Talk:Self-driving car/Archive 2

naming conventions
is "driverless car" really the best name for this article? Surely a more technical name like "autonomous vehicles" or even "robotic cars" would better describe this topic. The name "driverless" is misleading, as the robot is just as much a driver as was the human who previously did the job. Furthermore, if a regular car was driving along and somehow the driver fell out, this would become a "driverless car", as would a parked car without anyone inside. It's not only that this name is unsuitable, there don't seem to be any notable organisations using the term. DARPA calls them "autonomous ground vehicles", researchers typically call them "autonomous vechiles" and I could only find a few media / wikipedia publications using the unsuitable term "driverless cars". Also on this note of naming conventions, it is misleading to keep referring to crashes as "accidents", as it limits the topic in both senses of the word: robotic cars would correct both accidental and deliberate crashes and in terms of accidents, they'd prevent accidental crashes, accidental near-misses, accidental blinking, accidental use of windscreen wipers etc. Owen214 (talk) 03:45, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree, Autonomous vehicle or Autonomous car would be more common and correct terms to use. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 04:43, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * As per this discussion, the name has now been changed. The previous definition of a "driverless car" being just like a car but with autopilot was very much reflective of the absurd tone of the previous article. An autonomous car is a serious peice of engineering, not a TV novelty.Owen214 (talk) 07:54, 11 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Please be careful when using different names in the article. "Vehicle" in "autonomous vehicle" has a much broader scope than vehicles driving around on the road.Owen214 (talk) 00:06, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Infrastructure
Perhaps the infrastructure can be briefly mentioned, ie intersection (road), ... See Intersection concept for driverless vehicles designed by University of Texas — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.124.159 (talk) 07:39, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

benefits of robotic cars
I've cut a few things from the benefits section for the following reasons: Owen214 (talk) 03:54, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * "oil consumption and air pollution" - autonomous cars will not necessarily use oil and even if they do, autonomous cars will not necessarily communicate with each other and will therefore have no capability to better manage traffic flow. Even if they do communicate and heavy safety features are removed, cars might not be told to drive in a way that reduces energy use. With the greater ability of an autonomous system, cars may weave around the road and perform stunts along the way, thereby increasing energy use. There are too many assumptions in your claim.
 * "costs and inconvenience of employing drivers" - this was already covered by "relief of vehicle occupants from driving ... chores" and is more of a requirement than an actual benefit. It's a truism.
 * "optimization" - this is already possible with existing navigation systems and you're also relying on your assumption that autonomous cars will communicate with each other, but this time extending it even further in predicting that they'll communicate with distant cars.
 * "road signage" - reworded to deal with the (likely) situation where human drivers are allowed to stay on the roads

I've had to edit this section again: Owen214 (talk) 13:42, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "possible advantages" - please don't include "possible" advantages; please include realistic, serious advantages.
 * "journey times", "fewer traffic jams" etc - cars needn't be autonomous to communicate with each other about traffic and in fact, autonomous cars may not necessarily communicate with each other at all.
 * "manage traffic flow more efficiently" - the advantage of the traffic management is the end result; not so much the efficiency of the management process.
 * "increased speed limits whilst remaining safe" - cars are not safe at the moment, so the fast autonomous cars would not really "remain" safe.
 * "fewer traffic collisions and therefore a reduction [in] road injuries [and deaths]" - fewer collisions won't necessarily mean fewer injuries. If the autonomous cars are going faster as predicted, a car crash could well involve twice as many cars as before.

Putting recently added material here for discussion
An IP added the following sourced to a blog:

"Many wrongly believe that autonomous vehicles run on a GPS connected network. This however is not true. Due to this widely held belief though, many think a CME or Coronal Mass Ejection (Solar Flare) in the future could lead to a system crash where every autonomous vehicle on the road will crash. The facts are that autonomous vehicles run on their own network, not connected to GPS but to downloaded maps much like we use on something say Google Maps. The maps on our cell phones may be navigated by GPS but the map itself is downloaded on its own. In an autonomous vehicle there is again, no GPS guiding the car along. It is a combination of 360 degree view cameras, sensors and LIDAR. While a solar flare (CME) would not cause havoc to any future autonomous vehicle network, a terrorist attack whereby someone or group hacks in, is a serious threat that will be worked on in the coming years."

