Electric, driverless shuttles with no steering wheel and no brake pedal are now operating in Las Vegas.
There’s a new thrill on the streets of downtown Las Vegas, where high- and low-rollers alike are climbing aboard what officials call the first driverless electric shuttle operating on a public U.S. street.
The oval-shaped shuttle began running Tuesday as part of a 10-day pilot program, carrying up to 12 passengers for free along a short stretch of the Fremont Street East entertainment district.
The vehicle has a human attendant and computer monitor, but no steering wheel and no brake pedals. Passengers push a button at a marked stop to board it.
The shuttle uses GPS, electronic curb sensors and other technology, and doesn’t require lane lines to make its way.
“The ride was smooth. It’s clean and quiet and seats comfortably,” said Mayor Carolyn Goodman, who was among the first public officials to hop a ride on the vehicle developed by the French company Navya and dubbed Arma.
“I see a huge future for it once they get the technology synchronized,” the mayor said Friday.
The top speed of the shuttle is 25 mph, but it’s running about 15 mph during the trial, Navya spokesman Martin Higgins said.
Higgins called it “100 percent autonomous on a programmed route.”
“If a person or a dog were to run in front of it, it would stop,” he said.
Higgins said it’s the company’s first test of the shuttle on a public street in the U.S. A similar shuttle began testing in December at a simulated city environment at a University of Michigan research center.
The vehicle being used in public was shown earlier at the giant CES gadget show just off the Las Vegas Strip.
Las Vegas city community development chief Jorge Cervantes said plans call for installing transmitters at the Fremont Street intersections to communicate red-light and green-light status to the shuttle.
He said the city hopes to deploy several autonomous shuttle vehicles — by Navya or another company — later this year for a downtown loop with stops at shopping spots, restaurants, performance venues, museums, a hospital and City Hall.
At a cost estimated at $10,000 a month, Cervantes said the vehicle could be cost-efficient compared with a single bus and driver costing perhaps $1 million a year.
The company said it has shuttles in use in France, Australia, Switzerland and other countries that have carried more than 100,000 passengers in more than a year of service.
Don’t Worry Tax Drivers
Don’t worry taxi drivers because some of my readers say …
- This will never work
- There is no demand
- Technology cost will be too high
- Insurance cost will be too high
- The unions will not allow it
- It will not be reliable
- Vehicles will be stolen
- It cannot handle snow, ice, or any adverse weather.
- It cannot handle dogs, kids, or 80-year old men on roller skates who will suddenly veer into traffic causing a clusterfack that will last days.
- This is just a test, and testing will never stop.
Real World Analysis
Those in the real world expect millions of long haul truck driving jobs will vanish by 2020-2022 and massive numbers of taxi job losses will happen simultaneously or soon thereafter.
Yes, I bumped up my timeline by two years (from 2022-2024 to 2020-2022) for this sequence of events.
My new timeline is not all tremendously optimistic given the rapid changes we have seen.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Savage!
Mish.
In your list.
It will be hacked.
And be used hurt or kill someone.
how many times per year will that happen ?
bet less than 33,000.
human drivers kill 33,000 Americans every year
Terrorism kills a lot fewer people than the flu. Bet which of the two scares people more?
which of the two should scare people more? I vote for traffic accidents. Political leadership should too, but it’s too tempting to use terrorism to rile up their voters.
…depends on where you live…
Do they still have rickshaws in NY City, or did deBlasio out law them?
Driverless tuktuks !
http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-media/86/123986-004-6964DEE6.jpg
Would just love to see what happens.
We do not allow random air travel in congested areas. I have a hard time imagining how self driving cars will successfully integrate with human drivers. We see lots of cars on the road that are twenty years old and older. These are pretty inexpensive vehicles and I would think it will take considerable time to cycle all of them out….unless we have another “cash for clunkers” where the taxpayers fund their replacement…as well as the new technology.
As an aside, I can’t help but wonder what future generation’s skill sets will be. We used to be a people who knew how to grow our own food and prepare it, and we also knew how to work on our “technology” or at least understand its principles, but it sure looks to me we will be a culture that has very few skills beyond the ability to know who to side with to sustain their dependencies. We used to see someone who couldn’t drive as being disabled.
