Poll: Why do you support autonomous driving?

[diplomat33]

I am curious: why do you want autonomous driving?

For me, I think the main reason is safety. Driving is risky and can be stressful. Even if you are attentive, you can still get into an accident because of another bad driver. We see so many accidents per year, often with tragic results. It would be great to be able to get in a car and know the car can drive safely. It would be one less thing to worry about. Frankly, I don't think humans were ever really good at driving. Humans can't see 360 degrees. Humans can also get distracted, tired, make mistakes or worse, drive impaired. We just did not have any alternative. But now, technology is giving us a better alternative to human driving. Autonomous cars have the potential to be far better drivers than humans. They have 360 degree sensing around the car at all times, never get tired, distracted or impaired.

I think the second reason would be the convenience of being able to relax and do something else while driving. It would be nice to be a passenger and be able to do something else and not have to focus on the road.

 

[LoudMusic]

I want other people to have autonomous cars because they're all terrible drivers.

I want other cars to be autonomous because they'd probably operate roundabouts better and get out of the left lane on the interstate.

 

[Scotty7]

I want to go into town and get wasted without forking out 50 bucks a pop for a taxi ride back.

 

[Mardak]

There's many potential uses of vehicles that can drive without a human and probably future opportunities and changes to cities that can practically can only happen with autonomous driving.

A simple example from a few days ago was wife needed to be at one place then we would go to dinner then an event after. I ended up dropping her and the car off while I walked across multiple huge empty parking lots to a somewhat nearby restaurant to order ahead so that she could drive over after her meeting and have food ready to eat for us to make it to the event on time.

If the car could have driven back to wife to be ready to head to the restaurant, we could have made different choices. The natural alternative would be ride hailing, but that's not as convenient especially because we had stuff in the car for the meeting and event, so our car acted as a mobile storage as well avoiding needing to carry things to/from places.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Other: assuming autonomy can be delivered at relatively low cost, the overall huge benefits to society, not me.

 

[Goose66]

All I ever wanted from my FSD in my consumer-level Tesla Model 3 was true L3 on the highway (with a competent fallback time) so I could eat, text, email, or do other things with my hands and brief diversion of attention (but not movies, books, naps, etc.) on long trips. I wish that had been the design goal from the start because Tesla could have been there by now, IMO, and beaten some manufacturers to the punch to boot. But Elon's pursuit of an L5 robotaxi with the current consumer-grade hardware in the cars is a fool's errand, again IMO, and has delayed delivery of a real L3 highway system.

 

[snellenr]

Other: Why not?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

All I ever wanted from my FSD in my consumer-level Tesla Model 3 was true L3 on the highway (with a competent fallback time) so I could eat, text, email, or do other things with my hands and brief diversion of attention (but not movies, books, naps, etc.) on long trips. I wish that had been the design goal from the start because Tesla could have been there by now, IMO, and beaten some manufacturers to the punch to boot. But Elon's pursuit of an L5 robotaxi with the current consumer-grade hardware in the cars is a fool's errand, again IMO, and has delayed delivery of a real L3 highway system.

Buy a car from another company that does what you want.

 

[ThomasD]

As long as one can pick me up within 15 minutes of where I am and take me to where I need to go. Also cost less than the monthly operating expenses of my truck. I would use it.

 

[Dewg]

Frankly, I don't think humans were ever really good at driving. Humans can't see 360 degrees. Humans can also get distracted, tired, make mistakes or worse, drive impaired.

There have been many studies that show humans are terrible at multitasking. I think when we're focused on one (1) task, we're pretty good at it (something like 95% efficient). When you add one (1) more thing, causing us to multitask, our efficiency on both tasks drops by something like 40%.

So, take a driver and give them a 2nd task, such as talking to someone (on the phone or in the car), changing the radio, adjusting comfort settings, looking at their phone, etc., and we become very bad drivers instantly. In that regard you are totally correct, the car doesn't get distracted and can see more than we can see. Should be a much safer drive.

 

[RipVanFinkle]

If FSD was reliable and I could stream “the hub” on the display and be fully hands free I’d be set.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Driving is a social activity, but I'm not a social person
Driving is fun some of the time, but driving is stressful some of the time
Driving is enjoyable when its nice, but miserable when its not so nice
In most moments I'm a great driver, but in some moments I suck
Other drivers are terrible
Humans want too much money to get me from place A to place B
Humans want too much money to get my cargo from place A to place B
Humans will eat my fries if they take them from point A to Point B
I wanna watch the robot suffer when trying to follow Tesla maps
If we can leverage automation, and connectivity we can increase road efficiency making traffic less insane

 

[Goose66]

Buy a car from another company that does what you want.

Back in 2018 when I paid for my M3 with FSD, the Tesla was the car with the best chance of developing the autonomous features I wanted. I don't know about you, but I certainly can't afford to dump it now and buy a Cadillac or Mercedes just because they've developed the kind of autonomous features I was hoping for. Besides, my primary goal was to buy an EV, not an autonomous EV. I guess in your book that means I can't complain about anything having to do with the car, then.

 

[ThomasD]

How am I going to but a bunch of stuff in the trunks or rear of these self driving vehicles with all the computer equipment taking up all that space?

 

[nvx1977]

I chose all the options except "it would be cheaper." I think that one applies most to city slickers I'm in suburb-exurb territory and even Uber and Lyft don't really penetrate here.

 

[LowlyOilBurner]

Other: I drive ~30,000miles a year. I’m sick of driving.

 

[ThomasD]

I live 20 minutes from a Pizza Hut two Supermarkets and a small non Supercenter Walmart, two Subways, three Restaurants and various fast food places and none of them deliver to my Neighborhood. No UBER or Lift either. If you want or need something you get off your butt and go get it.

 

[clydeiii]

Missing an option: I hate driving.

 

[TarmacSurfer]

Because I want to enjoy the best hookers and blow available and not have the experience interrupted by the chore of actually having to drive.
—- Hunter Biden

I’m all seriousness I think it has the capability to GREATLY enhance efficiency and safety - and eliminate the aggressive / obnoxious competitiveness that pervades our roadways.

 

[voyager]

Interesting! On the top three motives, ADS (FSD) still scores poorly.
IMO, it will be for a very-very long time (unless Toyota's strategy of full grid control and V2V is used).

Leaves us with driverless taxis (my pick), cautiously operating and
still very much dependent on weather and traffic conditions.