YeadonLad wrote:For city folk it may well be a better model to have a car turn up only when required, but I can't see it catching on in much of the country where things are just not as close to each other and you'd have to think well ahead to call for the car.
Slarti
It would have to be a very clever car to reach a friends house on its own - it would have to work out how to open the gates to get there (and they are on a public road not his land).
My view is that making them do 90% of the job will take 10% of the effort. The last 10% will take 90% of the effort (and take years). There are still too many unanswered questions and I can't see how they would work without some user action. Take for instance a car park at a site I visit frequently - the surface is gravel with no marking so how would it find the required spot to park:
1) When I visit for a meeting - plenty of space so no need to block anyone in.
2) When there is an event on so we double/triple park so there is room for visitors to park.
3) As 2 but when all the available staff parking has been used so I have to park down the road.
4) When I have things to unload so I need to reverse into a disabled parking spot (since they are outside the door).
Either your friend would remove the gate or install an automatic gate, or decide to meet the car at the gate.
The car would not need lines to park, we already have cars that can parallel park by referencing the other cars around it.
The cars would not need to stay, they can drive off to deliver someone else to another destination and come back when needed.
There will need to be special instructions for unloading, again you can be delivered to the door, unload your stuff and the car drives off.
Nothing insurmountable although clearly some new infrastructure and rejigging of existing infrastructure will be needed. In the last few hundred years the challenges of of each new transport technology were greater than that required for the nest stage to driverless cars.
Canals were dug across the length and breadth of the UK, a huge engineering feat requiring viaducts, tunnels and lots of digging without the use of machines.
Ditto for the railways with millions of miles of special tracks and signalling being built and stations to handle the passengers while dealing with hitherto unheard of speeds at which it was thought people would die.
Ditto for cars with the added problems of autonomous drivers each in control of more than a ton of deadly machinery that in the wrong hands, either through incompetence or murderous intent could kill dozens of people.
Air travel has required huge airports and associated infrastructure to be built, sometimes requiring new islands to be reclaimed from the sea, along with the technology to safety move millions of passengers in and out of them, basically on flying bombs.
The problems associated with the next step to autonomous vehicles are trivial by comparison and are mostly social rather than technological in nature.
Many here have attempted to come up with problems or situations where the driverless car will not be as convenient for the individual as having a normal vehicle. No doubt similar arguments were used by horse owners to tell us the many reason why cars would never replace the horse.
"Cars can't jump fences, how could they ever reach my house like old Bess can"
"Car need petrol every few miles, where would we store all that stuff, there's nowhere to fill up between here and Truro!"
"What happens when I get a puncture, or the car breaks down, the local vet or blacksmith won't be able to fix it"
"I love my horse, no car will ever take its place"
The issue is the same, for many individuals, the motor car as we know it has not been a positive invention and one that comes with a great many inconveniences however for society as a whole it has been a boon.
Driverless cars are coming and sooner than many here think is possible.
John