Apropos of nothing in particular, does anyone remember the old British TV show "Reginald Perrin" in which he dumps his life, tries and fails to commit suicide by drowning in the ocean, and starts up a Grot Shop, selling items guaranteed to be absolutely, utterly useless, and if you wanted even less of the useless item it costs more.
A car without backup controls a regular driver can use is not likely to sell well.
Besides, Apple on an amazingly consistent basis keeps having weird iOS devices settings issues from version to version, and while I’d hope they’d get top people for a self-driving car that covers all the bases, I’ve been writing code longer than I’ve been driving, and my current employment revolves around helping other developers learn how to not do boneheaded things in systems ranging from simple to very complex: my current role wouldn’t exist if human developers got everything right.
I’m skeptical due to far too much knowledge and understanding combined with experience.
So technology-wise, we are basically at level 4. In the mainstream market (say, sub-$45K), most cars are at level 1 or 2. Some, like Tesla, are at level 3. We are not far from premium brands being able to deploy level 4. How long that takes to go mainstream is a question. I can say that as someone who buys cars frequently (in my family, probably every 2-3 years between us), my 2019 Kia is the first with any automation whatsoever (lane assist). The car I had before that...a 2015 upper level Hyundai sedan, had nothing.
My best guess is we are a good 10 years away from level 5 autonomous vehicles being somewhat mainstream. We're probably 20+ years away from the majority of vehicles being level 5.
More like 50 years. There are just too many complex and expensive obstacles to be dealt with before self drivers achieve ubiquity.
Comments
Why do they call those square ones yoke steering wheels?
Besides, Apple on an amazingly consistent basis keeps having weird iOS devices settings issues from version to version, and while I’d hope they’d get top people for a self-driving car that covers all the bases, I’ve been writing code longer than I’ve been driving, and my current employment revolves around helping other developers learn how to not do boneheaded things in systems ranging from simple to very complex: my current role wouldn’t exist if human developers got everything right.
I’m skeptical due to far too much knowledge and understanding combined with experience.