HACKER Q&A
📣 SushiHippie

Future of Autonomous Cars: Tracks?


Currently, autonomous vehicles are vehicles equipped with many sensors/cameras and controlled by AI models (at least the most well-known). This is likely the best solution for our existing infrastructure.

But are there any attempts to construct a city with car tracks?

Wouldn't a centrally "steered" system, like these autonomous trains, that don't require "AI" and cameras/sensors, be a more safe and cost-effective long-term solution?

Currently, these systems operate on a set timetable, but this might be expanded such that each "car" can act autonomously and drive wherever it wants on the track while still being "steered" autonomously centrally.

This was basically just a "shower thought" and I absolutely don't know anything about this subject. Please correct me if I'm stupid; I'm just wondering whether this makes sense.

  👤 tamimio Accepted Answer ✓
“Autonomous” or self driving cars are basically a hype or a meme, just like most robotics products except drones/cobotics, sure, I appreciate the advancements and testing the limits in any technology and would love to even work in one or build it, but it’s still a dummy meme that can be disabled or tricked by simple tricks. Autonomous cars will not solve anything; the only solution is fewer cars. Americans have ingrained cars into their identity and built their entire infrastructure and cities around them. The solution has always been there, as you have mentioned in the original post: tracks, aka trains, which are much safer and better in terms of infrastructure, speed, and eliminating the legal need for a driver, among many other factors. To put it in perspective, comparing autonomous cars to trains is like comparing tracks to “loop” - or whatever that underground Tesla tunnel is - one is reliable and proven for decades, the other is just a hype and a reinvention of the wheel to keep it centered around cars.
👤 Quinzel
I might be picturing this in my head differently to the way you meant it but… I am picturing cars on tracks similar to the carrera go slot cars which seem similar to trams and trains - which the reason they’re not everywhere is because it’s super insanely expensive to build and maintain the infrastructure of things like that. 1km of train track costs roughly $1B where I live.

Imagine the cost of trying to set up the infrastructure of that. Not saying it’s impossible or a dumb idea, but I don’t think many cities would be able to afford to create the infrastructure for that especially not for private use, and imagine the user charges to use that kind of infrastructure and the impacts on the entire system if something was to go wrong.