Reply to post: Displaced concept

British motorists will be allowed to watch TV in self-driving vehicles

Boolian

Displaced concept

Laudable development of reslted technology (driving it forward -ha!) this electric, self-driving car concept.

It has been done before of course.

The words they are looking for are Bus,Trolleybus, Tram, Train and transport of that ilk.

Admittedly not exactly fully autonomous, but for fullfilling the condition of "Takes me where I want to go while I sit down and do **** all" - they check all the boxes.

The simplest way to ensure a vehicle is 'tracking' without deviation from 'fixed parameters' is to give it a track. That may involve sticking sensors (a-la cats-eyes) down the road or other handily available surfaces.

As soon as you have vehicles running on a 'fixed 'track' (virtual, or otherwise) keeping fixed distances from vehicles in front - you pretty much have trains and trams.

If you want personal carriages which can 'uncouple' from the track, you have the Electric Trolleybus. They were Britain's compact litle street version, of the continent's expansive boulevard trams.

The Edinburgh tram(s) was argued against by planners of a certain age, in favour of Trolleybuses. Blank stares and glazed eyes, meant Edinburgh got saddled with a particularly useless white elephant.

Trolleybuses are a lost concept - tracking is fixed but can be uncoupled. Similarly, personal, self-driving 'autonomous' carriages (cars) should hold a fixed track and then the sytem should uncouple and return to manual, when uncoupled from the 'track' - why re-invent the wheel? (ha!)

Permanently autonomous, self-driving cars (literal automobiles) is an idea born of American freeways and expanses of heehaw for hundreds of miles

The idea that they will be automatically tootling around the A&B roads of Britain is.... well, the kindest would be to describe it as a vision - a particularly colourful and swirly one.

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