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Comment by predictmktegirl | Hacker News Reader

With how much money everyone is spending, wouldn't it just be cheaper to build a private cross-country interstate where only AI drivers are allowed. Let humans drive the trucks to this interstate then let the AI take over. It seems like almost all the edge cases would be solved if you just got rid of other human drivers and let the vehicles network with one another.

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When first reading this question I thought it was an obvious "no", but I looked into it's surprisingly close.

Total cost of interstate highway system: $128.9 billion [1].

Total invested in self driving technology as of 2017: $80 billion [2].

[1] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.cfm#question6

[2] https://www.brookings.edu/research/gauging-investment-in-sel...

> Total cost of interstate highway system: $128.9 billion [1].

That's in 1991. So with inflation, it would be $244 billion today. Also, I suspect the $128.9 billion figure itself was not inflation adjusted.

> Total invested in self driving technology as of 2017: $80 billion [2].

Wow, that's a lot more than I expected. But you have to keep in mind that once self driving is "solved", it will work on all highways around the world. If you think about how much it cost to build all the highways around the world, it's way past the trillion dollar mark.

Sounds like rail?

You're not wrong but the unit economics are quite different.

Except with 1 major twist. The longest most and used stretches could be automated while the "last mile" could use a human. Best of both worlds.

you could even put down tracks for the cars to go on so they could reach higher speeds, and chain them together for efficiency. almost like some kind of train!

Check out the InfraMix project. They want a dedicated lane for autonomous vehicles in highways. I believe they are already testing this near Girona.

The problem is that the whole point of trucks is that they can go almost anywhere. Replace that with dedicated roads and you might have cheaper unit economics or whatever but you still have a rail-like distribution network.

It’s like rail, except the autonomous trucks can leave their designated road, wait for a human to take the wheel, and then head straight into town

Is there room to build a second interstate system on top of the one that already exists? Seems like the cost could be a lot higher now than it was when there was no development.

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