It appears my allegedly optimistic path for self-driving vehicles on the roads by 2020 may not have been optimistic enough.
Tests of self-driving taxis will take place within a year in a deal between GM and Lyft.
In a second deal, Chrysler and Google have teamed up on a self-driving minivan.
In Germany, self-driving trains will interconnect with self-driving autos to form self-driving door-to-door networks.
Self-Driving Electric Taxis Coming Up
The Wall Street Journal reports GM, Lyft Test Self-Driving Electric Taxis.
General Motors Co. and Lyft Inc. within a year will begin testing a fleet of self-driving Chevrolet Bolt electric taxis on public roads, a move central to the companies’ joint efforts to challenge Silicon Valley giants in the battle to reshape the auto industry.
The plan is being hatched a few months after GM invested $500 million in Lyft, a ride-hailing company whose services rival Uber Technologies Inc. The program will rely on technology being acquired as part of GM’s separate $1 billion planned purchase of San Francisco-based Cruise Automation Inc., a developer of autonomous-driving technology.
Details of the autonomous-taxi testing program are still being worked out, according to a Lyft executive, but it will include customers in a yet-to-be disclosed city. Customers will have the opportunity to opt in or out of the pilot when hailing a Lyft car from the company’s mobile app.
In addition to driverless cars, GM aims to use Lyft and its growing army of drivers as a primary customer for the Bolt, an electric car that launches later this year amid soft demand for electric vehicles.
The new effort is directed mostly at challenging Alphabet and Uber. The Google self-driving car program has gained a sizable lead over conventional auto makers via testing in California and other states, and it received an additional boost this week through a minivan-supply agreement with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV. Uber, much bigger than Lyft, has its own self-driving research center in Pittsburgh and is preparing to usher autonomous vehicles in to its fleet by 2020.
In an effort to ease regulatory concerns, Lyft will start with autonomous cars that have drivers in the cockpit ready to intervene—but the driver is expected to eventually be obsolete.
“Much Faster Than Expected”
Scientific American reports Self-Driving Taxis May Hit the Road within a Year
“It’s much faster than I had expected,” said Jeffery Greenblatt, an energy researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and an author of that paper, about the testing timeline proposed by Lyft. “I had said 2030, and here we are already with companies jumping in to be first ones.
“It shows that there is a strong business case,” he added. “I hope that pans out in testing and that they are as useful and low carbon as we estimated that they are.”
A General Motors spokesperson would not divulge additional details but wrote in an email that “GM continues to make progress on our previously announced plans related to an integrated on-demand autonomous network with Lyft. Similarly, we have said the Chevrolet Bolt EV is the ideal platform for ride sharing solutions. We believe electrification blends perfectly with autonomy when it comes to technology integration.”
Google, Chrysler Team Up on Minivans
Gizmodo reports Google’s Next Futuristic Self-Driving Car Is a Chrysler Minivan.
After months (and months and months) of rumors, including one rumor that it was partnering with Ford, Google’s self-driving car is going into manufacturing mode, with a new prototype based on the Chrysler Pacifica minivan. But hold the grocery-getter jokes, please. An autonomous minivan is exactly what Google should be making.
Google announced the partnership today, along with several reasons why a Fiat Chrysler partnership make sense.
“FCA will design the minivans so it’s easy for us to install our self-driving systems, including the computers that hold our self-driving software, and the sensors that enable our software to see what’s on the road around the vehicle. The minivan design also gives us an opportunity to test a larger vehicle that could be easier for passengers to enter and exit, particularly with features like hands-free sliding doors.”
This decision to go with this kind of vehicle emphasizes the goal that’s always been behind Google’s self-driving car project: It will allow unprecedented independence for people who are blind, deaf, and disabled. A minivan can be easily adapted for wheelchairs and other assistive devices that will help people to get in and out of the vehicle easily.
But there’s also another important benefit to a minivan: More seats means that these autonomous vehicles can be easily shared, allowing them to function more like public transportation. There’s a reason that Elon Musk hinted about developing some kind of autonomous bus. Self-driving shared vehicles are the future.
Self-Driving Railroad Network
Also consider Germany Will Add Self-Driving Vehicles to Its Railroad Network.
Deutsche Bahn, the German government-owned rail system that manages travel throughout the country, is planning to add autonomous vehicles to its system with the goal of offering seamless door-to-door transit.
As Deutsche Bahn’s CEO Reedier Grube explained to the German publication WirtschaftsWoche, the system already markets trains as a good alternative to driving because they help passengers use time more effectively. “If in the future autonomous cars can do this, then the operators of these cars can claim the same about their services. That’s why we will have to add autonomously driving cars to our offering.”
