Google Reveals Its Electric Self-Driving Car Prototype

[Isalan]

All automatically driven cars come across the same basic problem. Its fine until someone with a shed, possibly called Brian, decides he can do the maintenance himself. Then its all "90 killed in automatic car rampage"

 

[Atrocious Joystick]

Seems to me like trying to leapfrog over other infrastructurally cheaper things like trying to get autobreaks into every car. I mean almost all car crashes are caused by some form of human error, if you can get (reliable) automatic breaks you can eliminate a lot of accidents. Automation is great and sure maybe in 70 years fully automatic cars are viable for mass transportation but I think the obvious focus for any company should be automation in case of emergency. Maybe also try to go for something that can detect if a baby or pet has been left in a car, and if they have the car will sound an alarm, turn on the AC and automatically roll down windows to a reasonable degree. To prevent pets and babies getting cooked to death. If it is possible to distinguish between stuffed toy and living dog or baby of course.

 

[Raziel]

pretty much anything really. how about creativity?
ANd yes there is industry hiring millions of people. that industry is called IT.
ANd there does not have to be. we are far more rich than we think. the problem is that all those riches are all stolen by "The 1%". the inequality gap is jarring. lowering that would allow us to easily support millions of unemployed. or, like i said, just make the week work hours less so the same business has to hire more people while forcing them not to lower wages. you know, the way we always did with massive technological advancements.

now what you decribe with nurses and the like is actually criminal behaviuor outside of US, so yeah, jut because one country is fucked in its ways does not mean whole world has to suffer. We have the technology AND resources to make sure noone is starving. its a matter of wanting it to, but of course its more itneresting to see what drugged TV star gets ptohobombed tonight or what some politician said to his wife than solving the real issues.

You make a false equivalence of productivity skyrocketing and lower income. the corelation isnt even there, let alone causation. what perfectly corelates and has grounds for causation is the inequality gap and the lower class state you describe. The inequality gap in US is worse than many 3rd world countries. your country is fucked and its amazing it hasnt collapsed on itself yet. which means you still have time to fix it, not that you must stagnate and go back to middle ages because hurr durr everyone had work back then. yes, it was called slavery sorry, vassalage.

The fact that you cant afford college working on minimum wage is a problem of itself too, i agree.

So what happens when someone hacks the programming?

you get to drive your car manually in a very inefficient way?

IT is not hiring millions in the US. We are busy exporting as many of those jobs as possible. If your job can be done over the internet we are trying to ship it overseas. As far as research or something. 1 almost none of the cab drivers and things are not "creative" people. A very small percentage of the population is, thats why being "creative" has value. 2 Even if they were how are they going to get retrained? Not only is the cost of education going way up, the government is cutting assistance to pay for any of it.

We absolutely should be transitioning the world to higher pay and lower hours. But we're not going to. People are still convinced that hard work pays off, and that anyone who is not making enough is simply lazy, stupid, whinny, etc... Thats not about to change.

And the rich are just going to keep getting richer and more powerful as the technology advances. They will need ever fewer people to keep industry going and can squeeze people even more to compete for those few positions. And the masses are so divided now that cannot counter balance it. And I don't see that changing. In the US they are doing their best to eliminate what unions are left. Huge corporations already control tv and won't be airing anything thats going to hurt themselves and seem poised to begin taking more control of the internet as well.

 

[Bad Jim]

I would want a manual ovveride just because of other drivers. a robot can anticipate traffic, it cant anticipate lunatics controlling other vehicles. sometimes you have to break the rules to avoid some idiot crashing into you and killing you. a robot does not have such cognition.

An auto car might not be great at recognising idiot drivers, but they will themselves be more predictable and less likely to be that one vehicle that the idiot driver didn't anticipate. They also react very fast.

And they could possibly have access to the camera feeds of other auto cars and maybe the odd surveillance camera, allowing them to see idiots coming out of side streets before you saw them at all.

Plus, you're never going to use that manual override are you? If you let the machine do the work, you're going to play on your phone or something. Even if you watch the traffic, you'll go years without ever having to intervene and you won't be ready and you'll only have a vague recollection of how to drive. You would only use the manual override if you had to go offroad.

 

[Ragnar47183]

Baby getting to sleepy to read?

I understand perfectly what the government should do. regulation the types of cars people can drive is not one of them. Its quite silly you think they should, 'kid.'

Automation is not a fact of life. What are you even talking about. You don't see the problem because you are short sided and cant comprehend complex situations it would seem.

Nobody can stop the future. We sure as hell can stop horrible ideas though.

*facepalm*

And we are done here.

Ok have a nice day. Ill take the 'facepalm' as you realizing the error of your ways and correcting them. Glad I could help.

 

[RicoADF]

if i could exchange my current car into self driving one now i would do it without a second thought (assuming the self driving one is fully functional of course).

Perhaps you would, but some of us enjoy driving and wouldn't give it up, I can see it as a useful upgrade to current cars and new ones that come out but a manual option is needed (like in the movie iRobot).

lets bash these assembly lines because they are better and more people would have work if we did everything by hand
-workers at the turn of industrial revolution.

Except that logic is flawed as it does not allow progress. no, we dont need 10 million people being cab drivers. very much rather we had them working something more useful. Oh and yeah we can easily lower working hours per month AND keep same pay per month. they 1% would get less rich, yes, but thats not a problem at all.

That would be great but unfortuently we're getting to the point where there's more people looking for work than jobs available, adding 10 million + more to that mix is a very bad idea. We need more industries to replace those that are being lost. On the upside more computer based systems means more demands for IT roles (a bonus for myself as I work in IT).

Nothing, i guess. there is going to continue being stupid people who are going to risk their lives driving these.

And that's where you lost all credit, yes how dare someone enjoy doing something you don't like they must be stupid. Some of us enjoy driving in a nice car as it's relaxing and fun, calling them stupid for enjoying an activity you have no interest in is no different than the ignorant people that put down gaming as 'a waste of time', 'stupid' and 'dangerous'.

I note that a later post you specify bikes and 4x4's rather than the broard 'recreation vehicles' of before, I drive a Holden Commodore V8 SSV Redline (linked below), it would be classified as a 'recreation vehicle' even though I can use it to drive to work, would you classify that in the same category? I don't ride bikes but calling someone suicidal for riding one is offensive non the less, people enjoy riding them doesn't give you the right to look down on them just because you've got no interest in the activity.

Excellent, start replacing all the cars with these and outlaw the old pieces of junk, make this thing mandatory for everyone. You can also get rid of busses now, yay! And taxi driver is now a obsolete job, double yay!

