Why we don't have self driving cars yet...

[R P]

Absolutely good question. British common law (which the US and many other countries follow) follows the English jurist William Blackstone ratio "Better that ten (100 as per Ben Franklin) guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer,", which is sort of what you are enunciating here, no innocent bystander should be hurt by this.

To add to what your saying here is parable from "n Guilty Men" by Alexander Volokh http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/guilty.htm#238

The story is told of a Chinese law professor, who was listening to a British lawyer explain that Britons were so enlightened, they believed it was better that ninety-nine guilty men go free than that one innocent man be executed. The Chinese professor thought for a second and asked, "Better for whom?"

Getting off topic now, but yep, that is a whole another can of worms...

 

[gooki]

Another take on this: Maybe we should also focus more on self driving buses. Seems that might be easier and get more cars off the streets sooner, which would also save more lives. Buses could utilize road sensors in very confined routes (they travel in now anyways). If you could eliminate bus drivers (high cost) that would not only improve safety of passengers, but save costs allowing for more buses.

Interesting that you bring up vehicle to infrastructure V2I. This has been the German approach to autonomous vehicles. What they've got out of it is a small section of highway, and one parking lot that can be driven autonomously by very specific vehicles.

Compare that to Tesla and Cruise that can travel on thousands miles of highway autonomously.

I'm all for the private sector choosing to spend their money as they wish, but I believe v2i as a solution for autonomous driving is a red herring.

 

[gooki]

What was worse is that they rushed things trying to catch up with Waymo. An unfortunate women was killed in my town of Tempe due to this recklessness.

Those that are reckless should be held accountable. There's a difference between reckless and rapid.

 

[gooki]

If we can't get the Tesla Summons to work yet in a parking lot (flawlessly) which should be very, very easy, how can we expect to handle all the possible public roadway situations.

Parking lot is most likely the hardest situation, but thankfully one of the safest (low speed).
- Unmapped
- No lane markings
- Poor signage
- Mixed use between people and cars

Improvements to smart summon will greatly improve the other parts of FSD.

Personal story. A friend of mine works for the city council in project management. In 2018 I'm promoting the idea that self driving cars will hit the streets in 5 years, and they need to start planning for that future now. Why they ask? because it takes 25-50 years for capital works projects to achieve their value proposition.

That means if they build a multi-story car park today, it won't have paid for itself until 2044. The problem is that if FSD gets released in 2023, and becomes mainstream by 2030, this building will be a sunk cost. Utilisation will be minimal, and it'll never pay for itself.

Yeah it's hard to predict when FSD will become mainstream. There's vested interests in delaying it. But there's huge opportunities to use tax payer money more efficently if you understand where the future is heading, and support that future happening.