Why Google's Self-Driving Car Will Fail

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This guy thinks Google's self-driving car will fail. The guy actually has some valid points and lays down some statistics to back his position as well.

The zero-emission, all-electric, Self-Driving Car also fails to address what's probably the most pressing issue currently facing transportation in America — over crowded roads. It's one more car, not one less. Yet again, this issue is best addressed through public transportation and removing cars from out city centers. Where there are no cars, one can't run you over.
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Public transportation is never going to be viable in the US except in places where there is high population density, and most of those places already have some form of public transit (e.g. NY, Boston, SanFran, etc). The US is simply too spread out compared to places like Japan and Europe.
 
imagine automated mini buses working together will GPS and apps to pick people up in the most efficient way. It could be a cross between bus and taxi and would never run empty, just wait for rider request and choose a best path between designated stops.
 
Rizen said:
Public transportation is never going to be viable in the US except in places where there is high population density, and most of those places already have some form of public transit (e.g. NY, Boston, SanFran, etc). The US is simply too spread out compared to places like Japan and Europe.
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It could be viable...if elected leaders didn't campaign every election on cutting taxes as the main reason to vote for them. Most city areas have some form of public transit bus service, that more often than not is woefully ineffective due to being underfunded and consequently poor coverage and regularity.
 
Well I agree it's dangerous, in the last 2 weeks someone has run their car into my garbage can and in another incident someone hit the back of my car while I was turning right and I had to chase the guy down because he drove away. I have actually gotten to the point that when I need to go to Miami I take the bus and the train, the roads are simply too dangerous.
 
Skripka said:
It could be viable...if elected leaders didn't campaign every election on cutting taxes as the main reason to vote for them. Most city areas have some form of public transit bus service, that more often than not is woefully ineffective due to being underfunded and consequently poor coverage and regularity.
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That's the thing though. Most city areas have them. If you live in the suburbs or God forbid a rural area you're still going to have to have a personal vehicle. Public transportation just isn't viable for most places in the US unless we rethink the way we live.
 
BigJayDogg3 said:
That's the thing though. Most city areas have them. If you live in the suburbs or God forbid a rural area you're still going to have to have a personal vehicle. Public transportation just isn't viable for most places in the US unless we rethink the way we live.
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Consider this. People generally look toward Europe when considering public transportation. Europe the continent has only slightly more land area than the USA. But has almost double the population. Europe is far more densely populated than the US is. Public transportation just isn't feasible in the USA due to how sparsely populated most places are.
 
So the author discounts self driving cars because they are going to cost hundreds of millions and take several years to develop and his solution is public transportation? The BART extension mentioned at the end of the article is budgeted at $6.1 billion and won't be in service until 2025.
 
I thought they would fail because politicians would realize they won't get their much loved ticket money anymore. Tickets are basically a hidden tax that contribute huge money to local coffers and all that is gone if an automatic car is programmed to always follow the rules.
 
Skripka said:
It could be viable...if elected leaders didn't campaign every election on cutting taxes as the main reason to vote for them. Most city areas have some form of public transit bus service, that more often than not is woefully ineffective due to being underfunded and consequently poor coverage and regularity.
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Actually where I live, public transit is over funded.

Everytime someone gets on the bus, it cost the taxpayer more than the cost of the ticket.
Less than 5% of the population uses mass transit (in some cities it's less than 1%), yet it is a significant protion of the transportation budget for most local governments.
If we even manage to hit 15% usage, there wouldn't be anything less in the transporation budgets to maintain the roads.

I remember several years ago when they looked at the costs of one of the light rail lines in LA, and the price of the tickets didn't even cover the cost of the security guards on the line.
 
BigJayDogg3 said:
That's the thing though. Most city areas have them. If you live in the suburbs or God forbid a rural area you're still going to have to have a personal vehicle. Public transportation just isn't viable for most places in the US unless we rethink the way we live.
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No, I don't want to rethink how I live.

I wouldn't want to live in anyplace where puiblic transporation is viable, as it would be way too crowded.
I'd rather have some open space, a yard, and nice view with plently of trees.
 
nutzo said:
No, I don't want to rethink how I live.

I wouldn't want to live in anyplace where puiblic transporation is viable, as it would be way too crowded.
I'd rather have some open space, a yard, and nice view with plently of trees.
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+1, city life isnt for everyone
 
Mass transit blows. I don't like getting on crowded buses or planes.

The only way you get rid of personal vehicles is with higher fuel prices. Until then, they will be here to stay.
 
nutzo said:
No, I don't want to rethink how I live.