It can't happen soon enough.

Yes, because you don't like to drive everyone else should be banned and forced to live how you want to live regardless of weather they enjoy driving as an activity, damn everyone else lets make the world exactly as you want it! Talk about arrogance and self importance, let me make this clear. You can take my car away from me...... out of my fucken cold, dead hands.

Automation is a fact of life, you can't stop it and it will only make our lives better, so I really don't see the problem.

You can't stop the future.

Yeah... no, there is no way I'm hanging my keys over to rely on one of these, upgrade to my current car as an option sure, but if there's no manual option then no sale. There's a reason why when I look at buying a car I always specify manual as a 100% requirement, auto can suck an exhaust pipe. (EDIT: Manual gearbox for those that don't drive/don't know what 'manual' means)

As for the prototype itself, I think Achmed says my opinion of the looks of it nicely:
My first thought when I saw it was "that's not a car, it's a lunchbox!

Call me when they make them looking like this (I have one of these):

Spoiler: Warning: large image

I will never get in one that doesn't have manual control though, as someone that works in IT the amount of times I see computers having issues and silly little bugs there's no way I'm leaving my life in one's 'hands' completly, if there's a manual override fine but not as a autopilot only system.

 

[Strazdas]

Did you read that link? Road deaths have been almost exclusively dropping relative to population since the 80's (longer than some of the people working on that driverless car have been alive), and have actually dropped in real numbers consistently over the last decade. There's nothing to suggest that trend won't continue.

In real numbers, 0.01% of the population were in a fatality involving a motor vehicle accident of any kind, and roughly 90% of these were in-car fatalities, something a "self drive" car doesn't resolve - unless you remove all other road traffic, and make the necessary changes to infrastructure that would let the automated vehicles aware of things like roadworks. That won't happen, particularly removing all other traffic. How would you propose to remove all other traffic? Buy cars from people? Legally demand that they don't drive? Interestingly, one thing that those stats don't (and can't) show, is how many fatalities are avoided by human reaction.

Go further into the stats and you'll find that motor vehicle deaths are only considered a major cause of death for senior citizens - for those who are younger, there are far more risks than road deaths. Given that this is where there is a "need" for driverless cars (if we assume that the system is sufficiently "broken" to need a change), I'd suggest that the cars won't sell well - senior citizens aren't known for being active purchasers of modern, up-to-date vehicles, which no doubt affects the likelihood for road fatalities.

The rate is dropping and yet its still third cause of death by kills done. Cancer kills less than car accidents. thats a very broken system. The reason we see drop in death rates is because cars are actually regulated, such as mandatory airbags, ABS and other systems that take over control from the driver for safety. old cars are slowly getting phased out and replaced with new ones, safer ones, hence the number of deats reduction - more autonomous cars.

human reaction to avoid fatalities are only necessary if you or somone else was driving incorrectly to begin with. current rules would prevent accidents if everyone followed them. the question of replacing cars and phasing out old ones is a good one and we need to put much discussion on the best way to do this.

Plenty of money? Where? We are so far in debt its not even funny. The amount we spend on road work now wouldn't even put a dent in the cost for new infrastructure for these cars.

yes, for example trillions you spend in wars or the amount wasted on streinghtening the inequality gap, erm, sorry, "Bailing out companies". you are in debt because you have been systematically going there for decades.

Where have you traveled? Where do you live? This isn't my opinion. You can not get a signal from everywhere. What happens on a cloudy day?

Europe. Clouds do not interfere with sattelite GPS signal. at least not enough to break cell phone GPS, let alone dedicated devices, and they arent even using extrenal antennas that could easily be used by those cars.

I seriously doubt you have less satellites over US than over Europe.

All it would take is one single wreck involving one of these cars for people to cry and get them shut down.

then you are forming an argument from emotion instead of logic and should leave the discussion.

How do you think this would work? You want all toll booths to be equipped with wifi now? When there are still a large amount of the U.S. that cant get wifi? What kind of world do you think we live in?

Booth has local wifi signal, speaks with car, car pays ticket/ect.
Local wifi box is cheap, you dont need internet there, only signal to send between car and booth. and your pitiful lack of any communications infrastructure is your own doing, altrough irrelevant here.

So these tiny electric cars can do off road? I dont think so. And what about something in the way you can see on maps. This is highly impractical.

your kidding, right? how do you think offroad cars work. you press gas pedal and it just goes forward? that may have been true in the past perhaps. now the computer in the car calculates the slope and slipping of every wheel independently and applies power to most efficiently go over obstacles. computers already do offroad.

There is a difference between detecting rainfall and detecting the water in front of you is to deep to cross.

no roads should ahve water too deep, and if it comes to flooded road the car simply detects water and decides its impassable and searches for a way around it.

Oh I am suicidal now? Guess I need to go to therapy.

if you are driving a motorbike, yes you are. you dont need therapy thought, its unlikely you drive it because you want to die, but rather chose a very dangerous mode of transportation for some other reason.

Because that will work for every problem. -.-. You must be a horrible driver.

It would if everyone followed the rules. robot cars follow the rules.
And yes, i am a bad driver and i would rather someone else drives for me.

Good thing I didn't say new anywhere. Please dont move anywhere near me thanks.
I like how you expect used computer cars to be the same cost. I doubt that very much. The cost to build these im sure is quite a lot more than a regular car.

so your expecting automated cars to come out used? thats not how it works. Dont worry, i got no plans to move to US. We do not have the numbers on these car build prices, but it is unlikely to be much higher, but rather i experct it to be lover because due to automation many things can be ommited that would require drive input, such as manual gearshift.

Ha, do you like in California or something? Electric cars being the majority? Thats not going to happen in the next 10 years. Not even close.

Again, look at how much shit Xbox got for trying to go full digital. You think a world that has that many problems with digital games will just be cool with computer cars? This is something that wouldn't happen outside of some place like California for a very very very long time.

electric cars are raising and they are going to happen regardless of anything else but utter destruction. reason for that is simple - we are running out of oil and thus gasoline. even racing cars are regulated to have hybrid engines now.

Xbox didnt try to go digital. Xbox tried to change how games are sold. if the game companies wouldnt be utter morons and treat digital game sales as actual sales instead of whatever fucked up system they have now the shitstor would have been far lower. you know, reselling, return policies, ect. situation is completely different with Xbox. not to mention it even had better arguments against. at least better than what your giving me here.

Care to link me where these comprehensive tests have been used and failed?

you said your driving a truck, so you have a drivers license. so you already passed these tests, im sure you remmeber how they looked like.

