The story of the self-driving car ends with autonomous cars driving city dwellers around town, free from the responsibilities of driving themselves. But the truth is that will never happen, and it doesn’t have to.
How John Deere's Autonomous Vehicles Outperform Self-Driving Concept Cars – MashTalk
Cities are terrible places for self-driving cars. They’re full of unpredictable people on bikes, on foot, and in regular cars. If you tried to custom-design an environment that made it hard for a computer to navigate safely, you’d end up with a modern city. And—in European cities, at least—even human-driven cars are on the decline. But there is a place for self-driving vehicles—on highways, in fields, and generally away from vulnerable people.
“I think the best place to start is by creating a self-driving boat/ship. There’s less complexity than a self-driving car on city streets and all the different possible variables compared to the sea,” Matthew Hart, owner of the auto advice site AxleWise, told Lifewire via email.
Self-driving cars are appealing in the same way that flying cars and jetpacks are appealing. They seem futuristic and fun. They are better versions of existing technology. But they are also just as impractical as regular cars. They still have to be parked, they still burn gasoline, they drive on the same roads that violate the common space of the places we live in, and they can still kill people in a crash.
