NO. No,no,no,no. HELL, no!

[Z4Rick]

I truly believe that between Insurance companies, Governments who know better than their governed, the Global Warming movement and advances in technology, many on this list will live to see the end of cars driven by human owners. At a very minimum, they will be taxed into the stratosphere for owning one and insurance will be thru the roof expensive.


"Las Vegas (AFP) - BMW Group says it will deploy 40 self-driving vehicles for tests in the United States and Europe.

The German auto group made the announcement jointly with US computer chip giant Intel and the Israeli-based auto technology firm Mobileye at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Wednesday.

"Making autonomous driving a reality for our customers is the shared ambition behind our cooperation with Intel and Mobileye," said BMW board member Klaus Froehlich in a statement, who said the tests would be a major step toward achieving a fully autonomous vehicle by 2021.

"This partnership has all of the skills and talent necessary to overcome the enormous technological challenges ahead and commercialize self-driving vehicles. Therefore, we are already thinking in terms of scalability and welcome other companies -- manufacturers, suppliers or technology companies – to participate and contribute to our autonomous platform."

The companies said they plan to begin testing by the end of this year, joining autonomous vehicles from Google's Waymo, Uber and others being used in real-traffic situations.

BMW Group will be responsible for driving control, safety and the production of the car platform.

Intel will offer its Intel Go computing platform that uses a variety of sensors and other data to power the brains of the car.

Mobileye will be using its proprietary EyeQ5 computer vision processor which gets input from the 360-degree surround view sensors as well as localization.

"From an industry perspective, we are already seeing savings and speed in development by sharing development costs and in pooling resources to develop a complete autonomous platform," Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich said.

"That's why this partnership is breaking new ground. We have established a dedicated team with clear, shared goals and a culture of innovation and agility and accountability."

Nearly all the major global automakers are involved in testing or autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles, with some expecting full autonomy within a few years."

[Chris_D]

It's the future.
We'll all have to go back to playing with Scalectrix and model railways for shits n giggles.....

[raymond.harper]

The times they are a changing. Taxi drivers will be first with probably Uber making all the drivers out of a job within 10 years. The young will embrace the new driverless cars and they will be much cheaper. You will only pay for when you use it. A typical car is used only 20% of the time at best so you will be able to rent one for the 20% of the time you use it. Old people will love the new cars as they will be able to use them when they are no longer able to drive. You will be able to drink without worrying about driving and you will be able to do some work in your car or read a paper. There will be lots of teething problems but within ten year most cars will be self driving. However some of us die hard petrol heads will still want to drive but just for how long and on what conditions remain to be seen. Biggest change could be linking up self drive cars to railways.

[Bing]

The times they are a changing. Taxi drivers will be first with probably Uber making all the drivers out of a job within 10 years. The young will embrace the new driverless cars and they will be much cheaper. You will only pay for when you use it. A typical car is used only 20% of the time at best so you will be able to rent one for the 20% of the time you use it. Old people will love the new cars as they will be able to use them when they are no longer able to drive. You will be able to drink without worrying about driving and you will be able to do some work in your car or read a paper. There will be lots of teething problems but within ten year most cars will be self driving. However some of us die hard petrol heads will still want to drive but just for how long and on what conditions remain to be seen. Biggest change could be linking up self drive cars to railways.

I love this positive view of the future, and it has lots of attractions even for me, despite the fact I love driving. A lot of my driving is monotonous point to point stuff that I'd rather not do to be honest. The hard part will be mixed use roads initially, and the issue for petrolheads will be the eventual banning of non-self-driving cars from certain roads.

[SeanConnor]

This is a huge bandwagon that is being very generously funded by the UK government. There are very large grants avaiable for autonomous vehicle development.

See https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/inte ... 2Bvehicles

There are indeed some muesli knitting sandalistas involved and I was given a stern lecture at a meeting that I attended as part of a consortium bid. The drift of it was that I was particularly selfish and un-interested in the environment because I drove a 3 litre car with only two occupants The vast majority of people were however far more pragmatic and the focus of the bid was on autonomous bus systems. This is generally held to be a good idea. Even the sports car manufacturers are getting on board but NOT to develop autonomous sports cars. One well known manufacturer of light weight sports cars is part of the bid as they wish to branch out into airport transport systems .... I kid you not. It is well understood I hope that developing an autonomous sports car is a dead loss. At least amongst the non sandalistas. I didn t buy a sports car to have a bloody machine drive it ! Would I buy an autonomous car as a second vehicle ? Yes ... I could then go to the pub and have it drive me home Actually even this will not be possible as initially there will need to be somebody capable of taking over should the trickery fail, you would still be charged with being drunk in charge.

[buzyg]

So by the time I'm too old to drive. I'll be able to rock up to the bingo in me driverles carrage, Gad zooks.

[SeanConnor]

So by the time I'm too old to drive. I'll be able to rock up to the bingo in me driverles carrage, Gad zooks.

Yup and sip a couple of g&ts while you ste there

[BRC]

The one thing that has been consistent in my life time is that technology will let you down, no ifs or buts. Thereafter it's always human intervention that resolves any issues caused by that failure. Despite assurances to the contrary so shall it ever remain. As for the same technology being applied to aircraft, hmm give me one nano second to think about that, err no!

[SeanConnor]

The one thing that has been consistent in my life time is that technology will let you down, no ifs or buts. Thereafter it's always human intervention that resolves any issues caused by that failure. Despite assurances to the contrary so shall it ever remain. As for the same technology being applied to aircraft, hmm give me one nano second to think about that, err no!

[85genius]

muesli knitting sandalistas

[WLH]

It will be interesting to see how well these self-driving car can avoid pot-holes...
Some of the pot-holes that we have in Pennsylvania every spring if not avoided will damage your car if not avoided.

[Marlon]

Makes me glad I was born in the generation that could enjoy driving
. . . just wondering now how long that will last

[slick]

I better brush up on my software writeing and programing.......so I can hack my driverless car to drive in excess of the speed limits.......after all I cant be prosecuted for speeding

[WLH]

I can see than this automation will reduce if not eliminate fender benders and low speed accidents but when the automation fails the resulting accident(s) will be serious and I suspect often fatal.

[Mr Tidy]

The one thing that has been consistent in my life time is that technology will let you down, no ifs or buts. Thereafter it's always human intervention that resolves any issues caused by that failure. Despite assurances to the contrary so shall it ever remain. As for the same technology being applied to aircraft, hmm give me one nano second to think about that, err no!

Exactly - would you ever get on a plane that was advertised as being flown by Microsoft? I'd want at least a parachute for those "Shut-down and reboot" moments!