Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

techspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 146 posts

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#51

Post by dannyr »

grogenaut wrote: post #13
TIJ wrote: post #5

I am closely following the development of self driving cars specially at google and i can assure everyone of its sophistication that it's the best driver you can get for your car. I know you all would be aware of the fact but i want to take this opportunity to state that is has covered thousands of miles without a single accident isn't that an extraordinary achievement for a car without a driver(but a computer instea…

so in all of those thousands of miles no one has rear ended the cars? Also call me when they get to tens of millions of miles, eg what's driven every day in the US.

Number of miles don't matter much if the driving conditions are similar.

I'd rather have them say, we can encountered 100,000 different conditions (and combinations) and we know how to react to them.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#52

Post by toomuchtodo »

tdyo wrote: post #10
mistercow wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shhh, if the auto industry, public transit industry, and car rental industry hear you, they might band together and try to stop it from happening.

Someone still has to build them. And buy them.

Like airlines. Few own a private plane, but airlines front the capital and operations, just like mobility companies of tomorrow will be the bulk of self-driving car purchasers.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#53

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jrs99 wrote: post #35
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, think of the impact in congested and developing countries: in Beijing, there is nowhere else to build roads, yet the number of cars keeps increasing. Going all self-driving in the entire city would increase road bandwidth substantially. Not to mention the problem of people flaunting traffic rules and etiquette and causing backups as a result. This is going to be much bigger for the rest of the world than in the…

taxis won't need drivers to go back, so you could probably take a taxi from manhattan to like the middle of connecticut, which would be awesome.

Also, you could take a train and a self drive taxi would efficiently handle getting you to and from the train station. This is a huge enabler for public transit that can focus on more efficient high capacity routes.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#54

Post by vincie »

mmanfrin wrote: post #2

I am really excited for the possible future of self-driving electric taxis. All the pieces kind of fit together: you can use an app to dispatch and gauge number of fleet vehicles to put out (Google just bought a huge stake in Uber), self-driving cabs can return themselves for a recharge when low on batter and another vehicle can replace it instantly, the amount of cars on the road can scale with demand fluidly. There…

Go all the way! Tune the traffic signals preferentially for these electric taxis. Configure them to pick up multiple fares going the same direction. To use train tracks for long distance.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#55

Post by cylinder »

jrs99 wrote: post #31
mmanfrin wrote: post #2

I am really excited for the possible future of self-driving electric taxis. All the pieces kind of fit together: you can use an app to dispatch and gauge number of fleet vehicles to put out (Google just bought a huge stake in Uber), self-driving cabs can return themselves for a recharge when low on batter and another vehicle can replace it instantly, the amount of cars on the road can scale with demand fluidly. There…

There would never be a need for a car in the suburbs. If i had an app that would just bring me a car and be ready at an exact time right in front of my house, bring me to a store and leave, and when twenty minutes before I'm done shopping I order another taxi to be ready for me outside the store, not need to go to the DMV or any auto shop, that would be a huge win for the suburbs.

Being driverless doesn't mean this kind of thing is necessarily going to be economically viable. You need density to optimize taxi operation and keep it affordable. There would need to be a lot of taxis driving themselves around for them to be so readily available in this kind of setting, and for that you need widespread adoption.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#56

Post by tempestn »

mistercow wrote: post #3

And perversely, if accidents happened one tenth as often, they'd become news, and people would think they were more common and dangerous than they do now. The question is whether we can get to a point of no return with self-driving cars before that effect takes hold.

Unfortunately this is true, much like all the news about the Model S fire. Plus many people have an inherent distrust of technology. I would go so far as to think many people would see an accident caused by an autonomous vehicle to be somehow worse than a "normal" accident.

That said, it does seem inevitable; just a matter of time (perhaps a lot of it).

Finally, I suspect it will be necessary (more for PR than technical reasons) to require a capable driver ready to take over in case the autopilot were to fail, much like with commercial airliners, at least during the initial adoption period. And if so, it also seems inevitable that the majority of crashes ostensibly caused by these vehicles will in fact be due to drivers taking control and making poor decisions at inopportune times. You know when people complain about GPS because it led them astray, but it turns out the real problem was they didn't trust it in the first place, so ignored its directions?

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#57

Post by clarky07 »

nick2 wrote: post #20
mistercow wrote: post #3

And perversely, if accidents happened one tenth as often, they'd become news, and people would think they were more common and dangerous than they do now. The question is whether we can get to a point of no return with self-driving cars before that effect takes hold.

This will be taken care of by insurance companies. If the data is there to show that automatic cars are involved in a lot less accidents than regular cars, the insurance premium will be prohibitively expensive for non-automatic cars. Only rich folks will be able to drive.

why would premiums be higher than they are now? Premiums for automatic should be lower. No reason for current premiums to go up. With all other automatic cars on the road, even a man driven car is less likely to be in an accident than currently. Premiums all around should go down.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#58

Post by tempestn »

mden wrote: post #50
nick2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will be taken care of by insurance companies. If the data is there to show that automatic cars are involved in a lot less accidents than regular cars, the insurance premium will be prohibitively expensive for non-automatic cars. Only rich folks will be able to drive.

Why would the premium be higher than what it is right now?

Yes, more likely it would be lower for the autonomous vehicles once their enhanced safety was proven, as opposed to higher for other vehicles.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#59

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mden wrote: post #50
nick2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will be taken care of by insurance companies. If the data is there to show that automatic cars are involved in a lot less accidents than regular cars, the insurance premium will be prohibitively expensive for non-automatic cars. Only rich folks will be able to drive.

Why would the premium be higher than what it is right now?

Your risk pool becomes much smaller.
Post reply on HN