Fat hurts wrote:
Marietta Tar Heel wrote:
And how about the infrastructure change for roads that robotaxis can safely do 300+mph on. Are we going to have these ready to go by 2031?
Infrastructure changes would not be needed. Human drivers will not be allowed on the freeway. If you are on the highway you must have autopilot engaged. A robotaxi can easily manage at that speed and do it much more safely than humans currently drive at 70mph.
The technology will be in the cars rather than in the roads. Roads won't need to change much.
You cannot be serious; that is just laughable on so many levels. Hell, forget about the roads for a second, how about the vagaries of weather? If I'm flying from say NY to LA, doesn't matter if there is a blizzard over the rocky mountains; but in a land vehicle? Then it does matter. You ever driven from Denver to Grand Junction CO for example? You telling me you're going to have cars going through there at triple digit speeds even in clear weather, let alone a blizzard? Even on long relatively straight/flat stretches of road, say Nebraska for example; long stretches of bumps, freeze/thaw upheaval, potholes, etc. Something easily navigable at 80mph would send you airborne or straight off the road at 250+. How about deer and other large animals crossing the roads?
I'm not going to say it's impossible; certainly something like the autobahn in Europe facilitates high speed travel relative to what is possible here in the US, but the type of construction used to build the roads, and the quality and expediency of maintenance are completely different from that used here. There is no way anything like what you are positing is going to be possible without massive infrastructure upgrades.