Nevada already implemented regulations to allow companies to test drive self driving cars on its roads, and all it will take for the rest of the nation to follow is for Google get California on board.
The technology is already here. It's all about regulation and politics now, and there is so much money to made that it's just a question of when not if.
If I can't buy a self-driving car in 10 years, I'm going to build my own.
I've only seen tests on highways; afaik Google's car can't yet technologically manage the process of showing up to a random spot you want it to. For example, it can drive on 280, but it can't exit 280 into SF, navigate surface streets, and pull up to the curb where you're waiting.
During a half-hour drive beginning on Google’s campus 35 miles south of San Francisco last Wednesday, a Prius equipped with a variety of sensors and following a route programmed into the GPS navigation system nimbly accelerated in the entrance lane and merged into fast-moving traffic on Highway 101, the freeway through Silicon Valley.
It drove at the speed limit, which it knew because the limit for every road is included in its database, and left the freeway several exits later. The device atop the car produced a detailed map of the environment.
The car then drove in city traffic through Mountain View, stopping for lights and stop signs, as well as making announcements like “approaching a crosswalk” (to warn the human at the wheel) or “turn ahead” in a pleasant female voice. This same pleasant voice would, engineers said, alert the driver if a master control system detected anything amiss with the various sensors.
The car can be programmed for different driving personalities — from cautious, in which it is more likely to yield to another car, to aggressive, where it is more likely to go first.
I've seen it, it can do this. I've seen it first-hand navigate it's way around the Google campus, go into a left turn lane, turn left into one of the Google buildings. The entrance has a prominent bump, and the car slowed down so as not to hit it hard.
Of course, it may have been pre-programmed, but I don't believe so. What I don't think it can yet do is navigate arbitrary systems like drive-thrus.
The current state of the technology is really impressive, but there are still real technical problems to solve before it is something that is ready for you to buy. As far as I know, nobody has successfully driven a driverless car in snow, for example.
>As far as I know, nobody has successfully driven a driverless car in snow, for example.
Snow is really the last technological problem left. Rain is fine, but heavy snow completely blocks almost all visual indicators.
That being said, it's not an insurmountable problem and there are plenty of places where snow is almost never a problem.
If you look at the DARPA grand challenge. In 2004 the farthest anyone got was 7 miles. Yet one year later 5 vehicles successfully completed the 150 mile course, and all but one of the 23 finalists surpassed the 7 mile best from the previous year.
If California said that beginning in 2015 it would be legal for private citizens to own and operate a self driving car, I have no doubt there would be several companies with commercial products the first day they were legal.
The obstacles are almost totally political at this point.
Nevada already implemented regulations to allow companies to test drive self driving cars on its roads, and all it will take for the rest of the nation to follow is for Google get California on board.
The technology is already here. It's all about regulation and politics now, and there is so much money to made that it's just a question of when not if.
If I can't buy a self-driving car in 10 years, I'm going to build my own.