Autonomous vehicles and the transition challenges?

So, just finished watching the video of the Semi Truck doing an autonomous beer run; the Dilbert part of me loves this stuff. The car guy part of me is sad about what is coming down the road. I think it drove home the point that this is going to be the future and the kids getting a driving license today are going to be the last generation of drivers.

It also occurred to me that there are going to be some unanticipated consequences.

1-Autonomous vehicles wont be able to speed. They will move at the posted speed limit. Can you imagine the degree of road rage that is going to cause during the transition period?

2-People are going to challenge their abilities on the road. Some kid will find out that if they do something interesting with their vehicle, the autonomous one will do something silly in response. This could range from funny to fatal.

3-Currently, your local constabulary could not meet payroll without the revenue from traffic citations. The traffic fine industry is somewhere between 6 and 10 billion $$. Lawyers would lose a source of income and cities would have a hard time funding their budgets without parking tickets; I imagine an autonomous car would not be able to park itself in a ticket zone. Don't forget the insurance companies that rely on speeders the way that Wells Fargo relies on their clients as a cash cow. The money will need to be made up somehow and I bet we wont like the answer.

4-What about SEMA? The aftermarket injects a significant amount of $$$ into the market. I don't see people pimping out the transportation modules. This would be even more the case if the business model is that people don't own cars anymore but rather whistle them up on demand.

5-While I expect that on-track activities will expand to accommodate the adrenaline needs of the world, how will we get our cars to the track if we cant drive a tow vehicle?

6-Not sure what this will do to the restoration hobby. Probably become "Track Only" queens.

7-Once the population is captive to the autonomous vehicle, (assuming that people wont own cars anymore, just call for rides) will the cost to travel go up or down?

And as a final aside...I cant wait till the first Jumbo airliner makes its first flight without a pilot!

We do live in interesting times.

Very interesting times, and you make some great points. So, where will all of this be in 10 or 20 years?

3 strikes me as a huge "unintended consequence".

How will municipalities replace the revenue?

3 says:
3-Currently, your local constabulary could not meet payroll without the revenue from traffic citations. The traffic fine industry is somewhere between 6 and 10 billion $$. Lawyers would lose a source of income and cities would have a hard time funding their budgets without parking tickets; I imagine an autonomous car would not be able to park itself in a ticket zone. Don't forget the insurance companies that rely on speeders the way that Wells Fargo relies on their clients as a cash cow. The money will need to be made up somehow and I bet we wont like the answer.

The assumption can also be made that most or all of these autonomous cars will be electric, which has additional consequences.

1- If fewer and fewer vehicles run on gasoline, how easy will it be to find gasoline for your combustion engines if you need it?

2- If there are fewer traffic violations, and fewer accidents, what happens to insurance rates and who gets stuck with the bill?

3- Seems like both 1 and 2 would motivate a decrease in personal vehicle ownership

4- Decreased funding for infrastructure. A majority of infrastructure projects are currently funded via fuel taxes. With recent improvements in fleet fuel economy, governments are already feeling the effects of decreased revenues. Less fuel being used means a new funding source will be needed.

5- Increased strain on electrical grid. Even with system wide technology improvements reducing the impact that vehicle charging would have, the number of vehicles still represent a huge draw compared to what the current system is equipped to handle.

6- Real estate values change. Does that workshop in your back yard go from being a selling point to more of an albatross that nobody wants 20-30 years from now? Do home values start to decrease in areas where you can't have Uber at your door in 5 minutes?

7- Does it make sense to consider future value when buying a non-autonomous vehicle now? They'll likely be undesirable to the vast majority of the population, but will there be a select few well-heeled enthusiasts willing to pay a premium for the last great, combustion-powered, manually driven vehicles?

Lots of interesting questions for sure

The responsibility falls to us as enthusiasts to fight this idiocy to the last man. It's time for torches and pitchforks!

To paraphrase the poet Dylan Thomas: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle into that good night." I'm pretty sure he was talking about autonomous automobiles.

David S. Wallens wrote: Very interesting times, and you make some great points. So, where will all of this be in 10 or 20 years?

probably not as advanced as we think right now. The investment will be too great to really have the smart infrastructure that autonomous vehicles need to work. How do you park? negotiate the exit of a concert with people streaming out of everywhere? How do you negotiate areas that aren't really mapped? Dirt roads? Snow Ice?

Yup it's coming. but will it make driving more expensive? Will your average person be able to afford it? Will uber be able to take you everywhere? Like the UP in Michigan? Calling an Autonomous UBER at the Mall of America, sure.. They'll be lined up to take you home.. But not everywhere. Will they be easy to car jack?

