I hope they succeed, for the sake of my mom who's legally blind and has dreamed about them for decades. but I'd be significantly more excited about self-driving if you could buy level-4 AVs that you can actually own.

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paulryanrogers 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Are cars really the best option? Could other public transit serve the same purpose?

(I was once legally blind, still not a fan of cars myself. Though I understand the appeal when externalities are out of the picture.)

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michaelt 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Cars aren't the best option, but you can drop self-driving cars into an existing car-centric society one car at a time, with the car buyers paying for themselves.

Making a car-centric society meaningfully less car-centric requires the enthusiastic support of that society, along with competent political leadership, and probably a fair chunk of taxpayer cash too. Suburbs with huge lots make for long walks to the transit stop - but densifying those suburbs is not easy.

I don't own a car; I travel everywhere by bicycle and public transport - but the public transport I use was all built in the 1850s. Some time between then and now my society reorganised into a form that has a lot of difficulty delivering public transport projects.

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runarberg an hour ago | parent [-]

This is a false alternative, because robocars do not exist, while public transit does exist but simply hasn’t been adequately implemented everywhere.

Politicians (and grifters alike) like to point to a future technology to solve an existing problem only to delay existing solutions which they don’t want to implement, most often for political reasons.

	▲	handoflixue 3 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> robocars do not exist How do you manage to discover Hacker News and not know Waymos are real? I'm truly fascinated by this new level of ignorance.
	▲	laurencerowe 22 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Robocars most certainly exist. They’re probably about 5% of car traffic in San Francisco. I’ve not taken one yet (taxis/ubers/Waymos are mostly impractical with a young kid in the US as you must use a car seat unlike in most European countries) but as a pedestrian they seem mostly a safer than other drivers. As a driver I expect they will eventually induce gridlock the city can always create more bus lanes.

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drdaeman 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Surely, not until public transit networks covering literally everywhere regular roads can get you.

Public transit is better, but building it outside of dense metro areas to the extent it becomes competitive is probably even more difficult than building a self-driving car.

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crubier an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Does the Subway arrive at my door?

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cogogo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Me too but this feels like a step in a progression to being able to rent/share them.

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runarberg 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Can I ask why you prefer that some future technology will solve her problem when actual solutions (such as access vans; public transit; etc.) already exist?

And before anyone points this out, if your local government does not offer these solutions that is a political choice of your local politicians. Plenty of local governments all over the world (even in dictatorships) are able to provide these, and changing the policy of your local government should in theory be easier then to roll out technology that does not exist.

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ctoth an hour ago | parent [-]

I'm blind. I wish to hop in a robocar and drive from Denver to go visit my folks back home in Florida. Is the Denver Access-A-Ride going to take me? Which public transit is available?

	▲	runarberg an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I preemptively addressed this. Not providing access is a political choice. The airports/train stations/bus stations in both Denver and Florida should have assistants ready to guide you to your flight/train/bus and the Colorado government could have an agreement with Florida to share services with residents of either state. If they don‘t, there was a political choice not to, which can be changed. If there is no public transit available... well... neither are robocars, but only the former is a political choice.