by Wallace Wyss –
I know it’s a 180-degree turn for me, who has written before that autonomous cars are not safe yet, there’s bodies in the road to put it brutally. But now that I read headlines like “Trump Administration Could Ease Regulations For Autonomous Vehicles” I realize it is inevitable. It is like fighting against the automatic transmission. It’s coming, the people want it, so be it.
According to an article on the website GM Authority:
Federal regulation of fully autonomous vehicles has been stalled for a while. The current rules from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) say manufacturers can deploy up to 2,500 autonomous vehicles per year, and legislative efforts during the Biden and Trump administrations to raise that number didn’t go anywhere. However, now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is a close lieutenant of President Trump as he prepares for his second term, those rules could finally loosen a bit.
Bloomberg reports that Trump’s transition team plans to make loosening the federal regulation of self-driving cars a priority for the 45th and 47th president’s Transportation Department, according to anonymous sources. If it goes through, it would be an obvious benefit to Musk and his plans for his own fleet of robotaxis.
I think Tesla has the big advantage–millions of miles of recorded data so they can cue their Full Self Driving (FSD) system to cope with almost every situation. The situation I worry about most is when the robotaxi enters areas where there is road construction. The autonomous cars come up to the temporary lane, etc. and in the millions of miles of memory maybe it has never seen that situation. One small suggestion would be for roadway repair crews to broadcast out to autonomous cars what’s up ahead–like “No. 4 lane just disappeared into No. 3 lane” or whatever. A “heads up” as it were. They already have electric warning signs of “lane closure ahead” but this would be electronic–signaling oncoming autonomous cars what to expect.
It’s like the early days of flying. I laud those who took passenger planes to cross the ocean before the war. I myself booked passage in a propeller plane across the Atlantic in the ’50s and made it (though with one engine down). Sure airliners still crash but look at the miracle of a pilot being able to program a flight across the country by itself, the plane taking off and landing by itself. Never would have happened if we didn’t let civilian aircraft develop on their own without stopping the industry dead whenever there was a crash. Many of those crashes were human error.
While I am not so keen on Elon Musk’s halcyon descriptions of Tesla Robotaxis getting rich by buying one and renting it out while you are at work, I think the big gain from legitimizing robotaxis will be when the homebound — the infirm, the oldsters with bad vision, the non-driver, are liberated and will all be able to summon a autonomous car. Sure there were taxis driven by humans but I have had nasty situations with taxi drivers, so much so I’d take a chance on a robot.
In sum, I’ve done a 180-degree turn on my stance against autonomous cars because I recognize the inevitable. Once it happens, there will be no going back. Five years from now we’ll wonder why we ever opposed it. So I’m wishy-washy. I changed my mind. I’ll take the hit. I realize robotaxis will liberate millions from being cooped up. And don’t forget, many of those homebound have income–social security, stock dividends, etc. and are itching to spend it but haven’t been able to get out. I look for a little boom in the economy once robotaxis roam the land from sea to shining sea.
And so it is Mea culpa. I hung on too long to the old way of doing things.
And your view?
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
THE AUTHOR Wallace Wyss started out in advertising where he wrote ads for two of the Big Three. He has owned a variety of sports cars from a 356 Porsche, to front engined and mid-engine Ferraris to a brace of Mercedes Gullwings.
My own lingering concern is for the knotheads out there who will try to game the autonomous trucks with brake-checking, swerving in tight, and other daring maneuvers that cause the autonomous control to react outside its normal protocol and beyond the boundary of vehicle control. As those events occur, and the forensics show what happened, presumably the ‘network’ of vehicles will get new protocol updates to deal with new exceptions.
Hopefully there won’t be a long string of tragedies along the way.
i’m in Phoenix staying with my sister for Christmas and New Year. There are PLENTY of Waymo robo taxis here in Phoenix, and they drive about with no one in the drivers seat. They drive conservatively and do not do anything rash, or dart in front of me, or any other rash maneuvers. They were here last year, too, and are doing their autonomous driving with minimal or no problems. Waymo must have the self driving program down pretty well… I say to wally, to go to Santa Monica area to west L.A. area, and get a robo taxi ride, to really cement in your new feelings about autonomous taxi rides…. and after your ride, you don’t even have to tip the “driver” …. there is no driver…