The style isn't encyclopedic, and some of it appears to be personal commentary, which is disallowed by WP:NPOV. It seems like we don't really need to rebut the issue of solar flares, and that the solution is simply to not include that claim in the article. TimidGuy (talk) 17:44, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting that, TimidGuy. Not only is that commentary not encyclopedic, parts of it are misleading and parts of it are incorrect. Owen214 (talk) 14:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't hesitate to use the word Drawback
I'm quite surprised the article has a _Benefits_ paragraph without an equivalent _Drawbacks_ section.

The only thing that approaches is «Limits of driverless cars» in the Talk section, which I believe is euphemistic.

Let me toss a few ideas:
 * I have the right to ask for an interaction with a human being, in many situations, not only when calling a phone server; if a car killed a loved one, I have the right to demand there was a human behind the wheel of the culprit vehicle. If he did a mistake I could have done myself, that's the only way of accepting a fatality.
 * lobbying, and doing surveys with questions that presuppose the acceptation of the move, is not honest practice. You cannot motivate all by mere progressism.
 * in the mid-term, people paid to drive (taxis, truckers) will be fired.
 * in the long-term, since a flock of automated cars can drive much faster in straight line, can save gas by driving back-to-back, can start as a block at a red light, problem is that of keeping human drivers on roads, or maybe, human driving a car that does not give up his position every second, speed and intent to some globalized service.
 * I don't define a driverless car as a road user. Here, we have an attempt to undermine the meaning of words (_ahead of the law,_ right). Would a manned 2000W electric scooter be one? A tamed dog in a drone (with some limits to divagation)?
 * my phone crashed: well, ok. My unmanned car crashed: not sure what this implies. People have got used to needy software and poor reliability. Usually, computer mistakes do not respect a rule of progressivity in the consequences.

Skwa (talk) 10:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Feel free to add some content to the article. Just keep in mind that you need to have sources for the material that you add, per WP:NOR and WP:V. TimidGuy (talk) 10:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is just the messenger, it sounds like you're annoyed at the wrong people. As a side note, I disagree with most of your claims


 * You have an opportunity to ask for an interaction with a human being in many situations. Even if an autonomous car killed someone, there would be someone to represent the car, but just not as a driver. It would be an engineer or the owner.
 * The people paid to drive deserve to be fired since they kill people, they kill animals and they damage things.
 * Human drivers would indeed lower the effectiveness of the robotic car fleet, but that's not really a problem that can be labelled as a "drawback" of robotic cars and it would still be better than the status quo.
 * Isn't anything that moves around on the road a road user?
 * All machines can suffer problems, not just those machines that have computers. It's common sense that autonomous cars would have to undergo rigorous testing before anyone sensible would buy one. Owen214 (talk) 14:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Reduced need for road signage
The fact that some autonomous cars might navigate by a system other than signs does not mean "there would be no need for physical signs, line markings or the like" unless human drivers were completely banned. I don't see that as a realistic premise anytime soon, and in any case it is not in the citation given. Let's remove it? MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 15:55, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * yeah actually I agree. They could use electronic communication but as you say, they might still rely on physical signs. Owen214 (talk) 09:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * remove it, I dont see the total elimination of physical driving taking place for a long time. And to say that autonomous car's will negate it completely is suspect.Beefcake6412 (talk) 22:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It was removed already. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 02:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I suggest that the best operating principle for autonomous automobile guidance is Visual Analysis, period. This renders the issue of compatibility with manual drivers completely moot. . It also eliminates the need for consideration of LIDAR as well as RADAR -- Why bother ? . Road striping to be maintained, signs of all types to be maintained and roadside shrubbery to be kept trimmed. . Simple ! ! Smoke & fog hazards can be dealt with via mandatory and continuous vision acuity testing against standard targets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.59.235.91 (talk) 23:31, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Disputed benefit of an autonomous car
Someone deleted my edit: []

