An article over at bezinga.com  has posted 3 reasons why Google’s Self Driving Car will be a failure for the company.

To summarise the article:

1. China hates the Google, and the Chinese want to drive their cars.
2. Insurance Issues.
3. Self Driving cars are too expensive.

1) In all honesty, point #1 doesn’t make a lot of sense. Even if the Chinese ban Google’s self driving technology, Google still has a target market of 6 billion people.

The author of the piece seems to think that the US won’t follow the lead of California and Nevada because Californian politics is weird and the rest of the country won’t follow what California does. I disagree, states will embrace autonomous technology because they want to get ahead in the technology game and are afraid of being left behind. Maybe some states will resist, but with Florida and Hawaii also considering driverless technology the rest of the world will have multiple templates of self-driving car legislation to copy. Also, self driving technology will be a big issue for the disabled and the elderly and those folks vote and will most likely not be happy with anyone who blocks the legalisation of this technology.

2) Liability is a big issue, as the author of the piece writes:

if major carriers decide the manufacturer will be to blame in fender benders involving these cars, there is one great reason for the manufacturer to not pursue the self-driving car dream.

I think there is a good chance this issue will be resolved. We (re)posted recently on some suggestions on how to tackle liability issues. The idea is that self driving cars will be very safe, but for the times when there is a catastrophe we can create a fund – like a vaccine injury scheme. This fund could be financed by a levy on ticket prices, self driving car profits or general tax revenue. Victims are duly compensated when ‘shit happens’ but companies aren’t unjustly sued for negligence.

3) Self driving cars are rather expensive. No doubt about this. However, if you look at Rio Tinto, they are deploying self driving trucks and trains partly because of high salaries paid to drivers. In other words, even though this technology is expensive, in cases it is already cheaper to use. That said, the original point that Google’s autonomous vehicles will flop is a bit absurd. Look at so many other technological products like computers, genome sequencing or even solar panels, prices start high but get rapidly cheaper.

Ok, that’s me done, if you have some time, read the original article and let us know what you think.

Related posts:

1. Foreign Policy On “Electric, Self Driving Miracle Car”
2. Honda Creates In-Car Living Room Experience For Autonomous Driving