17 million light vehicles sold last year in US,
even at a 15% market share, SD vehicles will add 2 1/2 million per year.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/robots-eu-vote-electronic-persons-european-union-ai-artificial-intelligence-a7527106.html
…it’s supposed to set us free. Millions of years of evolution, around us all the other critters get by without a shrug, as we once did….if we need to invent something it must be a world without war first, where people are truly free to pursue their own ideals and intuitions. Then we will see exactly how the priorities align. For now the promise of peace by domination and freedom by subservience are what seem to be on offer.
“I would think it will take considerable time to cycle all of them out…”
True. People are not just going to dump a working vehicle. When it’s time to get rid of a car, owners may use a driverless taxis during the interim, find they like it and not bother getting a car. That will probably take a decade of two for most cars.
You’re really comparing cars to an airplane traveling hundreds of miles an hour in a manner in which survival is an either/or proposition (e.g there are no fender benders – you either survive or crash and die)?
So the driver is now the attendant.
Will we need a licence to become, err… attendants?
The burden of proof is on the driverless vehicle supporters to show us that these vehicles are a safe mode of transportation when used under normal and adverse traffic conditions without a “human attendant” when rolled out on a widespread basis. To date. you haven’t come close to proving your case. The routine use of driverless vehicles is as far off into the future as the retail sales of personal spaceships to the moon.
The only reason I was holding off on commissioning my private spaceship to the moon was because they refused to let me drive!
Mr. Madash
My I tempt you with our model X17-g ?
We run a full private tuition scheme for nervous passengers that upgrades their status to 3 Star Attendant , guaranteeing both a forward position and direct access to the ejection seat lever.
Think about it, or we will decide for you.
U. Fizoff
Marketing Manager,
Expulsion Propulsion Enterprise Inc.
There was and never is a safe mode of transportation, as soon as you board a car/bus/tram/train you put your life in the hands of a few thousand person (all stages from design,assembly,operation and maintenance), and you know what? Most of the mistake are caused by human, given the choice, i would take my chances with less human intervention
(i would move to a country and become a self sustaining farmer)
No one’s forcing you to use them LF. Not sure the legislators or manufacturers or end users are going to care about your burden of proof requirement. Haven’t seen one article where a legislator is quoted as being skeptical or pessimistic. This is a full-speed ahead, green lighted project authorized by every entity involved.
http://0.media.collegehumor.cvcdn.com/18/61/df86abf3bdc15761b03092bfd757429e.jpg
Is that a baby picture of Jack Ma?
@james greenberg — “Haven’t seen one article where a legislator is quoted as being skeptical or pessimistic.”
Actually, your warped version of mecca, San Francisco, banned Uber’s driverless vehicles only a few weeks ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/technology/san-francisco-california-uber-driverless-car-.html
Try to pay better attention
‘”Uber, which defied state regulators who said the service was illegal…”
OK, Uber broke the law. But just because it hasn’t been made legal in California (and I believe the objection was because those vehicles didn’t have an attendant) doesn’t mean it won’t happen and right soon.
@james greenberg — “Haven’t seen one article where a legislator is quoted as being skeptical or pessimistic.”
James, you made a demonstrably FALSE claim. Regulators were skeptical, and indeed filed an injunction to FORCE Uber to stop their tests…. its right there in the snipet. You were wrong, wrong wrong. That is why your criminal candidate lost the election, because you think you can change the meaning of basic words. You are a liar, just like Hilary.
PS — the problem in San Fran was that the cars ran several red lights and got caught by red light ticket cameras. Try reading next time
What the heck good is a driverless car that requires a “human attendant”, James?
If a driverless car needs a human attendant to monitor for malfunctions it’s as worthless as mammary glands on a bull moose.
The inherent purpose of the driverless car is to ELIMINATE the human element in the operation the vehicle.
Wake me up when one of these driverless guided missiles makes it from California to New York without an accident or, God forbid, a loss of human life.
Until then, it’s all noize……
Expect to be woken up with a big BANG in about 1-2 years
Please send us an alert when you are finally awake
Already the list of errors of all kinds is compiling itself. I don’t think people want to wake up to driverless robots smashing up their surroundings. If you think the error will be pinned on the driver as per
http://bgr.com/2016/05/11/tesla-model-s-summon-crash/
each time ( many other similar) then I don’t think you understand something, even if he did not program the vehicle correctly.
James’ apologist stance that it is as bad or worse with human drivers is simply a false aggregate of how the world works as you will never be able to empirically blame any incident on there being or not being self driving to those involved.
