I think the problem people have imagining a world of self-driving cars is they imagine it happening overnight. Yes, if a self-driving car showed up at your house tomorrow it would be a little nerve-racking to turn over control to a computer. But the progress will be relatively incremental, and we will give up control one piece at a time. In fact, this is already underway.
As far as I can tell, the first such feature to make it onto the market was the self-parking system. These systems automate the steering of parallel parking and provide the driver with distance alerts, but the driver still controls the speed. Watching this technology demonstrated it is very easy to imagine the entire process being autonomous.
There are other examples as well, like adaptive cruise control which adjusts a cars speed to the vehicle in front of it, even bringing the car to a full stop if necessary. This technology is already on the market. Cadillac’s “Super Cruise” seems like an extension of that which bridges the gap between autonomous driving and adaptive cruise, but is designed to only work highways. With “Super Cruise” the car stays in the lane and at the speed the driver sets, while staying at least two seconds away from the car in front. This isn’t available yet, but it seems a likely precursor to fully autonomous cars and a natural extension from adaptive cruising.
Automatic braking systems are a similar technology that is more focused on preventing accidents. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that automatic braking in Volvo SUV’s prevented one out of four low-speed crashes. Other technologies like this have tremendous potential to save lives. USA Today reports:
“Along with automatic brakes, IIHS is studying the effectiveness of other advanced safety features such as warnings that alert drivers they are leaving their lanes and indicate another car is in the car’s blind spot, as well as adaptive headlights that turn as cars move around corners. NHTSA, in cooperation with automakers, is also studying automatic brakes — which go by different names, including “forward collision warning/mitigation” or “pre-sense” — and advanced safety belts designed to work with the brakes.
IIHS estimated last year that these crash-avoidance features have the potential to prevent or at least lessen the impact in 1.9 million crashes a year and help prevent one out of three fatal crashes. Systems that warn then help prevent frontal crashes by braking automatically could be the solution for most of those — 1.2 million crashes. That represents 20% of the 5.8 million police-reported crashes each year and as many as 66,000 non-fatal injury crashes and 879 fatalities a year, IIHS says.”
Auto executives are quick to ensure people that people and not robots remain in control of vehicles, but as these technologies become more widespread we will begin trusting computers more than ourselves. I suspect their cautionary rhetoric will change as people become more comfortable with computers in charge, and soon enough we’ll be able to be asleep at the wheel, and safely.
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Monday ~ May 14th, 2012 at 9:34 pm
abc123
I think liability will be the big issue. As long as people are ultimately in command, most of the liability from crashes will fall to the driver and their insurance company, rather than the car company. This, rather than technological adaption, is what I think will ultimately hold everything up. I mean, there must certainly be a fairly large number of people who would pay a lot extra to not have to drive their cars, especially for mundane commutes, or sitting in traffic.
Also, I think that self driving cars will come with a stricter regulatory regime, a la the airline industry. Today’s airliners can perform hands off flights to zero visibility landings and roll outs if they’re properly equipped, but there are also fairly strict regulations about how often the equipment must be checked, its ability to self detect faults, and other things, as well as mandatory recurrent training. I don’t think this would fly with most people, because it would be too inconvenient, nor would it be necessary (you’re not flying 400 people at 150 knots into the ground). Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be surprised if they mandated that some things could only be inspected by federally licensed mechanics, and these parts would have to inspected every 1000 hours/ 25,000 miles, something like that. It would also curtail the ability of people to modify their cars with lift kits, turbos, etc, because of the changes to vehicle dynamics, I would think.
Nonetheless, I think it would be an awesome step forward.
Tuesday ~ May 15th, 2012 at 10:17 am
Alex Godofsky
But if the car were self-driving you could just tell it to go get inspected by itself! That’s kind of spooky/awesome.
Tuesday ~ May 15th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
David Manheim
Liability will be a huge issue, but I suspect only at first. Car manufacturers, or someone similarly incentivized, will provide deeply discounted insurance to drivers of these cars, since they get into many fewer crashes. This will happen either through deals with insurers, or acquisitions.
Imagine paying the extra $10k up front for the car, with a guaranteed savings on insurance of $500/year, and drastically reduced gas costs (I cant’ imagine less than a 10% average improvement) since the car will optimize for efficiency. Oh, and never needing to drive yourself!
