Driverless Taco, yay or nay?

Buses carry a lot more people in roughly the same footprint as a truck hauling a trailer. Also, like life, these aren't "one-size-fits-all" propositions. It depends on the routes and traffic patterns and populations and the way the built environment is engineered. If everyone took the bus there would be more buses, buses of different sizes, different types of routes, different lane designations, etc. Think about it. "Buses for all/most" might work fine in a superdense city that was planned appropriately with ring roads and the like. It might improve an otherwise congested 7-lane-each-way freeway by moving people to a much more efficient method of mass transit. Traffic engineers will tell you that you really can't go much above six or seven lanes at some point because of the way humans drive and react and change lanes. It might not make sense for any place in North Dakota. It might not work anywhere in Nebraska. But it might work just fine in a superdense metro area like NYC or LA or SF.

 

A lot of overblown nonsense.

Driving a vehicle on a public road is probably one of the most tightly-regulated activities any of us could reasonably engage in as it is. Between licensing, traffic laws, and vehicle safety standards the laws that come into effect when you are on a public road are nearly endless.

Anybody who isn't a chicken little Luddite knows that mandatory 100% driverless vehicles isn't going to be a thing, at least in our lifetime. However, technology is always advancing. How many here were alive before cruise control was even a thing? Now we have adaptive cruise control, lane assist, collision sensors, etc. There obviously isn't even enough of a market for 100% driverless vehicles to be more than a niche product for decades.

An 'autopilot' selectable mode of some iteration is inevitable. I highly, highly doubt there will ever be a mass-market for 100% zero-input driverless version, much less some future dystopia where everybody's 'vehicular freedom' is taken away.

But having done 13+ hour long road trips I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords.

 

Can I get one with a MT?

 

Something tells me the typical Tacoma owner is the person who always likes to drive- not the "car is just a mode of transportation" type of passenger or vehicle operator.

 

Anyone that doesn’t like to drive should take the bus.

 

I'm down, I have toy I can drive on the weekends to satisfy my craving to be in control. I could accomplish a lot on my commute to work every day.

 

Damn dude, went all iRobot Will Smith "robots only make cold calculated decisions, all blinky lights and no heart" there. A very true point indeed.

If they removed the ability for manual driving and criminals kept manual cars, could the cops never catch them because the cops would be in driverless cars too? "Hey Siri, run that mutha chugga down, ignore all road laws". XD

 

I'm not sure if it's going to happen in 10 years or 10 decades, but it's going to happen.

I'm all for it, get all the dum-dums out from behind the wheel and make it so those of us who want to drive manually will have to pass a training course as rigorous as a commercial pilot goes through.

 

Siri: “GTFO....I ain’t nobody’s bitch”

 

Elon said there would be a million driverless taxis on the road by 2021. There are currently zero.

I live in the Silicon Valley and I used to see driverless R&D vehicles(with drivers of course) on the road everyday. I don’t see them that often anymore. I think the R&D effort on driverless vehicles has slowed down.


It’s probably a lot further in future than what previously thought.

 

I enjoy driving

 

Lol

 

Billions already invested into autonomous vehicles. Big companies like Volvo, Chrysler, Uber are heavily invested.

The sad part IMO is the trucking industry. They already have self driving 18 wheelers. Machines don't need health care, pension, disability. Robots don't complain, get injured, need breaks.

Damn machines, they're takin' our Jobs!

 

Wow so I can have the bus drop me off exactly when I want at the time I want? I can have all the other people kicked off? Play my own music? Shit, I was about have an uber pick me up and take me to a bar, but hey let me hop in my metro and have it drive me around town after I fill it up.

 

I will need to give up driving within the next 20 years or so. Hoping they'll have the technology down by then.

I saw my dad have to give up driving and lose his independence and it sucks.

 

Most subtle MT vs AT bait of all time. You're a true master.

I don't know. It would be kind of sweet to have auto pilot sometimes. I want an autonomous MT. Make that computer work, dammit.

 

Yeah......do the accumulator delete mod so the computer enjoys the more responsive clutch pedal. Makes sense.

 

I think the ECU also deserves a delrin/titanium shift knob from @7r41lbr34k3r

Do robots dream of grippy, nicely weighted shifters?

 

Pretty sure they do.

 

I did driverless vehicle controls for ten years. But grade-separated alignments, not on the street. The marketing is way ahead of the engineering on driverless cars, and is actually getting people killed. The marketeers should be shot and pissed on. It's at least 20 years out.

Some of the problem has to do with the lower standards for any type of software. People will accept software defects that they would never accept in true engineering fields.