In contrast to the optimism I usually present here, and last week's article about a self-driving Mercedes just a year away it's worth noting this interview with various BMW folks where they provide a much more cautious timeline of at least a decade. Part of their concern comes from the use of computer vision systems. These are much cheaper than laser scanners but do not provide the reliability needed; it's no accident that all the successful teams in the Darpa urban challenge relied very heavily on laser scanning.

I'm enough of an optimist that I am ready to bring forward the question "When will a child be born that never drives because of robocars?" Of course there are many people in the developed world who never get a licence for a variety of reasons, particularly people who live their lives in Manhattan and other transit-heavy cities. But for most of us, getting a licence and getting on the road is a rite of passage. Yet studies are showing that teens are now waiting longer to get a licence with various reasons speculated.

Nonetheless eventually we will see somebody who would normally have been jumping at the chance to get a licence and get out on the road who never gets one because they have a robocar. It won't be easy of course, since even those who have robocars will still need to travel to places that don't have them and rent cars, but many people who don't have licences today just make use of taxis and transit in those situations.

I will put forward the proposal that this child may already have been born. When I see a baby today, I wonder, "will this child ever learn to drive?" While 16 years is aggressive for the ubiquitous fully autonomous operation needed for this, I do think we're on the cusp, and if that child has not yet been born, it's not too far away.

One reason for this is all the forces that are already reducing teen driving. A teen debating whether to take the effort to learn to drive might easily be swayed not to because mom has bought him a robocar. Once a successful safety record for robocars is demonstrated, parents will buy them for teens -- instead of buying them driving lessons -- and pressure the teens to not take the risk of driving themselves.

In other news, here's a pointer to work by designer Charles Rattray on the look of future robocars. His designs match with my position that many robocars should be half the width of today's cars, carrying only 1-2 people, since the vast majority of cars today only carry 1-2 people. Today's car buyers insist on 5 passenger sedans (or larger) but when you have mobility-on-demand you can use the right vehicle for the trip on every trip, and that's going to mostly be one person vehicles. This in turn, is the real key to efficient transportation, because while you can do great things with more efficient or electric power trains and more aerodynamic cars, nothing compares to making the car smaller, lighter and narrower in a major way. He has many design sketches and a video of how he sees the cars in action.