I wouldn't want to live in anyplace where puiblic transporation is viable, as it would be way too crowded.
I'd rather have some open space, a yard, and nice view with plently of trees.
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HAQattaq said:
Mass transit blows. I don't like getting on crowded buses or planes.

The only way you get rid of personal vehicles is with higher fuel prices. Until then, they will be here to stay.
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What blows more? Finding and paying out the ass for parking (after high fuel prices)...or sticking it out and riding public transit?

I like air and space too...but when I cannot ride my bicycle to work, I'd much rather be able to go home with an extra $10USD in my pocket every workday and say 30-45minutes of time hunting for and going/leaving from a car parking spot.
 
I don't buy this at all. Roads have been overcrowded for a long time. Guess what? People still need cars.

The real problem is that Google is going to make it much more difficult for towns and cities to keep making money off of highway robbery... er, I mean parking and traffic citations. I imagine that's going to cause some legal pushback against them for a while.
 
BigJayDogg3 said:
Consider this. People generally look toward Europe when considering public transportation. Europe the continent has only slightly more land area than the USA. But has almost double the population. Europe is far more densely populated than the US is. Public transportation just isn't feasible in the USA due to how sparsely populated most places are.
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The US has more than double the land area of the EU per Wikipedia.

The EU average population density is more than 4 times higher than the US. Again, per Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
 
Rizen said:
Public transportation is never going to be viable in the US except in places where there is high population density, and most of those places already have some form of public transit (e.g. NY, Boston, SanFran, etc). The US is simply too spread out compared to places like Japan and Europe.
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In places that don't have high population density, there isn't much issue with parking or congestion in the first place.

In places where it is, like city centers, you simply have park houses where you jump out of your car and take public transit from that point on. That way stores can be so much closer together, since each storefront won't need a thousand parking spots nearby. Then fatass Americans can actually burn some calories when they are shopping by walking from store to store.

Of course since this is America though, people will probably use their Obamabucks that got them a free rascal to haul their fat butts around that way instead, and the civil liberties group will complain that the buses aren't rascal accessible.
 
Skripka said:
What blows more? Finding and paying out the ass for parking (after high fuel prices)...or sticking it out and riding public transit?

I like air and space too...but when I cannot ride my bicycle to work, I'd much rather be able to go home with an extra $10USD in my pocket every workday and say 30-45minutes of time hunting for and going/leaving from a car parking spot.
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It all depends on where you live and work. Even in places with excellent public transportation. I live in NE Mass but work in Southern NH. It's an 18 mile drive, my commute is about 35 minutes, and there is no possibility of public transportation for it.

Prior to that I worked in Boston's Financial district, a 30 mile commute. In an area with excellent public transportation, I still opted to use my car. Between parking at the MBTA station, The monthly pass for the train and gas savings, I spent about $120 less a month in commuting cost than I did by driving. On the other hand, I spent about 90 minutes a day longer in the commute. I wasn't constrained by train schedules, I could more easily flex my hours a bit when needed, I didn't have to stand in the elements during the bad weather days and winter. I didn't have to be crammed into subway cars with barely room to breathe when headed home, really unpleasant on the hot days. In the end, $120 a month seemed like a fair trade to get 30 hours of my life back every month.
 
article said:
The zero-emission, all-electric, Self-Driving Car also fails to address what's probably the most pressing issue currently facing transportation in America — over crowded roads. It's one more car, not one less.
Click to expand...

Actually a huge reason why traffic backs up is due to the way humans drive. Self-driving cars can be considerably much more efficient in that regard. If all cars were self-driving, you could probably have 2-3 times as many cars driving on the exact same roads that already exist today without ever seeing a backup.
 
Skripka said:
Those #s are vastly skewed by the amount of industrial-style farmland the USA has that is basicallt empty (i.e. 1-2 people/sq.mile)
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That's a fair point, but the average American commute is 16 miles. While the UK (considered the longest average commute in the EU) is 8.5 miles. So, the average American still needs to cover twice the distance.

Even in the UK, once you are outside of the capital, only 11% of the population uses public transportation to get to work.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3085647.stm (granted this article is about 10 years old)
 
Skripka said:
What blows more? Finding and paying out the ass for parking (after high fuel prices)...or sticking it out and riding public transit?

I like air and space too...but when I cannot ride my bicycle to work, I'd much rather be able to go home with an extra $10USD in my pocket every workday and say 30-45minutes of time hunting for and going/leaving from a car parking spot.
Click to expand...