That said, you can be sure that errors directly related to self driving will be bannered by the public as proof that the concept is flawed over traditional driving. Think about that. Instead of various individually attributable human errors, you end up with all self driving errors gathered under one heading, ‘Driverless Cars’.
Mish, you seem pretty certain that a driverless car (without a human attendant) will power across the United States in 1-2 years.
Are you willing to risk a bet on that like you did on the Presidential election?
I suspect you’d have lots of takers.
Depends. There is a model for truck convoy with one driver in the front truck and other trucks following at a distance no other car can fit between, with no drivers. The followers are intelligent so if the front driver screws up they are safe. Could be safer than each truck having a human.
AI + human = better than human or AI.
I will be impressed when they go without any attendant. Until then, it is just semantics and a job description. They have had airplanes capable of being landed and controlled by autopilots for 30 years. I know, since I worked on them. Work load has gone up, not down. They now need two pilots and more ground crew to keep them flying.
Even in trains, they rarely go without using attendants. The ones that do are special (Category 4) and are being controlled by a central computer, similar to air traffic control with airplanes and operating on special routes. If one train fails, they can easily shut the whole network or track down. Try doing that with cars (even on just one street) and see how happy people would be.
The difference is we now have 100x more engineers working on this problem. Computer technology is also 1000x better today. It is going to happen…
Today there are still continuous major problems maintaining highly restricted and regulated autonomous frameworks.
If you put enough resource into these frameworks, they will be significantly more robust.
Now you sound a bit like Keynesian economists, if only we would print enough money. Some times it does not matter how many resources you put into a project. If you would give cavemen 10 times the resources that were necessary to put a man on the moon at best you get cavemen with nice shiny knives and weird clothing, since that was the best they could do. At this stage, we may still be in need of several breakthroughs in the field of machine autonomy. And breakthroughs don’t happen just because you keep pouring the resources.
“….no steering wheel and no brake pedal…….”
Barack? Is that you?
This will happen in some cities. Chicago and other democratic strongholds under Union control will never allow it.
Don’t be silly. The democrats completely undermined unions with their illegal immigration stance and nobody did anything. Those deemed redundant by this new technology will become a new class of entitled NON workers.
Spot on. Bill and Hillary traded protection of American workers for protection of American banksters. And were rewarded handsomely.
I will never give up my Porsche 911 :)))))
Re #8 — Last I heard, Vegas doesn’t get much snow or ice on its streets. Its a desert, with very consistent weather and no water (the city continues to steal water rights from further and further away).
And this allegedly autonomous car isn’t very different from the monorail at Disneyland. It follows a pre-programmed route, drives really slow, has pre-determined stops, and it doesn’t take tourists into the seedy parts of town (where it would be stripped for parts in seconds). The people mover subway in Atlanta is pretty much the same thing too.
This car just brakes when it sees anything in its path. Otherwise, its a tram slowly following a pre-determined route in a protected part of the city, with no weather concerns at all.
Right now, its a novelty. Next week, some bratty kids will deliberately jump in front of it (at ever decreasing ranges) just to mess with it. And given the car’s size, if it stays out late or if it is running during a big sports event — it will get tipped over by a drunken crowd.
Lots of stories in the news lately of Amazon’s local “same day” delivery trucks being robbed (even with human drivers — who, at minimum wage, will not risk a fingernail to defend packages). This tiny little golf cart would be stripped to nothing in seconds if it traveled to the wrong parts of vegas — the human monitor would be sent home in his underpants if he’s lucky.
In Mish’s neck of the woods — Chicago’s “subway” (its above ground, double decker trains) on the south end got stuck in the snow / ice… passengers were stranded for hours. We are talking trains, on a track, in a city quite used to snow / ice.
I am sure there are places in the country where driverless technology makes sense, but Mish is telling us these things will be everywhere within three years. In winter, in NYC or Boston or Chicago? No way. Traversing round-a-bout’s around Boston and Washington DC? Nope again. In Michigan or upstate NY lake effect snow? Please.
One size doesn’t fit all, not even with ‘traditional’ vehicles / drivers. The sorts of driving conditions one sees in suburban CA are not the same as in San Francisco — as Uber’s driverless cars proved the hard way. They were very lucky they didn’t hit a pedestrian and end the company.
