If the point of this money was to develop a unified approach to self-driving cars, then it could be a very good thing. Assuming the choice of unified approach makes sense.
Variably-autonomous cars operating in swarms (and thus requiring standard communication and sensor packages) seem to be superior than having dozens of car and tech companies each striving for full autonomy. In swarms, the degree of autonomy would be directly proportional to the size of the swarm a vehicle belongs to. Those on the edge of the swarm would contribute sensor input while the interior vehicles would contribute processing power. Thus achieving greater ability than a solitary vehicle, whether autonomous or not.
The advantage of variable-autonomy is that there's much less need to specially-modify roads, change the way we view liability, or have to get all the way to full autonomy.
If the $4 billion was spent on developing the standard communication and sensor packages, and promoting them amongst manufacturers, and promoting the development of compact-form-factor vehicles, it might have significant impact.
Variably-autonomous cars operating in swarms (and thus requiring standard communication and sensor packages) seem to be superior than having dozens of car and tech companies each striving for full autonomy. In swarms, the degree of autonomy would be directly proportional to the size of the swarm a vehicle belongs to. Those on the edge of the swarm would contribute sensor input while the interior vehicles would contribute processing power. Thus achieving greater ability than a solitary vehicle, whether autonomous or not.
The advantage of variable-autonomy is that there's much less need to specially-modify roads, change the way we view liability, or have to get all the way to full autonomy.
I wrote more on the topic here: https://medium.com/@SteveHazel/let-s-do-semi-autonomous-cars...
If the $4 billion was spent on developing the standard communication and sensor packages, and promoting them amongst manufacturers, and promoting the development of compact-form-factor vehicles, it might have significant impact.