Technology

Really, even map apps. Those just convert to glorified ToDo apps, where you say where you need to be at what time and the AV figures out how to get you there. Showing your position on a map is just more of a curiosity, like the airplane in-flight scenes

Eh... It can still be useful when setting a destination.

A) Sometimes you want to travel to a place that you're not familiar with the name of, but know the location of. If you can find it on a map, you can use the map to indicate where you want to go. As it's a non-verbal way of indicating destination, it could also be useful for some types of disability accommodation.

B) Sometimes you want to travel to a place that doesn't have a formal name or address. If, say, you're trying to get to a particular and rather obscure outdoor recreation site, your only choice besides pointing it out on a map would be to tell the car precise GPS coordinates, which could be very cumbersome to input. And since GPS coordinates are difficult to memorize, the user would probably have to consult a map to find out what the coordinates are in the first place.

C) Seeing the destination displayed on the map helps ensure there was no miscommunication between the passenger and the vehicle, confirming that it's actually headed to the correct destination. (No matter how much you optimize and perfect the car's communication software, it's still communicating with a fallible human, so miscommunication and misunderstanding remains possible. If an incorrect destination has been set, it's best to detect and correct that as soon as possible, and having a map available would help for that.)

All joking aside, though, maybe autonomous vehicles don't need a 'brake pedal' specifically, but I do think that for safety's sake, they do need some kind of emergency kill switch accessible to passengers in the interior. Something that will bring the vehicle to a stop as soon as safely possible and then ensure that the doors can be opened from the inside.

Everything you described sounds like a dystopian nightmare straight out of Upload.

Do the Oceansgate engineers now work for the Fed?

If not them, then their drinking buddies.

It saves like $20

I would call a working brake pedal the single most critical safety feature in cars today.

I'm a sane world, removing the brake pedal (etc) would only occur after extended disuse. When the technology is mature enough and so reliable that it's a wasted feature that never gets used, and hasn't been used in a long time.

Not when the technology is brand new and this is something still needed on a regular basis.

To be fair, it says brake pedal - there are other possible means of activating a brake such as an old school emergency brake lever.

The "benefit" is, of course, money saved for their own pockets.

If nobody is in the driver's seat, then it doesn't matter if the brake pedal exists. If someone does happen to be sitting there, but isn't paying attention to driving, they might accidentally hit it. And it would be in the way most (hopefully all) of the time.

Sounds like this doesn't include it, but I think it would be better to have some centrally accessible thing to manually activate the brakes. Then you could do it regardless of where you sat.

There should be a mechanical override emergency brake. However it need not be a pedal. The typical use should be the mechanic verifying it works at the yearly inspection

Most EVs and Hybrids don't have a direct hydraulic connection between the brake pedal and the wheel cylinders when everything is healthy.

There is an accumulator that gets pressurized when you press the brake pedal and then it blends between dynamic and hydraulic brakes as needed.

it's so much easier to just send the command over the always-on cellular link.