I am with
@paulp on this one. Elon is very optimistic with his timeframe and he may have a point that he can get this tech to work, however even Elon has mentioned that they are aiming to get this legalized in the US some time in 2020, however EU will take longer because of the legal hurdles there. He has not mentioned AU because our legislation in that would lag way behind EU and the rest of the world. Now looking at best case Tesla gets this technical and software side sorted with feature complete by end of 2019, then enough distance driven to make software safer than humans in all cases of driving some time in 2020. They might get this legislation through in US in 2020-2021, then another couple of years until EU legalizes this getting to 2022-23. Considering the options available in US and EU currently and not available in AU, AU will take another few years before they start looking at legalizing it here, so we are realistically not looking at FSD here before 2025. Once they can be legally used here, it should not take long to get the robo-taxi fleet running, but the car you buy now will be 5-6 years old at least and we cannot be sure our current cars will be capable of self plugging in for charging as that has not been deployed yet so that may be coming in the next iterations of the cars (there are competing projects with robotic arms plugging cars in for charging to wireless charging with cars driving over a charger plates). We don't even know how long the legislation here would take for the robo-taxi options as there may be extra hurdles there from government.
OK, so we assume the technology works in 2020.
Are you aware of the 2020 target to have the regulatory framework in place throughout Australia that has been set by the National Transport Commission?
They are also targeting 2020 - at least according to their website:
NTC - National Transport Commission
To quote from the site:
"In November 2016, Australian transport ministers agreed to a phased reform program so that conditionally automated vehicles can operate safely and legally on our roads before 2020, and highly and fully automated vehicles from 2020."
Let's take a step back.
If the USA allows autonomous vehicles, the USA will reap all the benefits that come with autonomous driving. I am convinced that autonomous vehicles can only be EVs, so you do not need to import petrol or fight Middle East wars to protect your oil supply, and your national trade balance can improve by not importing petrol. Your health budget pressures will ease from lower levels of air pollution. Transport costs drop by - roughly - an order of magnitude.
You are saying the Australian government - or let's say the Australian tax payer - will just be content to twiddle their thumbs and wait another 5 years to work out the regulations for autonomous driving?
I could be wrong, but I do not think so.
So, with the regulator already on the record of stating a 2020 target date for autonomous vehicles and some pretty compelling (imho) financial arguments in favour of autonomous vehicles, I can for the life of me not see how Australia can
not allow autonomous vehicles much sooner than this. To me it just does not make any sense.
... but then again, to quote Albert Einstein:
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
As for auto-charging - of all the technical problems associated with autonomous driving, I can not imagine that this will be a deal-breaker for the implementation of robot-taxis. The technology for auto-charging could be implemented on the charger end rather than the vehicle end of things. Maybe charging occurs at centralised facilities where humans do cabin inspections/cleaning, manage charging, etc.