If bratty kids jump in front of driverless cars then there are 2 risks, either the hard breaking/swerving to avoid collision may injure passengers or the kid gets hit. I hope the system is programmed to give priority to the passengers and that the onboard monitors record that the punk was at fault. The punk should get no injury compensation, pay for his own hospital costs and should also pay for any damages to the car. That will soon end games of chicken.
Given your name, I am going to guess you are unfamiliar with the safe space, coloring book demanding US millennials that are supposedly “college educated”. And you seem not to have heard about the helicopter parents that spend tens of thousands on lawyers, college counselors, psychiatrists, etc — just to make sure the little brats never have to take responsibility for anything.
And then there are the kids from the wrong side of the tracks, with less education, who have little to lose playing chicken with a driver-less car. Disrupting the tourists is just a game, and if they happen to get hit by the car they become a nightmare for whatever casino (even if the taxi gimmick company doesn’t get sued).
I suspect the technology “see” the bratty kids. The sudden braking and swerving will disturb the passengers, who are riding in a marketing gimmick. There are lots of free shuttle buses up and down the Vegas strip, tourists don’t have to ride in the hi-tech braking / swerving mobile.
The debate about driverless cars is not just about the technology — there are many cultural road blocks as well. Tell the kid who’s taxi driver dad just lost his job that he shouldn’t reek havoc on tourists riding the driver-less novelty act. Tell the drunken mob not to overturn the toy car. Tell the bottom 99% of society they are not allowed to knock the thing over, and pick it clean of parts before the police get there (the police are going to prioritize risk to human life over risk of property damage).
While the driver-less novelty acts seem to do OK on perfectly paved roads with clearly painted lane lines — they don’t do well driving over grates.
No one has tried having these novelty acts drive on ice covered roads through a white out.
Driverless cars have a future in taxi services but anyone who buys one for personal use will be wasting his money. There will be no point in owning a car once you can hail a driverless cab with your cell phone any time without having to worry about insurance, maintenance, parking or the initial cost to buy or make payments. A driverless car will mean no driver fee or tip and it won’t be just for trips around town.
Mike work well in the urban areas. Not practical in flyover country
So if a family on vacation wants to drive along the winding roads of the California coastline with 300 foot cliffs you expect mom and dad to trust some stinking computer that operates the speed and steering mechanism of the vehicle along the way?
Why not just stay at home and play russian roulette for the cheap thrills?.
“So if a family on vacation wants to drive along the winding roads of the California coastline with 300 foot cliffs you expect mom and dad to trust some stinking computer that operates the speed and steering mechanism of the vehicle along the way?”
Very little of driving is for things like that but, a driverless car might actually be safer than having a human driver trying enjoy the view while he is negotiating a curve.
“…trust some stinking computer that operates the speed and steering mechanism of the vehicle along the way?”
If you trust these mechanisms (brakes, accelerator, steering wheel) to work, why shouldn’t you trust a computer?
Computers are quite capable of lifting off and landing large commercial aircraft too.
Would you fly on one that was pilotless and relied solely on the computer to safely get you to your chosen destination?
Airlines aircraft are pretty much computer operated now, especially when they are in the air or landing.
Couldn’t disagree more. I don’t want to wait for a driverless car to come pick me up. When I need to go somewhere, I want to go. That requires a personally owned vehicle.
“That requires a personally owned vehicle.”
You won’t really own your driverless car, Jon. The cops will have an electronic ‘key’ and will be able to take it away anytime.
Great point. I’ll have to brush up on my electronics sabotage skills.
I would like you to add three more bullet points to your list of ten.
11. There will not be enough qualified repairmen for the vehicles. It is not like changing a battery in a cell phone. Specialized factory courses cost a lot of money and time to attend. There aren’t enough good repairmen for aircraft now despite the good pay and working conditions. Think about what this means considering there are over 250 million vehicles in the USA and only about 220,000 aircraft. How many of the electronic repairmen will be fixing robotic hamburger machines?
12. Nobody ever died from a computer crash. Control Alt Delete won’t be good enough for a car. When something does go wrong, it will take too long for a repairman to get to the vehicle. The warranties, insurance and regulations will demand that the cars will need to be recertified before they can drive again.
13. See above. There will not be enough tow trucks for the vehicles, since in the case of safety, the vehicles will immediately be parked to the side of the road whenever something goes wrong.
This makes me think that I should invest in towing or electronic repair companies…..
FWIW, as someone who has bought old cars, fixed them up and driven them all my life, I think the cost alone rules driverless vehicles out for me.
