[anoop.nair]

& then I was thinking of a car dealership where cars actually are delivered (from parent cars - AI assisted mechanical copulation with customizations) for a waiting customer in lounge. If this sounds too disruptive and fictitious, so was the idea of telephone, camera at one point of time.

As many were mentioning for & against this move, one cannot stop thinking. Lets not put a iron fist to thoughts. Success if it comes to any technology, it eventually & most likely will cater to the majority.

If the government is seriously thinking to restrict automatic cars in India, I choose to oppose.

[NishantKj]

Given the current scenario, Big problem for this government is employment. All the initiatives taken by government hold no good if there is no increase in employment.
Above statement by Mr Gadkari is nothing but one political statement to give the message that they care about our jobs and will do anything in his capacity to save our jobs.
Personally I believe any change brings disruption in market but gradually we get used to it. Remember the days when Ola/Uber came, we were so reluctant to use it. News of taxi unions holding strikes in many cities. But now things looks quite settled for these cab providers.
Driver-less cars is a new concept and it will take time to digest it here in India. May be one day Mr. Gadkari himself will come and propose driver-less car with the idea of employment in manufacturing these cars.

[TSourav]

Why do we need cars at all?
1. To travel to office.
2. To travel to the market.
3. To travel to our friends and family's places.
4. To take our kids to school.
5. To take a family member to the hospital in case of a medical emergency.
6. To go out on a leisure drive.
7. To fulfil the desire for driving down some beautiful roads.
8. To own a piece of engineering that fascinates us, the enthusiasts.

Now, the points 1,2,3 and 4 are certainly repetive events. In some cases, like while travelling to friends and family
(Point 3) we may require the need of a train or an aeroplane. So in those cases, cars do not completely fulfil the needs.

In my opinion, a smart and a very cost effective solution is to ramp up the public transportation systems. A reliable, professional and clean public transport system will be more than enough for us to carry out the tasks mentioned in the points 1 to 4. I used to live in the Netherlands, and in there, the buses and the trains are always on-time, very clean and comfortable. I never needed a car for my daily needs. And for that last leg transportation, a bicycle or a
e-rickshaw will serve the purpose.

Ofcourse, if one drives on the highway frequently, autonomous driving cars may be beneficial, but, I feel , cruise control, emergency automatic braking and some good music can help a long way, than making the car drive itself. Most importantly, the biggest safety feature in the car is always, YOU, the driver.

Now, the points 5, 6, 7 and 8 definately makes a case for owning a car (human driven). These are the points which an autonomous car will not be able to fulfil. For that reason, lets keep aside the autonomous driving cars for sometime and enjoy the joy of driving down our favourite mountain roads.

In the end, one question that is lurking in my mind:
If my company gives me a 'Work-From-Home' option and I also have an Autonomous driving car, will I go to office to work?

[sajo]

Regardless of what the honorable Minister thinks, I opine that the only way to bring some semblance of order, discipline and some degree of predictability on Indian roads is the large scale adoption of driverless cars here.
The entire nation is now way beyond anything that can be rectified in our lifetimes, and a majority of drivers out there dont deserve be on the road at all.

[ReluctantRebel]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Look at how far phones have come in the last decade. If ten years ago I would have told you that phones will be as powerful as most computers around and will be gps devices, portable music players, run apps just as standalone computers do, portable cameras that you use all the time and even hear you and respond to you, would you have believed me? I simply speak to my phone now to set an alarm and it doesnt amaze me at all. Its second nature.

Agree to your point that technology has progressed so much in the past ten years when it comes to mobile phones. However, its a wrong analogy. In case of any unexpected situations on the road, its a matter of life or death. That's not the case when mobiles phones don't work.

Aircrafts fly mostly pilot less after they are airborne, changi airport Singapore already moves people between terminals using driverless trains. There will always be use cases where a human being present in the cabin is not too big a deal but that does not mean that technology cannot conquer it.

