What Will The Cost Of Driverless Cars Be?

Tuesday, 7. April 2015

Following on from my views regarding the testing of driverless cars on public roads I’ve just read a piece on the likely changes to legislation that will be necessary. But before I get to that I have a couple of questions of my own. First of all what will be the eventual cost of one of these driverless cars?

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We know that electric cars have been a dismal failure. Very few people have taken them, not least because when you replace a traditional engine with an electric motor and install a big battery it adds, on average, £10,000 to the cost of the car. So with all the technology needed to replace a driver will they cost circa £100,000 or am I missing something? And why?

Why do I want to be in the driver’s seat of a driverless car? I actually quite enjoy driving and although I am about to replace my current car with the same car but the latest model, I’m getting excited. Can’t see me getting excited over a car I won’t be driving, a bit like getting excited over getting in a taxi. Will they reduce congestion? No, if anything more cars will appear on the roads.

Will they make the roads safer? I don’t think so. Communism is a great concept with everyone being treated equally but it can’t work as long as human beings have desires, aspirations and the basic need to be better than the next bloke. And so with driverless cars, they will only make roads safer if every driver has one.

Many pundits have suggested that driverless cars will provide ‘full business mobility’. People will be able to hold meetings in cars and work as they travel from A to B. What a load of tosh! Have they not heard of public transport, airplanes and chauffeurs? Improve public transport, especially trains and make it possible to travel to London from just outside Brighton without having to stand all the way in a carriage that uses an open window as a means of air conditioning.

Moving on to legislation? Does entering into the car’s control system the data needed to calculate the destination and speed make you a ‘driver’ and do you therefore need a licence? As I understand it some cars will be ‘highly automated’ whilst others will be ‘fully automated’, will both require a driving licence or just the highly automated vehicles?

If you need a licence to drive a highly automated vehicle one must assume that you could be convicted if caught using a mobile phone, eating at the wheel and not wearing a seatbelt. God forbid that you are caught drunk as a skunk in a driverless car, will you be convicted of drunk driving? For me the whole idea of driverless cars is a nonsense. But then I would have probably thought that you couldn’t improve on a horse and cart. I’ll get my coat! By Graham Hill