Would you buy a driverless car?

[abacucat]

I would. I love the idea. Being able to travel long distances while reading a book for example. Although I would wait a bit for others to buy them and check there are no glitches that need to be sorted first.

Can’t drive. Not sure whether to learn or just wait for driverless. Would love to avoid having to learn to drive. they’re not likely to be available commercially in the UK for at least another twenty years according to someone in the know I was talking to recently, so it really isn’t a case of waiting to learn to drive as there’s a very real chance that they may not actually even happen in your lifetime.

No. I don't trust them. It's a nice idea but like PP said what if the system crashes and someone gets hit or injured because there's no manual override function? Or if the "passenger" has no idea how to drive and take over the controls?

I also live in the middle of nowhere and wouldn't trust them on country roads where you need to drive into hedges/verges or reverse around tight corners to allow traffic to pass. I drove on lots of roads where you need to stop and pull over to allow oncoming traffic to pass (eg tractors or lorries) for example - can they manage that kind of situation when the road is technically wide enough for two vehicles?

What will they do when faced with sheep or cattle in the road (like I was several times this morning) or when a cat or dog darts out and the brakes need to be slammed on?

Not on the current tech but Volvo are working on a car you can park, walk off, carry on your day etc and via their app request it to come and pick you up! Do like the sound of that.

I fully anticipate that in my lifetime (so by roughly 2075) it will become illegal for a human to drive a car in most countries.

I will be dead by then.

I am going to cling on to see it happen

@SummerGems fair enough but I bloody well hope “my lifetime” extended

More than 20 years!

Joking aside, I think there are 2 things that we need to consider

• Autonomous cars today are absolutely not fit for purpose and everyone in AI agrees on that so dismissing them on current capability is a bit of a straw man. In twenty years machine learning will be so much more advanced. Twenty years ago, mobile phones were in their infancy, faxes were still in common use, smart phones weren't invented and hamster dance was the best thing on the internet.

• The pattern of car use will almost certainly change with driverless cars. At the same time, other trends will also impact commuter patterns (more people work from home, more people doing non-standard hours etc), which will spread demand. At least in big cities, I would expect a big fall in car ownership, albeit not necessarily a drop in cars on the road. I live in HK and Uber is busy all day every day so it would be totally feasible to have a driverless car and release it to go off in the day and be a taxi. In fact, some people here already basically do that because they have a driver and the driver works for Uber in the day when not needed.

• Driverless cars meet a desire for solitude and convenience. Nobody actually likes public transport. It's just necessary in the absence of a better alternative. They will be hugely popular and the people that will drive uptake probably haven't been born yet.

• Most people think that driverless cars can drive better than the average person but not as well as them. At least 50% of those people are probably wrong (based on averages).

Absolutely no way. I won’t even use cruise control. I hate not being in control.