This is similar to cruise control and is no way fully autonomous. If its fully autonomous, then why are pilots still in demand and are still employed.

A self driving car does not mean that it has to be self driving all the time. You can drive it when you are in mood. I would love to have a car which can drive me to work everyday and does not cost me a moon (Tesla 3 will make that happen).

Ha, the mood. This is where everything goes for a toss. Mood is evil most of the times. At times, it might want to save some time by driving on the wrong side of the road. Or, at times, it might attempt to do a dangerous maneuver.

Proof of technology is machine learning technologies, self driving car is an application of this technology.

Agreed

Most of the advances in the mechanicals of a car trickle down from F1 engineering. You ought to read up more.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-12691062

I think he meant F1 when he said race car engineering.

Having said all that and more, i think we are discussing the pros and cons of autonomous cars and not about the exact news that the article contains. Of course, speaking about the political context might earn infractions but debating the ways in which people who are affected can move up the value chain can open our minds.

Disclaimer: I am completely for adoption of technologies wherever possible and don't shy away from doing the same in my life. Technological changes are going to be rapid in the future and we have to adapt ourselves. there are no two ways to that.

Originally Posted by sajo

Regardless of what the honorable Minister thinks, I opine that the only way to bring some semblance of order, discipline and some degree of predictability on Indian roads is the large scale adoption of driverless cars here.
The entire nation is now way beyond anything that can be rectified in our lifetimes, and a majority of drivers out there dont deserve be on the road at all.

Completely agree. I think it will take another generation, at the least, to learn proper driving on the roads. And that too, only if the current generation realizes its mistakes and rectifies them.

Mods: Sorry for the back-to-back posts.

[srishiva]

Have we thought about reducing the number of people itself ?

Coming to driverless cars, the infrastructure itself will have to be created first in our country starting with roads to enable such cars to drive themselves.

For now ideas might seem not so useful but will have its day. We are still years away and need to see how all these work in western countries.

[satishv1987]

Regardless of whether these autonomous cars will take away jobs or the condition of our roads, I dont think we will be in a position(anywhere during our lifetimes) to use such cars given the inadequacy of our laws.

Who will ensure that these cars meet stringent safety requirements?

Who will be liable in the event of an autonomous car killing a pedestrian? The owner? The manufacturer? The occupant?

Law enforcement and judicial arbitration in our country are a joke. Combine that with how ambiguously some laws are worded and we have a nightmare on our hands.

Till the time we have a systemic reform of outdated laws and law enforcement, India should not have autonomous cars. I do not foresee that happening in the near future.

[Queryanalyzer]

“Maybe some years down the line we won’t be able to ignore it but, as of now… we shouldn’t allow it..", what he said makes perfect sense to me.
This is media sensationalism, trying to get people to cry foul. Driver-less tech doesn't make any sense here in India, and it sure will not for the foreseeable future. Reading through this thread makes me wonder if people really know about the state of our roads (and other infrastructure).

[ToothyPetrohead]

I am having a hearty laugh at the fact that India was even considered to have driver less cars.

Forgive me for my reaction.

I live in a country where not a single person follows rules, drive in-consistently, drive as if their parents own the roads, drive in one way wrong side, do not follow signals,and if corrected will receive a mouth full of flowery choicest words including insults on parents
sisters and what not .........

To add to the above list pothole ridden roads, drivers talking on mobile phones ( even though most cars have hands free or a device can be purchased).

The shear volume of cars on the roads even a on board computer would give way in a matter of hours not even days or years. ERROR ERROR would be shooting up on the screen .

And lastly the loss of jobs and priceless Vote banks even the minister would have to trend on a thin line if they went ahead with the decision.

FOR THE moment demonetization and GST is already taking its toll.

