    I think the paper glosses over the issue of achieving widespread adoption of self-driving cars, as well as the speed at which it will occur. It references a report that predicts the widespread adoption of self-driving cars by 2020. The paper does not specify whether “widespread adoption” refers to a large portion of the general public accepting and trusting the technology and its implications, or to the widespread use of autonomous vehicles on roads, or to both. When it comes to the former, I think that the media and general lack of knowledge on the subject could hinder acceptance of the technology, and in the case of the latter, I think the price of such technology will form a sizable barrier to such adoption. And that is all assuming that self-driving technology has advanced to the point that it’s ready for public consumption by 2020.

    Statistics and studies done on the safety and effectiveness of autonomous vehicles will likely be enough to persuade many people, but it’s difficult to gauge how many may remain unconvinced that they should trust and switch to self-driven cars, especially those adverse to change. Accidents that are the fault of the self-driven car will also likely be blown out of proportion by the media, and could negatively affect the general public’s opinion of self-driving cars, even though in reality they will be much safer and less accident-prone than traditional cars.

    Even if the vast majority of people agree with and trust the concept of a completely self-driven car, the large barrier of price still remains. Self-driving cars will almost certainly cost more than traditional cars. The LIDAR, the component that sits on top of an autonomous vehicle and maps the surrounding terrain and objects using lasers, still costs between $8,000 and $30,000, and that’s after Waymo, the creator company, took steps to reduce its cost by more than 90%. And that’s only one of the various components that will be needed in a fully autonomous car. Tesla uses radar, not LIDAR, and claims their self-driving equipment costs are around $8,000. However, Tesla cars are only capable of semi-autonomous driving, and that $8,000 likely does not reflect how much it will cost to fully autotomize a car. Given this, I think the transition to many self-driving cars being on the roads will take longer than three years. First, the technology must mature to the point that it’s viable, which will also require plenty of testing given that a large number of lives will be at hand. Following that, a brand new car is usually a purchase that the average person makes once every few years, if not less frequently. And to facilitate the widespread use of self-driving cars, they need to be purchased widespread. While a fully autonomous car would definitely give incentive for the average person to purchase a brand new car more often than usual, it’s not a purchase that many will be able to quickly make once the technology is being sold to the public. Additionally, some people may enjoy driving to the point that they wish to continue driving traditional cars, which would also affect the number of self-driving cars on the road.

    I think the paper addresses many points regarding self-driving cars and its barriers to widespread adoption, but that the important topics of price and public opinion on the technology are either mentioned only briefly, or not at all.
