So we don't need car parks as your google car can drive itself home when you are at work or the shops. So the traffic would therefore double and the car clock up twice as many kilometeres? I can imagine the future where you're stuck in traffice with a bunch of driverless cars going around because there is no where to park

The car parks will still be there, so I would imagine that idle driverless cars would go to them for a recharge

Little Jon said..
So we don't need car parks as your google car can drive itself home when you are at work or the shops. So the traffic would therefore double and the car clock up twice as many kilometeres? I can imagine the future where you're stuck in traffice with a bunch of driverless cars going around because there is no where to park

That's idiotic. Why on earth would you do that? If you are really just going to use a driverless car exactly the same as your car today, then your car will go and park somewhere at work or the shops just as you do currently. When driverless cars really take off, I think we'll start using cars very differently. People will stop owning cars. Just pay a subscription to Uber, and call it on demand as you need it. When most of the cars on the road are driverless, you can probably make the traffic actually flow much more efficiently.

Mark _australia said..

However, still very anti...... WW3 will be fought digitally and clever folks will just shut down all our sh!t remotely. No interwebs and no GPS for a week would already screw us badly. Why we are going this path has me scratching my head

Cars don't even need to be driverless to hack them. It's been proven already: www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/

I'd say we are already at the point where exploiting a few key energy and communications assets would cause serious issues.

Isn't the goal of a self diving vehicle society to have no humans controlling the cars?

I'm wondering how 4WD vehicles (the camping/trekking type, not the soccer mum status symbol) fit into this non-car-ownership self driving future.
Will the bush-basher have to be left at home and not used for the work commute?

If everyone is sharing cars, what do you do with all your sailing/surfing etc gear that you would normally have stashed in your car, ready to hit the water straight after work?

Ian K said..

evlPanda said..

Pugwash said..
That aside, surely the biggest benefit of all this automation is ability to share efficiently.

Woohoo! Now I can share someone's puke from the night before on my ride to work!

And germs, viruses.

What could go wrong?

Germophobes like you can have your own personal sanitised module. A bit like a chairlift. You have it hanging from the lamppost out the front of your place and whistle up a chassis. It might pick up a few more lamp-post hangers on the way. It'll undock you at your work.

Jokes aside, wouldn't the ultimate be where we have our own pods that are for just one or two people, and used just for the commute? Little driverless cars that could take up a 1/4 of the space of normal cars, and not need the same level of safety features as they are only going 60km/h and the automation system prevents them from coming close to hitting something (unless something aims for you of course),

I could imagine where you drive your pod the short distance from your home to a major arterial way where the automation takes over and takes you most of the way to your destination, and then you do the short drive from there, if not it was all automated.

Want to take your windsurfing gear? Make your way to the beach and have the other pod with your windsurfing gear in it meet you there.

evlPanda said..

Woohoo! Now I can share someone's puke from the night before on my ride to work!

And germs, viruses.

What could go wrong?

EXACTLY!

Pugwash said..

Little Jon said..
So we don't need car parks as your google car can drive itself home when you are at work or the shops. So the traffic would therefore double and the car clock up twice as many kilometeres? I can imagine the future where you're stuck in traffice with a bunch of driverless cars going around because there is no where to park

I cars drive themselves as described, why would you own one? If they are that aware, could you own one??? I guess we own dogs.

That aside, surely the biggest benefit of all this automation is ability to share efficiently.

how do you go windurfing if the car doesn't have racks or is not a wagon and the owner doesn't want sand or saltwater on their car

elmo said..
A driver less car will always let you into the gap

Not in Perf The software has machine learning and will soon update itself to the "local" conditions

will driverless cars have a roadrage chip for special occasions

It won't take off until you can get a self drive conversion kit for commodores at Supercheap.

I think a few people forgot to wash the sand out of their crack this week.

elmo said..
A driver less car will always let you into the gap

Not if its programmed not to...

nicephotog said..
I do not say the proper "level of non supervised - non input" will ever be achieved in a human life span from now.
The flaws possible with proper numbers of driverless vehicles on the road would show no difference to safety and usability than driver type.

www.smh.com.au/business/companies/uber-self-driving-car-that-fatally-struck-pedestrian-was-not-programmed-to-brake-20180525-p4zhe2.html

Ouch...

I cant wait till some of the numpty drivers get a driverless car. maybe they could drive at the speed limit rather than 10-15km/hr below the speed limit.

Shifu said..
It won't take off until you can get a self drive conversion kit for commodores at Supercheap.

self drive Commodores... S W E E T as Master Shifu. Think I'm going to love it, could have a beer while looking at the forecast on my phone, get in the wettie, all saving me valuable time at the beach, could catch some ZZZZ's on the way home, possibilities are bloody endless... Will also request the Google developed self-drive unit for Commodores works when negotiating coastal tracks, proof of concept below (give me a call Google, we know you are reading this).

I thought the idea of ownerless driverless cars would be awesome,

but if anyone has seen how those yellow bikes in cities that people borrow are treated....

We have too many people in our society that are not ready to be respectful to other peoples property yet.

Too many leaners, not enough lifters