What?!? How the hell do you think we would deal with millions of unemployed people? Also, you are ok with this happening for the 'possibility' for this to happen? Thats got to be one of the most selfish things I have heard in a long time.

the same way we dealt with millios of unemployed throughout history. either end up better living for everyone due to surplus brought by technology that pushed them out of work, they get refocused into other works, or they remain stubborn and go on "Bashing evil machines" and end up being in jail. its ironic how you sound exactly like people during industrial revolution claiming that assembly line will leave millions workless and collapse the economy. except it didnt happen.

Its usually used to take people on vacation when they dont want to fly or drive themselves.

Ah, i see. automating these busses would be nice, especially when you can cut the mandatory driver sleep period so vacationeers wouldnt be forced to stop for a whole in the middle of the trip.

I hate it when people have been "Stiffling innocation" especially if its anything like stifling innovation.
Seriously though, care to explain your stance on this?

Big car manufacturers were buying out and shutting down innovative car designers ever since, well, 30s. an example of Tucker comes to mind, the man who pretty much invented a car with seatbelts that was run over by the car manufacturers to the point of bribing senators because if seatbelts got popular it would raise the costs of manufacturing. when seatbelts became mandatory it halved car accident deaths. yet it took us over 50 years since this guy thanks to the big companies. same goes for oil engine, electric cars in the 80s, ect. they have been trying to keep status quo in cars instead of improving. its why US car manufacturers pretty much lost to everyone else who didnt now Its why you got Detroit become a ghost town.

I have already explained this but I suppose ill do it again. These cars wont be taken to a mechanic shop. More than likely it will be sent back to the manufacture or a technician from the manufacture will be sent to fix your car. The mechanic shops you see all around your town would close shop.

No they wouldnt. noone wants to ship a ton weighing car across large distances to fix it. they would license the locals when they figured they know how to fix it. you know, just like how it is now with warranty for cars. you dont ship the car to Taiwan, you go to local representative.

Police are underfunded. So lets take their primary source for income away? You do realize most of the money that is given to law enforcement is generated by traffic regulations right?

primary source of income. you mean passenger bribes? because the fines you pay does not go to police budget.

Yeah. Buy it from god or more sensibly you would buy them online since the only practical difference is the interior of the car. There wouldn't be near as many makes and models as we have now so what would be point of a dealership? Especially when the cars can just deliver themselves.

Of course there would be many different makes. well, unless you allow google to have monopolistic control over it instead of making it technology anyone can manufacture. what with your broken copyright and patent laws. and people would certainly go to resellers to buy it, just like internet didnt made regular shops die out for household items, it wont make it for cars. your running full of strawmans here and thats it.

Haha, "It should." Yeah and 'I should' be on a beach with models running my back right now but that ain't happening is it? (Since you can't see me I have to tell you its not.)

so instead of trying to get to the beach you claim fuck it ill let everyone hit me becuase im not on the beach? no, id rather work towards a goal then proclaim im not there therefore i wont try.

Yes lets make more regulations on what private business has to pay their workers! This is the land of the free after all right?

something something communism something something bullshit arguments.

I already explained how the assembly line was one a much smaller scale than this would be. The Cold War and World War 2 are both wars but they are on differently scales. See how that works?

assembly line was on a much smaller scale? ok now im certain you dont know what your talking about.

You have no idea how business works do you? You are some kind of extreme idealist with a big tin foil hat on. How do you propose we fix this problem then? I would love to hear what your idea is for dealing with the fallout this would create.

how about start with stopping the increase of inequality gap?

Really? Looks like you know fuck all about life in general. The whole point of these cars is cheap and safe transportation is it not? Didn't you just tell me it would be cheaper because we wouldn't have to pay bus drivers or taxi drivers? Moron.

not sure what you mean or why your insulting me here. public transport > private cars in efficiency.
this is true for both manual and automated ones.

5% is the average and notice that 6.3% is not 5%. If you would look at the link you used you would even notice that its only been this low for less than a month. Thats not enough to say unemployment is fine. It has to keep going down AND stay there for a while. Notice most of this year its been about 7% and last year 7-8%. Our unemployment is still high.

We are nowhere close to below the expected unemployment rate. Did you forget how numbers work?

5% is not average. 5% of the nominal unemployment that is expected to happen naturally regardless of economical situation.
had you read what you quoted you would have seen that 7-8% is perfectly acceptable. its not high.

snip

in this case the problem is far above that of autmoated cars and stopping technological progress is not going to solve it.

Perhaps you would, but some of us enjoy driving and wouldn't give it up, I can see it as a useful upgrade to current cars and new ones that come out but a manual option is needed (like in the movie iRobot).

I did say in my original post that manual override option is desirable by some.

I note that a later post you specify bikes and 4x4's rather than the broard 'recreation vehicles' of before, I drive a Holden Commodore V8 SSV Redline (linked below), it would be classified as a 'recreation vehicle' even though I can use it to drive to work, would you classify that in the same category? I don't ride bikes but calling someone suicidal for riding one is offensive non the less, people enjoy riding them doesn't give you the right to look down on them just because you've got no interest in the activity.

No, your car is not in that category. heres why - its a safe car instead of unsafe bike. the reason i called him suicidal is because he is driving a vehicle that is extremely dangerous to drive and has huge mortality rates. it is the most dangerous vehicles you can drive, it has pretty much no safety features while we got quite good at them in other vehicles. calling somone who constantly runs naked in lions den suicidal may be offensive, but its also true.

Yes, because you don't like to drive everyone else should be banned and forced to live how you want to live regardless of weather they enjoy driving as an activity, damn everyone else lets make the world exactly as you want it! Talk about arrogance and self importance, let me make this clear. You can take my car away from me...... out of my fucken cold, dead hands.

No. Ban them because they are unsafe in many cases and outright danger in others and replace them by safe ones. my personal likes coincide, but is not the cause. Enjoyment is hardly a reason. some people enjoy murdering others, does not mean were going to make it legal though. we should seek maximum benefit for society as a whole, and me, personally, think that autmating cars would bring more benefit to siciety in form of safety and price/comfort than the displeasure caused by people who enjoys driving.
Also not sure if you were extragarating here, but you sound like those people who were about to go on a shooting rampage because some people wanted to regulate guns.

 

[Verlander]

snip

The rate is dropping and yet its still third cause of death by kills done. Cancer kills less than car accidents. thats a very broken system. The reason we see drop in death rates is because cars are actually regulated, such as mandatory airbags, ABS and other systems that take over control from the driver for safety. old cars are slowly getting phased out and replaced with new ones, safer ones, hence the number of deats reduction - more autonomous cars.

human reaction to avoid fatalities are only necessary if you or somone else was driving incorrectly to begin with. current rules would prevent accidents if everyone followed them. the question of replacing cars and phasing out old ones is a good one and we need to put much discussion on the best way to do this.

