Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

It's very interesting to read this Scientific American article from late May (mentions Google's lobbying efforts): http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=google-driv...

Edit: NY Times article talking about this more directly ... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/science/11drive.html?_r=1

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#5

Post by cal5k » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 4:34 PM UTC

This is great news! Nevada is pretty consistently willing to be the reference case on a lot of forward-thinking ideas.

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#6

Post by mkr-hn » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 4:39 PM UTC

I think driverless cars could be the future of public transportation. Instead of big trains and buses with limited reach, we would have thousands of public vehicles that take you where you need to go when you need to be there. It eliminates the big barriers to public transport--the lack of personal space, timing, and reach.

No car? Just hop on the municipal/county dispatch website, request a car, pay your fee, and wait for the nearest open vehicle to bring itself to you. It can even coexist peacefully with private transportation.

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#7

Post by cal5k » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 4:45 PM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #6

I think driverless cars could be the future of public transportation. Instead of big trains and buses with limited reach, we would have thousands of public vehicles that take you where you need to go when you need to be there. It eliminates the big barriers to public transport--the lack of personal space, timing, and reach. No car? Just hop on the municipal/county dispatch website, request a car, pay your fee, and wa…

I'll be honest, I'm waiting for commercially available vehicles so I can be the first to order a fleet of them and do just that :-)

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#8

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 4:52 PM UTC

cal5k wrote: post #7

mkr-hn wrote: post #6

I think driverless cars could be the future of public transportation. Instead of big trains and buses with limited reach, we would have thousands of public vehicles that take you where you need to go when you need to be there. It eliminates the big barriers to public transport--the lack of personal space, timing, and reach. No car? Just hop on the municipal/county dispatch website, request a car, pay your fee, and wa…

I'll be honest, I'm waiting for commercially available vehicles so I can be the first to order a fleet of them and do just that :-)

[deleted]

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#9

Post by phlux » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 4:54 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #3

I really didn't expect this to happen within 10 years. I'm amazed that this happened so fast.

Money. Google has oodles of it - governments only exist to gain money (and power) -- so it was pretty obvious (to me) that this would happen quickly.

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#10

Post by uuilly » Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 4:54 PM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #6

I think driverless cars could be the future of public transportation. Instead of big trains and buses with limited reach, we would have thousands of public vehicles that take you where you need to go when you need to be there. It eliminates the big barriers to public transport--the lack of personal space, timing, and reach. No car? Just hop on the municipal/county dispatch website, request a car, pay your fee, and wa…

Or you rent your car out to the grid rather than park it. Like air-bnb for cars.