Why? MattSH 16:38, 3 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The editor who reverted your contribution gave "unreferenced speculation" as the reason. Presumably, this was a reference to Wikipedia's verifiability policy, which states that an article's content must be "determined by previously published information". It probably would have been better practice (as per WP:CHALLENGE) for the editor in question to put a citation needed tag on that line, rather than remove it. At any rate, I'd suggest you find a reliable source for the claim, and then restore the edit. Ibadibam (talk) 19:56, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! Would these be qualified sources: http://www.chron.com/opinion/editorials/article/Get-ready-for-automated-cars-3857472.php http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/18/tech/innovation/ieee-2040-cars/index.html

Also, there are other lines there that are even more speculative without citations (particularly the claim about insurance). — Preceding unsigned comment added by MattSH (talk • contribs) 21:08, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The Houston Chronicle article looks like a good source, strong enough to support your edit. I didn't see any discussion of speed limits in the CNN article. Also, you're absolutely right that there are some pretty poorly supported claims in this article right now. Oh, and by the way, you can sign your posts by putting four tildes ( ~ ) at the end of your comment so that the bot doesn't write its snarky little "preceding unsigned comment" line. Ibadibam (talk) 21:28, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Ibadibam is right, I reverted the edit because I regarded it as unreferenced speculation. It is indeed disappointing that some of the other benefits are unreferenced, I'll endeavour to find references for those. The difference is however that claims about the vehicle insurance are less speculative since they follow directly from other benefits. I'm sure that most editors and readers of this article would agree that robotic cars could handle higher speeds, but that doesn't mean that governments will actually raise their speed limits, which is what you claim. I recall hearing that when cars were introduced, there were briefly some laws restricting them from driving faster than horses, because it would create chaos with the traffic flow. I chose not to write citation needed because I doubt that any satisfactory citation exists - it would have to be some kind of article quoting a public official saying that they'd consider raising the speed limit for autonomous cars. The CNN article you mention seems borderline, I wouldn't cite it, but I wouldn't remove it either if you put your claim back in the article with that as your source.Owen214 (talk) 06:57, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus for move to target name. There was an evolving consensus for a move to Self-driving car, but it seemed to—forgive me—run off the road.  Mini  apolis  15:20, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Autonomous car → Driverless car – The "autonomous car" article was created and titled, when such cars were still essentially science fiction. The article included other terms not commonly used today, such as "autopilot car" and "autodrive car." Even then, however, the article used "driverless" more often than any other term. Since then, the term "driverless car" has become the most common term to refer to these vehicles. Google Trends shows a clear preference for "driverless car" among the public when performing web searches. But currently, searching for "driverless car" first brings up a Wikipedia page on the Google driverless car instead of the general subject. On Google News, driverless car appears significantly more common than autonomous car, though the article count can swing by entire orders of magnitude when simply advancing to the next page of results, suggesting no one count is reliable. This Wikipedia article claims without sourcing that "driverless" is an informal term. I don't know what determines general formality or informality, but formality isn't what Wikipedia's naming conventions aim for, anyway. Instead, they prefer common terms over technical ones, and natural, recognizable titles, as well. The talk page entry just above this one suggests "autonomous" may in fact be too technical for some, as editors are confusing "autonomous" with "automatic." "Driverless" may more clearly evoke the type of cars we're talking about, and may better be "a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject will recognize," as the guidelines suggest. Pdxuser (talk) 00:47, 21 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support – strong results for "driverless" in ngram search as well. Ibadibam (talk) 01:29, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support - more commonly used term. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 03:39, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support, seems like a more clear-cut category anyways as "autonomy" can be a bit subjective.