Your logic is intrinsically flawed. It's like saying "More people get food poisoning than they do lead poisoning, therefore there's a problem with agriculture".

Firstly, driving and cancer are totally different things. They're incomparable in almost every respect, other than the potential to cause death. There is no significance in comparing the two death rates. If nothing else, the numbers are totally different. In the US there were over 210 Million registered drivers in 2009 - given that the total number of drivers in the US has not decreased, and has almost exclusively increased, it's a very safe assumption to say that there are even more now. In contrast, there are fewer than 15 Million people living with Cancer in the US, (which itself is less than 10% of the amount of drivers). Finally, Cancer is treated, while driving measures are preventative... there's a world of difference.

Secondly, you have the assumption that accidents happen due to bad driving. They can be, but there are many thousands of accidents that happen beyond control. Weather, animals, pedestrians, obstructions in the road - these are things that humans are better equipped to deal with, but still are responsible for fatalities.

As I've previously mentioned, these cars are badly designed to work on roads with other users. To put it simply, these cars will need to rely on sensors to brake, right? So what about fog, cyclists, other cars etc? Cars won't be able to use judgement to brake, so they'll need to have an immediate and gradual braking system in place to ensure the safety of the passengers. So far, so good... until you realise that traffic waves, caused by these kinds of braking habits, are major causes of gridlock and traffic jams. Do you think that cyclists in particular won't take advantage of knowing that these cars will always brake? Of course they will! And this is without considering other drivers, who will obviously still be using the roads.

Anyway, a high risk system that only has a death rate probability of 0.015%? That's not a broken system. Fishermen have 10 times that probability as a standard occupational risk, as do people that work in forestry. Pilots have 5 times that rate. Farmers have almost double the risk... are these all broken systems too? They involve significantly fewer people too, so there is less exposure to risk!

The current transport system has a high fatality count, because lots of people use it, and everyone makes mistakes. Cars, early warning systems and suchlike continue to improve, despite the odds against letting stupid people take control of a dangerous vehicle. There is no need to overhaul the entire system, and there is no market in doing so either.

 

[Ragnar47183]

Plenty of money? Where? We are so far in debt its not even funny. The amount we spend on road work now wouldn't even put a dent in the cost for new infrastructure for these cars.

yes, for example trillions you spend in wars or the amount wasted on streinghtening the inequality gap, erm, sorry, "Bailing out companies". you are in debt because you have been systematically going there for decades.

Our government spends 756 billion on the military right now. Thats not trillion(s). Also why is it you seem to think that I have done these things? I don't agree with a lot of what my government does. I didn't agree with the war, the company bailouts, or 90% of the other crap they do. I would love to know what part of Europe you live in so I can make baseless claims about you because of where you live.

Here is our defense budget btw. http://useconomy.about.com/od/usfederalbudget/p/military_budget.htm

Europe. Clouds do not interfere with sattelite GPS signal. at least not enough to break cell phone GPS, let alone dedicated devices, and they arent even using extrenal antennas that could easily be used by those cars.

I seriously doubt you have less satellites over US than over Europe.

I dont think you quite understand how gps works. Clouds do interfere, as do trees, parking decks, buildings, and just about everything else. It is enough to break a cell phone gps and a dedicated device. Not to mention that they still arent able to navigate through things like ( https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&docid=VMMGN3qKf7dWyM&tbnid=QtiQMp72tdP4zM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FTom_Moreland_Interchange&ei=Bd-MU6_NB4m_sQSoyYGYDw&bvm=bv.68191837,d.cGU&psig=AFQjCNF3Rx66-_nwryIeI3TbKv4fZb0-yA&ust=1401827376371797 )

All it would take is one single wreck involving one of these cars for people to cry and get them shut down.

then you are forming an argument from emotion instead of logic and should leave the discussion.

Ok? Because everyone knows people make their opinions and arguments based solely on logic right? Thats why religion died years ago! Also I was pointing this out to show an issue with the design. Because its a computer controlled car and has 0 human input, the moment one of these things causes a death there will be people crying up a storm to get it removed.

-.-

How do you think this would work? You want all toll booths to be equipped with wifi now? When there are still a large amount of the U.S. that cant get wifi? What kind of world do you think we live in?

Booth has local wifi signal, speaks with car, car pays ticket/ect.
Local wifi box is cheap, you dont need internet there, only signal to send between car and booth. and your pitiful lack of any communications infrastructure is your own doing, altrough irrelevant here.

Oh yeah thats awesome. Lets have multiple easily access local signals with loads of personal information on them. That doesnt sound like a HORRIBLE IDEA at all!

And again, why does it seem you are blaming me for people that cant get internet? I would love to find out where you like in Europe so we can see what kind of infrastructure you have and the scale of your home to the U.S. because im sure its quite different.

So these tiny electric cars can do off road? I dont think so. And what about something in the way you can see on maps. This is highly impractical.

your kidding, right? how do you think offroad cars work. you press gas pedal and it just goes forward? that may have been true in the past perhaps. now the computer in the car calculates the slope and slipping of every wheel independently and applies power to most efficiently go over obstacles. computers already do offroad.

I was talking about the model showed in the video but thanks for going of on a tangent unrelated. Its not a matter of can the car do it, its a matter of how you input this command on where to go and how it interprets it.

For instance, navigating a construction site with people working. The car is going to have to detect all the moving people, vehicles, the quality of the ground, the slop, the moisture, and determine how much power to give to each wheel to reach a certain speed. Not to mention any more process' ive missed. Which means this thing is going to have to have all kinds of meters and equipment in it to function. Keep this in mind when we get to the part where you talk about price down here. \/

There is a difference between detecting rainfall and detecting the water in front of you is to deep to cross.

no roads should ahve water too deep, and if it comes to flooded road the car simply detects water and decides its impassable and searches for a way around it.

I have personally seen 5 bridges flood from rainfall in my life that were to deep to pass. There are flooded roads all around the world so im not sure what you are talking about.

Again, detecting rainfall and detecting water depth are two entirely different things. As far as im aware, the devices for checking water depth require you to be on the water already. Maybe there is a device I dont no about so id be happy to be informed if you know any better.

Oh I am suicidal now? Guess I need to go to therapy.

if you are driving a motorbike, yes you are. you dont need therapy thought, its unlikely you drive it because you want to die, but rather chose a very dangerous mode of transportation for some other reason.

