alt Hacker NewsLet's not forget that Waymo requires an extensive, custom mapping and software/pre-training development process for every new city they operate in, are only in 10 cities total after over 20 years, and are still nowhere near profitability (or even with a clear plan to get there as far as I can tell).
I personally believe widely available self-driving cars which don't operate at a loss will continue to elude us until we accept the tradeoffs of dedicated lanes, a standardized vehicle-to-vehicle communication protocol, and roadside sensors. We were lied to.
For a fraction of the cost of developing self-driving cars we could have self-driving trains/trams/subways and most likely minibuses as part of public transportation networks.
And self-driving minibuses would basically provide 95% of the benefits of self-driving buses. They could offer 24/7 frequent service with huge coverage, we already have dedicated bus lanes in many places (and we could scale dedicated bus lanes much faster than dedicated self-driving car lanes), etc.
Now, I understand that in many places (especially the US) this is infeasible because public anything = communism.