NOHOME wrote: ...And as a final aside...I cant wait till the first Jumbo airliner makes its first flight without a pilot!

Modern jumbo airlines don't really need pilots now. They can already take off and land automatically at many airports and certainly fly themselves from airport to airport (and have for a while)

Pilots are mostly there to for emergency procedures and taxiing these days. Considering the cost of the planes, the value of the cargo (in lawsuits), a safety pilot is fairly low cost, so I find it unlikely there will disappear soon (I don't think they have shown automated taxiing yet either). Eliminating the co-pilot might happen though and / or reduced training requirements for pilots of automated planes.

I understand the concerns, but I really think this is a little Orwellian...Youre using a one-size-fits-all scenario to draw conclusions about the future. The issue is waaaaaay broader and more complex than all of that.

• uncle sam cant throw a switch and POOF we're all riding in pods like Minority report. THe transition will take decades
• There will still be rural areas and "off grid" communities that wont be able to use Uber and the like. No cell towers = no data transmitting capacities
• You cant rely solely on a connected "smart" network...what happens when power goes out, or sub-stations are compromised by natural events. Chaos, thats what

Thats just a handfull of the why-nots that come immediately to mind. I think that, for at least the next 30+ years, there will be, at best, a model similar to what we are seeing now. Vehicles that are very much like human operated cars that we drive everyday will be modified to work autonomously - capable of operating within the confines of the current transportation environment: adhere to speed limits, keep safe distances, avoid collisions etc. But, aside from passively communicating with other autonomous vehicles (basically, announce to other self drivers that Im at this location, travelling at x speed, at y weight etc), they will operate independently from the fleet, and will have to , in order to accomodate the human driven cars on the road that will still be there for the next several decades.

The loss of revenue from vehicle enforcement, especially the bigger ticket items like DUI have repercussions for more than just the cops and lawyers. There is a whole industry built around ankle bracelets, breathalyzers, no-start devices, forced recovery and treatment options... the list goes on.

What about radar guns? Who buys those to clock cars that won't speed? Do we need traffic cops at all?

The answer to the question - how will the revenue be replaced? By taxing everyone at the same basic rate as if the new technology was as fallible as the old ofcourse. We will not do away with anything. That only makes sense in a world that isn't dominated by myopic chieftains protecting their little fiefdoms with billions of dollars of campaign donations.

Cellphones went from extremely rare to hard to live without in less than 10 years. I don't believe autonomous cars will take several decades. The motivation for change will be irresistible.

The winners in this game will be the people who understand there will not be any all or nothing solutions. Instead, there will be hundreds of different solutions all coexisting at the same time.

4cylndrfury wrote: + There will still be rural areas and "off grid" communities that wont be able to use Uber and the like. No cell towers = no data transmitting capacities

This is the first thing that comes to mind for me. They'll never be able to map every single dirt trail and back alley in the country, and what about if you want to move your car in an unconventional manner - say, back up across the yard to load or unload cargo, or park at a diagonal in your driveway to wash the car. Sure, it may be nice to have on the freeway for a long trip but I think there will always be a need for human control to some extent.

STM317 wrote: The assumption can also be made that most or all of these autonomous cars will be electric, which has additional consequences. 1- If fewer and fewer vehicles run on gasoline, how easy will it be to find gasoline for your combustion engines if you need it? 2- If there are fewer traffic violations, and fewer accidents, what happens to insurance rates and who gets stuck with the bill? 3- Seems like both 1 and 2 would motivate a decrease in personal vehicle ownership 4- Decreased funding for infrastructure. A majority of infrastructure projects are currently funded via fuel taxes. With recent improvements in fleet fuel economy, governments are already feeling the effects of decreased revenues. Less fuel being used means a new funding source will be needed. 5- Increased strain on electrical grid. Even with system wide technology improvements reducing the impact that vehicle charging would have, the number of vehicles still represent a huge draw compared to what the current system is equipped to handle. 6- Real estate values change. Does that workshop in your back yard go from being a selling point to more of an albatross that nobody wants 20-30 years from now? Do home values start to decrease in areas where you can't have Uber at your door in 5 minutes? 7- Does it make sense to consider future value when buying a non-autonomous vehicle now? They'll likely be undesirable to the vast majority of the population, but will there be a select few well-heeled enthusiasts willing to pay a premium for the last great, combustion-powered, manually driven vehicles? Lots of interesting questions for sure

Most of what you are worried about are EV's not autonomous cars. There's no inherent reason autonomous cars have to be electric- it's just the way some are now. I think autonomous will cover the fleet well before EV's do.