You know what the word suicidal means right? Maybe you shouldn't call people something you dont understand? I ride my bike because its fun. I also take bike trips with my father across the U.S.

Because that will work for every problem. -.-. You must be a horrible driver.

It would if everyone followed the rules. robot cars follow the rules.
And yes, i am a bad driver and i would rather someone else drives for me.

Stopping and turning around does not solve every problem on the road. Stopping is usually the first thing you do in a lot of situations but not for every one. There is not single answer as to what to do for all situations.

Maybe you could make efforts to become a better driver?

Good thing I didn't say new anywhere. Please dont move anywhere near me thanks.
I like how you expect used computer cars to be the same cost. I doubt that very much. The cost to build these im sure is quite a lot more than a regular car.

so your expecting automated cars to come out used? thats not how it works. Dont worry, i got no plans to move to US. We do not have the numbers on these car build prices, but it is unlikely to be much higher, but rather i experct it to be lover because due to automation many things can be ommited that would require drive input, such as manual gearshift.

Yeah there would be used ones. Im not sure why you think there wouldnt be. These cars would cost a lot more money. Making the process automated actually increases the cost. A manual transmission is much cheaper than an automation transmission. Im going to guess you don't know a whole lot about cars? As a fun fact, Manual also cost less to repair and usually gets better gas millage than automatics.

Also remember all the meters and things needed in the car we talked about before? Those cost a lot of money. Even a decent gps is about 100 these days.

Ha, do you like in California or something? Electric cars being the majority? Thats not going to happen in the next 10 years. Not even close.

Again, look at how much shit Xbox got for trying to go full digital. You think a world that has that many problems with digital games will just be cool with computer cars? This is something that wouldn't happen outside of some place like California for a very very very long time.

electric cars are raising and they are going to happen regardless of anything else but utter destruction. reason for that is simple - we are running out of oil and thus gasoline. even racing cars are regulated to have hybrid engines now.

Xbox didnt try to go digital. Xbox tried to change how games are sold. if the game companies wouldnt be utter morons and treat digital game sales as actual sales instead of whatever fucked up system they have now the shitstor would have been far lower. you know, reselling, return policies, ect. situation is completely different with Xbox. not to mention it even had better arguments against. at least better than what your giving me here.

Less than 1% of the U.s. (Same goes for most European countries before you get all Anti American on me again) uses electric cars. Thats a long way away from what you are saying. Also we will not run out of oil for 100+ years. Will electric cars be the replacement? I dont know. It could be something completely different. However, as of now, electric cars have a LONG way to go to be used by a majority.

Care to link me where these comprehensive tests have been used and failed?

you said your driving a truck, so you have a drivers license. so you already passed these tests, im sure you remmeber how they looked like.

Oh thats a nice link you gave me of the test you were talking about. :/ I do remember passing these tests. They werent the highly comprehensive ones you were talking about though which is why I asked for a source.

What?!? How the hell do you think we would deal with millions of unemployed people? Also, you are ok with this happening for the 'possibility' for this to happen? Thats got to be one of the most selfish things I have heard in a long time.

the same way we dealt with millios of unemployed throughout history. either end up better living for everyone due to surplus brought by technology that pushed them out of work, they get refocused into other works, or they remain stubborn and go on "Bashing evil machines" and end up being in jail. its ironic how you sound exactly like people during industrial revolution claiming that assembly line will leave millions workless and collapse the economy. except it didnt happen.

I dont even know how to respond to this. First, like I have already said, the assembly line contributed much more than it hurt. There was a lot of things that the assembly line allowed that wasn't previously possible. This however, will not do such things. This would hurt much more than it gained. This would effect more industries and a lot more people than the assembly line did.

As far as your 'same we weve dealt with millions of unemployed through history' junk goes; I just dont even know what to say. I guess if you would provide an instance of millions of unemployed being 'dealt with' I could start from there.

Also you dont know what irony is. Thats not ironic.

Its usually used to take people on vacation when they dont want to fly or drive themselves.

Ah, i see. automating these busses would be nice, especially when you can cut the mandatory driver sleep period so vacationeers wouldnt be forced to stop for a whole in the middle of the trip.

Most trips dont take longer than a day and they would usually have another person to share driving. And before you say getting rid of this would save you prices on tickets, It wouldn't. You would save maybe 2 bucks on a few hundred dollar ticket. Thats even if they adjust prices in the first place.

I hate it when people have been "Stiffling innocation" especially if its anything like stifling innovation.
Seriously though, care to explain your stance on this?

Big car manufacturers were buying out and shutting down innovative car designers ever since, well, 30s. an example of Tucker comes to mind, the man who pretty much invented a car with seatbelts that was run over by the car manufacturers to the point of bribing senators because if seatbelts got popular it would raise the costs of manufacturing. when seatbelts became mandatory it halved car accident deaths. yet it took us over 50 years since this guy thanks to the big companies. same goes for oil engine, electric cars in the 80s, ect. they have been trying to keep status quo in cars instead of improving. its why US car manufacturers pretty much lost to everyone else who didnt now Its why you got Detroit become a ghost town.

And you assume new manufactures will somehow be different?

I have already explained this but I suppose ill do it again. These cars wont be taken to a mechanic shop. More than likely it will be sent back to the manufacture or a technician from the manufacture will be sent to fix your car. The mechanic shops you see all around your town would close shop.

No they wouldnt. noone wants to ship a ton weighing car across large distances to fix it. they would license the locals when they figured they know how to fix it. you know, just like how it is now with warranty for cars. you dont ship the car to Taiwan, you go to local representative.

Why wouldnt they just send the self driving car back to the manufacture? In instances where the driving mechanics are down then it would make more sense for a tech to be sent out? Why would independent mechanic shops train people on the new systems for a fraction of the work they had before? There would be no way for them to stay in business.

Police are underfunded. So lets take their primary source for income away? You do realize most of the money that is given to law enforcement is generated by traffic regulations right?

primary source of income. you mean passenger bribes? because the fines you pay does not go to police budget.

Lol. Where do you think the ticket fines go to then? I can promise you the police departments will be cut quite substantially if these become standard.

Yeah. Buy it from god or more sensibly you would buy them online since the only practical difference is the interior of the car. There wouldn't be near as many makes and models as we have now so what would be point of a dealership? Especially when the cars can just deliver themselves.

Of course there would be many different makes. well, unless you allow google to have monopolistic control over it instead of making it technology anyone can manufacture. what with your broken copyright and patent laws. and people would certainly go to resellers to buy it, just like internet didnt made regular shops die out for household items, it wont make it for cars. your running full of strawmans here and thats it.

