This is fantastic! The adoption could be very fast, e.g. if insurance companies give benefits if you drive a self-driving car.<p>One current roadblock is the price of the system: the LIDAR (the thing on the top of the car in the picture) retails for ~$75K currently. There should be significant volume to drive the price down. But a lot of people would buy them for prestige, too (e.g. many early Prius adopters), so if the cost of the system can be reduced to perhaps $4K-$5K levels people will seriously think about this.
Does anyone know how a self driving car would potentially handle scenarios like:<p>1. A traffic light being out and cop is directing traffic? (Would it have to learn hand gestures?)<p>2. Stopping at a guard booth.<p>3. Crossing a solid yellow line to pass a stopped car or a garbage truck?
I'm very glad to see that this is spreading. It would have been really annoying for Google to perfect their car and then have nowhere to drive it because of silly legislations. It wouldn't be the first time senators were afraid of change...
Previous discussions of earlier versions of the bill: in March: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3688267" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3688267</a>, and in May: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4010297" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4010297</a><p>Current bill text: <a href="http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_1251-1300/sb_1298_bill_20120824_amended_asm_v93.html" rel="nofollow">http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_1251-1300/sb_129...</a><p>What seems to have changed since May:<p>- The California DMV will set safety rules before 2015 instead of waiting for NHTSA to allow production use,<p>- The manufacturer must apply to the DMV before production use.<p>- Cars must record sensor data for 30s before every collision.<p>What I don’t like about the bill is that it requires an operator to be able to take manual control of the vehicle at any time. I’d imagine that as autonomous vehicles develop in the coming years, this restriction will have to be removed.
How is this different from what happened in May?<p><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/21/business/la-fi-autos-driverless-20120522" rel="nofollow">http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/21/business/la-fi-autos...</a><p>"California Senate passes bill for self-driving cars"
I've been rear-ended 7 times in the past 5 years. I'll be glad when everyone else has self-driving cars.<p>(My GF says I drive too fast and stop too quickly. She's probably right, although 3 of those times I was moving at less than walking speed.)
Audi, Cadillac, and Mercedes all have semi autonomous features on the horizon.<p><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/20/cadillac-super-cruise/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/20/cadillac-super-cruise/</a><p><a href="http://www.insideline.com/audi/audi-previews-traffic-jam-assistant-at-2012-ces.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.insideline.com/audi/audi-previews-traffic-jam-ass...</a><p><a href="http://www.itnews.com.au/News/296907,rio-tinto-prepares-mine-for-driverless-trucks.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.itnews.com.au/News/296907,rio-tinto-prepares-mine...</a>
Alright! New field of hacking,security and development will emerge now. People will try to hack, other people will try to make it secure and some of us will work on developing fancy apps for these vehicles.
Good. The first thing they should do is force anyone over 75 years of age to use them.<p><a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/08/fourteen-injured-in-crash-involving-motorist-100.html" rel="nofollow">http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/08/fourteen-injur...</a>
Have there been any studies on whether people actually want autonomous cars (a quick google search only shows one: <a href="http://www.alpineautotrans.com/?p=326" rel="nofollow">http://www.alpineautotrans.com/?p=326</a>)? I think it's a good idea, and I bet most people on HN would agree, but what's the downside? How many people in the general public would trust a robot driver? Can you still speed -- if you're late for work -- if you need emergency medical care? Can you take manual control of the vehicle -- would that raise insurance rates if you did so? How many people in the general public would be ok with that?
From the view of some consumers (I might be one,) a car may be considered to be a black box that is used to transport someone/something(s) from point A to point B. I do not automatically assume that it is always better to instrument a machine to control such a box rather than having a qualified person control it.
I'm all for this, but I'm a bit miffed about the terminology: autonomous/robot/self-driving cars. "Autopilot" is shorter, simpler and well-established - and IMHO more accurate, as long asa human driver ready to take over at any time is still required.