“It is available in consumer vehicles (Tesla).”
Funny, I missed that press release. I’m willing to stand corrected, but I do not believe that Tesla has a consumer driverless car on the market. Rather, it has a car with some self driving features.
“Self driving truck can go door to door, thus beating the train.”
Just want to point out that even the article in the OP envisions special entry ramps to the freeway - and does not anticipate ‘door to door’ driverless trucks. I highly encourage you to visit one of these ‘doors’...ie delivery point at a factory. There’s a lot of human interaction - where to wait, which scale to weigh at, where to get product probed, untarping, opening doors, etc. I suspect that is why even the author knows door to door won’t happen.
“They aren’t necessarily using LIDAR, or cellular networks”
Can we agree that however they skin this cat, the system will involve precision instrumentation that costs some amount of money...and must be considered in the equation of whether or not to do away with the driver.
“Actually it IS being extensively used in mining and farming”
It is being used...albeit not extensively (especially not in farming if we are talking completely driverless). One of the reasons this is that fixed points can be set up for what is called ‘control’. Two control points could handle an entire quarry. Is it reasonable to set up control along our entire highway network? Well it hasn’t happened yet (btw the RRs have a network of line of sight radio towers that make this imminently possible, and being developed to meet government mandates for positive train control). And absent static control, networks are needed...anyway, this is why quarries and farms are good candidates for driverless vehicles.
“Automated vehicles are not just the future. They are the present.”
I will make a statement here: Driverless cars will not be in widespread consumer use for the next 100 years. There really is no compelling consumer demand, or business need for them.
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/tesla-self-driving-over-air-update-live/
The tech still needs work. But there is now a self driving option in the consumer market.
Part of your problem now is you’re looking at the first stages of technology and thinking it won’t progress. You’re looking at Apple Newtons and saying iPads can’t happen. I’m pointing out they’re GOING to happen. The tech isn’t there yet, but it’s not many leaps away. Right now the primary problems are getting the right data in and processing correctly. The raw computing power is there, we just need to use it.
Precision instrumentation doesn’t have to be expensive. And of course as it gets used more, manufactured more, it gets cheaper. Look at the evolution of the cellphone market from ridiculously expensive bricks to cheap supercomputers in your pocket.
Automated mining and farming uses a different organizing concept. Centralized control of production vehicles on the public roads is a non-starter. But that just shows why it went there first, where, as you pointed out, it’s easiest. But again, the power to do these things is in everybody’s pocket, it’s just a matter of using it. Networks aren’t needed though. The closest thing they need to a network is GPS navigation, everything else can be handled through onsite data collection and processing. Parking assist, active collision avoidance, these are a lot of the building blocks and are already in mass produced cars.
It’s a fine statement. It’s also 100% wrong. I’m make a statement, and this one will come true: there will be a mass produced luxury driverless vehicle on the market within 5 years, and then it will follow the same path other car features have taken to trickle down to the low end market over the next 10 to 20 years. It’ll be like cruise control, power windows, AC and GPS, you’ll actually have to go out of your way to find a new vehicle lacking it. There is VERY MUCH a consumer demand for it, as the daily commute gets longer and gridlock makes it less interesting a growing percentage of people want to not drive. And as for business need just look at what happens to any company’s insurance rates when their corporate vehicle gets in an accident that was determined to be the fault of their employee.