Because your copyright laws are so much better right? The internet made a lot of regular shops die out! Do you live under a rock or something? This instance however, again had much more benefits than it did negatives. If there was more benefits for having a self driving car I would be all for it. As it stands though, I dont think there is. Also, youre one to talk about strawmen lol.

Haha, "It should." Yeah and 'I should' be on a beach with models running my back right now but that ain't happening is it? (Since you can't see me I have to tell you its not.)

so instead of trying to get to the beach you claim fuck it ill let everyone hit me becuase im not on the beach? no, id rather work towards a goal then proclaim im not there therefore i wont try.[/quote]

When did I claim fuck it? What are you even talking about? I work towards all the goals in my life. I started a business, own a house and a car, im engaged, Iv'e done pretty much everything I have wanted to. How you got any of that out of what I have said I have no idea.

Yes lets make more regulations on what private business has to pay their workers! This is the land of the free after all right?

something something communism something something bullshit arguments.

You really hate Americans dont you? You want to generalize me more based on my country of origin? Do you not see how incredibly wrong that is?

So you know a little bit about me now. What about you? What do you do for a living? Where do you live in Europe? What kind of experience do you have that qualifies you to talk about business relating to government policies? Do you own a business too? I would love to hear.

I never said anything about communism. I have a complex veiw of what government should and shouldn't do. If you want to have a political debate im all for it. I dont really think it pertains to this subjet though.

I already explained how the assembly line was one a much smaller scale than this would be. The Cold War and World War 2 are both wars but they are on differently scales. See how that works?

assembly line was on a much smaller scale? ok now im certain you dont know what your talking about.

Ok? It would be. Simply by the fact that it would effect much more people across many more industries.

You have no idea how business works do you? You are some kind of extreme idealist with a big tin foil hat on. How do you propose we fix this problem then? I would love to hear what your idea is for dealing with the fallout this would create.

how about start with stopping the increase of inequality gap?

Ok. Now how would we do that? I want to hear your plan not just some generalized ideas. Give me specifics.

Really? Looks like you know fuck all about life in general. The whole point of these cars is cheap and safe transportation is it not? Didn't you just tell me it would be cheaper because we wouldn't have to pay bus drivers or taxi drivers? Moron.

not sure what you mean or why your insulting me here. public transport > private cars in efficiency.
this is true for both manual and automated ones.

Doesn't matter you insulted me first right? Ok. Thats also not true. It depends on what efficiency you are trying to go for.

5% is the average and notice that 6.3% is not 5%. If you would look at the link you used you would even notice that its only been this low for less than a month. Thats not enough to say unemployment is fine. It has to keep going down AND stay there for a while. Notice most of this year its been about 7% and last year 7-8%. Our unemployment is still high.

We are nowhere close to below the expected unemployment rate. Did you forget how numbers work?

5% is not average. 5% of the nominal unemployment that is expected to happen naturally regardless of economical situation.
had you read what you quoted you would have seen that 7-8% is perfectly acceptable. its not high.

7-8 is nowhere near acceptable. Please quote the part that says it is. Also this isn't even getting into the fact that this number is not even accurate. There are tons of listed problems with this number and Id be happy to debate this with you if you want but I feel as though its getting to far of topic.

 

[Strazdas]

Your logic is intrinsically flawed. It's like saying "More people get food poisoning than they do lead poisoning, therefore there's a problem with agriculture".

Firstly, driving and cancer are totally different things. They're incomparable in almost every respect, other than the potential to cause death. There is no significance in comparing the two death rates. If nothing else, the numbers are totally different. In the US there were over 210 Million registered drivers in 2009 - given that the total number of drivers in the US has not decreased, and has almost exclusively increased, it's a very safe assumption to say that there are even more now. In contrast, there are fewer than 15 Million people living with Cancer in the US, (which itself is less than 10% of the amount of drivers). Finally, Cancer is treated, while driving measures are preventative... there's a world of difference.

Secondly, you have the assumption that accidents happen due to bad driving. They can be, but there are many thousands of accidents that happen beyond control. Weather, animals, pedestrians, obstructions in the road - these are things that humans are better equipped to deal with, but still are responsible for fatalities.

As I've previously mentioned, these cars are badly designed to work on roads with other users. To put it simply, these cars will need to rely on sensors to brake, right? So what about fog, cyclists, other cars etc? Cars won't be able to use judgement to brake, so they'll need to have an immediate and gradual braking system in place to ensure the safety of the passengers. So far, so good... until you realise that traffic waves, caused by these kinds of braking habits, are major causes of gridlock and traffic jams. Do you think that cyclists in particular won't take advantage of knowing that these cars will always brake? Of course they will! And this is without considering other drivers, who will obviously still be using the roads.

Anyway, a high risk system that only has a death rate probability of 0.015%? That's not a broken system. Fishermen have 10 times that probability as a standard occupational risk, as do people that work in forestry. Pilots have 5 times that rate. Farmers have almost double the risk... are these all broken systems too? They involve significantly fewer people too, so there is less exposure to risk!

The current transport system has a high fatality count, because lots of people use it, and everyone makes mistakes. Cars, early warning systems and suchlike continue to improve, despite the odds against letting stupid people take control of a dangerous vehicle. There is no need to overhaul the entire system, and there is no market in doing so either.

You di have a point that i have utilized not great tactics to showcase the number of vehicle accidents damage. One thing to note is that every single person has cancer, its just not active, because cancer is actually our own cells going crazy and not dieing whne they are supposed to.

Statistically over 90% of accidents are due to driver error and very few caused by external factors or broken down car (which in most cases are still driver error in not doing maintenance).

These cars are prototypes. they arent perfect and that is why we need to work these things out before its public release. but we need to work out out instead of just throwing our hands in the air and claiming "nah too much effort for our safety".

The sensors we got now detect anything from car to pavement and measure its distance. fog does not interfere it, at least not with my (cheap run off the mill) sensors i use. rain does like i mentioned before, but that can be worked out. does not need to for human because he can interpret that sudden short reports of "omg something is close" when raining is, well, rain. computers can be programmed to interpret it however you wish.

cyclists already take advantage of cars breaking and at least here they are hardly the cause for traffic jams.

Yes, these are broken systems too. but they can be solved easier, like solving a lot of problems by not letting drunk farmers drive their trucks and mangle their drunk companions with it. because that happens. Cars death rate was far higher when we had poor regulation. in fact the very first car that drove in US got into an accident within a week. we got better at lowering the risk via regulation and safety features, does not mean we got to stop there. and im all for lowering risk for farmers, pilots and fishermen. you know, like automating agriculture which we have technology to do now as well.

