquated state of Air Traffic Control and the lack of official interest in upgrading and modernizing the system. The FAA was created in 1958 with the passage of the Federal Aviation Act.
Why would a self-driving car company name itself
!! WHAMO !!
?
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
30 years is a minimum to clear all the other hurdles. Even if Waymo made them available tomorrow (and it won't)- it would still take 20 years before government would make them mandatory. You have to wait for costs to come down and for the majority of people to have them before you make them mandatory. If they came out tomorrow- because of costs they wouldn't make up the majority of new sales. The average age of cars on the road is now 10 years - which means a significant number are reaching 20 year on the road.
Government mandating all cars be self-driving... That won't happen for at LEAST 30 years. I don't know how long- but it simply couldn't happen in the next 30... we have to develop the car... bring prices down... and wait for the old cars to become a minority first.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch