LA TIMES: Walt Disney World plans to deploy driverless shuttles

[ford91exploder]

If there are two Kias, one with a human driver and one with an autonomous driver and they both rear-end another vehicle, isn't that going to be exactly the same with regard to liability, which is that the auto insurance on both cars pays for damages and injury?

In insurance there is a concept called subrogation, The insurance company may PAY the claim but they will then try and recoup the payment if possible, In an at fault accident your insurance company will pay your claim but it will then probably file suit against the other driver and their insurance company. If the crash was caused by a mechanical failure the other driver's insurance will probably sue in turn or jointly either the automaker or parts vendor.

 

[njDizFan]

Autonomous cars are coming and faster than most people think. The missing piece in the algorithm is data. The more data they have the safer they will become. That means more hours on the road learning and more cars that are also autonomous. They will be much much safer when all the vehicles are linked into a network and can share all the data. I believe in 30 years we will be looking at driving a car like it was driving a horse around the streets.

Another thing to consider is the need for a vehicle. The average person uses a their car less than 2 hours a day. that's 22 hours a day the car just sits there. In a world of shared vehicles that would be much more efficient requiring less vehicles on the road, less resources less pollution...everything. You may think this is far-fetched but I see it as a done deal in the near future. Every day we give up a little less of our own privacy for convenience.

 

[21stamps]

Autonomous cars are coming and faster than most people think. The missing piece in the algorithm is data. The more data they have the safer they will become. That means more hours on the road learning and more cars that are also autonomous. They will be much much safer when all the vehicles are linked into a network and can share all the data. I believe in 30 years we will be looking at driving a car like it was driving a horse around the streets.

Another thing to consider is the need for a vehicle. The average person uses a their car less than 2 hours a day. that's 22 hours a day the car just sits there. In a world of shared vehicles that would be much more efficient requiring less vehicles on the road, less resources less pollution...everything. You may think this is far-fetched but I see it as a done deal in the near future. Every day we give up a little less of our own privacy for convenience.

But here's my thing.. so everyone who is buying cars today, tomorrow, and the next 10 years... is suddenly going to do what with their car? Trade it in for an autonomous one..or use an autonomous fleet of taxis? I see the taxi thing as not even close to near future. Maybe in immediate city limits only, but not spreading to suburbs to cover commutes to work or play.

5 years ago everyone thought we would all be walking around wearing Google Glass today. The vast majority never even had one pair.

What I predict- more and more people upgrading to vehicles with several autonomous features in them.. but even that is going to take a while.

 

[GoofGoof]

Autonomous cars are coming and faster than most people think. The missing piece in the algorithm is data. The more data they have the safer they will become. That means more hours on the road learning and more cars that are also autonomous. They will be much much safer when all the vehicles are linked into a network and can share all the data. I believe in 30 years we will be looking at driving a car like it was driving a horse around the streets.

Another thing to consider is the need for a vehicle. The average person uses a their car less than 2 hours a day. that's 22 hours a day the car just sits there. In a world of shared vehicles that would be much more efficient requiring less vehicles on the road, less resources less pollution...everything. You may think this is far-fetched but I see it as a done deal in the near future. Every day we give up a little less of our own privacy for convenience.

Time will tell, but I think 30 years is highly unlikely. The fact is people still like driving their cars. Maybe that changes in a generation or 2 but I don't see a lot of current drivers just giving that up. Cars are still a point of pride and a status symbol for a lot of people. Car sharing may be a little more popular in a place like NYC where people don't really need a car or can't afford to park one, but outside of major urban centers it's not all that common. When electric vehicles started to become more mainstream 5 to 10 years ago people similarly predicted the gasoline car would be gone in 20 or 30 years but even with the success of companies like Tesla, outside of CA electric vehicles only make up a small fraction of total cars.

 

[ford91exploder]

I can see autonomous electric vehicles in cities especially since many cities are trying to eliminate personal vehicles from the city center. London is a good example.

So i can see autonomous taxis hailed by a uber/lyft app in the cities where a personal vehicle is more of a hindrance than help.

Cities can also install magnetic guideways for autonomous vehicles so road markings no longer an issue

Outside of major city limits i dont think so

 

[njDizFan]

But here's my thing.. so everyone who is buying cars today, tomorrow, and the next 10 years... is suddenly going to do what with their car? Trade it in for an autonomous one..or use an autonomous fleet of taxis? I see the taxi thing as not even close to near future. Maybe in immediate city limits only, but not spreading to suburbs to cover commutes to work or play.

5 years ago everyone thought we would all be walking around wearing Google Glass today. The vast majority never even had one pair.

What I predict- more and more people upgrading to vehicles with several autonomous features in them.. but even that is going to take a while.

Listen, I understand how it sounds. People love their cars, people need to have one in their driveway to feel free, its been ingrained in our collective consciousness for a century. . But, based on quite a bit of observation and a lot of reading in the tech industry I strongly believe this is happening. Already the sub 20 crowd are not enthralled by vehicle ownership. The experience just does not resonate like it used to(of course that is a purely anecdotal experience from my viewpoint of talking to teens). Slowly the car industry will evolve to autonomous with a driver option to eventually no option(possibly justified as a safety measure-which inherently will be true).

These crazy Gen Zs or whatever they will be called are more about experience than consumerism as long as they can Instagram it and let everybody know they did it( if they can't post it it's like it didn't even exist). It's going to be a strange new world and remember we are talking about people who will not be born for another 10-15 years before I see this come to fruition.

Honestly if I knew I could get a vehicle basically on demand and did not have to share it with other passengers, why would I choose to have ownership?

 

[RSoxNo1]

On the latest Disney Dish episode with Jim Hill and @lentesta, they discussed the driverless cars that could be coming to Walt Disney World. They also indicated that Siemens offered Disney a full fleet of Siemens branded monorails but Disney turned them down with the knowledge that they weren't far away from these driverless vehicles being added in some capacity.

 

[danlb_2000]

On the latest Disney Dish episode with Jim Hill and @lentesta, they discussed the driverless cars that could be coming to Walt Disney World. They also indicated that Siemens offered Disney a full fleet of Siemens branded monorails but Disney turned them down with the knowledge that they weren't far away from these driverless vehicles being added in some capacity.

I am really skeptical of the Siemens rumor, and even if they did implement driverless vehicles I would think they would still want to keep the monorail around especially if they were being offered them for free.

 

[ford91exploder]

On the latest Disney Dish episode with Jim Hill and @lentesta, they discussed the driverless cars that could be coming to Walt Disney World. They also indicated that Siemens offered Disney a full fleet of Siemens branded monorails but Disney turned them down with the knowledge that they weren't far away from these driverless vehicles being added in some capacity.

TDO is drooling at the prospect of dropping the monorail OPEX remember in TDO you have a management team who believes details are wasteful

 

[Creathir]

I am really skeptical of the Siemens rumor, and even if they did implement driverless vehicles I would think they would still want to keep the monorail around especially if they were being offered them for free.

Completely agree.

Driverless shuttles don't get the folks around Seven Seas Lagoon....

No way Disney just "turned down" free monorail trains...


To add to this thought, my guess is it was probably a negotiating tactic on their part.

"We'll continue to sponsor the stuff in Epcot, but you need to replace your monorail fleet with our stuff and not that of our primary competitor."

Also, Siemens and Bombardier have been talking about merging their rail operations for years now, most recent report in April.

Those negotiations could be at play here: Siemens trying to strongarm Bombardier into agreeing to less favorable terms or something along those lines, with one of the most heavily used monorail systems in the world at stake.

THAT is probably the root of this, not silliness involving driverless shuttles years away from happening...

 

[Creathir]

TDO is drooling at the prospect of dropping the monorail OPEX remember in TDO you have a management team who believes details are wasteful

I disagree.

If that was the case, DisneyLand's would be LONG gone.

It serves no effective purpose, but it's still a draw for folks.

When people think of Disney, the monorail is iconic enough that it comes to mind.

 

[danlb_2000]

Completely agree.

Driverless shuttles don't get the folks around Seven Seas Lagoon....

No way Disney just "turned down" free monorail trains...


To add to this thought, my guess is it was probably a negotiating tactic on their part.

