U.S. clears way for truly driverless vehicles without steering wheels

You just don't have much asset to be sued for and that's why you can get away with minimal insurance (liability, not the car).

You're making another assumption. I carry a half million dollars in liability insurance because I do have assets. That amount of insurance is well above the legal minimum and it is not really all that expensive. (Insurance can be costly of course if you have a poor driving record or are a very young driver.) Just because a person is not willing to shell out for a new or late model car loaded with questionable technology and whose value is going to plummet the instant it's driven off the lot doesn't mean they are not spending money on other things.
 
Those expensive electronics is because of people buying a car from a startup company. One day Toyota would make it and one day they will be cheap like a Prius today.
Yet another assumption. The record of today's mass-produced cars being expensive nightmares to repair when they develop electrical and computer problems out of warranty suggests otherwise. (Also a Prius is not "cheap" and repairs can be VERY expensive, exceeding the value of the car, when they get old and things like the onboard generator start failing.)
 
You're making another assumption. I carry a half million dollars in liability insurance because I do have assets. That amount of insurance is well above the legal minimum and it is not really all that expensive. (Insurance can be costly of course if you have a poor driving record or are a very young driver.) Just because a person is not willing to shell out for a new or late model car loaded with questionable technology and whose value is going to plummet the instant it's driven off the lot doesn't mean they are not spending money on other things.
Good for you. Imagine that "not really all that expensive" part is reduced by 1/2. Say your $350 a year liability only half a million dollar insurance (I'm using mine as a reference at 1M, yours hopefully would be as cheap as mine) reduce to $175 a year, that 20 year worth of insurance cost saving from 175 x 20 = $3500, is going to pay for a lot of careless driving mistake claims that could pay for a lot of electronics. Even if your electronics is $1000 it is still only 1/3 of that savings.

Yet another assumption. The record of today's mass-produced cars being expensive nightmares to repair when they develop electrical and computer problems out of warranty suggests otherwise. (Also a Prius is not "cheap" and repairs can be VERY expensive, exceeding the value of the car, when they get old and things like the onboard generator start failing.)
Which mass market cars other than Tesla and those fancy "German Engineering" has this problem on their electrical and computer on powertrain? Don't throw Mercedes and Lexus or those fancy features no one need, that cost thousands of dollars to repair?

Most of the expensive repairs today are automatic transmissions (CVT mainly), engine due to direct injection or poor metal treatment (Hyundai?), or just early design mistakes like early Prius' stator (they fixed them in later version).

Battery is a wear item so that is understandable, but computer is not a wear item, worn out computer at 20 years usually is incompetent engineering from certain manufacturers only, just stay away from those brands driverless or not.

The Tesla problem on their controller is their own incompetent. iNand or those embedded flash chip cost like $10-20 each and they could totally just add a separate card slot for its log, or separate out blocks for logging from firmware so they won't wear out together. If they hire someone that has at least 3 years of experience from Samsung / Hyunix / Toshiba / SanDisk / anyone in the industry for half a year they would have totally avoided this problem. Nobody else have this problem anywhere else in the auto industry, this is what you get when you buy from a startup company, not because driverless car is fundamentally flawed, or all cars today will have this problem.

The later Prius problem is head gasket. Their hybrid powertrain other than the head gasket is rock solid. Battery wears out at 15 years or so and replacement is probably about $5-6k, but the gas saving over that 15 years is likely way more than that depends on where you are.
 
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Yes Please.

Daytona hovercar.jpg
 
Perhaps people are judging self driving vehicles based on today's technology? I don't.
There needs to be far better hardware and algorithms.
And, most of all, many billions of miles and years of real world data.

Tesla is doing this today; AP data is sent back to a database.
We are not even close. Tomorrow is a different story.

Imagine real time traffic conditions, interconnected cars and cars operating based on programming rules.
Removing human error...
 
Perhaps people are judging self driving vehicles based on today's technology? I don't.
There needs to be far better hardware and algorithms.
And, most of all, many billions of miles and years of real world data.

Tesla is doing this today; AP data is sent back to a database.
We are not even close. Tomorrow is a different story.

Imagine real time traffic conditions, interconnected cars and cars operating based on programming rules.
Removing human error...
Eventually they would operate like railroad, most high speed rail (the real one, in Europe and Japan) operates with systems that space them enough to avoid collision even at very high speed (250km/hr and more). Sure early design bugs do exist like the one in China, but in the long run it should get into way fewer accidents than human.

In 2022 nobody question the safety of non human controlled railroads (yes a lot of the subways and high speed rail are computer controlled with human there being mostly an emergency evacuation helper). We will get there with passenger cars one day, with some road design changes along the way eventually to make it easier for those driverless systems.


One of the biggest reason driverless car will make everyone happy is removing the traffic "shockwave" or rubberneck effects. Multiple uncoordinated humans together is horrible at flow control, computer does a much better job on this. You do want a faster commute in traffic every day, don't you?

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Yeah true , the value goes up so does taxes . Death and taxes , hard to hide from either but owning is a good thing
What is the difference between:

1) Government sell you a lease for the land for 100 years, you pay no property tax for that 100 years, but you pay for the lease up front in one payment (you can ask a bank to finance it). You can sell the right to the lease to another party and it is your profit or loss to keep.

2) Government charge you 1% property tax on your market value and sell it to you permanently, but if you don't pay your tax they will take the property back.

3) You pay annual rent to the landlord with a locked in 100 year lease, you can still transfer the lease to someone else, but you pay no property tax and you can do whatever you want within that 100 years.

1) and 3) guarantee the cost for 100 years, 2) does not as it goes up with market rate. 1) and 3) is called leasing but 2) is called "owning". Technically 1) is considered owning in some Asian nations too but we all know it really depends on how you look at it.

