Automakers Are Rethinking the Timetable for Fully Autonomous Cars
&gt;&gt; “It’s really, really hard,” Krafcik said during a live-streamed tech conference. “You don’t know what you don’t know until you’re actually in there and trying to do things.”<p>Now, where was that Rodney Brooks interview? Ah, here it is:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdn.arstechnica.net&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2018&#x2F;06&#x2F;2nd-Part-RB-for-Ars-Transcript-2.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdn.arstechnica.net&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2018&#x2F;06&#x2F;2nd-P...</a><p><i>&gt;&gt; Rob Reid: (...) Why do you think these people and others are overestimating the rate of development in this field?<p>&gt;&gt; Rodney Brooks: I think they&#x27;re making a bunch of mistakes. I asked them when did the first car drive down a freeway for 10 miles at 50 miles an hour. They know that the Google cars did that in 2004 or 2005. It was actually done in Germany in 1987.<p>&gt;&gt; Rob Reid: Wow.<p>&gt;&gt; Rodney Brooks: When are we going to get the first car, hands off the steering wheel, feet off the pedals, drive coast to coast in the US? Yeah, well, it actually happened in 1995 with the Navlab Project from Carnegie Mellon University. My point is, everyone thinks, oh this is just a [inaudible 00:44:50], this is going to happen quickly. It&#x27;s been around a long time to get to where we are. I have now demonstrated to them that their scale is wrong, their start point is wrong. It has taken a lot longer to get to where we are now.</i><p>So, to anyone who had any understanding of the technology it must have been obvious for a long, long time that &quot;it&#x27;s really, really hard&quot; and that it wouldn&#x27;t just take a few years after the time that Google announced the Google car. I struggle to believe that Krafcik is not one of those people, or that major automotive company CEOs are not.<p>Basically, those people have been bullshitting everyone and they&#x27;re still bullshitting everyone, and they were probably not even interested in developing self-driving cars in the first place, it was all just some stupid marketing game supported by a very excitable tech press and a gullible public.