The first place to see fully autonomous vehicles will be large military bases, farms, and mining areas where there is minimal public interface. This will be a great place to iron out the kinks and establish a reputation for safety and reliability.

Here’s a great driverless car!

DS

There are cars on the road today that already monitor air pressure in tires. It could be that if your car’s not up to snuff like a tire with low air pressure, it won’t run in automatic mode.

Something like the tire suddenly going flat usually arises from something drastic happening, like a big screw that was lodged in the tire suddenly coming loose. It’s a dangerous situation but I’m not sure if I wouldn’t actually feel better knowing the car either detected the increasing loss of pressure before the acutal screw came out or at least when it happens that the car knows to immediately stop acceleration, not to brake or make and sudden moves and to quickly but cautiously get out of traffic onto the shoulder than having a human being reacting when it happens, panicing and doing something dumb like hitting the breaks or trying to cut across 3 lanes of traffic in a panic with a wheel that’s essentially running on it’s rim.

There are issues to be addressed but if we can have airplanes that can land themselves I doubt they’re too difficult to overcome.

Original HDTV had 1550 lines of resolution, compared to 1080 that is standard now. I actually saw these prototype sets way back in 1984. The original idea was that HDTV would be sent via cable TV (and ultimately fiber). Futurists, including Nicholas Negroponte, envisioned a “switch” that has to some extent come true: traditional over-the-air media like TV, would be transmitted by wire/coax/fiber. Traditional wired services, phone and data, would migrate to wireless.

The major networks and their over-the-air affiliates, however, were not about to be left out of the HD evolution. But there was no way any spectrum could support the bandwidth needed to transmit 1550 lines over the air. So instead, they lobbied the government to back the 1080 standard. In addition, while the Japanese developed 1550, there were some U.S. patent royalties that were part in the 1080 standard. Hence, U.S. industry gets a nickel in the can for every HDTV monitor and camera produced.

As for the broadcasters, in a bit of a coup, they got the FCC to give them the necessary spectrum to support it—free. This is while the FCC was auctioning wireless spectrum at multimillion dollar prices. This was ostensibly a “trade” for the spectrum broadcasters would be giving up when they shut down analog broadcasts (in the current DTV conversion), although the chunk of digital/HDTV spectrum is larger and more valuable.

In sum, I don’t think there was a chicken-and-egg problem with HDTV. The broadcasters more or less muscled in to protect their interests. I think it would have rolled out just as it did, akin to color TV. The networks started broadcasting in HD even though household penetration was low. As penetration grew, more network and cable channels were added. Leaving aside the whole issue over spectrum, both TV manufacturers and broadcasters engaged in market research about demand for HDTV. That research established a measurable demand for HDTV sets and predicted fast prices would fall and how purchases would increase. From that data, business models were created that give both broadcasters and manufacturers and idea of the investment required, the likely return over time, and the risk. If the government had not gotten involved, we still would have HDTV, probably at 1550, but over-the-air broadcast stations would be SOL.

I hate to invoke the phrase in these trying times for free marketers, but here’s where the (not-always-so) invisible hand of the market comes into play. If the demand for driverless cars is there, it is measurable. Assuming it is, and taking in cost and payback (which I think will be the nut in this case), if someone figures they can make a profit from it, and can persuade partners up and down the supply chain to share the initial risk (and I agree it is far more likely to happen on a privatized road), then the ball gets rolling. The temptation is to get impatient (implied in the title of your blog) and use government mechanisms to artificially encourage investment before the market picture is truly clear (as Obama wants to do with some “green power” initiatives). It’s not always easy politically to resist. The FCC took a lot of heat for its decision not to designate a national digital wireless standard, the other example Randall gives. The result is that the U.S. was behind most of the world in its transition to digital cellular, and has two competing standards (GSM and CDMA). Nonetheless, in 2009, the country has a very strong digital wireless infrastructure that is equal or better to Europe’s. Back in the 90s I was very dubious about the Verizon Wireless’ support of CDMA. At least I can say I never called for the government to endorse a standard, but I didn’t think the standards battle it was helping the U.S. I was on the wrong on this.

The issue seems to be more how to manage a transition. Back in the 50s, the government DID require broadcasters to make sure color TV signals could be viewable on a black and white TV.

With driverless cars. the assumption is, as with HDTV and Standard TV (and color and B&W for that matter), that the two technologies will have to exist side by side for a period of time. Central planning can ensure compatibility where possible, and may be necessary to the extent that it protects legacy investment and value of property. The downside is that ultimately forces the debate as to when central planners make the final call, if one as necessary, for total conversion (the debate we are having with DTV, and to some extent, with subsidized narrowband phone service).

Hasn’t adaptive cruise control (where the car applies the brakes automatically if the following distance the the vehicle in front gets too close) been available for several years.

Aren’t there periodic competions sponsored by DARPA for driverless, autonomuos vehicles? The frist competitions were off road, but recent competitions have been in urban environments.

I believe these are evolutionary steps to the driverless car, and that scenario 1 is unnessecary. Many small, incremental steps will overcome the intitutional resistance over time. Defense Department research will also be supportive as we see with remotely controlled and autonomous planes and helicopters. Technology transfer of sensing and control systems should be possible. Cruise control, automatically dimming headlights, automatically adjusting mirrors – in response to trailing headlights and selecting reverse – are all driver assisting technologies that are part of the effort toward driverless cars.

Actually maintenance standards might worsen if driving becomes even more hands-off than it already is.

I am confident from my occassional experiences of the ABS on my car that the computers can easily cope with any type of emergency, particularly engine failure and running out of gas. I am not so confident about the inter-car communications technology.

ws: Of course rail systems have the potential for derailing. The point being, with a chain of cars, you have a multitude of variables that could go wrong. It seems that simple things such as an engine failure, flat tire, and various degrees of maintenance done on each automobile are not as controlled as they are with one car, like a train car.

Something to think about.

Kevyn Miller:By chance, have you ever heard of run-flat tires?

ws: I have, but they are only good up to a certain speed. What if the chain of cars is going faster than 55 mph?