Driverless cars and auto insurance

[LongHaul]

I heard from a friend that in the Iron Ore Mining industry the driverless trucks were a huge improvement vs humans. 

Zero accidents, better mpg and higher productivity.

 

I can't predict when cars will be on the road but I imagine driverless cars to be much safer than humans when perfected.

Then a mix of private and fleet driverless cars will likely be options.  I'd love to ditch my car for a fleet.  I also think it would be great to set the car for a 10 hr drive, sleep and wake up at destination. 

 

 

Driverless Trucks and Mining

 

 

"Driverless" already functioning in Nevada. 

[Pelagic]

I heard from a friend that in the Iron Ore Mining industry the driverless trucks were a huge improvement vs humans. 

Zero accidents, better mpg and higher productivity.

 

I can't predict when cars will be on the road but I imagine driverless cars to be much safer than humans when perfected.

Then a mix of private and fleet driverless cars will likely be options.  I'd love to ditch my car for a fleet.  I also think it would be great to set the car for a 10 hr drive, sleep and wake up at destination. 

 

 

Driverless Trucks and Mining

 

 

"Driverless" already functioning in Nevada. 

 

The point about driverless vehicles in industry is a good one. We're all so focused on the consumer applications that we might overlook how game changing it is in the commercial sector. UPS and FedEx could have driverless trucks that show up at a prearranged time at your door, you walk outside and grab your package. As someone who knows a bit about drone tech, this seems a lot more feasible than Amazon's ambitions. Trucking will probably the first major adopter of driverless tech, at first as an auto-pilot type system, then moving to replace the driver entirely.

[rkbabang]

I heard from a friend that in the Iron Ore Mining industry the driverless trucks were a huge improvement vs humans. 

Zero accidents, better mpg and higher productivity.

 

I can't predict when cars will be on the road but I imagine driverless cars to be much safer than humans when perfected.

Then a mix of private and fleet driverless cars will likely be options.  I'd love to ditch my car for a fleet.  I also think it would be great to set the car for a 10 hr drive, sleep and wake up at destination. 

 

 

Driverless Trucks and Mining

 

 

"Driverless" already functioning in Nevada. 

 

The mining industry is the perfect industry for this, because the trucks don't have to deal with human drivers.  The most difficult part of getting autonomous cars on the roads is going to be dealing with human driven vehicles doing stupid things.    I know when I first got my license I was taught the rules of the road, but what no one told me is that other people don't follow these rules.  I got in a number of accidents before I realized that you just have to assume that the people around you are going to do asinine/totally insane things.  I rear-ended an old lady once that was stopping on a busy street (45mph speed limit) to let someone pull out of his driveway.  I was almost killed recently by an 18-wheeler blowing through a red light at full speed a long time after my side turned green.  If I hadn't waited and looked after my light turned green my daughter and I would have both been killed.  I can't wait for autonomous vehicles.  The more humans it gets off the road the better.  Driving is one thing the majority human beings are not good at and many thousands of people die every year as a result.  It cracks me up when people say that they are afraid of the safety of autonomous vehicles.

[Guest Schwab711]

I heard from a friend that in the Iron Ore Mining industry the driverless trucks were a huge improvement vs humans. 

Zero accidents, better mpg and higher productivity.

 

I can't predict when cars will be on the road but I imagine driverless cars to be much safer than humans when perfected.

Then a mix of private and fleet driverless cars will likely be options.  I'd love to ditch my car for a fleet.  I also think it would be great to set the car for a 10 hr drive, sleep and wake up at destination. 

 

 

Driverless Trucks and Mining

 

 

"Driverless" already functioning in Nevada. 

 

Absolutely, in closed environments with low density and/or predictable traffic. The first application of driverless vehicles was agriculture and mining/lumber/heavy services (closed environment, long hours or 24/7 operations, and complex skills required - raises cost of employees and time to train).

 

I would guess that 40%-50% of americans/households either do not have vehicles or their vehicle is >10 years old or <$5k (~same percentage as those that collect food stamps). I just don't see how everyone could afford this in a short time. The number of sensors in use would literally increase by factors. If everyone thinks this is a foregone conclusion at some point then you should be buying TEL hand-over-fist. Valuation wouldn't matter for the most part (since most of us think reliability will be extremely important). Mining services companies, that specialize in heavy metals or metals with extreme properties like Tungsten, also sound like they might have excellent long-term tailwinds. What will fuel these driverless cars? I'm assuming they are electric? If so, once we fully convert to electric cars, how will that effect electricity prices and will there be any regions that are not prepared for this significant jump in demand? Are the methods used to generate this new electricity consumption greener than exploration/production/refining of oil (this should be easy with even a ~20% mix of renewables).

