Gadgetory

so self-driving cars are supposed to be right around the corner right self-driving car technology that sounded like science fiction just a couple of years ago is now a reality well not exactly every year at CES in Detroit automakers flock to show us all of their cool weird self-driving car concepts and this year wasn't any different we saw weird cars from Mercedes from Nissan from Toyota and while the cars are definitely getting smarter and the technology is undoubtedly getting better and better the day when you'll be able to buy one of these cars or even write in one it's a lot farther out than you think so it's 2018 where are we in the world of self-driving cars the big takeaway from CES in Detroit that automakers have stopped talking about demonstrating the technology or how good the technology is and started talking about how this technology is going to be used and how it's going to make them money and that's a big deal but it might lead people to think that they're gonna start seeing driverless cars rolling down Main Street any day now they're gonna be very expensive initially you know especially you know vehicles that have really robust systems with redundant computing systems full sensor Suites of camera radar and lidar and all the other features that are going to be part of these vehicles so there's there's the cost factor and then there's also concerns about liability with the vehicle if something goes wrong and it almost certainly will I mean we've already just seen the first lawsuit filed against the company testing one of these in San Francisco so there's the liability concerns and then longer term you know if you if you look at you know the traditional model of a manufacturer sells a car to a consumer or sells it to a dealer who sells it to a consumer and then they're basically done with it except for selling service parts that's gonna change and we've already seen that happen with with Tesla with doing over-the-air software updates that's gonna be happening with all of these vehicles going forward and and the whole model of support for these vehicles is going to shift to one of basically lifetime support for the vehicles because they are gonna require software updates and particularly security updates and if you are just selling the vehicle and getting revenue for at one time then it's hard to work out how you gonna how are you gonna pay for that ongoing support of the vehicle it's a quick glance at the show floor here should be a huge wake-up call to anyone who thinks that this shift to autonomous cars isn't going to be incredibly messy its SUVs and trucks and crossovers as far as the eye can see Americans are still addicted to giant gas guzzlers and who can blame them gas prices are super low right now I mean car companies are talking about things like mobility and smart cities and autonomous cars but it's the Ford f-150s and the Chevy Silverados that make the money so I guess the silver lining to the reality that we live in today where trucks and SUVs dominate our car culture is that car companies then take those profits from these vehicles and pump them into mobility projects for autonomous cars and connected cars which is a good day so in 2019 we're gonna start to see some of these projects move into more cities and then by 2020 we're gonna start seeing cars without steering wheels or pedals hit the road fully driverless cars and that's gonna be a really really big deal but again it's important not to get ahead of ourselves it's probably gonna be primarily urban areas where there's a high density of travelers San Francisco will almost certainly be one of the first markets especially for GM wouldn't be surprised to see the Phoenix area be one of way Mo's first markets so those sorts of environments where you've got a high density of ridership and that can operate both as point to point and first mile last mile services for riders and then also start to incorporate some other services that can be used with these vehicles building these business models bringing in other partners to utilize these vehicles when they're not carrying passengers you you want them doing some sort of revenue generating work so Toyota announced they're a pallette alliance Ford is partnering with Domino's post mates and lyft and we'll probably see other similar when it's coming from the other companies over the next few months so that the the vehicles are always doing something productive and hopefully revenue generating so meanwhile while that's happening the cars that we buy and drive every day are about to get crazy smart I'm thinking Tesla with autopilot or Cadillac with supercruise these highly automated driver assist systems that basically let people take their hands off the wheel and their feet off the pedal and the cars for all intents and purposes drive themselves now this is gonna help pave the way to fully driverless cars the idea being that as we're driving these really smart cars we're gonna get more comfortable with turning over control to our vehicles and that's gonna help us to get to a point where hey it's okay to drive in a completely driverless car because I feel comfortable at a in this car drive and so now these are systems that are only available in pretty high-end luxury vehicles and the hope is that eventually they'll start to make their way into more affordable mass-market vehicles or else it's only really gonna be available to rich people and that would suck cars are an integral part of our society but they're also really dangerous and it doesn't hurt to approach this whole technological shift a little bit more conservatively look I like self-driving cars as much as anybody else the idea of less traffic fewer deaths and less congestion is I think a great idea but this is still a long ways away even if we're just now starting to see what this huge technology is going to look like yeah it's just looking for a volume button could we turn it down a little bit we're just gonna try to shoot a video right here and we just want to maybe a look a little quiet for a sec that's at all possible