3 Japanese automakers to jointly work on self-driving car technology

Flying cars - Never happened

Not entirely true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yn2uyQJ1jc

But as a wide-spread commercial product, they have not happened. I still believe they will some day though, but when technology comes up with more of a UFO anti-gravity, vs. relying on forward propulsion to provide lift.

I wish they would just fix all the recall because of Takata, first.

Electric cars - Dud

Teslas are far from being "duds"

Wonderful, your tax dollars hard at work. Your taxes will subsidize this technology, but the vehicles will likely be priced far beyond the reach of most taxpayers. Do Toyota, Nissan, and Honda really need government handouts to develop this technology? I know that Hitachi and Panasonic are in dire of money, but in the world of successful economies, companies compete against each other to produce the latest and greatest, and for the best price. Here we see yet another example of corporate collusion and the amakudari system at work, so taxpayers can subsidize companies so they don't have to compete, along with another layer of bureaucracy to oversee the squandering. These bureaucrats will end up with boardroom seats at the auto companies, or become Todai or Nagoya University trustees. Pardon me while I vomit in disgust.

I think I will buy a nice German can the next time I am in the market.

Realizing self-driving in Japan is no easy task the way roads are laid out in this country and the unbelievable amount of obstacles lining them. To make the roads safer and reduce the number of fatalities I wonder if an interim technology could not be developed that forces drivers to stop at red lights and pedestrian crossings.

good! get the swathe of bad drivers out of the equation in our public spaces causing the daily deaths and antisocial behaviour. On the whole, drivers have set a low bar so shouldn't be too long before the computers take over.

Wonderful, your tax dollars hard at work.

Exactly. Just like Teflon, GPS and the Internet. What good has ever come from government-coordinated innovation?

'Hydrogen cars - Niche Gimmick'

Just to round things off, that's wrong as well. There is a lot of progress being made by some very serious and intelligent people.

I wouldn't be surprised to see self driving cars required by law in some cases.

Humans in general are incredibly terrible drivers, the sooner the switch to automated driving the safer we'll all be

To make the roads safer and reduce the number of fatalities I wonder if an interim technology could not be developed that forces drivers to stop at red lights and pedestrian crossings.

Red light cameras are very effective in Europe, and insurers could insist on drive recorders.

Humans in general are incredibly terrible drivers, the sooner the switch to automated driving the safer we'll all be

The degree of 'terrible' differs from country to country. The skill may be lacking in Japan due to the way licenses are issued, but more importantly the problem is the disregard for other road users and the awareness the road is not just for motor vehicles. In The Netherlands, I noticed, where roads are wide and have sidewalks and dedicated bicycle lanes, cars stop for pedestrian crossings without fail. In Japan where the roads are narrow and often totally lack proper sidewalks and cycle lanes, motorists do not grant the weaker road users their right of way. This problem won't easily be solved by automated driving.

Minority Report establishing itself as one of the best movies at predicting the future. A lot of people are kind of dismissing the self driving car stuff and saying they like driving themselves and missing that there is a lot of people out there who can not drive for one reason or anouther and for whom self driving cars would be a godsend also if they become the norm in the future there could be a tremendous increase in safety which would be great as car accidents are such a huge cause of death and injury, it would actually probably have a significant positive impact on health care costs if self driving cars were able to reduce car related injury