[vinit.merchant]

Just have 2 things to say

1. As already mentioned so many times, our infrastructure, traffic, driving sense and the system to check on traffic offenders - considering all of this, our country is not in a position to deserve driverless cars.
2. How can a politician from the ruling party say the above words without affecting the party's image? He simply cannot, so to make the decision look beneficial to the party, he utters the usual political mumbo-jumbo on aam admi.

[virgovencat]

Honorable Mr Gadhkari is just playing a political game here. I am certain that his ministry would have appraised him of that current Indian infrastructure ( Bad traffic, no traffic sense, bad roads) cannot support driver less cars. So, Just to win over or impress certain people he has given a clever statement ( in his view), but people can easily see thru this and are not as dumb as politicians take us to be ;-)

[anjan_c2007]

The statement is too premature to be made at this stage. When computers were ushered in on a large scale during the early 1990's, many people including many VIP's were crying hoarse that computers are not suited to the Indian scenario and will result into massive job losses.

Hence, its too premature to comment on driverless cars vis a vis the Indian scenario. Maybe the car is infused with appropriate technology to adapt to the several modes of our traffic movement, that the Minister is talking about.

[mail4ajo]

The more important question..is the Technology ready for India in the first place? SAE level 3s are just coming out. I doubt if they tested in conditions similar to our roads.

So its safe to assume that fully autonomous cars will not be seen in India for a while, so government is right, India will not allow the technology (in fact tech will not allow use in India.. lots of sarcasm added here)

Frankly India needs the tech more than US. In 2016, 140K people died in road accidents in India compared to 40K in US with more cars, higher speed and with similar road network length.

A lot of this 140K death could be attributed to human error. Humans are the weakest link on the road.

[Lobogris]

Self driving cars are probably at least a decade away from mass deployment anywhere in the world. Coming to India, probably a decade after they are common in more developed countries, we will start seeing some small scale adoption. This will initially be limited to controlled environments such as airports, industrial facilities and farming. This could happen in the next ten years or so. This will be followed by small sanitized areas in city centers where traffic discipline is better and we could have automated buses and taxis in these areas. In addition, we could have this technology deployed on access controlled highways. Already modern cars are almost self driven with adaptive cruise control, lane guidance systems and auto braking. So this technology, as it becomes cheaper, can be used to allow truckers to work longer shifts as they can automate the trucks on emptier stretches- sort of like commercial aircraft today where take off and landing is manual but most of the cruising is on auto pilot. After that, it will depend on the overall situation in India. If we are able to have stricter discipline then we will be able to move forward towards fully autonomous vehicles. Transformation of a nation can be quick and mind boggling as we can see with China in the past 20 years.

Originally Posted by T1000

Will you travel in a self-driving car?
Will you let your family members travel in a self-driving car?

One accident anywhere in the world is enough to lose trust on the technology.
Self-driving cars are not for the current generation.

Before self-driving cars becomes a reality, pilot-less ships, aircraft, trains or a mining dumper must become common.
As they have less number of environment variables to manage compared to a car on a road.
Will a intercity train with 1000 passengers ever travel without a human at the controls?

My take, self-driving cars may not be commercially successful.

One accident anywhere in the world and you would lose faith in this technology? Millions of accidents have happened with drivers in cars and yet you trust them? Of course there will be accidents in autonomous cars but the rate will be far less than human driven vehicles. Would I trust my family to be driven by the usual Indian taxi driver? No way. I would prefer a self driven car any day.

[Mortis]

Before banning autonomous cars and other such nonsense the Government should instead work on reducing our population, educating them, providing life and employable skills and teaching (beating) manners and civic sense into them. This is the need of the hour but the government and us citizens dont have the guts to acknowledge this problem and work on it.
Things are only going to get worse day by day unless a one child or even a no child policy is implemented.

PS : Just to stay a bit more on topic, my cousin works for Google's driverless cars project and believe me they are testing and training the AI to handle all sorts or weird and wacky scenarios, many of which are quite commonplace on our roads. The amount of work being put in is staggering.