Unpopular Oppopinion:  Bring on the Self Driving Car!

"Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection" (itsalwayssteve) 01/19/2015 at 09:00 • Filed to: unpopular oppopinion

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This is the first installment of Unpopular Oppopinion. From time to time, I'm going to express an opinion that runs counter to the typical Jalop mindset concerning the automotive world.

I love to drive. It's one of my favorite activities, and with gas prices falling, I'll be able to use my "burn a tank of gas," method of therapy more frequently. For my birthday last year, my wife bought me the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! where I got to drive two cars with a combined cash value greater than double that of my house. Here's a picture. Yes, I'm a large, hairy man stuffed into a ridiculous car. It was glorious.

They had to put the top down for me to fit inside.

20 years from now, self-driving cars will be ubiquitous. The average new vehicle will be a computer controlled, automated conveyance that may or may not have the option for manual driver input. It's likely to be a very safe, efficient vehicle that is designed to ferry people around in relative boredom. This is a huge development in the automotive world, and it's being led by engineers and scientists who know far more than I do.

No, Sly, I'll drive.

This is a good thing. What enthusiasts in general fail to realize is that most people see driving as a chore they must endure to get where they need to go. For the vast majority of drivers, a car is another appliance, like a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! or !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . It is simply a device purchased to do a job that needs to be done. The average new car buyer doesn't have passion like an enthusiast, and their emotional reaction to the vehicle often ends with the vehicle's image.

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This is why 6-cylinder, automatic, base-model Mustangs are far more common than the GT models, and why so many people will buy a Tahoe when a Traverse or Odyssey would be a far better choice.

It's not a family vehicle unless the kids need a stepladder!

The fact of the matter is that most Americans are unskilled, distracted, and would rather be doing something other than driving. Driving tests in most states consist of little more than a quiz about traffic laws and a quick spin around the block. The desire for automatically controlled cars has been around since at least the early postwar era, when engineering and science produced the Interstate system, the space program, and rock'n'roll.

While the predictions have been coming for a long time - often far more ambitious than possible with technological limitations of the era. Like any great vaporware technical innovation, it was always "just a few years away." Now that we live in the future, the self-driving car is now actually just a few years away.

In the course of just eight years, we've taken the self-driving car from this:

(photo credit: Carnegie Mellon University)

through this:

(not shown: a hatch full of computers) Carnegie Mellon University

to a car made by an actual auto maker, which could be commercially viable within just five years. By the time my 8 year old niece gets her driver's license, the self-driving car may actually be in showrooms.

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Now, there are many advantages to the self-driving car, and these benefit the enthusiast as well as the ordinary driver. For example,

Safety:

Every self-driving car that's been unleashed on public roads has been programmed to be conservative and cautious in its driving habits. They accelerate slowly, only change lanes when it's safe to do so, and maintain safe following distances. They consider all of their surroundings before making a decision. Self-driving cars have the advantage of cameras and radar sensors that can get an immediate 360° view of the car. No matter how attentive you are, you'll always have a blind spot. This is simply a disadvantage of being a talking monkey.

Beyond that, many people spend their morning commute distracted. We eat, read phones and tablets, apply makeup, shave, and do all manner of things while we drive. It's dangerous, and while the self-driving car may not eliminate all driver-distraction accidents, we may see a significant reduction in them.

People like to get intoxicated. I enjoy whiskey and beer. I find that it can get annoying having to wait several hours after Thanksgiving Dinner, where my wife and I got tipsy to tolerate family members we only see a few times a year, until one of us is able to drive home. The ubiquity of self-driving cars could definitely help reduce the number of drunk-driving accidents.

We drive when we're sleepy, and interstate driving while sleepy actually makes sleepiness worse. A constant drone of white noise, darkness only broken by repeating patterns, and a lack of other vehicles on the road all combine to lull us further into dreamland. Road trips could be taken while sleeping, and we could arrive at our destinations refreshed and ready for the day ahead.

Mobility and Convenience:

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! about riding in one of the Google cars. In it, he addresses the mobility issue because of his own experience. I've seen the depression and anxiety that come to older people when they have to give up the keys. For many of them, it's not about not being able to drive, but the loss of personal independence. Younger readers may not have had to deal with this, but for some older people, their loss of independence can be devastating. They've worked, built homes, raised a family, and now have to call someone to get their groceries. It's a major blow to the ego.

The convenience portion is also attached to the safety section above. I'll reiterate a point I made earlier: Many people see driving as a chore. They fill their Sienna with kids, turn on the overhead DVD for the 30-minute wait in line at the school, drop them off, then begin the commute, where they'll wait in line some more. Commuting can turn driving into drudgery. A self-driving van could easily take care of all those tasks and allow the adults time to mentally prepare for work, catch up on email before arriving, and start the day earlier.

Beyond that, when it's time to have routine maintenance done, we may just need to put it in our calendar and sync to the car. The car drives itself to the service station, fills itself up with fuel (or gets a charge) and then returns quickly.