The railway operator has been discussing using self-driving cars internally for some time. A strategy document for Deutsche Bahn touts the importance of “multimodal mobility” and “end-to-end service,” and it specifically points to autonomous vehicles as part of an “integrated land transport system.”
Self-Driving Train
Millions of Driver Jobs Will Vanish
Over the past few years I have received hundreds of emails from readers telling me that I was wrong. Some thought this would never happen, others suggested 2030 or 2050.
I am sticking with my assessment of 2020 as a key launch date. That’s when regulations, rules and kinks will all be worked out. It could be sooner. By 2024 at the latest, millions of taxi, bus, and truck driving jobs will vanish.
Greenhouse Emissions
By the way, please note that the free market, not politicians are taking care of the alleged greenhouse gas emissions problem quite nicely.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Expect a sweetheart law in congress to make it impossible to sue the auto manufacturer when the self driving vehicle runs over your kid. Just like the pharmaceutical industry got to protect it from fast track medicines and vaccines pushed through the FDA without proper testing.
Would be as great a development as self driving cars themselves, if that came to bear. Total cost to the economy, and country, of drivers, pale in comparison to the costs associated with keeping the ambulance chasers living in splendor on productive people’s dime.
The correct way to handle civil lawsuits in this, as well as any other venue, is to allow civil suits in exactly two circumstances:
1) In a dispute over a specific, voluntarily agreed upon contract. That;s the purpose of civil courts to begin with.
2) AFTER the defendant has first been found guilty of a crime, in a criminal court. The current ambulance chasing practice of assigning “blame” to someone while circumventing criminal beyond reasonable doubt proof standards, is nothing but a travesty of justice. If whatever someone did, isn’t grave enough to bother going through the proper channels, it’s not grave enough to allow a gaggle of leeches to pick his pockets and suck his blood.
So, if the “ran the kid over” pass muster in a criminal court, go ahead and sue. Otherwise, learn to look after your kid, in a world that will never be risk free.
The defendant in this case would be the government department that authorised the transit of that autonomous vehicle , assuming the vehicle was unmodified and in the format that was licensed .
I’m sure they will go out of their way to make sure the concept is introduced with as few errors as possible , and I imagine that there will be a continuous recording of all data as well as visual that would be used to narrow down responsibility – after all , there is no driver there to explain what he did and why .
Can you say “Y2K”?
One is reminded of how the tech industry ramped up the lobbying efforts as the end of 1999 drew near. They wanted not so much to be sure that computers would not shut down due to Y2K, but to make damn certain their liability exposure would get minimized no matter if their malfunctioning software caused maximized damage.
Exactly. When you see a safe harbor law passed in Congress (probably unconstitutional, but who cares these days) or major States, then you will see a major rollout of autonomous vehicles. Whether anybody can make a profit on them, I don’t know…
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This can only be done with incredible government subsidy.
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It is well know without properly painted curbs and road lines
the vehicles have a difficult time…..
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You May Be Familiar with the NYC Pothole Company – required
notice for lawsuits ????.
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I think you will find it is a lot more complex – ESPECIALLY have you been to NYC
‘recently, all the bike lanes ????
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My Opinion
. IT WILL REALLY BE DIFFICULT IN NYC PEDESTRIANS CONSTANTLY
WALK AGAINST THE LIGHTS AND YOU HAVE TO MANEUVER
BETWEEN THEM.
The coMPUTER WILL See a not acceptable risk while the experienced
NYC driver will inch forward and give hand signals or yell.
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].MISH Please Tell Me For Example What Will happen IN a Snow Storm
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in NYC where all the lines are covered up with snow and ice ???.
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What shall they do, have driverless taxi in good weather and have
driver at the ready in bad ????.
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.Go through the mid town tunnel where neither radio, satellite, GPS works ????.
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.They still cannot hear a fire siren approaching or know where it is coming from
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Nor can they see a crossing guard issue hand signals, or hear a police
officer giving verbal cues over radio or bullhorn..
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It is a ways off, you will have to have a driver at the ready to take
over for many years. The technology is great, but not that great.
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And again, it will require tremendous government subsidy
In Street Painting and Repair, Plowing etc…..
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The worse the weather the better the performance of automated technology over human drivers.
Period.
Mish
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.ALSO Please know these car companies have been coming out
with Great Ideas that Go Nowhere for many years.
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EXAMPLE – Start Stop/
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Every car would have the feature, it would stop your car and then
automatically start it, in say bumper to bumper traffic, and at a stop light.
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You would save tons of gas, and the emissions too.
