They could be working on other things instead. If your car is missing a wheel, you can absolutely add a wheel chair ramp in the back, and that will improve the experience for some people who might potentially be drawn towards your car, but it's not going to sell your car on the mass market, because your car is missing a wheel.
I mean, I'm not a judge, so we'll have to see, but it seems obvious to me that the existence of a wheel implies that sometimes you may need the wheel. And that if there is no wheel, it implies that the manufacturer of the car is saying that you won't need one and their own software is better in every situation.
We've also reinvented a car to go with our reinvented wheel, but we've also made is so the car is useless unless you use our wheels, and by virtue of having no other function, the wheel is also pretty useless unless you use it with our car.
But don't fret. Our car will provide you with it's own desktop built into the dashboard. Our car can communicate other cars, but only those of the same model, and even if our car doesn't have support for something you need yet, don't worry, as we'll build it directly into your car soon!
Still, even your explanation is wrong. There are obviously times when adding something is required. If a car with no engine, I need to add one. I can't simply remove a wheel.
Automotive industry wanted a gradual transition from manually driven cars to fully robotic cars. That’s fine, but they didn’t ask for inputs from software engineers about how to do it.
So they worded that that you may have either:
1) no wheels, or
2) wheels that may shear off, or
3) wheels that may shear off but continue to support weight for a while, or
4) wheels that don’t shear off under normal conditions, or
5) wheels that don’t shear off under any circumstances.
Ah, today, probably not. But if it was proven safe enough to not need one, sure. I'd look at the safety data and decide.
But the point is, no manufacturer would sell one without a wheel either because they know it wouldn't sell. This is just a change to not require one to pass safety tests. The car still has to actually pass the safety tests though.
They actually built cars without steering wheels previously, but then decided they shouldn't be in the car manufacturing businesses. Now they are just repurposing the Pacifica mini-vans.
1 day you decide, alright we're going to add the 4th wheel. There might be some bugs to work out. All the users who get the optional 4th wheel though... boy they complain an awful lot about problems they experience.
The fact you'd get stuck for any length of time on it sounds like one of those "legitimate criticisms" i was talking about, that has nothing to do with whether a wheel counts as a car.
Right now when you buy a car you expect it to have wheels. This may change in the future when Apple starts selling cars and you'd need to check if it includes wheels or not. But it's not hard to imagine that people will continue to expect wheels in a new car for some time.
I agree, but not when it comes to self driving vehicles. For those better than normal wheels is enough. There's no way to change a brocken wheel anyway.
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