--Xiaphias (talk) 12:02, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support - per WP:COMMONNAME. --B2C 05:19, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That provision applies only to proper names, are you should be well aware. Dicklyon (talk) 04:02, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * What makes you think that? Sure, WP:COMMONNAME discusses proper names, but it doesn't exclude common names from its policy. Why, "Caffeine" is given as one of the examples there. Ibadibam (talk) 17:22, 24 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose – following up on the n-gram link that Ibadibam provides above, it is clear that the phrase "driverless car" has been in use for a long time—not for a car that drives itself autonomously, but rather for one rolling out of control. Is this really what we want to confuse autonomous cars with?  Wouldn't it make more sense to hang on to the more precise title?  Dicklyon (talk) 04:02, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The earliest uses of "driverless car" from the 1800s and early 1900s include all kinds of fascinating things, from a novel where a carriage's horse and driver were killed in a fight, to a short story about a ghostly annual occurrence where a horse-drawn carriage is seen coming down a hill with no driver on the anniversary of a deadly prank, to a journal article saying runaway cars were common in silent films of the Biograph Company, but that this once happened in real life, too. Using the term "driverless car" was rare in these earliest days, occurring in print only once every few years. There have since been peaks in the popularity of the term "driverless car," according to the n-gram. The first peak was in 1931. An insurance manual from 1931 explains what this was about: "Driverless car. Such cars are those rented without drivers, or the drive-it-yourself type." So by this formal definition, "driverless car" referred to what we now call rental cars, in contrast to what we now call taxis. This demonstrates that language changes over time, and I would argue that we similarly should not be stuck with an outdated use of "driverless car" today when everyone now uses "driverless car" to refer to cars navigated by their own technology — I just looked through every result currently in Google News to be sure. As another instructing example, the word "computer" originally referred not to a machine, but to a human: a mathematician employed by companies to compute figures. But everyone now uses "computer" to refer to a machine. Language evolves. And the people have chosen what "driverless car" now refers to. Wikipedia says we should use the more common term. Pdxuser (talk) 01:05, 26 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose - "Autonomous car" seems to be the more common term in the past 3 years, which is when this technology has really started to come to the fore. I did a search in the HIghbeam news archive going back to 2010 and got 1,509 results for "autonomous car" and 665 results for "driverless car." I skimmed the first 20 results for each term, and all the articles appeared to be on topic. Seems like we could keep this article name and redirect "driverless car" to this article. TimidGuy (talk) 09:48, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If you put the terms "autonomous car" and "driverless car" in quotes, you get only articles with those precise terms, rather than articles that contain both "car" and either "driverless" or "autonomous" somewhere else in the article. Using quotes, I found the term "autonomous car" appeared 80 times and "driverless car" appeared 369 times. Even if there's a way of searching that brings up more articles for "autonomous car," I would note that HighBeam is geared toward researchers, and the articles using "autonomous car" seem to be more from technical publications like Mechanical Engineering and Annals of DAAAM & Proceedings, while the articles for "driverless car" seem to be more from news sources like The Washington Post and NPR, suggesting that "autonomous car" may be the more technical term. Wikipedia's common name convention doesn't just refer to names that are used the most, but also to names that are less technical. Pdxuser (talk) 01:05, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Seven of the 20 articles on the first page of your highbeam link for "driverless car" are about out-of-control cars in accidents. Until this use of the term fades further, we'd do well to avoid that ambiguity.  Dicklyon (talk) 01:38, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, I should have pointed out, you can't filter by date when providing a link to HighBeam, so those stories about runaway cars are from prior decades. If you filter to articles after 1/1/2013, you'll see that all 85 "driverless car" articles from this year are specifically about driverless car technology, compared to only 7 articles for "autonomous car" (though, like with Google News, the article count mysteriously declines as you advance to the next page, so it's eventually 51 to 7). Of those 7 "autonomous" articles, 5 also use "driverless," 3 use "driverless" in the headline instead of "autonomous," and only 1 article about autonomous cars actually uses "autonomous" in the headline. We also see from current articles on Google News that driverless car only refers to driverless car technology these days. My guess for why runaway cars aren't being called driverless anymore is because people now associate the term "driverless car" with the technology that's being developed by Google, et. al. And, fortunately, in case anyone is still confused by what "driverless car" means, they can of course read the article.


