Posted on 08/21/2016 10:17:53 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
“So, once the route has been pre-mapped; why does this matter?”
Map constantly changes - water main break, construction, re-striping, new pothole, the list is endless.
“Off-road use may be a problem — for a while.”
Its more than off road. Look at where the Google Street car is not allowed to go...that is where a Google car could not go: Military installations, office parks, commercial parking lots, apartment complexes, gated communities, military installations.
“Map constantly changes - water main break, construction, re-striping, new pothole, the list is endless.”
The data will be updated continuously by input from the fleet of autonomous vehicles. It won’t require starting from scratch, each time something changes.
Even if that were true...and Google is not doing that now and I question whether or not enough radio band exists to do such a thing...what about the first car that encounters the emergency construction zone. How is its map updated? How does it know that a new construction zone sign has been put up to ‘wait for flagman’ if it doesnt even know to look for it?
Not if you are in the business of maintaining them. People are going to trash those self-driving cars so much, it could become economical cost prohibitive to use.
Neighbor drives 28 hours straight between his two homes. Driverless could be a lifesaver!
In my youth I could do that.
Now I’m good for about 10 hrs before it’s too painful LOL.
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