David S. Wallens wrote: Very interesting times, and you make some great points. So, where will all of this be in 10 or 20 years?

Pretty much where we are right now in terms of personal use. The average age of cars on the road right now is ~12.7 years. Current autonomous cars are very expensive and require maintenance above and beyond unassisted cars. IE are Tesla's built now still going to be on the road in 12-15 years and functioning properly and at perfect manufacturer spec.

Its the idiots who are going to cause issues, IE you bought an autonomous car but have completely deferred maintenance. Car is now outside of mechanical spec set during software setup.

What we are all missing is the jobs' commercial will be automated in 6-7 years and you can quote me on that. 12-15% of the population works with commercial supply and shipping. That is a LOT of jobs that are going missing and its not like you can retrain that large of the population who were truck drivers to be a biochemists.

Also insurance is going to drop like a stone once it is actually working as intended. Very little possibility of failure.

My prediction.

UBER or someone like it figures out autonomous cars and builds a fleet for them, they maintain and service them. You buy a service to use it in the city where public transport takes care of 70% of what you need anyway because of increased densities in large cities which attract most of the talent. Outside of major metropolitan still humans behind the wheel.

In reply to alfadriver:

You're probably right about autonomous capability being more widespread than EVs in the near future. But I don't personally see much of a mid-to-long term future for ICEs, and the EVs, autonomous drivers, and a decrease in individual vehicle ownership seem pretty intertwined to me. They all have potential to significantly affect the habit that we enjoy. Sorry if it comes off as "Chicken Little" sometimes.

1988RedT2 wrote: The responsibility falls to us as enthusiasts to fight this idiocy to the last man. It's time for torches and pitchforks! To paraphrase the poet Dylan Thomas: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle into that good night." I'm pretty sure he was talking about autonomous automobiles.

That's silly, as silly as horse racers raging against the introduction of the automobile, and for all the same reasons.

Now onto NOHOME's questions:

1. Autonomous vehicles stubbornly sticking to ridiculously low speed limits will be an annoyance at first. I think it will soon lead to higher speed limits since the danger and efficiency arguments will be less relevant with more autonomous cars on the road.

2. This is a real problem Volvo has already thought about. People with human-driven cars will be able to bully autonomous cars. In response, Volvo has chosen not to put any markings on their autonomous cars to distinguish them. Anyone driving like an ass in the future will stick out like a sore thumb and attract lots of police attention.

3. Taxes will indeed have to go up to make up for a lack of speeding ticket revenue. The upside is that you'll be able to get around faster with the aforementioned higher speed limits and you'll practically never be pulled over for speeding again (even in a human-driven car, speeding enforcement would become a rare novelty, so as long as you don't interfere with autonomous car passengers it'll be easy to get away with).

4. The performance aftermarket will indeed shrink with the introduction of autonomous cars but the visual modification and in-car entertainment industries will grow.

5. No problem here, your tow vehicle can be autonomous.

6. The restoration industry probably won't suffer much. It's already a cottage industry and most of the cars being restored are destined for the track or the auction block.

7. The cost of travel will go down. Cars won't be meaningfully more expensive, they'll drive in an efficient and wear-minimizing manner (mostly on cheap electricity), and most of all car insurance will be vastly cheaper than it is right now.

To your final point, many airliners could already make a full flight without a pilot. They can auto-takeoff, automatically fly to the destination, and auto-land. An autonomous airliner is completely possible with today's technology, but it wouldn't work with today's airports or air traffic control. I think maybe 30-40 years from now, passenger planes will only have one pilot on board as a supervisor/fallback plan, who will probably even pull double duty as a flight attendant.

SVreX wrote: Cellphones went from extremely rare to hard to live without in less than 10 years. I don't believe autonomous cars will take several decades. The motivation for change will be irresistible.

Pretty much the way I see it going down. Humanity is not really in charge of the pace anymore, we just get swept along. Ubber is not waiting 30 years to cash in, and I imagine there are a lot of other entities that will both be jumping on and pushing the bandwagon in order to realize a profit.

Leaving aside for the moment of how our hayseed cousins will deal with this, lets pretend that we all live in LA or Chicago environs or areas like that. What my original post was trying to point out was that there was going to be a period of mixed autonomous and human operated vehicles and what that stage might play out like.

We are going to be sharing the road with Luddites who are continually enraged at having to share the road with robots. Pretty sure cause I will be one!

On a serious note, since it is inevitable, and likely to be the defining infrastructure project of the next two generations, I would like to see the USA take the lead in both the development and implementation of the technology and export it to the rest of the world. We used to do stuff like that.

