There's zero chance driverless cars are here in any mainstream capacity in five years. Google has them working well in Mountain View, Calif., but that's because they've mapped and photographed and modeled the streets in that town down to the half inch. The underlying sense-and-respond-and-aim-the-car technology is apparently about 95 percent of the way there, but that last five percent is A) the part that's the real b**** and B) the part that has to be conquered before self-driving cars are anything other than a research project. We're still a long way to the point where you can get in a self-driving car in some arbitrary spot like, say, Ayres Hall and trust it to drive you to some place like, say, Jefferson City. In the rain, through a construction zone, while you're taking a nap. And until we get there it's just a curiosity.
I'm eager for this technology to get here, because computers may not be perfect, but they don't get distracted, drunk, or sleepy. But I think it's going to be at least 10 years until this is something that ordinary Americans have in their lives. Probably significantly longer.
