The idea of roadways dominated by self-driving vehicles conjures up dazzling possibilities to people who like to dream, like me. But much as I’d like to believe that this scenario is just around the corner, I expect it’ll be a generation or two before it takes shape.
Much has been made of the recent fatal crash in Florida involving a Tesla Model S sedan that was in self-driving mode at the time. The incident dominated headlines for weeks and prompted a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation despite the fact that that A) Tesla’s auto-pilot feature is still in a test phase; B) the unfortunate victim apparently ignored instructions to keep his hands on the wheel and eyes on the road; and C) the driver was speeding at the time.
Autonomous vehicles have already put in a couple of million miles on public roads and are legal in four states. The fact that one fatality caused so much public angst indicates that the road to acceptance will be a long one.
There are many compelling advantages to moving this technology along quickly. Highway deaths and injuries will plummet, along with insurance rates. Traffic jams will all but disappear. Parking lots can be reclaimed as green space. Vehicles will be smaller and more fuel-efficient. Drivers will reclaim many of the 100 billion hours they now spend behind the wheel every year in the U.S. alone. Altogether, McKinsey estimates that autonomous vehicles will contribute at least $140 billion per year of productive time to the economy. That’s on top of the $190 billion it estimates will be saved in everything from medical expenses to towing costs.
The reality is that self-driving cars are viable today. The technical issues have been solved to the point that virtually every major automaker has announced plans to put them into production within the next five years. The reason they won’t fly off the assembly line has more to do with economics and culture than with computer chips.
For starters, the first autonomous vehicles will be expensive. That’s true of all breakthrough technologies. Costs won’t come down until volumes go up, which is an unpredictable chicken-and-egg cycle. It could be a decade or more before the technology is within reach of average consumers. As long as driving yourself is cheaper, many people will choose to do that.
Autonomous vehicles also threaten some powerful economic interests. Automakers and their dealers, energy companies, insurers, real estate owners, public service workers and even healthcare professionals are all potential losers in a fully autonomous world. Public safety and health benefits be damned; these are people’s jobs were talking about. There will be resistance.
More intriguing from a design perspective are the cultural impediments. Americans associate cars with freedom, choice and discovery. Many will perceive the act of handing over control to a machine as no less than a Constitutional threat. There is also an entrenched suspicion of machines in our culture, particularly among people of my generation. We know that airplanes are perfectly capable of flying themselves, but we still want to see a pilot in the cockpit.
Government agencies will act with caution, mindful of the fact that mistakes have political consequences. While four states have passed autonomous vehicle legislation, 15 others have voted it down. Although I expect Americans will eventually come to accept this new technology, for now every accident will be a cause for retrenchment.
These and other factors will present automakers with some difficult design decisions. Some artifacts of the pre-autonomous age – such as steering wheels and brake pedals – may need to be preserved in order to satisfy drivers’ psychological need for control.
The more difficult decision may be what to do about the leadfoots who insist on speeding, even when doing so is inefficient or dangerous. For the foreseeable future, there may be no choice. After all, most production automobiles today are capable of exceeding 100 mph, even though there is no rational reason for driving that fast.
I’ve asked several experts for their best guess on when the majority of vehicles on the roads will be autonomous. The median response is 25 years. The most pessimistic estimate is three generations from now. I expect that future generations will come to accept autonomous cars as part of the landscape and will willingly give up control for the sake of convenience and efficiency. But that may be a couple of generations away. That isn’t encouraging news to those of us who are eager to get to the future, but people, unfortunately, don’t move as quickly as machines.
Featured image via Automobile Italia via Flick CC