Our government spends 756 billion on the military right now. Thats not trillion(s). Also why is it you seem to think that I have done these things? I don't agree with a lot of what my government does. I didn't agree with the war, the company bailouts, or 90% of the other crap they do. I would love to know what part of Europe you live in so I can make baseless claims about you because of where you live.

Here is our defense budget btw. http://useconomy.about.com/od/usfederalbudget/p/military_budget.htm

756 billion per year. you have been at war for over 10 years. how is that not trillions?
i meant you as a whole nation, not you personally. sadly english language does not differentiate between you - singular and you - plural. being non-native english speaker and have different words for these in my language i end up typing without thinking it can be interpreted as singular.

My location is public in my profile. I live in Lithuania. That is eastern europe.

I dont think you quite understand how gps works. Clouds do interfere, as do trees, parking decks, buildings, and just about everything else. It is enough to break a cell phone gps and a dedicated device. Not to mention that they still arent able to navigate through things like

Clouds interference is marginal. trees does have some effect but little. parking decks and buildings have large effect due to signal not going through matter and having to bounce, but i never had trouble using GPS because i was driving next to a building. granted i dont use my GPS in my underground parking lot, but its not like i need much navigation to inside it. as far as your interstate example, yes the software is not perfect there mostly due to how our GPS is nerfed. we are allowed to use military sattelites, however they intentionally give inprecise data even if they could give us precise one. this is intentional so terrorists could not build GPS navigated missiles to cause terror. software tries to approximate the precise location from the signals that in relaity looks like you were to take 10 meter radiuos circle and start dotting it at random but they dont always work and apperently software does not remember that you were driving on top of a ramp and not bellow it.

Ok? Because everyone knows people make their opinions and arguments based solely on logic right? Thats why religion died years ago! Also I was pointing this out to show an issue with the design. Because its a computer controlled car and has 0 human input, the moment one of these things causes a death there will be people crying up a storm to get it removed.

Sadly no, people often make emotional decisions that end up worsening the situation instead. you know, like trying to save few work places trying to stop progress.

Oh yeah thats awesome. Lets have multiple easily access local signals with loads of personal information on them. That doesnt sound like a HORRIBLE IDEA at all!

And again, why does it seem you are blaming me for people that cant get internet? I would love to find out where you like in Europe so we can see what kind of infrastructure you have and the scale of your home to the U.S. because im sure its quite different.

because telling the phone booth that this car is sending money for the ticket is so much personal information. its not like all that information is already collected or anything. I guess it would collect a bit more information if your paying cash now. however you can just let the automated car stop and wait for human payment if you want that so much.

Like i said, i live in Lithuania, we got 6th best internet infrastructure in the world, meanwhile US has the worst of civilized world. oh, and yeah, dont bother scaling. we got internet on average over 10 times faster and pay around 5 times less for it. google fiber is similar in its speeds, but the price is still atrocious.

I was talking about the model showed in the video but thanks for going of on a tangent unrelated. Its not a matter of can the car do it, its a matter of how you input this command on where to go and how it interprets it.

For instance, navigating a construction site with people working. The car is going to have to detect all the moving people, vehicles, the quality of the ground, the slop, the moisture, and determine how much power to give to each wheel to reach a certain speed. Not to mention any more process' ive missed. Which means this thing is going to have to have all kinds of meters and equipment in it to function. Keep this in mind when we get to the part where you talk about price down here. \/

car in the video is a prototype proof of concept. its there ot prove that car can self drive, not to utilize latest car design technologies. thats for the final model. this one only needs to ahve 4 wheels and drive itself. just like you dont build a shiny PC case when designing a new GPU just to show that you got a new GPU.

oh, yes, a sonar check to see distance from objects around and report it back. we got these sensors now. they are what 20 dollars or so i paid for mine. though admittedly they were the cheap type but so far works for couple years already without problem. everything else is already used in offroad cars (your not going to drive a city car to a construction site anyway are you?) and up to software to interpret and act accordingly. you know, software thats kinda the main thing here and google is mainly working on that.

Also worth noting that technology prive goes down in price significantly when mass manufacturing begins. just look at how power steering was an expensive luxury till it got into all the cars and now its much cheaper to produce that they got to produce it for everyone.

Maybe you could make efforts to become a better driver?

Thats like asking Bieber to become a better singer or Uwe Boll to become a better filmmaker. Its not for the lack of trying that im a poor driver, some people just arent good at some things. I realize that and let others drive when thats an option.

Most trips dont take longer than a day and they would usually have another person to share driving. And before you say getting rid of this would save you prices on tickets, It wouldn't. You would save maybe 2 bucks on a few hundred dollar ticket. Thats even if they adjust prices in the first place.

you havent been on long trips then. when the trip takes over a week and third of it is spent standing due to driver needing to rest as per regulation (and yes that includes two drivers) thats quite some time wasted. oh, and drivers dont get paid few bucks for the trip.

And you assume new manufactures will somehow be different?

no, merely explain why i wont weep for death of old ones. at least with new ones there is a chance its going to be better, cant really get worse anyway.

Why wouldnt they just send the self driving car back to the manufacture? In instances where the driving mechanics are down then it would make more sense for a tech to be sent out? Why would independent mechanic shops train people on the new systems for a fraction of the work they had before? There would be no way for them to stay in business.

why would they send the cars back to manufacture? transportation is costly and its much cheaper to do it locally. besides, that also means they can earn money from licensing it to local shops. thats like sending it to manufacturer when current car breaks down while under warranty. we dont do it. we get it to local licensed shop and they fix it locally.

Lol. Where do you think the ticket fines go to then? I can promise you the police departments will be cut quite substantially if these become standard.

goes to state budget income here. to use US equivalent, federal budget. Except since our country is one and not divided the state and federal level would be one of the same for us. we got regions but they dont have the autonomy your states do.

Because your copyright laws are so much better right? The internet made a lot of regular shops die out! Do you live under a rock or something? This instance however, again had much more benefits than it did negatives. If there was more benefits for having a self driving car I would be all for it. As it stands though, I dont think there is. Also, youre one to talk about strawmen lol.

No, our copyright is as fucked up as yours. But at least we dont plan on killing net neutrality.
Really, and i could swear there still were a lot of local shops down the street when i went to work tomorrow, i must have some kind of time machine.