"We'll continue to sponsor the stuff in Epcot, but you need to replace your monorail fleet with our stuff and not that of our primary competitor."

Also, Siemens and Bombardier have been talking about merging their rail operations for years now, most recent report in April.

Those negotiations could be at play here: Siemens trying to strongarm Bombardier into agreeing to less favorable terms or something along those lines, with one of the most heavily used monorail systems in the world at stake.

THAT is probably the root of this, not silliness involving driverless shuttles years away from happening...

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of deal, but I can't see it being as simple as the rumor has painted it.

 

[monothingie]

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of deal, but I can't see it being as simple as the rumor has painted it.

A fleet of new Monorails would well exceed $100 million at conservatively $10-15million a train. Unless Siemens changed their business practices to just give away stuff this entire Monorail Siemens deal is BS.

 

[monothingie]

TDO is drooling at the prospect of dropping the monorail OPEX remember in TDO you have a management team who believes details are wasteful

TDO could also cut their OPEX to $0 if they just closed everything and demoed everything. Oh wait they did that with Hollywood Studios...and it didn't work out.

 

[ford91exploder]

TDO could also cut their OPEX to $0 if they just closed everything and demoed everything. Oh wait they did that with Hollywood Studios...and it didn't work out.

Well we know Disney's IDEAL business is one where the customers give Disney money and Disney does not have to do anything for them. Like Cable programming, That's doing well too these days.

 

[ford91exploder]

I disagree.

If that was the case, DisneyLand's would be LONG gone.

It serves no effective purpose, but it's still a draw for folks.

When people think of Disney, the monorail is iconic enough that it comes to mind.

Disagree, in P&R you have two factions TDA and TDO, TDA takes pride in maintaining the original principles set down by Walt and the care and attention to detail seen in the park even to things like the morse code message at the train station which could just be a random string of dots and dashes is actually a message, readable only by Military, Ham and Maritime radio operators.

TDO thinks details are wasteful money sinks because your average guest will 'never notice' them, Yet it's those details that make Disney well Disney, Does anyone have the same affection for their local Six Flags????, But TDO is trying to drag WDW to Six Flags level.

The monorail is a DETAIL a large and expensive one but a detail nonetheless, In Anaheim the monorails are seen as one of the attractions, And YES I do have my 'monorail pilot' card from both WDW and DL.

The monorail is one of my favorite attractions at WDW especially the EPCOT line where you can frequently see deer and other wildlife on the margins of the wooded areas.

TDO thinks buses cheaper, who cares about those expensive monorails, DL I think the CM's would chain themselves to the monorails in protest.

Just my 0.02

 

[brb1006]

This is interesting

 

[MaximumEd]

Disagree, in P&R you have two factions TDA and TDO, TDA takes pride in maintaining the original principles set down by Walt and the care and attention to detail seen in the park even to things like the morse code message at the train station which could just be a random string of dots and dashes is actually a message, readable only by Military, Ham and Maritime radio operators.

TDO thinks details are wasteful money sinks because your average guest will 'never notice' them, Yet it's those details that make Disney well Disney, Does anyone have the same affection for their local Six Flags????, But TDO is trying to drag WDW to Six Flags level.

The monorail is a DETAIL a large and expensive one but a detail nonetheless, In Anaheim the monorails are seen as one of the attractions, And YES I do have my 'monorail pilot' card from both WDW and DL.

The monorail is one of my favorite attractions at WDW especially the EPCOT line where you can frequently see deer and other wildlife on the margins of the wooded areas.

TDO thinks buses cheaper, who cares about those expensive monorails, DL I think the CM's would chain themselves to the monorails in protest.

Just my 0.02

Hyperbole. TDA stuck a Guardians ride in DCA. How's that for adherence to original principles? As for TDO not caring about detail, see Animal Kingdom. Just one of many examples.

 

[Spike-in-Berlin]

Will the shuttles be equipped with loudspeakers that occasionally tell selected guests aboard newest "rumors" about major changes in the parks and planned new attractions? Or how do they plan to compensate the loss of this "vital" source of park related informations in buses without drivers?

 

[missaox]

Has anyone heard more on the autonomous vehicles? Looking to know if the uber crash changed any minds at Disney, or if the idea was already fading.