 

I understand experts and the like are excited, but that's why I'm skeptical. I have yet to see an article talk about the costs associated with building one (I'm sure this is Top Secret at Apple/Google) or even provide estimates. I don't know what the sensors used on the cars are made of, but what does the supply chain look like for those raw materials? I just have a hard time believing the major car companies wouldn't push R&D on this if it was such a great system. Why is it Google/Apple who have spent the most money on driverless vehicles?

 

Finally, are confident are we that the average consumer's time is worth enough to break-even on a driverless car? :) I will be one of the earliest adopters once I have some confidence in the system/laws/benefits.

[Guest Schwab711]

I heard from a friend that in the Iron Ore Mining industry the driverless trucks were a huge improvement vs humans. 

Zero accidents, better mpg and higher productivity.

 

I can't predict when cars will be on the road but I imagine driverless cars to be much safer than humans when perfected.

Then a mix of private and fleet driverless cars will likely be options.  I'd love to ditch my car for a fleet.  I also think it would be great to set the car for a 10 hr drive, sleep and wake up at destination. 

 

 

Driverless Trucks and Mining

 

 

"Driverless" already functioning in Nevada. 

 

The point about driverless vehicles in industry is a good one. We're all so focused on the consumer applications that we might overlook how game changing it is in the commercial sector. UPS and FedEx could have driverless trucks that show up at a prearranged time at your door, you walk outside and grab your package. As someone who knows a bit about drone tech, this seems a lot more feasible than Amazon's ambitions. Trucking will probably the first major adopter of driverless tech, at first as an auto-pilot type system, then moving to replace the driver entirely.

 

But driverless cars are already in use in many industries and I don't think anyone is doubting the trend of driverless commercial vehicles on private land. The thread was on auto insurance and [presumably] mass-adoption of driverless cars (on public roads) affecting auto insurance companies. Much like the phrase "you are only as strong as the weakest link", adopting our public roads for driverless cars can only move as fast as the bottom 50% of the country's standard-of-living. I don't think the SOL will increase any faster than any previous period without significant gains/investment in renewable energy (>50% and maybe >75% of total energy production). I know nothing of the raw materials needed for the sensors required for this mass-adoption (and what will happen to the price of sensors as a result), but I think mass-adoption fails the SOL test (only because vehicles are such a large % of most household's net worth and assets).

 

Edit: What if the country makes a significant investment in public transportation nationally so there were more end points, more privacy, and the system was automated/more modular (since it would be more optimal than individual cars, ceteris paribus). You could enter you private transportation cube and a system of tubes or vehicles could transport and transfer you as necessary to reach your final destination. This could work in most cities with populations of >1m, which would cover ~45% of the country's transportation needs.

[rkbabang]

I just have a hard time believing the major car companies wouldn't push R&D on this if it was such a great system. Why is it Google/Apple who have spent the most money on driverless vehicles?

 

That is hilarious.  The major car companies will be the last ones to invest in anything that changes the status quo.  If you are under 70 years old you will live to see all of these companies go out of business.  They will never even produce a viable electric vehicle, never mind an autonomous one.  They will never abandon their ICE vehicle/dealership model with anything that will change how they do business.  The last thing they want is for autonomous vehicles to cause fewer cars to be sold.  Thus the other large impediment to autonomous vehicles will be political pressure by the existing auto manufacturers (except Tesla) and dealerships.  We already see the dealerships wielding their political muscle trying to stop Tesla from selling their products to people who want them (to protect the consumer of course  :P).

[Mephistopheles]

This can't be good for municipalities that rely on parking tickets, moving violations, DUIs, and all other money making schemes involving vehicles.

 

I guess property taxes will be going up in the future. =(

[rkbabang]

This can't be good for municipalities that rely on parking tickets, moving violations, DUIs, and all other money making schemes involving vehicles.

 

I guess property taxes will be going up in the future. =(

 

Yes this is going to ruffle a lot of feathers, there are probably more political issues to overcome than technical ones at this point.

[Jurgis]

What will fuel these driverless cars? I'm assuming they are electric?