So is owning really real?
 
What is the difference between:

1) Government sell you a lease for the land for 100 years, you pay no property tax for that 100 years, but you pay for the lease up front in one payment (you can ask a bank to finance it). You can sell the right to the lease to another party and it is your profit or loss to keep.

2) Government charge you 1% property tax on your market value and sell it to you permanently, but if you don't pay your tax they will take the property back.

3) You pay annual rent to the landlord with a locked in 100 year lease, you can still transfer the lease to someone else, but you pay no property tax and you can do whatever you want within that 100 years.

1) and 3) guarantee the cost for 100 years, 2) does not as it goes up with market rate. 1) and 3) is called leasing but 2) is called "owning". Technically 1) is considered owning in some Asian nations too but we all know it really depends on how you look at it.

So is owning really real ?
 
So why is ownership of a home a illusion ?
I tell my mom and others that seem to hate the idea of renting that you really never totally own a home. Even once paid for there will be taxes, typical preventive maintenance/upkeep that can be quite costly. Then if for some reason you want to move that can be a waiting game for it to sell, etc. I'm all for renting these days after having a few homes previously. Funny thing I'm the total opposite with vehicles. I like to find one I really appreciate, pay it off and keep indefinitely even though there will always be taxes, maintenance, etc. Never have liked the idea of leasing any vehicle for my use. To each their own!
 
I tell my mom and others that seem to hate the idea of renting that you really never totally own a home. Even once paid for there will be taxes, typical preventive maintenance/upkeep that can be quite costly. Then if for some reason you want to move that can be a waiting game for it to sell, etc. I'm all for renting these days after having a few homes previously. Funny thing I'm the total opposite with vehicles. I like to find one I really appreciate, pay it off and keep indefinitely even though there will always be taxes, maintenance, etc. Never have liked the idea of leasing any vehicle for my use. To each their own!
The only reason to own a home vs other assets is the leverage you can use against inflation. It is a way to time the market (buy when interest is high and then refinance when the interest is low) and walk away in a default with no way for creditor to chase after you (in the US). Another reason to buy instead of rent is if the home you want is never on sale and you want to "do cool things" to a home the way you want.

Strictly financially speaking, at today's rate, today's price, today's rent, it is not a good investment in high cost area. In my area I've seen homes sold for 3M that would only rent for 7K a month, and a 3M home with the SALT tax deduction cap it would easily cost 12K a month on mortgage interest, property tax, insurance, and down payment opportunity cost (vs S&P 500 or other low cost index fund historical performance over a decade).

Don't get me started on plumbers wanting to charge $750 to change a toilet flange, or $500 for a sliding door screen door, or $500 to replace a broken section of a PVC water main (3 hours of work), or other crazy little nickle and dime repairs.
 
The profit is
All three of my example allow transfer, so I don't see why the profit (the amount you can transfer to new tenants for a profit vs the amount of capital gain you can get by selling) would be any reason.

I do see the accounting being different, the tax bases being different (whether profit of transferring a lease is considered a property and pay property tax, or whether the land you lease is the property and your tax bases on the lease alone or not), but whether you really own it or have the right to use it for 100 years, the ownership is clearly just as temporary as the lease.
 
Your forgetting about lifestyle . You live once , on this earth anyway . I need room to wonder , your talking about metropolitan inner city living . What percentage of the country lives like ? I don't know don't care , just hope they stay there . But in reality they are moving out of the city . Any place around here with acreage goes for a heck of a premium compared to a suburban home .
 
You are either paying your mortgage or somebody else's.
I never thought I could own my own home. When I bought this one, I thought it was too much money and seemed to be such a risk.
The one thing I knew was, buying had a chance of a positive return from sale; renting guaranteed a big fat zero return.
Now this house is paid off, has solar panels and tankless water heater. I live here for peanuts.

I never think in short term plans.
 
A stubborn horse is more like a self-driving car. If anything, going from horse to car gave the operator more and not less control. Riding a horse may be more fun. Depends on the situation and the person. I don't find self-driving cars appealing at all. Shoot me now, let the horse live.
 
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I didn’t yet read all the repies but yet again, I see it as nothing there to see. They want to include possible future ads cars to meet safety standards of current cars. So what is wrong with that? They aren’t paving any ways or promoting ads cars. Sounds mundane to me.

“AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation.
ACTION: Final rule.
SUMMARY: This final rule amends the occupant protection Federal motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSSs) to account for future vehicles that do not have the traditional manual controls associated with a human driver because they are equipped with Automated Driving Systems (ADS). This final rule makes clear that, despite their innovative designs, vehicles with ADS technology must continue to provide the same high levels of occupant protection that current passenger vehicles provide. The occupant protection standards are currently written for traditionally designed vehicles and use terms such as “driver’s seat” and “steering wheel,” that are not meaningful to vehicle designs that, for example, lack a steering wheel or other driver controls. This final rule updates the standards in a manner that clarifies existing terminology while avoiding unnecessary terminology, and, in doing so, resolves ambiguities in applying the standards to ADS-equipped vehicles without traditional manual controls. In addition, this final rule amends the standards in a manner that maintains the existing regulatory text whenever

possible, to make clear that this rule maintains the level of crash protection currently provided occupants in more traditionally designed vehicles. This final rule is limited to the crashworthiness standards to provide a unified set of regulatory text applicable to vehicles with and without ADS functionality.”
 
You are either paying your mortgage or somebody else's.
I never thought I could own my own home. When I bought this one, I thought it was too much money and seemed to be such a risk.
The one thing I knew was, buying had a chance of a positive return from sale; renting guaranteed a big fat zero return.
Now this house is paid off, has solar panels and tankless water heater. I live here for peanuts.

I never think in short term plans.
You live there for opportunity cost
 
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