I have all that and ride my bike to work and live in what most would consider a rural area(Well I guess we are technically around 70,000 people but its still in Iowa). I will add I don't like it here and want to go back to a smaller town. To many people.

and I think I speak for most here when I say you would have to us kicking and screaming to a bigger city.
 
GotNoRice said:
Actually a huge reason why traffic backs up is due to the way humans drive. Self-driving cars can be considerably much more efficient in that regard. If all cars were self-driving, you could probably have 2-3 times as many cars driving on the exact same roads that already exist today without ever seeing a backup.
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True, self driving cars have the potential to make traffic much smoother but only in a case where all cars are self driving. Without dedicated road systems for self driving cars, this efficiency will never be achieved. Until all cars can be replaced by them, and I can't see that happening in my life time, It's just not possible. Especially this google concept with no controls at all.

There are just too many situations where I can't see self driving cars being readily able to adapt to road conditions well yet. How would one fare on snowy back roads? How would one handle unexpected road work with traffic being diverted, or limited to a single lane for two way traffic regulated by a person? How would it handle the inevitable pot hole or frost heave? Partially flooded roads after a downpour? Ice/slush ruts between lanes on an interstate?
 
Skripka said:
What blows more? Finding and paying out the ass for parking (after high fuel prices)...or sticking it out and riding public transit?

I like air and space too...but when I cannot ride my bicycle to work, I'd much rather be able to go home with an extra $10USD in my pocket every workday and say 30-45minutes of time hunting for and going/leaving from a car parking spot.
Click to expand...

Both cars are in my garage at home, even though I could park more in the driveway, or on the street.

At work, there is plenty of parking, although I do get mad when somone parks in my favorite spot :)
 
If mass transit is what everyone wants, why is there not one company offering mass transit to consumers. I am not talking about private companies which administer the public mass transit. The reason.......given the choice of taking a private vehicle or any style of mass transit...... consumers will always choose their own vehicles. The government needs to get out of the mass transit business and transfer those funds to building roads.
 
Dumbest article I've read all week. So self-driving cars don't cure cancer, solve world hunger, and crap rainbows? FAIL. Let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Who needs progress?

So many basic logic fails. "It's one more car, not one less." So what, I'll be driving my regular car to work while my driverless car goes on joyrides? I sure hope my regular car isn't going on joyrides while I'm in my driverless car. It's also good that I can afford to buy and insure that extra car for no good reason!

Here's an idea: driverless cars are effectively a form of mass transit. If they can make more intelligent choices than a human driver, maybe they can... make more intelligent choices than a human driver? Intelligent route planning? Forming chains for higher fuel efficiency and increased road density while maintaining safety? The future is cars driving themselves, talking to each other, and making higher level decisions than humans ever could.
 
Grast5150 said:
If mass transit is what everyone wants, why is there not one company offering mass transit to consumers. I am not talking about private companies which administer the public mass transit. The reason.......given the choice of taking a private vehicle or any style of mass transit...... consumers will always choose their own vehicles. The government needs to get out of the mass transit business and transfer those funds to building roads.
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Herp derp. Why are so few companies in the ISP business? It must be because no one wants ISPs, and everyone loves the one they have.
 
Look, Uber+self driving cars+Hertz = the future. You have a large commercial outfit that purchases the cars, then people can use them on demand. They drive much more efficiently and can read the grid as more and more similar cars get on the road.

Particularly if they're all electric, I like it. It also solves the electric range issue; rather than swap out the battery, swap out the whole damn car which parks itself and charges, while you swap out to to a new vehicle to continue down the road.
 
This will work if all Americans come to think of themselves as subservient peasants who will comply with the demands of the elite class. No place for self-reliant individuals in this utopia...
 
nutzo said:
Actually where I live, public transit is over funded.

Everytime someone gets on the bus, it cost the taxpayer more than the cost of the ticket.
Less than 5% of the population uses mass transit (in some cities it's less than 1%), yet it is a significant protion of the transportation budget for most local governments.
If we even manage to hit 15% usage, there wouldn't be anything less in the transporation budgets to maintain the roads.

I remember several years ago when they looked at the costs of one of the light rail lines in LA, and the price of the tickets didn't even cover the cost of the security guards on the line.
Click to expand...

This is hilarious. Public transportation is supposed to be losing money. It amazing how people dismiss things that are good for them but aren't managed as a business. Craziness.
 
Is this guy eating stupid pills?