Economy:

Modern automatic transmissions are pretty great. Cars equipped with dual-clutch or CVT automatics are generally faster and more fuel-efficient than their manual counterparts. The DCTs shift faster than a person can, and make cars easier to drive fast. Self-driving cars, due to their programming, will be able to provide better fuel economy than human drivers simply because they can make decisions based on far more information than we meatbags can.

Also, with safer roads come lower costs for insurance and road maintenance, and greater productivity means that our dollars can stretch further. People who would normally have been excluded from the workforce can go back to their jobs — as Inman states in his article, 45% of disabled people work. For people living with ailments that prevent driving, this could be a life-changing technology. Reducing the number of people collecting disability and getting them back to work can relieve some of the tax burden on all of us.

Now, I know your next question is,

What Does This Mean For Us?

The automobile revolutionized transportation. We went from dependency on railroads, cable cars, trolleys, and draft animals to a significantly more independent state. Our cars came to define generations.

I believe that the self-driving car will do for the normal car what the automobile (and all its working iterations) did for horses. Now, for the most part, horses are no longer working creatures but used for leisure. Most people who own horses do it for the love of owning a horse. Now, one may argue that the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! put it out of the reach of most people, but an enthusiast can get into it relatively cheaply. Plus, when you're doing something you love, the cost is always justified.

I contend that if Mazda can turn a profit on a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! by selling it to a dedicated niche in the market, and if other car companies can follow the muscle car formula of installing big-car engines into !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , then there will always be a market for those of us who want a car we drive ourselves. What we have to do during the transition is acknowledge that we're different. We're special. We need to stop complaining about the march of progress, and accept that things change. And if we love something enough to spend money on it, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

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WhiteTrashSteve is a college dropout who, because of a bad decision, has the words "White Trash," tattooed on his beer gut. He lives with his redheaded wife and three dogs, is currently in school part time and is the office guy/ support staff/ general gopher for an automotive upholstery company. He and his wife were married by an Elvis, only three months after they met. They've been going strong for three and a half years.

CalzoneGolem > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 01/19/2015 at 09:06

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I see people everyday that I'd feel better if a robot was driving them around.

Stupidru > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 01/19/2015 at 09:14

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Isn't it true that if we just throw robots into the mix that all cars would have to be robotic, thus eliminating our ability to drive?

Jonathan Harper > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 01/19/2015 at 09:16

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I agree with most of what you're saying here.

I think most automakers know this is coming, and will either decide to keep a small part of their operation catering to us "manual" (in the sense of actually driving, not transmission) driving enthusiasts or just decide to become an appliance manufacturer.

Also, just a personal thing for me, but I never drive after drinking, even if you wait a long time, then you're more likely to be drowsy and still impaired.

TopSirloin > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 01/19/2015 at 09:26

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Doesn't anyone remember iRobot?! Robots do not always have human's best intentions in mind!

all joking aside, I think the whole autonomous car thing is going to have A LOT of growing pains.

Saying self-driving cars will be good for our society because we are lazy, unsafe, distracted, and always striving to tailor our lives to be most convenient isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does make me think we're just another step closer to this:

jariten1781 > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 01/19/2015 at 09:42

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Cars require vast swaths of infrastructure. Once the analog cars are banned from the road they'll be relegated to far off amusement parks. Personal ownership will only be enjoyed by the mega rich and the very rural where the auto driving structure will take longer to implement.

I do, however, think the timeline is significantly further out. I'm betting 30 years from now that fully autonomous cars will still be "just 5 years away". It'll be thought of just like the 'flying car' is today.

Snooder87 > Stupidru 01/19/2015 at 09:47

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No. The current trend in autonomous cars focuses on cameras and sensors that feed an AI which would identify obstacles and react to them appropriately. Including other cars driven by humans.

Stupidru > Snooder87 01/19/2015 at 09:58

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Does that include traffic lights and detours due to accidents and/or construction?

Snooder87 > Stupidru 01/19/2015 at 10:03

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I don't know if any current system can handle those, but yes that's the goal.

The alternative method that used to be considered back in the 90s was to have all the cars networked and controlled from a central computer. That approach would require all vehicles to be AI driven. But that's not the current idea on how to do it.

Stupidru > Snooder87 01/19/2015 at 10:16

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I only ask because I just read an article in which NASA was teaming up to work on autonomous cars, then a coworker mentioned that all cars would then have to be robotic in order for it to work. I haven't had the time to dig deeper on the subject, so I just had to ask

I can only imagine how insurance companies would feel about all of this...

Racescort666 > Stupidru 01/19/2015 at 11:10

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The insurance question is still one of the big issues. If the occupant of the car is only responsible for determining the destination, who is liable for any accidents that occur? The "operator" didn't do anything besides enter a destination.

Tapas > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 01/19/2015 at 11:51

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What I would like even more is a self-driving track feature!

I mean, I can drive pretty well. I still dont get why they picked Alonso over me lol

But not everyone can push their car to the limit safely.

If people cant drive as well as a professional racer, they should get the option to add a 10k package to an Audi (or the same package for $55k in a Porsche, because they're greedy bastards) in the future and buy track maps.

