"Eventually - maybe in 20 years - humans won't be even allowed to drive."
I don't see that happening for a century. Unless you subsidize the cost of purchase of a new car for everyone who has a car now, and associated costs of owning a new vehicle.
Where I'm from(Poland) the average age of a car is 16 years. Buying a new car, even if it's something very cheap like a Fiat Panda, is still a huge deal.
Why would you care about what purchasing power is like in Poland you ask? Well, because at the moment I can drive my car literally around the world, without modifying it an inch. If some countries start banning manual cars, then suddenly you can't cross certain borders anymore - that's almost idiotic. If the ban of manual cars is going to happen, it will need to happen almost worldwide at the same time, and that's absolutely, definitely, completely not happening in the next 20 years.
I actually think your example with cars without seatbelts is great, because it illustrates what will happen with manually-driven cars - instead of banning them, they will eventually become so rare there will be no need to ban them, just like you can still drive your 1950 car without seat belts or airbags.
Agreed. Where I'm from (USA) the average age of a car is still 11.4 years - and growing as cars become more reliable! The average age was 8.4 years in 1995. Not quite 16 years, but we're definitely not all buying cars on 2 year leases.
For 2014 (latest year with all data available) there were 260 million vehicles on the road. In this year, there were about 7.6 million new vehicles sold. Of these, about 0.5 million were hybrids, having grown from 0 in 1998 and 0.25 million in 2006. If self-driving cars follow a similar track to hybrids, it's going to be a long time before the majority of those 260 million cars are self-driving.
+ There will be EU wide standards for 'self driving' just as there will be a 'North American' one.
+ They will make them cheap. The AI is software, it's a commodity, and the parts (i.e. LIDAR) will be cheap by then.
+ In 20 years you won't likely be able to drive your old car in France, and no offence - they will probably mock the Polish for still having 'real cars' :).
But you're right - 20 years is too soon.
20 years to 'almost everyone in driverless cars'. 30 years to banning humans. 45 years to banning them even from driving hobby cars.
"45 years to banning them even from driving hobby cars."
Again, I don't think this will ever happen, just like we haven't banned horses on normal roads - there's just so few of them that it's not an issue. Likewise, if in 50 years 99% of cars are self-driving, it won't matter an inch if you want to drive yourself in your antique. If you find someone who will insure you in it, fine, go ahead, don't see why they would be banned - self driving cars will probably do a good enough job of avoiding manual cars anyway.
I am quite sure that once most of the cars will be autonomous, we will start building autonomous-only roads. With faster speed limits and so on. Manual cars will not be allowed on those, and then progressively more and more roads will become autonomous only. Hopefully the first to become as such would be all roads in cities.
Just like horses which you cannot bring to a highway.
You can't ride a horse on the motorway in the UK(speed limit 70mph) but you can happily ride one on a dual carriageway - which also has a normal speed limit of 70mph.
And cities autonomous only? So what about bicycles? Or tricycles? Or hand drawn carriages(rickshaws etc)? Would those roads have high walls around them ,stopping pedestrians from entering?
And finally - where would the money for that come from? Even very rich countries(I live in the UK) struggle to maintain their roads to a high standard, something simple like adding new pedestrian crossings can take years in planning and approvals, but somehow, we would modify all our roads to suit one specific type of vehicle?
I'm really sorry if I'm being cynical, but I really do have a feeling that this self-driving-car utopia is not going to happen.
I think bicycles and other lightweight vehicles are fine. My main problem is that myself, as a pedestrian and a cyclist I am sharing the road with several-ton metal beasts which are driven by annoyed, angry and tired people. I would feel much safer knowing that the pilot of a car next to me is concentrated on the one thing which it is supposed to do.
I think however that at least for several years (decades) the autonomous vehicles must be able to work on the roads we currently have.
As a disclaimer, I would say that I am actually pro-ban of personal vehicles in city centers today. I really do not see a point of anything that is not an ambulance, fire truck, bus, a taxi or a delivery truck on a road. Why people wake up soon in the morning only to then be stuck in an over than one hour commute when a subway ride would take 20 minutes tops is really beyond me.
Banning all cars first and then progressively let autonomous vehicles (as part of a fleet) in would be a win situation in my opinion.
Will pedestrians ever need to cross those autonomous-only roads?
If you are talking about elevated distribution roads that people will pass under, then maybe. But I don't see it working on a city like the ones we have now. Maybe there's a major urban restructuring to happen soon...
>Again, I don't think this will ever happen, just like we haven't banned horses on normal roads
Funny, the local SCCA group has autocross at an airstrip near an Amish community. The roads are swarming with horses and buggies the morning of the Sunday events. Interesting juxtaposition :)
You can probably fit a device on your car that will make it legal to drive on "safe" roads. Something that actively looks out to prevent crashes and doesn't let you drive over the speed limit, for example, but doesn't actually steer the car. Similar to how when new laws on exhaust emissions passed, you could just upgrade the exhaust system without buying a whole new car.
I was saying for a while now, that we could probably reduce 90% of accidents by mandating that every car is fitted with a device that almost every new car has as an option - an automatic breaking system, which stops the car in case of imminent collision, based on a forward facing radar. I imagine it would reduce accidents in cities to near zero, and outside of them by an order of magnitude.
I don't see that happening for a century. Unless you subsidize the cost of purchase of a new car for everyone who has a car now, and associated costs of owning a new vehicle.
Where I'm from(Poland) the average age of a car is 16 years. Buying a new car, even if it's something very cheap like a Fiat Panda, is still a huge deal.
Why would you care about what purchasing power is like in Poland you ask? Well, because at the moment I can drive my car literally around the world, without modifying it an inch. If some countries start banning manual cars, then suddenly you can't cross certain borders anymore - that's almost idiotic. If the ban of manual cars is going to happen, it will need to happen almost worldwide at the same time, and that's absolutely, definitely, completely not happening in the next 20 years.
I actually think your example with cars without seatbelts is great, because it illustrates what will happen with manually-driven cars - instead of banning them, they will eventually become so rare there will be no need to ban them, just like you can still drive your 1950 car without seat belts or airbags.