We don't need self-driving cars that can go anywhere (ie. level 5) for them to be widely useful. A car that only worked in bright sunshine on a preprogrammed set of roads would be immediately useful to me.
Semi trucks, solely on well done roads (Interstates in the US) seem more likely to happen sooner. There's an obvious strategy for "ports", dealing with exceptions, etc.
Tesla frequently talks about platooning when touting their Semi. "Self-driving" by almost blindly following a human-driven lead vehicle doesn't seem that far off. But I'm not looking forward to the day when I see a "train" of semi trucks speeding down the interstate only a foot or two apart from each other!
That could work, for the platoon, while on the interstate.
It might not work for other vehicles on the interstate, though. If there's not room to pull in between them, then you have to pass all of them at one time. If you're a semi that wants to drive 1 or 2 MPH faster than them, that's going to be a very long, slow, pass. It will be even worse if it's in hilly country, where the semi attempting to pass may have higher speed on flat ground, but less power for climbing. That could block both lanes for a really long time. Human drivers in cars (some of whom want to drive faster than semis, and have more horsepower per ton at their disposal) will be very annoyed.
Then you get one "train" trying to pass another, and things get even worse.
Then the train gets off the interstate. They hit a traffic light. Less than all of the train makes it through the light in one cycle. Now what?
Yeah good luck making your exit with those on your right. I cant believe people think that this would be allowed on the road. You thought one jack-knifed truck on the road was bad wait until the human driver makes a mistake for a platoon.
But it's a far cry from the initial promise. For instance, Uber can't replace their drivers with self-driving cars if they need to bring all their drivers back when it rains.
At that point, autonomous driving is a convenience/safety features for autos/trucks that are more or less as we know them today. You can't build transportation systems and ownership models around vehicles that only work in some places in some conditions. (With some exceptions, but they're relatively narrow.)
This. An unoccupied car should be able to find a parking spot at the mall or in a parking garage, or go from the airport terminal to the "economy" or "cell phone" lot by itself. And come back and pick me up. If it gets stuck, the app on my phone should alert me to come to the rescue.