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. 5 years ago this was All The Rage, Everyone Was Doing it
It would be on Every Car Today.
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Guess what, no one wanted it to begin with, we all want to heat our cars
in the winter before we get in and we want to AC them in summer before we get in.
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A couple of idiots like GM will push for it and blow US Taxpayer money in doing so
it is strictly a means to a grant from the US Gov for them – rest assured that is all
they are after..
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Self driving cars to where? What a grand idea… the private individual has to buy his/her own public transportation. “Oh, let’s take a drive in the country…”
“NO YOU DON’T, WE WILL CONTROL YOUR EVERY MOVE, YOU ARE OUR TAX CATTLE AND YOU WILL ONLY GO WHERE WE ALLOW YOU TO”.
A generation or two and people won’t know how to , or won’t want to , drive themselves , at which point they won’t have experienced the previous sense of freedom to compare their new reality to .
It’s genius, that’s what it is. The work of a mad, diabolical genius.
It would be nice to travel if you knew where you were going and where you would live at the end or do we ever know, do we ever live where we live, we’re always in other places, lost, like sheep.
Janet Frame
Common Core will eliminate that. Millennials can’t do anything without their tax-cattle iphones. I wonder just how dumbed down the next generation will be with Common Core.
Give a kid (or many adults) a manual transmission and watch what happens:
What kind of weapons systems will those self-driving trucks have? You know they will need them to defend against unemployed truck drivers shooting bullets at their tires or firing rockets at their engines from the overpasses…
Just imagine the freight waiting to be sabotaged. All savings from driver wages will go to pay runaway insurance premiums.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
Are you really saying it will not be an issue? What if the truck drivers remain out of work for a long period of time? Do you expect them to slowly waste away and die?
If people are reduced to a state where they have nothing to lose, they lose it.
Mish… you and I have been talking about this for what… a year or two now??? This is a life change event which will decentralize the mode of transportation. The need to own a car outright will be done. You will order a car when you need to go somewhere and it will be there before you have time to get outside your front door. The total cost for this convenience will be far less then your total cost to own a car and it will be much safe then driving your own… the market will drive this faster then anything we’ve seen in the last 30 years because it’s the next major change in how society operates.
How will it be there before you get to the street if there are not as many vehicles as now? Why will it be cheaper? Will it still not have the same ownership and maintenance costs, the same taxes and fees.
It’s like hiring a prostitute versus obtaining a spouse. It’s a rental (or a timeshare), and those costs are distributed among the users.
Well, like prostitutes during a political convention, surge pricing will help control demand. There are plenty of vehicles sitting in driveways, even during rush hour.
The downside is that the service vehicles will eventually start too resemble other forms of public transportation. Either extremely low maintenance, downright ugly devices like city busses, or terrible cramped utilitarian passenger compartments, much like airliners. Sure, you’ll be able to pay up for a premium product, with comfortable seating and such, but because everyone is so price sensitive it will likely be 10X or more, with extremely limited availability, just like first class.
You’ve only thought through THE ONE CASE where someone only runs occasional errands.
I am about to load up the car with camping/fishing gear to spend a few weeks wandering coast lines, lakes and rivers. The self driving car won’t even be able to find these places, let alone navigate a secondary road.
How about commuting in a city. Everyone needs a car at the same time. And don’t tell me about sharing vans, because that exists with buses today, and you need to budget an extra hour a day sitting in them.
I guess Mish is right, IN A LIMITED WAY. Self driving cars will be here within the decade. But they will not meet the full needs of drivers everywhere. As taxis within a well defined urban area they may be perfect. Same for long haul trucking on well defined freeways. But it will be a VERY LONG TIME before this completely replaces human drivers.
So keep your pickup. Keep it in the garage for when you take your fishing trip. Keep it for 20 years with minimal wear and tear.
Put the daily miles on a self-driving “rental.”
So in the future no need to drive oneself, no need for a driving license, can sleep while been transported wherever the destination is and so on.
I’d like that. Nowadays I have to drive myself and it is always rather tiresome ordeal. A nice nap on the car bench or I could just watch the scenery or do some work with my laptop.
Nice. I wouldn’t mind a such vehicle. Although, I see much unemployment coming ahead, No need for truck drivers, taxi drivers or traffic police for that matter. Society will change due to this automation to the extent that we might not recognize it anymore.
And finally the Formula 1 and other rally competitions will become battle between car computers and engineers. Why bother with actual drivers?
Formula 1 – no driver no design restriction. It will be much more efficient as they won’t need tracks longer than to the first curve.
I’ll be thinking of you Samijr, asleep at 100 mph and at the complete mercy of a computer… and don’t even think of trying to fix it while underway.