 

Whatever gave you that idea? Of course not. Current Google/Delphi/Audi/etc. driverless cars are not electric and most of first-second generation won't be either.

 

I just don't understand why driverless in your mind means electric.

 

I just have a hard time believing the major car companies wouldn't push R&D on this if it was such a great system. Why is it Google/Apple who have spent the most money on driverless vehicles?

 

Of course major car companies are pushing driverless R&D like crazy. Why did you think Delphi had a driverless car drive cross country ( http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/03/autos/delphi-driverless-car-cross-country-trip/index.html )? Why do you think major car companies are releasing the Forward Collision Avoidance systems in their new models? ( See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system for a huge list)

 

Of course they are going incremental unlike Google/Uber. But the ball is rolling like heck.

[Jurgis]

OK, here's timeline for fun:

 

5 years: >50% new cars with forward collision avoidance (FCA) (this is aggressive). >2% of new cars with driverless-but-human-in-loop-for-unexpected tech.

 

10 years: >90% new cars with FCA, >20% of new cars with driverless-human-in-loop (aggressive), >2% of new cars with driverless-human-not-in-loop.

 

15 years: >50% of new cars with driverless-human-in-loop, >10% of new cars with driverless-human-not-in-loop.

 

20 years: all new cars with driverless-human-in-loop, >50% of new cars with driverless-human-not-in-loop (aggressive).

 

All of these might be gasoline or nat gas or electric or whatever.

[rkbabang]

OK, here's timeline for fun:

 

5 years: >50% new cars with forward collision avoidance (FCA) (this is aggressive). >2% of new cars with driverless-but-human-in-loop-for-unexpected tech.

 

10 years: >90% new cars with FCA, >20% of new cars with driverless-human-in-loop (aggressive), >2% of new cars with driverless-human-not-in-loop.

 

15 years: >50% of new cars with driverless-human-in-loop, >10% of new cars with driverless-human-not-in-loop.

 

20 years: all new cars with driverless-human-in-loop, >50% of new cars with driverless-human-not-in-loop (aggressive).

 

All of these might be gasoline or nat gas or electric or whatever.

 

What year will Uber go completely driverless?  My prediction 2027.

[rkbabang]

Our Cities Will Be Beautiful In The Driverless Future—But First We Have To Get There

 

"There might be social pressure, too. In our hypothetical future, you’ll be accustomed to zipping from place to place with no traffic jams and few bad drivers. Then you see a human holdout, somebody insisting on driving their own car. It hurtles through the placid waves of robot-piloted transport, causing your own car to swerve. You look up from your newspaper, tutting and shaking your head. "Go back to 2015, you moron," you think as loud as you can, before returning to your sudoku.

 

Now imagine you are at dinner with friends, and somebody confesses that they’re driving themselves home. The reaction may be the same as a smoker or drink-driver might get today. Social pressure may be the biggest propellant of change in the world today.

 

Sydney, Australia-based radio content director Charlie Fox says "I think if you drive your own car, you'll be perceived [as] lower class. It will become a status thing.""

 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

Can the Insurance Industry Survive Driverless Cars?

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-30/warren-buffett-s-family-secretly-funded-a-birth-control-revolution

 

Is that the link you meant to post?

[CorpRaider]

LOL.  This must be the one.  I saw it a couple of days ago.  It had a picture of the Gecko as road kill left behind by a driverless car.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-30/can-the-insurance-industry-survive-driverless-cars-

 

Could be pretty neat/crazy, especially when combined with the "sharing economy."  Driverless vans/buses that run on time and don't strike could seemingly be a huge deal for public transportation.

[Guest 50centdollars]

What happens to the millions of people who make a living driving vehicles, when vehicles become self-driving?

 

Truck drivers must number in the millions, as there are trucks going everywhere - from long-haul freight to local delivery.  Taxi drivers, delivery drivers, and so forth - a lot of people make a living behind the wheel.

 

And beyond cars and trucks, there are vehicles like fork lifts (many of which are already automated), bulldozers, rollers, graders, and other construction equipment.  We fly drones remotely already.  Why would we need pilots?  The routine operation of machinery is becoming more and more automated.

 

How many millions of people will be thrown out of work?  Add to that all the service jobs related to drivers - truckstop workers, roadside restaurants, even the strip clubs.  And what about the cops who hand out speeding tickets?  Not a lot to do when robotic cars all drive the same, regulated speed.

