Re: Self Driving RoboTaxis is what Tesla want ASAP
That said, the best place for electric autonomous vehicles IS as city centre taxis
Reasonable, but you are assuming that the problem of driving an autonomous vehicle safely is fairly easily solved. In fact, it probably is not. Centre city driving looks to be one of the most difficult situations for an autonomous vehicle. Too many things going on. A truly safe vehicle would probably look around, assess the probable hazards, stop, and wait until the wee hours of the morning before proceeding (slowly and cautiously) to its destination.
My guess is that it'll be DECADES before an autonomous city centre taxi with an acceptable body count can be built. Expressways, OTOH, are much less complex driving situations if the occasional problems (bad signage, misleading road stripes, weather, construction, etc etc etc) can be handled. My expectation is that Tesla's semi will, if Musk can manage not miss his performance promises by too much, be the company's first successful autonomous vehicle.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