I’d guess that this will be a luxury feature at first, so that the companies that roll it out first could be the high-end market, which will allow for time to reduce costs. As tech prices drop, the market becomes used to them, and the advantages become clear, it will become standard within 10 years of introduction.
I also suspect that the regulatory portion will be strict, uneven, and handled by the states, at least at first, until the car manufacturers see that it is costing them money. Then things will change as it becomes widespread, and seen to be unnecessary.
Lastly, I expect car ownership to dissapear as a touchstone. Fractional ownership will be cheaper, and just as good. Why buy when you can have a car on demand, driving itself to pick you up, and only pay for usage. Driveless taxis, and seamless carpooling will hopefully follow soon after – Think door-to-door subways without tracks, for less than the price of a bus ride – no overhead for drivers, and less capital intensive networks.
Wednesday ~ May 16th, 2012 at 9:50 am
jlwade99
With individual car-rentals coming online now (getaround.com, etc), I can certainly see privately-owned self-driving vehicles becoming a business model to rival city buses and taxis. Think Car2Go but self-driving.
The insurance issue seems to be the main hurdle. Insurance companies are good at lobbying and won’t be happy to have a profit/revenue stream dry-up due to shifting accident statistics. Perhaps insurance corporations just bring out my cynical side.
Tuesday ~ May 15th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
Assorted Links « azmytheconomics
[…] 4. How we get to self driving cars […]
Wednesday ~ May 16th, 2012 at 8:06 am
Moving Towards Self-Driving Cars « Blog of Rivals
[…] Adam Ozimek at Modeled Behavior thinks that self-driving cars will be are being adopted incrementall…. I think the problem people have imagining a world of self-driving cars is they imagine it happening overnight. Yes, if a self-driving car showed up at your house tomorrow it would be a little nerve-racking to turn over control to a computer. But the progress will be relatively incremental, and we will give up control one piece at a time. In fact, this is already underway. Share this:EmailTwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. ▶ No Responses /* 0) { jQuery('#comments').show('', change_location()); jQuery('#showcomments a .closed').css('display', 'none'); jQuery('#showcomments a .open').css('display', 'inline'); return true; } else { jQuery('#comments').hide(''); jQuery('#showcomments a .closed').css('display', 'inline'); jQuery('#showcomments a .open').css('display', 'none'); return false; } } jQuery('#showcomments a').click(function(){ if(jQuery('#comments').css('display') == 'none') { self.location.href = '#comments'; check_location(); } else { check_location('hide'); } }); function change_location() { self.location.href = '#comments'; } }); /* ]]> */ […]
Wednesday ~ May 16th, 2012 at 9:59 am
Mark Tyson
The obvious first movers in this to me would be trucking industries. They could a) avoid driver costs & b) remove the ‘drive time’ limitations on truckers. A truck could be on the move 24 hrs a day without any drivers.
Wednesday ~ July 2nd, 2014 at 8:13 am
dessous bandants
Je peux dire que ce n’est pas absurde !!
Sunday ~ March 8th, 2015 at 3:45 am
nilde
These systems automate the steering of parallel parking and provide the driver with distance alerts, but the driver still controls the speed. Watching this technology demonstrated it is very easy to imagine the entire process being autonomous. web design
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Monday ~ March 23rd, 2015 at 6:46 am
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Wednesday ~ April 1st, 2015 at 3:22 am
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There are other examples as well, like adaptive cruise control which adjusts a cars speed to the vehicle in front of it, even bringing the car to a full stop if necessary.So what of Moylan? A criminal law designed to preserve the integrity of the information fed to stockholders is needed to combat insider trading and other misinformation designed to generate ill-gotten gains. portland optometrist
Friday ~ May 22nd, 2015 at 8:24 am
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There are other examples as well, like adaptive cruise control which adjusts a cars speed to the vehicle in front of it, even bringing the car to a full stop if necessary. This technology is already on the market. click to see whole story
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Thursday ~ September 3rd, 2015 at 9:42 am
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Tuesday ~ October 6th, 2015 at 4:36 am
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Tuesday ~ April 18th, 2017 at 9:16 am
henryloris
Automatic braking systems are a similar technology that is more focused on preventing accidents. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that automatic braking in Volvo SUV’s prevented one out of four low-speed crashes. henry