A headline we will have to wait for ‘ Taxi wrecked as passenger tries to steal onboard pilot’
LOL ;D
I’m in Thailand at the moment and there was an announcement that they will start building a high-speed railway. Not sure when since that is what they have been telling for a long time.
But as any new innovation in this part of the world, I would not dare to get on board before it has been well-established and running a few years.
Same applies to computer driven cars or any other vehicles. I am not very trusting of automation. My brother is an automation engineer and is flown allover the globe when something goes awry. He tells me that there needs to be just a plug or something in complex system to things to go wrong…very wrong.
But, I never say never. I am a bit conservative but not against change in principle. When it becomes the norm, well-tested and reliable, I’ll be on it.
At least with rail one of the parameters is mostly sorted out, i.e. direction, and there is not likely to be traffic etc.! Even so, the details are very peculiar. For example they have trouble with two inch gravel used as ballast on the rails being aspirated by the low pressure under the trains at high speed, or the latest high speed link in Saudi is proving harder than imagined because the desert doesn’t stay in the same place ( it won’t even listen to the engineers!) .
It is amazing that the current systems are as reliable as they are, but it would not take too much to change that appearance… there is a lot of room for problems due to their complexity and the complexities they are designed to deal with.
There are advantages and drawbacks in all these changes obviously, but if they prove workable I think in the end we won’t be left with much choice. I just hope they don’t try to phase out normal cars, but eventually I imagine that the flow of traffic will become so automated and precisely pre-planned that there will be no room for people to amble around in their cars at will.
What unemployment? All the driver jobs lost will be replaced by security guards. Imagine the new crime with driverless vehicles.
Order up a taxi and lift it right into a shipping container or chop shop.
Hijack a truck shipment by putting a baby shaped dummy in the road.
Cause miles of gridlock by putting “baby” in a busy intersection.
Mud or spray paint over a sensor = disabled vehicle.
Computer hacker means I hope you can swim (or fly).
— Good luck, suckers who buy this.
Teenagers will become officially useless, with no driving skills either….
Rome is burning, and we are worried about self driving bumper cars?
I live in Silicon Valley. Every evening I drove home from my volunteer site at about 9:30 p.m.. Nearly every evening I see a self-driving car on the road near me; there are loads of them around here. Almost every time I see one, it is driving in a way that is stupid, dangerous, rude, or some combo of those things. Driving at a speed that does not resemble the speed of nearby cars is typical. Moving in and out of lanes and turning off the road with startling jerkiness that disconcerts other drivers is typical. Sitting and blocking a left turn lane, when they should move forward so others could enter the lane, is not unusual.
They have a long way to go.
driving the speed limit is dangerous ?
I haven’t had an accident in twenty five years. Robots are not that good. I’ll renew my license for another six years.
I haven’t had an accident in twenty five years. Robots are not that good. I’ll renew my license for another six years.
Ridiculous analogy
Robots likely better then most – even you.
But yes, you will still need a license for 6 years
Mish,
Here is my prediction on adoption
First – Off Road Work Vehicles in capital intensive industries such as mining & farming -2017
Second – Long Haul Trucking superhighway only with ‘last mile’ by human.-2018
Third – Vehicles for Hire (ie Taxis, Ride share) -2019
Fourth – My 80 year old mom. – 2020
Fifth – On city street deliveries from warehouse to stores & and long haul trucking point to point. 2021
To be sure, by 2025 there will be very widespread adoption. Between 2020 & 2025, 1/2 of the motor vehicle fleet will ‘turn over’ – 25-75% of the new vehicles will be self driving. Rough guesstimate, by 2025 – 10 million to 30 million self driving vehicles on roads.
“…the system already markets trains as a good alternative to driving because they help passengers use time more effectively.” For years I put up with a crappy public transportation system in St. Louis, MO for this very reason. I literally read hundreds of books that I would have never read had I driven to work. Self driving vehicles are a boon for anyone with a curious or creative mind.
Rather than attempt auto-cars from driving in complicated and busy urban surroundings shouldn’t they first safely operate them in NASCAR, NHRA, trains, and airplanes where the traffic and complexity of the surrounding environment and guidance requirements create less accident potential?
Motels are in trouble too. No need to to book a motel room for a quick rendezvous 🙂
Yay Luddites! Goddamn you Luddites are so mindbogglingly idiotic. With you around it’s a miracle mankind domesticated fire. “Ooo it’s so HOT!” “Oh me oh my it’s so dangerous!” “Heavens to Mergatroid it will never catch on!” “Me myself I like my food raw and cold like it’s always been!”
All Luddites can go suck a BIG dick.