When did I claim fuck it? What are you even talking about? I work towards all the goals in my life. I started a business, own a house and a car, im engaged, Iv'e done pretty much everything I have wanted to. How you got any of that out of what I have said I have no idea.

then you used your analogy wrong.

You really hate Americans dont you? You want to generalize me more based on my country of origin? Do you not see how incredibly wrong that is?

No, i dont hate americans, i hate people who tout ideologies that are actively harming themselves and clearly do not work. the "land of the free" remark was more generalizing than what i said anyway. regardless of your country, touting such nonesense is still going to be called out on nonesense. i admit i have ran away with the american likeness of shouting communism the moment something isnt suggesting free market even though free market is evidently failing misserably.

So you know a little bit about me now. What about you? What do you do for a living? Where do you live in Europe? What kind of experience do you have that qualifies you to talk about business relating to government policies? Do you own a business too? I would love to hear.

Ech, i got a feeling your going to turn it into ad hominem. but ok, whatever. As i stated, i live in Lithuania and i work for national statistics institution. I am economist, accountant and statistician by profession, altrough current work only invovles the first and third. I see government policies in action quite clearly, after all i have to calculate tables that reflect whole economy and can see the results. I do not own a business nor do i want to own one. Is your curiuosity satisfied or do you want to know anything else?

I never said anything about communism. I have a complex veiw of what government should and shouldn't do. If you want to have a political debate im all for it. I dont really think it pertains to this subjet though.

Yet you brough the politics with fighting agianst taxation government regulation and "land of the free", after all using that corny phrase i made a mockery of the type of people that use it, the kind that thinks govenrmenrt regualtion = communism. Im sorry if it didnt fit your personal beliefs, maybe you shouldnt use generalized phrases like that to represent them then.

Ok. Now how would we do that? I want to hear your plan not just some generalized ideas. Give me specifics.

ech, plan needs to be made depending on current circumstances, nor am i going to bother doing the calculations for some forum reply. Firstly we should encourage sufficient pay, with regulation where needed, we also should offer equality in government services. Secondly we should have progressive taxes and discourage money hoarding. Thirdly the bailout should be done completely differently. Its fine if givenrment spends money that is injected into economy, however people that used these money to pay bonuses to themselves should be held accountable for it. Coruption should also be minimized much more. There should also be some form of quality control for politicians. Transperency is also important. government has to be transparent and we should be able to see all it is doing (beside the obviuos stuff like military tech research thats going to remain classified).

Also standing capital can, should and in part is taxed. capital should work and echange hands, not sit in a safe.

7-8 is nowhere near acceptable. Please quote the part that says it is. Also this isn't even getting into the fact that this number is not even accurate. There are tons of listed problems with this number and Id be happy to debate this with you if you want but I feel as though its getting to far of topic.

Fair enough i can accept that i didnt check for this numbers accuracy, just took the first result of google. The rate however is acceptable and thats just basics of modern economy where workforce is moving around. im not going to quite you entire economics course though.

 

[Ragnar47183]

*Snip*

You know what? I feel like theres a culture gap here. I feel like ultimately we both want the same thing just in different ways.

We both want progress just I want to make sure there is no needless sacrifices for progress to happen. Im even sure we agree in a lot of places about the government. I dont like what my government has been doing but there isn't a whole lot you can do to change it since the United States is so big. Its much harder to change policies in the U.s. than it is there.

I also think (for the U.s. anyway) that these cars are about the least of our issues. In fact, Ii would love for this to take hold first.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways

This would fix a ton of issues and the benefits would far outweigh the cost. This would allow a clean energy source and would actually make electric cars much more attractive and cheaper. It would also reduce the overall cost of repairs on raods and telephone poles as well as allowing the outdated internet and phone infrastructural to be replaced.

I would much rather see money being spent towards this before these google cars. In fact, doing this first would make the google cars much more possible. Also seeing as these solar roads are already made and ready to be installed its a much closer goal to aim for.

Also I would try to not generalize Americans just because they are American in the future. There are a lot of stereotypes for us that simple arent true. Also I hate patriotism (Its a stupid idea) and would prefer not to be defined by the place I grew up in which is something I couldn't control.

 

[Strazdas]

*Snip*

You know what? I feel like theres a culture gap here. I feel like ultimately we both want the same thing just in different ways.

We both want progress just I want to make sure there is no needless sacrifices for progress to happen. Im even sure we agree in a lot of places about the government. I dont like what my government has been doing but there isn't a whole lot you can do to change it since the United States is so big. Its much harder to change policies in the U.s. than it is there.

I also think (for the U.s. anyway) that these cars are about the least of our issues. In fact, Ii would love for this to take hold first.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways

This would fix a ton of issues and the benefits would far outweigh the cost. This would allow a clean energy source and would actually make electric cars much more attractive and cheaper. It would also reduce the overall cost of repairs on raods and telephone poles as well as allowing the outdated internet and phone infrastructural to be replaced.

I would much rather see money being spent towards this before these google cars. In fact, doing this first would make the google cars much more possible. Also seeing as these solar roads are already made and ready to be installed its a much closer goal to aim for.

Also I would try to not generalize Americans just because they are American in the future. There are a lot of stereotypes for us that simple arent true. Also I hate patriotism (Its a stupid idea) and would prefer not to be defined by the place I grew up in which is something I couldn't control.

I agree there certainly is a cultural gap here.
As far as solar roadways, escapist reported on it and it was a bad idea for many reasons.
to make them clear enough to act like solar collectors you need to have them slick, and thats just outright dangerous in wet or snow enviroment.
They are very expensive, a single tile costs 8000 dollars, which means that a single meter of a 3 lane road would cost a million. how many meters of roads do we have? now that is too expensive solution, not having new readout detectors in cones on the side of the road that we already have placed (for safety purposes).
the material solar panels are made off are quite toxic, which means high maintenance and plenty of damage to enviroment manufacturing them. solar panels are actually a bad thing, because you cause more harm manufacturing them than you save by utilizing its energy, which brings us to another point
solar power is weak. our solar pannels do not generate enough energy to be significant in our power consumtion. we could literally lay flat whole surface of the earth in solar pannels and it would not produce enough energy to sate our current consumption.
and last but not least - the panels are weak. we got traffic, especially trucks, that bash holes in and literally displace asphalt by sheer weight and repeated driving. the displacement is so bad in some streets here that i can let go of the wheel and it would drive itself like it were on tracks. they replace the road every few years but its a very busy street and it gets used up again. are those panels going to be stronger than asphalt roads? or is it going to end in crash and burn?

SO yeah, i still remain with i would rather see self driving cars before these. because solar roads as they are now is unworkable.