I see it the other way around. One thing driverless cars need is very accurate geo-data to be any use. If a car is going to turn up at 1 Long st, it needs to know exactly where that is.
While there is no doubt these 'crawlers' will gather data while 'crawling', to me it's unlikely that this is their intended purpose.
The real winner for automated vehicles is automated delivery of stuff. The big cost for a pizza delivery service is paying the guy behind the wheel to drive a 1 ton vehicle around to deliver 1 pizza.
With automated delivery comes a reduction in size, weight, fuel consumption and of course, cost. It also gets around the problem of people not wanting to 'passenger' in an automated car.
I've said it before - think of those little box-like droids that zip around in star wars films. Imagine each one of those in UPS livery taking a small set of packages to a set of destinations. Tied in with online shops, I think you're looking at the future of retail.
People talk about automatic delivery, but how does the car get inside the pedestrian gate at my apartment building and up the stairs to leave the package outside my door?
While there is no doubt these 'crawlers' will gather data while 'crawling', to me it's unlikely that this is their intended purpose.
The real winner for automated vehicles is automated delivery of stuff. The big cost for a pizza delivery service is paying the guy behind the wheel to drive a 1 ton vehicle around to deliver 1 pizza.
With automated delivery comes a reduction in size, weight, fuel consumption and of course, cost. It also gets around the problem of people not wanting to 'passenger' in an automated car.
I've said it before - think of those little box-like droids that zip around in star wars films. Imagine each one of those in UPS livery taking a small set of packages to a set of destinations. Tied in with online shops, I think you're looking at the future of retail.