Then, simply get your car to the track, switch to the self-driving-track mode and the car will flog itself on the track!

and 100 more > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 01/19/2015 at 12:26

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DEAL WITH IT.

fishtankwog > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 01/19/2015 at 15:30

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I think you have to consider the entire structure around the "cars": legal framework ( who is responsible when an autonomous cars systems fail-you? the manufacturer? the software guy? -What about insurance - if the risk is lower with Autocars ( not the brand) then won' driving yourself be more expensive? What State or Federal agency will set standards of performance - speed, spacing, etc for the Autocars? What about the point when you decide to switch it off - or one of its batteries fails, and you have to take over - are you capable? are you distracted, are you in the back seat having sex? The Autocars require incredibly precise mapping of the roads, lines, signals, etc - who will keep them updated? The same guys that stand around construction sites now??? So, and maybe - freeways only , but not everywhere...

Prismatist > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 02/07/2015 at 02:32

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Holy crap, you read my mind on this topic, and then wrote it all out way better than I could. You even used a lot of the same words from in my head. Are you me?

Except you missed two big sections of my thoughts. Therefore I will provide them to you and maybe you can re-write them real good like the rest of your article. :)

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Not only will these auto-autos (as I call them) get better fuel economy, everything about creating and operating them will be way cheaper. I'm assuming a shared-fleet model here, so come with me on this.

Current vehicles are designed to compete for the lust and attention of us emotional meatbags. This means they are way more powerful, pretty, and status-elevating than they have any rational reason to be. Then once made, they have to be sold to us. That means marketing, distribution and sales costs.

Now compare that to fleet-designed auto-autos. They would be designed like military hardware: with a specific mission in mind. The two- and four-seat commuter models would be designed with one mission: drive 400 kilometres for the morning commute and errands, go charge for two hours, then drive another 400 kilometres for the evening commute and nightlife, then charge for two hours again. They do that for three years and then are refitted and/or recycled. With such a focused mission as that, development cost would be drastically reduced. So would manufacturing since all of the multi-mission equipment we demand on our cars now could just be ignored. It's like taking Camry Beige and triple-distilling it. Such mission-focused vehicles would also (as you stated) consume way less fuel and require far less maintenance due to their mechanical superiority/simplicity and efficient operation.

Now, that's just the cost savings on each vehicle. The big cost comes from sharing that vehicle across multiple users.

My $20,000 subcompact provides utility to me and my household only. 23 hours of each day it sits unused and just ages. An auto-auto can operate all the time, using low-demand times for charging/fuelling and maintenance. A single auto-auto could provide utility to at least ten households and maybe as many as twenty. Lets assume fifteen. Lets also assume that such a vehicle could be manufactured for $15,000 (including manufacturer profit) due to the factors two paragraphs above (and easy math!). That leads to a ownership-share cost of $1,000 per household served. That's right - all the transportation you need for $1,000 buy-in (plus operating costs) once every three years. That's $29.52 per month at 4% - less than half a bus pass for one person in my city.

So lets look at operating costs. The current average vehicle will cost its owner about $0.50 per kilometre between fuel, insurance, maintenance and tires. For a mechanically simple electric auto-auto being operated at peak efficiency, I'll pull $0.20/km out of thin air. Add a fleet operator profit and bring it up to $0.30 user-pay per km. That still cuts operating costs nearly in half for the user.

If you could pay $29.52 per month plus $0.30 per kilometre to have all your transportation needs met to a higher standard than they are today, would you?

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When we went from horse to car, the world around us changed. When we go from car to auto-auto, it will change again.

Take a look at the cars around you out in the world. They are driving along on roads with huge spaces between them. They are lined up at the edges of roads for the 90% of the time they are not moving. There are huge swaths of tarmac and enormous buildings built solely to house the ones that don't fit at the edges of the roads for that 90% time.

Now imagine that 14 out of every 15 aren't there any more.

Now imagine that the ones that remain only ever stop long enough to let their passengers get in and out.

Now imagine that when they are moving, those remaining ones are 10cm apart side-to-side, and 2m apart front-to-back.

How much road would we need? How many parking lots? Would you need a garage? How about a driveway? How much of the road in front of your house could you reclaim as yard?

Cities would not have to expand existing roads. Ever. WalMart could build a second WalMart in what used to be the parking lot. New neighbourhoods would need streets no wider than five metres.

Simply by removing the need for bulk parking and meatbag-driver-safe road spacing, auto-autos could dramatically reduce the demand for land, and even reduce total paved area. It would have a real effect on water run-off, solar heating, and city sprawl.

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to change our world just as much as human-operated ones did when Henry Ford got them right for the first time.

Prismatist > Stupidru 02/07/2015 at 02:34

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Eventually they will probably get to the point of being all self-driving and independent, but with the capability to form AI swarms with the others around them. Central systems may or may not be needed (probably not).

Human-driven cars will be sort of like horses are today. Those who want to will drive, but most will let the machines do it.

Prismatist > Prismatist 02/07/2015 at 17:16

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Shit, I got my operating costs wrong. The $0.50/km includes ownership and fixed costs (insurance and license). Take those out and marginal operating cost of the average car today is $0.20/km. So the auto-autos could turn a good profit at a user fee of $0.12 per km. Even better.