Railroaders' Nostalgia > Self driven problems.

Was some interesting information on Tesla and the self driving "revolution" on the Today show this morning. The Class Ones screed that driver-less trucks will take over the highways by 2025 and the railroads need to get rid of TE&Y rings a little hollow I think. IMHO.

At our local RR breakfast this morning, one fellow related that he had recently been reading a 1961 issue of Trains magazine, which had an article stating that driverless vehicles were the next big thing - coming soon to a roadway near you.

Bob Willer
Overland Park

PBS recently aired a Nova episode that showed just how difficult self driving vehicles really is, and how far the technology still has to go before it is safe.  Anyone that claims to know when it'll be ready for wide deployment is just uttering nonsense.

Nova: Testing Self Driving Cars
 

The sensor technology is mostly ready for self driving cars. The thing that is lacking is the software algorithms. Especially, how will the car deal with something unexpected. Then I would expect that the software will have to be certified in some manner by the manufacturer. This would be analogous to certifying an airliner with the FAA. Given all this, you will not see a large number of 100% self navigating cars any time soon. 


Bob