volcan

SpamSandwich said:
Elon Musk has stated by 2019 Tesla would have enough on-the-road data collection that they would be able to have one of their vehicles drive across the country completely autonomously

This has already been done back in 2015 by Delphi in an Audi Q5 traveling from SF to NYC with the car being driven autonomously for 99% of the trip.

Rayz2016 said:

I would imagine that when you book the car, it’ll want to know how many passengers, and if you need cargo space. It’ll also want to know where you’re going so it can work out whether or not you really need a 4x4. 

And after a few weeks, it’ll know that this is a regular journey. 

No way. I can afford the convenience of having my own vehicles. With a ride share you are just guessing that the driver has a license and insurance and is not on drugs. Who knows if the ride share even has roadside assistance in case of a mechanical problem. I took one in NYC and he had to drive around looking for a gas station. Maybe I'm just spoiled but I'll stick with my own vehicles whenever possible, although I do have a limo service I use to go to and from the airport, but even with an expensive service like that you never know what you are going to get. 

There are lots of little things like keeping an emergency preparedness kit in my car since we live in an earthquake zone. I seriously doubt many ride share drivers have that.

paxman said:
So... 'Hey Siri, I need a car in 10'. I step out and into the 'whatever it is', which then takes me to where I want to go and then goes on its merry way. 

Most people in the US don't fit that mind set. Personally, I want to own my own car(s). Even something as simple as picking up a friend for tee time and afterwards lunch would be a major inconvenience with a ride share, lugging golf clubs into the restaurant, not cool. I can think of many situations where not owning a car would be a real issue for me. Besides I like to drive and I have really nice cars.

Actually in an emergency it is the general public who should be throttled regardless of their plan or data usage just so emergency responders have maximum available bandwidth.

GeorgeBMac said:
One of the things you missed is redundancy:   What happens to all that data when somebody drops a bomb on it?   Is it stored somewhere else?   And,  if so, how current is it and how quickly can it be accessed?

Sort of depends, but that is what this data center is supposed to be doing. Global data command is the principle function which involves copying data to a completely different backup location in almost realtime. All the major data centers do this. Usually every data center has a matching backup location in a different but reasonably close region. For example a primary data center in France may have a backup location in Germany. If something happens to the primary location, the backup location can be enabled within a minute or two, although it could take quite a bit longer for slower DNS caches to make the switch. DNS is distributed, some refresh quickly, some slower, so not everyone will see the backup instantly even though it can happen very fast at the primary DNS servers.