TFT: Self driving cars are coming, or are they?
A debate about how much longer you will control the steering wheel.
This TFT is going to be a little bit off the rails from my normal debates, but this idea hit me while listening to a podcast last week. We’ve grow up with the idea of flying cars and self driving cars coming int he future. Look at any futuristic cartoon or movie. So the question now is when will self driving cars come if they do come. This is one I hope to hear from a lot of you on as it’s a very interesting debate I think.
Good or bad
I think the first question has to be is this a good thing or bad thing for us. Depending on how safe of a driver you are, this may be a good thing. Also, depending on how long you spend in traffic, you may appreciate self driving cars as they should reduce the stop and go traffic as everyone tries to be in the lead. Self driving cars, at least in theory, should reduce accidence as they can read the environment around them and adjust appropriately. They can sense that car coming on the on ramp as it can sense you and they merge at highway or close to highway speeds. So in general, I think that self driving cars will be a good thing. That is said with the assumption that they do not run over pedestrians, cycles, pets, etc. That is a big assumption, but one I’ll call out.
I’m staying away from the long haul truck debate here and really just focusing on passenger cars. Those that we drive everyday for our commutes. Anything you would add to the good vs bad debate?
Car Ownership
Would you give up ownership of your car? After all, if the cars can drive themselves, could you not share a car with a neighbor or 10? Maybe we no longer need a car in every driveway, but maybe it is every other driveway or every third driveway. What would this mean for repair costs, would that just roll into our HOA fees? Maybe it is more like a COOP that everyone pays into. How will your commutes look without a car of your own? Are you traveling with neighbors? If you are late one day, what does that look like? Will you have to wait for the car to return, are there back-up cars? This is where I tend to think that we start off with just a hands-free driving option, but we all still own our own cars. I think for the short term, there is just too big of a step to not owning a car at all. I see people starting with some sharing, imagine a spur of Uber and Lyft that allows you to share your self driving car for certain hours of the day. But all the maintenance is still on you. Then maybe 10-20 years down the road, some portions of the population are only sharing cars, and not actually owning one themselves. Which is true in some urban settings today, you will just see that group grow larger.
Are Self Driving Cars Just Hype?
As we get to the end of the debate here, the question is will we have self driving cars or is it just hype? I tend to lean toward they are coming. After all, the work of companies like Tesla, Waymo, and others have made some big strides. I think today and for the next few years, say three to five, there is a lot of hype around self driving cars. I would call the systems we are seeing today really just driver enhancements or assistance, not so much self driving. Maybe some of that is just the lack of trust I have in those systems, but hey, that’s where we are today.
As we look into the future beyond five years, I think there is some real possibility for self driving cars. I think it will be a slow adoption at first, but it will come.
What are your thoughts? Share them in the comments below. Also ask a friend.
Articles to Consider Reading
"The State of Autonomous Vehicles in 2023" by McKinsey