Bear in mind, it's not legal to make old cars that are still legal to the day they were made legally obsolete.

So old gas cars will still be able to use the streets. At some point, they may be the huge minority, but you can't make them illegal.

SVreX wrote: Cellphones went from extremely rare to hard to live without in less than 10 years. I don't believe autonomous cars will take several decades. The motivation for change will be irresistible.

The one thing that will slow it down are the safety requirements. Solving all of those in a manner that is acceptable is much harder than cellphone and smart phone introductions. Heck, there are some major issues that still hang out with those, too. Security, safety, etc- none of those "issues" can happen on a fully autonomous car- otherwise the OEM will loose badly with a handful of lawsuits. And knowing how touchy electronic throttle was 20 years ago, well, there are a lot of meetings that will happen to talk through as many issues people can think about.

SVreX wrote: Cellphones went from extremely rare to hard to live without in less than 10 years. I don't believe autonomous cars will take several decades. The motivation for change will be irresistible.

I think you're probably right, but there is a difference--a cell phone is easy to get, it is extremely cheap. A car is not.

Probably doesn't matter since it seems most people buy new cars anyways, and I (we) am the outlier with the used ones.

Now for STM317's questions:

1. Gasoline will be easier to find than race gas right now, even 50-100 years from now. I'd expect that in maybe 10-15 years you'll see gas stations start to have more charging ports and less pumps. In 20-40 years it will be mostly charging ports and one pump for gas and diesel, and then maybe in 40-50 years they'll start phasing out the pumps.

2. Insurance rates will go way down and the insurance industry will shrink accordingly. Taxes will have to go up to make up for profiteering on speeding & parking tickets.

3. I think personal vehicle ownership will decrease but not for any of those reasons. It will simply be more affordable and convenient to use some kind of Uber-like service for autonomous cars so more people will go for that option.

4. Yes this is already becoming a problem with EVs, taxes will have to be raised somewhere. I'm hoping that as part of it, the trucking and construction industries will be made to pay their fair share. IIRC they pay about 60% of the "road taxes" in the US while they're causing more like 90% of the wear (not to mention reaping much of the benefit), and this is a problem that most countries have.

5. The grid will also have to be upgraded, but local energy storage will reduce the impact. Gas stations will need to have some kind of energy storage for fast-charging cars, probably a buried flywheel.

6. A workshop's value doesn't have a whole lot to do with human-driven cars. Anyone who wants one for a car probably drives on the track so would still value it. I think only super-rural areas might suffer from the lack of availability of "mobility services."

7. I think it's a bit too early to worry about depreciation on non-autonomous vehicles right now. Non-luxury new car sales have been decreasing for years now and it'll probably be going that way for many years to come. Used car buyers will be driving non-autonomous cars for a couple more decades. Maybe 5-10 years from now will be the time to start thinking about that.

NOHOME wrote: ...Leaving aside for the moment of how our hayseed cousins will deal with this, lets pretend that we all live in LA or Chicago environs or areas like that. What my original post was trying to point out was that there was going to be a period of mixed autonomous and human operated vehicles and what that stage might play out like...

As you seem to be implying, I could see downtown areas converting first and maybe eventually outlawing driven cars.

The funny thing is LA (home of the lack of public transportation) seems to being going full steam to expand it's train service (as huge cost) and trying to convert areas to bicycles (in a city that has a LOT of long distance commuters).

Here's a concept LA, how about you take a city that is been all about cars for a LONG time and go with the flow focus on making accommodation for AUTOMATED cars!!

alfadriver wrote: I think autonomous will cover the fleet well before EV's do.

Yep, electric powertrains will take at least as long as autonomous driving tech to spread among new cars. I'd say in 5 years most new cars will have autonomous driving capability (at least on par with a present-day Tesla S) and less than half will be electric.

I expect point-to-point truck transport to lead the way. Ohio has already said the Ohio Turnpike will have autonomous trucks rolling on it within 1 year.

50 different point-to-point truck routes in the next 5 years would eliminate a lot of jobs for truckers.

There is a book out called "The car hackers handbook" or something similar which is intended to ask a lot of questions about automotive systems safety. It is intended as a way to bring topics into view for automotive systems that have not been built yet. It also includes some ideas on how to hack cars for performance (but none of us would do that).
And like NOHOME, I will probably be one of those guys that tries to disrupt the first line of automated vehicles I see with all the occupants staring at screens instead of driving. You know because I'm curious how long the wave of braking will last when I cut them off.