 * I do understand why people may not like the term "driverless car," but until the auto industry or the media makes some other term more popular, this is the term that people are clearly using. I'm sure Henry Ford didn't like his revolutionary technology merely being called "horseless," either, since horseless, too, had a prior meaning: stuck without a horse. But that's what people used until "horseless" became redundant. Pdxuser (talk) 07:09, 26 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support - "Autonomous" is mainly a military term. Even the industry in this market seems to prefer the term "driverless". Google Books: Autonomous (246+), driverless (494+) / Google News: autonomous (40) driverless (127)
 * It looks to me like "self-driving car" is much more used for this than "driverless car". Why aren't we looking at the that, which is both less ambiguous and more common?  Dicklyon (talk) 04:46, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Is it? Google Trends, Google Books Ngram. Pdxuser (talk) 23:48, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * But those searches don't distinguish the meanings. If you do a web search in which you couple those with "autonomous" or with "Google" or with something that makes it likely to be about the topic at hand, then self-driving wins by a wide margin.  Dicklyon (talk) 05:12, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I can support "self-driving car." TimidGuy (talk) 15:14, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That appears due to a quirk in the way Google estimates hit counts for hyphenated words: Initially, it estimates there are millions of results for ["self-driving car" autonomous], but advance to the end of the results and it turns out there are only about 240 results. Do the same for ["driverless car" autonomous], and there are about 470 results. Here's a bit of an explanation for why that happens, though not a fully satisfying one. If you look at a Google Trends comparison of searches like "Google driverless car" and "Google self-driving car," you'll see a big lead for "driverless." while "self-driving" appears to have declined recently. Pdxuser (talk) 18:22, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, so as usual, trying to count with Google is complicated. Still, why not go with the more precise, less overloaded term?  Dicklyon (talk) 18:30, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I admit there's a certain appeal to "self-driving car," in that it describes the feature that the car has rather than a feature that it lacks, but I also like other terms such as "virtual chauffeur," which the New York Times used in a headline recently, and "autodrive," which has been used occasionally as an analog to "autopilot." But Wikipedia seems to particularly heavily weigh the most common term that the public and reliable sources use in factoring what to use as the title, rather than having Wikipedia editors decide which term would be better for people to use. If automakers all agree to market their vehicles as "robocars," for example, and people start using that term more than "driverless," I'd happily vote in favor of that. As for whether "driverless" is inaccurate, it's the term most often used by reliable sources and by the public, it's not commonly used in modern speech for anything else (like runaway cars), people know what is meant by it, and to the extent that drivers are commonly considered people who drive a car, the word can't really be disqualified as inaccurate, especially since other reliable sources seem to have reached a consensus on it. I do admit there are other cooler and more technically accurate terms out there that I like better, they're just not the term that the public and the press have agreed on. Pdxuser (talk) 00:51, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * More on that, here. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 20:38, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Multiple articles? - This article caught my eye today. The Verge puts unpiloted/optionally piloted driverless (AKA self-driving?) autos on one side of the car automation spectrum and semi-autonomous vehicles on the other. . Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 19:37, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Isn't that other sense already covered by Vehicular automation? Ibadibam (talk) 19:51, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It is only if you think Autonomous car (in the fully automated/semi-automated sense) is redundant to Vehicle automation. Both are noun phrases so it is a matter of preference whether the title is Autonomous vehicle or Vehicle automation. There should be articles for at least the other two/three cases. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 05:56, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with where he says above that "autonomous" and "automated" are not synonymous, despite some sources confusing the two. This article does not appear to cover automated systems in vehicles that can't drive themselves. There once were separate articles on Smart car and Vehicular automation, which have now been merged. If you think they should be split again, that's probably a subject that can be confined to Talk:Vehicular automation, unless it really does have some bearing on this move discussion. Ibadibam (talk) 19:02, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I also agree that "autonomous" does not mean "automated," and this ongoing confusion is a good reason for a name change. The vehicular automation article covers precisely what NHTSA considers level 1 and 2 technologies, such as cruise control and lane keeping. This article is basically about levels 3 and 4, the "human doesn't have to pay attention" technologies. The history section does note progress made in level 1 and 2 automation, though, which I think is reasonable. Pdxuser (talk) 21:06, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, disregard my confusion of autonomous and automation. My thinking is that Car autonomy should cover levels 1–4. Driverless car/self-driving car would cover what this article is devoted to: fully autonomous vehicles. Should I just do it? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 02:49, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the closing instructions require an admin who didn't participate in the discussion to close it, since it wasn't unanimous. And there's currently a backlog. It might help the admin identify a consensus to un-strikeout "support" if you're back to that position, though, and maybe strikeout "multiple articles" if you no longer believe that, but obviously it's up to you. Pdxuser (talk) 06:44, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose - of course "driverless" is going to be more popular in the search results, as a person who thinks that it's called "driverless" is the same kind of person who needs to find out more on the topic. "Driverless" has always been used in fluffier articles like news and gossip columns, whereas "autonomous" and robotic" are the only titles given in industry publications. "Driverless" and "self-driving" carry a strong sense of magic and awe that is mutually exclusive with a proper understanding of the technology. See the AI effect. Anyone who says that these vehicles can't exist will typically call them "driverless" or "self-driving". As others have mentioned and I've mentioned in the past, there is confusion in the term "driverless" as it could be a runaway car.Owen214 (talk) 07:50, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * if it helps resolve the stalemate, I'd support the title "robotic", as I prefer that name anyway Owen214 (talk) 02:56, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I forgot to mention, "driverless car" is likely to go back to being interpreted as "empty car" when autonomous cars become more well-known, as there will undoubtedly be people insisting on redundant backup people sitting in the driver's seat of an autonomous car. They will claim that the "driver" needs to be there in case the computer goes haywire and the human will supposedly be able to respond in time. Owen214 (talk) 08:37, 2 June 2013 (UTC) edit: it turns out that the word is already being used in this sense by Toyota executives Owen214 (talk) 12:06, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
 * "Remember to base arguments on article title policy." The fact that "driverless" is more popular and used more in the press — aka reliable sources — argues in support of the change, not against. And the unsupported claim that industry publications only call such cars "autonomous" or "robotic" is inaccurate: . Nevertheless, the guidelines argue against technical terms in favor of common ones, so the fact that you might find technical articles referring to "Trisomy 21" doesn't mean the article shouldn't be titled "Down syndrome," per one of the official examples. As for confusion about "driverless," that overlooks that "autonomous" is confusing even to people who have read the article and are editing it. You couldn't say the same for "driverless." Not only is "driverless" not used for runaway cars anymore (see previous discussion), but there's simply no way to read this article and think "driverless" means out-of-control runaway cars. "Driverless" is less confusing than "autonomous." Pdxuser (talk) 16:23, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Whatever something is likely to be called in the future is not something we can account for. We should be looking at currently established patterns of usage. So I'm not sure the above argument for "driverless car" really bears on this discussion. Ibadibam (talk) 17:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * none of those articles you mention are cited by any later authors because none of them are anything special. You can see in the abstracts that most of the authors go back to calling them "autonomous" anyway - they're only calling them "driverless" to get more prominence among the general public who are interfering with the name. People editing the article without understanding the meaning of "autonomous" are nothing but a hindrance and have no legitimacy in this debate. "Driverless" is just plain wrong - the computer is just as much a driver, if not more, than any human. "Robotic" would perfectly fit the need to have a name that's understandable and still correct, so it's disappointing that you skim over this proposal.Owen214 (talk) 09:55, 6 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Support. "Autonomous" makes the car sound like a person with a mind and a will of its own. Srnec (talk) 16:55, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * that's exactly the impression it should evoke. Why do you think the cars don't deserve this term? Owen214 (talk) 02:58, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you asking me why I think such cars aren't persons? Srnec (talk) 05:09, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The first plate for these supports the current naming (any other plates yet?).  Having a plate means you can register one of these! The cars are not really driverless since there is intelligence controlling the vehicle.  Dirverless implies the lack of any control of the vehicle.  Do we consider vehicles like the Predator driverless? Also a minor point.  Driverless may not be a valid American English word. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:16, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * 1. It wasn't argued that "autonomous" isn't used at all, there are certainly notable examples of "autonomous" and other terms being used, such as that example from the Nevada DMV. Rather, it was argued that "driverless" is far more common among the public and among reliable sources, which is part of the article title criteria. The Nevada licenses were routinely referred to as licenses for driverless cars, for example. 2. Predator drones are commonly called pilotless, though "drone" makes that redundant. 3. "Driverless" is proper English, as both Merriam-Webster and Oxford English list "driverless" as a valid derivative of "driver." Pdxuser (talk) 16:23, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Support Seems to be a more accurate phrasing. Suggestions regarding multiple articles are helpful, but with what we have now, this rename would be an improvement. --BDD (talk) 23:19, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * it's not more accurate; "autonomous" exactly describes the vehicle. There might be terms that are more popular, but none more accurate.Owen214 (talk) 10:13, 6 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Support. Seems more accurate.  "Autonomous" makes it sound also passengerless, and without any human navigation.  The main feature of the car is driverlessness, not issues of navigation (route choice) or passengers.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:06, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
 * the article is indeed about cars that can drive around without passengers. "Navigation" in the context of robotic cars is more than the selection of a final destination. Owen214 (talk) 10:13, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