The transition period means normal cars + automated for a while. Once everything is automated cars (and oh shit - regulated) it could be WAY better. Tighter, faster packs of cars. Smart traffic patterns. Human drivers are what make for shitty waves of traffic.
 
The people who run America still believe in cars, and the people who build cars still pay those people who run America very handsomly. Cars are not going any where for a long time.
 
Why will self driving cars fail? Has nothing to do with accidents or anything like that. It has to do with the lack of traffic violations. Government agencies will pass rules against this type of technology until it is inevitable that is will be used. Police departments get such a large percentage of their budgets from tickets that they won't stand for the large loss in funding.
 
dgz said:
This is hilarious. Public transportation is supposed to be losing money. It amazing how people dismiss things that are good for them but aren't managed as a business. Craziness.
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Why is it supposed to be loosing money? That kind of thinking gets the country in the situation it is in now. In debt.
 
Catalan said:
Here's an idea: driverless cars are effectively a form of mass transit. If they can make more intelligent choices than a human driver, maybe they can... make more intelligent choices than a human driver? Intelligent route planning? Forming chains for higher fuel efficiency and increased road density while maintaining safety? The future is cars driving themselves, talking to each other, and making higher level decisions than humans ever could.
Click to expand...

This is my thinking on the whole thing. Sure it is still going to be a long ways off from having all human-driven cars off the road or having roadways specifically for self-driving cars, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't start the transition. If we had this mentality about everything I could only imagine what other systems we would not have (interstate, internet, etc).

When we DO manage to get to that point where all cars on a given roadway system are automated just think of how much more efficient it will be than human drivers. As others have said you can have cars driving in entire chains, following a lot closer to each other safely and thus increasing efficiency by drafting. As the technology expands they could even have the cars be able to broadcast to each other. Imagine a car 5 miles up the road from yours detects an accident that might cause traffic to build up, and then broadcast to other cars to let them know of the location of the accident. The cars could then make quick decisions to reroute the drive and possibly avoid the slowdown.

In areas where traffic is normally heavy one of the big contributions to the traffic slowing down so much is the chain reaction of people cutting each other off. You have that one impatient jerk that is weaving through traffic, making other people have to slow down to avoid a collision. This causes other people behind them to get impatient and start cutting people off, slowing even more people down. With the self-driving cars you won't have people cutting each other off. The cars will make well informed decisions long enough in advance to get to the exit they need, and they might even be able to inform other cars around them of their intention to move so the other cars can more easily let them through without causing 10 other cars to need to suddenly drop 20-30 mph.

The room for expansion in this tech is also absurd. Imagine carpool lanes being redesigned so that cars can physically link together on longer trips and share battery power. When a car needs to exit it just sends a signal to the other cars in the chain and disengages from the chain. The other cars then just link back together and continue on their merry way. Sure that's probably even longer off than anything currently in testing but anything is possible so long as we don't put a cramp on technology advancing.
 
Jaymzkerten said:
The room for expansion in this tech is also absurd. Imagine carpool lanes being redesigned so that cars can physically link together on longer trips and share battery power. When a car needs to exit it just sends a signal to the other cars in the chain and disengages from the chain. The other cars then just link back together and continue on their merry way. Sure that's probably even longer off than anything currently in testing but anything is possible so long as we don't put a cramp on technology advancing.
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This follows an idea very similar to one that I have. If there were a way to standardize a "pod" that people get in and it attaches, loads to some type of mass transit system to get you from point A to B, it would provide the best of both worlds. It would allow you to have your privacy since you are in your own vehicle that if you weren't driving could have the windows blocked out and you could have a situation like on say a plane or train where you can get up during travel and turn around inside your "pod". If you could have to seamlessly switch from say a small delivery truck to route locally, to some type of train system for longer distances, to say even putting it into a plane for international travel or if you need to get to your destination quicker. UPS already handles a system like this, but it would just need to be adapted to accommodate people effectively.
 
Skripka said:
What blows more? Finding and paying out the ass for parking (after high fuel prices)...or sticking it out and riding public transit?

I like air and space too...but when I cannot ride my bicycle to work, I'd much rather be able to go home with an extra $10USD in my pocket every workday and say 30-45minutes of time hunting for and going/leaving from a car parking spot.
Click to expand...

Which blows more? Public transport By far.

I'll spend more on gas, take time for parking and take the drive knowing that where I spend "MOST" of my time, I have clear air and space. I can actually go outside and lay in my yard if I want and yet still have 50/5 internet so I'm not in the boonies. I rather like having over an acre of lawn. I avoid public buses and trains like the plague..Fuck That.
 
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