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from the who's-gonna-drive-miss-daisy? dept.
The race to bring driverless cars to the masses is only just beginning, but already it is a fight for the ages. The competition is fierce, secretive, and elite. It pits Apple against Google against Tesla against Uber: all titans of Silicon Valley, in many ways as enigmatic as they are revered.
As these technology giants zero in on the car industry, global automakers are being forced to dramatically rethink what it means to build a vehicle for the first time in a century. Aspects of this race evoke several pivotal moments in technological history: the construction of railroads, the dawn of electric light, the birth of the automobile, the beginning of aviation. There's no precedent for what engineers are trying to build now, and no single blueprint for how to build it.
Self-driving cars promise to create a new kind of leisure, offering passengers additional time for reading books, writing email, knitting, practicing an instrument, cracking open a beer, taking a catnap, and any number of other diversions. Peope who are unable to drive themselves could experience a new kind of independence. And self-driving cars could re-contextualize land-use on massive scales. In this imagined mobility utopia, drone trucks would haul packages across the country and no human would have to circle a city block in search of a parking spot.
If self-driving vehicles deliver on their promises, they will save millions of lives over the course of a few decades, destroy and create entire industries, and fundamentally change the human relationship with space and time. All of which is why some of the planet's most valuable companies are pouring billions of dollars into the effort to build driverless cars.
After automation puts everyone out of work, will anyone need to drive anywhere anymore?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday December 16 2015, @03:25PM
The issue with buses, or trains for that matter, is they don't go DIRECTLY where you want and they take a long time to get you there because of all the stops they make in between. It's a 1.5 hour bus trip from my house to work, and 1.5 hours to get home, where the nearest bus stop from my office is a 15 minute walk. 3 hours a day using the bus. It's a 15 minute drive one way, 30 minutes a day in a car.
Then there's all the other downsides of using public transport. In my city you're not allowed to take drinks or food on the bus (a driver wouldn't even let me on with a sealed travel mug once). I understand why, but it's inconvenient. There's also a shit ton of sick people you come in contact everyday on public transport. Every surface you touch has had someone cough or sneeze all over it. Also standing next to someone with bad hygiene or wearing too much perfume for 45 minutes. Rude power crazed bus drivers. Rude, disrespectful, sometimes violent, passages. Buses not making their connections. The list goes on.
The only upside to taking the bus for me was it was cheaper than owning a car. That said with bus pass increases over the last several years, and the fact I own my car now and only pay insurance, maintenance and gas, it's almost on par to own a car than to take the bus. Plus my wife and I carpool so it ends up costing less as we're not paying for two bus passes, and our Daughter is almost the age where she'd need a child's pass so... Hard to argue you're even saving money.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe