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from the don't-tell-them-about-motorcycles dept.
Like record companies at the dawn of online music file sharing, Allstate, Geico, State Farm, and others are grappling with innovations that could put a huge dent in their revenue. As carmakers automate more aspects of driving, accidents will likely plunge and car owners will need less coverage. Premiums consumers pay could drop as much as 60 percent in 15 years as self-driving cars hit the roads, says Donald Light, head of the North America property and casualty practice for Celent, a research firm. His message for insurers: "You have to be prepared to see that part of your business shrink, probably considerably."
Auto insurance has long been a lucrative business. The industry collected about $195 billion in premiums last year from U.S. drivers. New customers are the source of so much profit that Geico alone spends more than $1 billion a year on ads to pitch its policies with a talking lizard and other characters. Yet even Warren Buffett, whose company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns Geico, is talking about the long-term risks to the business model. "If you could come up with anything involved in driving that cut accidents by 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent, that would be wonderful," he said at a conference in March. "But we would not be holding a party at our insurance company."
The loss of revenue for the insurance industry gives me a sad.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday July 31 2015, @05:15PM
I can already imagine a new class of "pranks" - to hack into that protocol, stand on an overpass with a pocket transmitter, press the button, and watch the chaos down below as cars are advised of "intents" to cut each other off, suddenly brake, etc.
One would think that the protocol would have to be very robust if the vehicles are to trust each other. Not only the transmission must be cryptographically signed; the key must be in a tamper-proof storage that cannot be desoldered and used elsewhere. The vehicles probably also want to accompany their intents with something else that they know of but that is pretty hard for a prankster to collect - such as visible locations of nearby cars, for example.
One possibility is to use vehicles' cameras for purposes of optical communication. But currently the frame rate is abysmally low. There is also blocking of light by obstacles and rain/fog. Short range radio (in tens of GHz) will work within a hundred meters, and you don't need more than that anyway. But ultimately this is how it will be. Today drivers are just have to read subtle hints to predict intentions of other drivers. An autonomous car will just know ahead of time.
None of that will entirely eliminate accidents, though - a pedestrian can always jump into traffic.
(Score: 2) by tempest on Friday July 31 2015, @06:46PM
I don't think cars would communicate directly, although in an ideal non hostile world that would be easiest. Instead I'd guess we'd have something like the browser CA system, where cars register via the mothership authority and pass signed messages to the third party where they are signed and authenticated. Pulling the message computer out I think would be the biggest issue to worry about, but this seems like something that would be keyed to the engine, like transponder keys currently do with anti-theft systems.
It makes me cringe thinking about the privacy implications, but it seems like everyone can't throw that away fast enough these days, especially if they offer it via Twitter integration so people can see real time status updates like "I just started my car."
Assuming we're not all chipped by then too :-/
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday July 31 2015, @07:10PM
I'd guess we'd have something like the browser CA system, where cars register via the mothership authority and pass signed messages to the third party where they are signed and authenticated.
I don't think this will work at all. We do not have enough of wireless bandwidth. Usable frequency range is only somewhere from 1 to 3 GHz, and you need some small latency - which implies high data rate, and you need guaranteed service, and you do not want handoffs, and you don't want towers every 100 meters along highways - it's just too expensive and unreliable. On every morning there are 100 million cars on the road - what kind of a third party can receive that, let alone to forward to those who "subscribed" - and those subscriptions constantly change, as cars are moving and their areas of interest vary as well.
Compared to that, peer to peer networks are naturally self-organizing, as if a car hears another car it has a business to hear it. The latency is defined only by the packet length. Privacy is not affected because if you can hear a car you can also see it with your own eyes; the cars do not broadcast more than what will be obvious a few seconds later (like "I'm about to take this exit.")
The mesh also solves the problem of infrastructure. There is no way to cover the whole country with a network of towers. Most of the roads do not have any power whatsoever [google.com]. Cars on such a road will be able to communicate even better than in a city.
(Score: 2) by tempest on Friday July 31 2015, @07:25PM
I think you're right about the latency, but as for bandwidth I think the very first thing people will demand when having cars drive themselves will be internet access in their car. If we don't have the bandwidth now, it will likely come with growing demand. That assumes we use existing infrastructure, so maybe the cars will talk to receivers built into the roads themselves. Something like a smart highway that kept track of temperature, road conditions, traffic congestion as well as allowed nearby cars to talk to each other. It could be that once a car has authenticated with a section of road, it is allowed to message other vehicles directly. Like kerberos tickets. Obviously due to many factors not all roads would be covered, but cities and major highways could be. At other times the AI would default to the reactive mode used today.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday July 31 2015, @08:23PM
as for bandwidth I think the very first thing people will demand when having cars drive themselves will be internet access in their car
They can demand all they want, but Shannon's Law [wikipedia.org] will be a problem. It's like demanding that one could jump up and reach the Moon. Good luck with that.
Furthermore, there is NFW that the consumer's Internet access and the real time driving information would be sent over the same link.
maybe the cars will talk to receivers built into the roads themselves
You can go that way, but it will take time and money - and I don't think anyone has enough money to upgrade all the roads. I'd be happy if they just add a lane or two, forget the radios.
It could be that once a car has authenticated with a section of road, it is allowed to message other vehicles directly. Like kerberos tickets.
Authentication with the road is kinda pointless here, as the road does not do much, and it's unclear why it would be a trusted authority. It's much easier to give OEMs (Ford, Toyota, etc.) the CA keys, and tell them to sign keys of the vehicles that they make. With key revocation over the air, once per day, this should be both secure and sufficient. Then the cars can talk to each other on all roads, not only on upgraded ones. And outside of roads as well - plenty of construction and agricultural machinery operates there, and automatic functions there are even more important because the job is so repetitive, like plowing the field from here and until the Sun sets. Collisions with farm equipment are not all that rare either.