clarification: "autonomous" & "car"
Please be aware that this page is just about cars that are autonomous. There are other pages about topics such as vehicle automation, cars and robots. Please don't contaminate this page with talk about automatic braking; trucks; or remote control cars. Similarly, most talk of the early history is irrelevant, because those cars are merely automatic, not autonomous. To be autonomous, there must be some kind of decision involved: where should I drive? Following tracks and magnetic strips fit much more closely as "automated".

While there is plenty of speculation about what the future holds in regards to this topic, don't take that as an invitation to write unsourced speculation here. Owen214 (talk) 13:10, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Drawback of Fuel efficiency of autonomous vehicles
Autonomous cars may be fuel efficient, but at the same time, could increase fuel consumption. For example Dmm1169 (talk) 15:13, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Fuel used by autonomous vehicles driving around without a driver looking for parking space or traveling to its’ next customer.
 * Increased use from those currently using more fuel-efficient means such as biking/public transportation/etc.
 * Longer commute distances. Having to commute long distances is not as much a disadvantage.
 * Increased use of motorhomes and other large vehicles due to increased ease of use.

Low-cost driverless car
Appearantly, as an alternative to a 3D radar, webcams can be used to build a driverless car; see [www.takingonthegiant.com/2013/05/23/budisteanu/ Ionut Budisteanu's system] mention in article KVDP (talk) 09:02, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The parts are cheaper, but the engineering time is longer, so it might not be cheaper overall and it is certainly not "low-cost". Owen214 (talk) 05:31, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

structure
I think this article could use some restructuring. It focuses a bit too much on details at the expense of the bigger picture, and reads as a bit of a laundry list at the moment (see Manual of Style/Embedded lists for some discussion of lists vs. prose). I'm hesitant to come in here and start removing information, but I think for example that the section on notable projects could be axed altogether, or greatly reduced. I think this information is largely unencyclopedic, and is more suitable for a specialist appendix. I also think that the public opinion section is way too detailed. Best to summarize the information and link to a discussion of public opinion. Additionally, the "official predictions" should be merged with forecasts. Who gets to make an "official prediction"? This seems to be a POV way of presenting the information to make it seem more credible. Also, the predictions themselves seem to be overly specific. I'm open to keeping it, but it seems too to verge into crystal ball territory and to make too much of the individual claims of auto-makers who probably aren't super good sources for these kinds of claims (commercial interests may well cloud such pronouncements). There is relatively little discussion of the debate around the possible effects of autonomous cars, and indeed the technical hurdles to their implementation which would seem to be very important elements to include.

I'll go ahead and make changes if no one objects, but thought I should run this by editors here to see if there's any other opinions, and because I propose a fairly radical re-write. Peregrine981 (talk) 13:42, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with your statements. I've merged "Forecasts" & "official predictions" and titled it "predictions".  Off of quick glace items in the "notable projects" section seem to fall under "History" which is now a separate article.  So I agree "Notable Projects" either needs to be axed or have the most significant projects placed accordingly in history section.  As for automakers predictions, for the mostpart, I personally would leave them even though they manytimes fall short of their own predictions, unless their claim is otherwise invalid - partly because they have insight to their own production in which the general public does not.Dmm1169 (talk) 23:11, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Agree with your changes, and as you see i've added a bit. Indeed, i have no problem with including statements of car manufacturers, we just need to be careful to balance with the views of others. Peregrine981 (talk) 17:17, 22 January 2015 (UTC)