Do you really think there will be commercial driverless cars on the road in a volume that is financially meaningful to Google before this patent expires?
A lot of things have to happen first - and the liability issue is just one of them. The auto insurance markets and laws have to adapt and change, and who knows who will object to this. Consumers have rethink the very meaning of car. Safety needs to be worked out. Someone has to pay for all this. This is decades away at best.
If/when this happens, it's more likely that Google doesn't exist than Google profiting from driverless cars.
I think that there will be a significant number of driverless cars operating on the road by 2020. I would be very surprised if they're banned, but only mildly surprised if by 2020 there's a mandate or serious talk of a mandate for driverless technology on all cars sold, like emissions legislation now.
Is it just a hunch you have? Why specifically 2020? No snark, just wondering if you've read something that indicates they're coming sooner than later. I mean, I want my driverless car in my lifetime :)
The technology is already available, and merely allowing it would have enormous savings in time and money for virtually everyone who isn't being paid to drive. Further, the savings can be captured by the person making the decision to put it on, so as soon as it's allowed, I expect to see widespread adoption, retrofitting, etc.
Again, as soon as the statistics come in about accidents with driverless systems, I expect a push for mandating that all ordinary vehicles have them, because putting them on every car would likely save almost 30K lives a year in the US alone: http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx . Interesting sidenote: why did vehicular deaths decline by 25% between 2007 and 2009, without any real decrease in miles traveled? Odd.
Interesting sidenote: why did vehicular deaths decline by 25% between 2007 and 2009, without any real decrease in miles traveled? Odd.
My hypotheses:
Older, less-safe cars are breaking down and getting off the road. Newer cars are better able to handle higher speeds and collision avoidance maneuvers. Safety features previously found only in luxury cars are becoming available in lower-end models.
Many roads were widened and/or improved as part of the economic stimulus. More lanes and wider shoulders means more room to dodge a potential accident.
Maybe the weather has been more mild on particularly dangerous roads.
I think it is almost entirely that cars are more safe nowadays than they used to be. And I expect it has less to do with "collision avoidance maneuvers", and more to do with better design and crumple zones, and a significant focus on crash test ratings. There are probably as many accidents as ever, it's just that less of them are fatal.
But my original question was (expanded for clarity): "Why was there a sharp drop from 2007 to 2009 after many years of very gradual decrease or even flatness? Your answer could explain a steady drop as safety features become more widespread, but that didn't happen from 1995 to 2005, even though presumably people bought new cars during this time.
consumer cars being sold today already partially drive themselves (can stop for you, swerve to avoid debris, parallel park). Autonomous cars have been under test for decades and google has already solved the problem of creating a car that can drive itself safely in traffic.
Everything I've been hearing indicates they are coming sooner than later, and that it's a revolution not many people are that aware of.
The Wright Brothers first powered flight was in 1903. The first commercial flight according to Wikipedia was in 1914 and the first Commercial airline company starting in 1919. I would argue that the rate of technical change has quickened since then. It is true that the rate of legislative change seems slower today, but I think that technical triumphs have a way of creating massive displacements almost overnight. Btw the internet only started seeing serious use in 1995. There were questions about anonymity, privacy, fair use, but somehow they have sorted themselves out.
How does this opinion square with their lobbying efforts to legalize driverless vehicles (e.g., in Nevada)?