 

[Jurgis]

Fair question. Some people argue that mass unemployment is coming. I believe that's quite possible in 20-30+ year timeframe.

 

 

[rkbabang]

What happens to the candlestick makers when the electric light bulb catches on?

 

Yes there is a huge amount of change coming and it will not benefit everyone equally.  Change never does.

[merkhet]

Have people considered that the need for auto insurance might not only remain but that the nature of auto insurance in this instance would change dramatically?

 

If the algorithm has a bug in it, it would be like everyone in the country (or a large portion) automatically become drivers all at once. Would it become sort of like supercat instance?

[Jurgis]

Have people considered that the need for auto insurance might not only remain but that the nature of auto insurance in this instance would change dramatically?

 

If the algorithm has a bug in it, it would be like everyone in the country (or a large portion) automatically become drivers all at once. Would it become sort of like supercat instance?

 

Yes, possibly, maybe even likely. I think it's still gonna be much smaller total business, but I did not try to run numbers.

[rkbabang]

Have people considered that the need for auto insurance might not only remain but that the nature of auto insurance in this instance would change dramatically?

 

If the algorithm has a bug in it, it would be like everyone in the country (or a large portion) automatically become drivers all at once. Would it become sort of like supercat instance?

 

Cars are dangerous and people are still going to be hurt and killed (hopefully much less than now though), so insurance will be necessary.  You will still need liability insurance against accidents from mechanical malfunctions, from software glitches, from hackers, and from situations the software simply wasn't anticipating and/or didn't know how to deal with.  As long as there is something flammable in the machine such as fuel and/or batteries you will still probably need fire and theft insurance as well.  All of these adverse events should be relatively rare compared with today, so the insurance should be much cheaper.

 

And if I'm correct and things move away from private ownership and towards the large fleet model, then there should be much fewer cars and many fewer insurance policies in existence.

 

[HJ]

Have people considered that the need for auto insurance might not only remain but that the nature of auto insurance in this instance would change dramatically?

 

If the algorithm has a bug in it, it would be like everyone in the country (or a large portion) automatically become drivers all at once. Would it become sort of like supercat instance?

 

Cars are dangerous and people are still going to be hurt and killed (hopefully much less than now though), so insurance will be necessary.  You will still need liability insurance against accidents from mechanical malfunctions, from software glitches, from hackers, and from situations the software simply wasn't anticipating and/or didn't know how to deal with.  As long as there is something flammable in the machine such as fuel and/or batteries you will still probably need fire and theft insurance as well.  All of these adverse events should be relatively rare compared with today, so the insurance should be much cheaper.

 

And if I'm correct and things move away from private ownership and towards the large fleet model, then there should be much fewer cars and many fewer insurance policies in existence.

 

One thing people don't think much about is with a large fleet model, a lot more gas will be burnt for a vehicle to go from one mission to the next.  I don't think the impact on energy consumption will be trivial if such transition were to occur en mass.

 

As for insurance, one of the foundation to the auto insurance market is legal requirement that everybody will have to carry one.  And legislation always lags actual implementation.  It's easy to imagine a scenario where say 20% of the vehicle on the road can function driverless, yet the owner will be required to carry insurance anyway.

 

The big question is precisely whether such insurance will be negotiated with an individual, or with the manufacturer.  The implication to the profitability of the industry is dramatically different under those 2 scenarios.

[rkbabang]

And of course fleets of autonomous ground vehicles are only a steppingstone to the ultimate advancement in human transport. Fleets of autonomous ground/air vehicles.

 

https://www.facebook.com/NowThisNews/videos/879764938780298/

 

[Guest 50centdollars]

[rkbabang]

Uber Could Be First to Test Completely Driverless Cars in Public

 

"Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has made no secret about wanting robots to replace human drivers in his rideshare service—and now he’s found somewhere to develop them. Last month, the governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, paved the way for the world’s first driverless taxis on public roads.

 

At a joint press conference with Uber, Ducey unveiled an executive order calling for pilot programmes of self-driving vehicles “regardless of whether the operator is physically present in the vehicle or is providing direction remotely.”"

 

 

[ERICOPOLY]

How much of the cost of trucking is the cost of the truck driver himself?  Drivers need to stop to eat, rest, or perhaps sleep for example.  He also needs to be paid.

 

Would driverless trucking put pressure on rail traffic, or are railroads still much more efficient?