Exactly.
I am on the road and insured for 1000$ all in, and not in some ruined piece of junk either, quite respectable vehicles that last well several years with minimal repairs during that time.
How would a driveless car do in this situation?
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/dashcam-driver-runs-into-a-california-flash-flood-and-manages-to-escape.16547/
not be dumb enough to try in the first place
human drivers are rather stupid and very dangerous. The kill 33,000 & maim 2,500,000 Americans every year
Or this?
or normal in many, many cities:
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2017/01/13/20170113_king_0.jpg
No steering wheel, no brakes…
A useless idiot with a God Complex.
Technology advances so quickly, it takes many people by surprise. Ten years ago, Apple came out with their first smartphone. Today 2 billion people use smartphones. Ten years from now, driverless vehicles will be commonplace and some people on this blog will still be denying their long term viability.
When my smartphone can levitate the newspaper off my driveway and float it through the front door over to my La-Z-boy you’ll make a believer out of me.
Well, I guess if people are out on a drunk they can get back home safely. There would be less DUI accidents. But I’d recommend that barf bags be a complimentary on driverless shuttle.
This is the reason your local police unions will fight the rollout of driverless vehicles tooth and nail – and win.
When’s the last time the legislators fought the police unions?
As long as the Russian hackers are running free, this idea will never fly. Gotta find those Russkies first😉
Check this out! New generation of drones set to revolutionize warfare http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-autonomous-drones-set-to-revolutionize-military-technology/
Staggered this was ever in doubt. London’s Docklands Light Railway has hasd driverless trains for over 20 yrs. I realise its on rails but technological advance was never going to go backward from there.
Wow! What will those amazing French people think of next! 🙂
Your list, it will be #5 that will slow or stop progress.
Very impressive. This is how things like this get going. They start small but then gradually have the vehicles do more things. At the same time more and more people have the experience of riding in driverless vehicles and before long they don’t think twice about riding in one. I suspect you will have to move up your timeline again.
Sent from my iPhone
What can possibly go wrong? I’ve seen estimates that driverless tech will cut traffic accidents by 90%. The problem is our entire tort bar is salivating over that 10%. Until we change our ridiculous legal system, I can’t see companies staying solvent long enough to get this going.
Hey Mish, keep writing these stories, the Luddite comments are some of the most entertaining on the entire internet! Technology professors will be quoting them in derision in twenty five years.
Like this?
https://www.amazon.com/Popular-Mechanics-Wonderful-Future-Never/dp/1588169758
The average person won’t feel comfortable with the technology in a couple of years. Assuming there is widespread deployment in the next five years (not a given), I will wait a couple of years for the bugs to be worked out. Surely there are many other skeptical people. Laws will not change on the drop of a dime for the benefit of the tech company, and Long-haul drivers will still be on the road in 10 years. Taxi drivers are getting killed by Uber/Lyft anyways, but there will still be taxis in 10 years in some capacity. Some people, such as myself, will continue to pay extra to hire a professional versus some weird Harry Potter millennial type in a purple Hyundai.
But I could be wrong. And that would be a great time to short the world.
The idea that driverless trucks will be more subject to looting is ridiculous.
The idea that drivers will be able to drive better in snow and ice is also ridiculous
The idea that kids, dogs, etc will stymie such vehicles is ridiculous
I am going to delete comments containing already refuted absurdities that
And please before you make yourself look ridiculous, …. think
Mish, comments allow us to calibrate the commenter. Please don’t censor them.
Every time it snows I see several cars in the ditch and collisions. Every single time. Robots will do a better job but the Luddites will scream about safety concerns for any collisions, even if a human driver collides with an autonomous car.
At least that’s my theory. Now if one of these autonomous vehicles could just get in an accident for crying out loud. How many more million miles do these robots have to drive before they get into an accident? I’m tired of waiting!
Actual statistics on collision rates is all that will matter to insurance companies. The privilege of driving will eventually be reserved for those wealthy enough to afford the insurance.
Yeah… this will never happen… ever… NOT!
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/13/cnbc-took-bmws-new-self-driving-car-out-for-a-spin-heres-what-it-was-like.html
Driverless cars will need finer control then just going to a final destination address. What if you want to wander around your neighborhood to find your lost dog? What if you want your route home from work to go by your ex-girlfriends house to see who is parked in her driveway?