Will Speed Limits Inhibit Autonomous Car Adoption? 650
Maximum Prophet writes "Here's a thought: at the start, only rich people will be able to pay for a completely autonomous car. Auto-autos will only go the speed limit. Rich people don't like to go slow. Ergo, there won't be any market for automatic cars. Wait, I hear you say. The rich guy will just modify his car to go faster. But, if you go over the limit it's a fine, but to mess with the safety systems of even your own vehicle is probably a felony. Much more likely: the rich will get new laws passed to make it legal for automatic cars to go much, much faster than human-driven vehicles."
Re:No, it'll just be an OPTION (Score:5, Informative)
How will pedestrians cross the street?
I can't imagine autonomous cars being allowed in places where there's pedestrians. They'll be restricted to freeways.
And even if they go slower than normals cars it won't matter. You can catch up on work, use the iPad, etc. while the car is driving along.
Even if it's ten minutes longer I'm betting the commute will seem much shorter than before - because you'll be doing other stuff.
It'll probably save a lot of gas, too.
Google's cars work just fine around pedestrians. They see them and respond appropriately.
Re:No, it'll just be an OPTION (Score:5, Informative)
Strictly speaking, the parasitic effects are worse than proportional to speed. The power required to overcome wind resistance is cubic in speed (the energy is quadratic in distance, since you get there faster). The knee hits different vehicles at different speeds -- bicycles, it's around 20mph (low-friction tires and drive-train, little aero optimization), cars at somewhat higher speeds. But once most of your friction is from the wind, going faster is very costly.
Re:No, it'll just be an OPTION (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see why you can't imagine that; it's already happened [democratandchronicle.com].