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Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

wsj.com

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Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#31

Post by mikeash »

The article really wants to compare with electric vehicles, for some reason. The subheading says "they are being snapped up faster than electrified vehicles." This is repeated in the article, which says the relevant options packages "are being snapped up at a far higher rate than electrified vehicles." Discussing the Q50's technology package and how many buyers opt for it, it says "That’s three times as many people who pay extra to buy a hybrid-electric version."

What's the deal? Is this just because Tesla happens to be the one with the best system at the moment? It doesn't make any sense to me, and really distracts from the article's main thrust.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#33

Post by codingdave »

kazinator wrote: post #15

Americans could rather use a robot highway driving instructor. "Consider moving over to the right line; you're driving at the speed limit, and a speeding car is approaching; you may confirm this in the rear-view mirror." "I have detected that you came to a full stop at the end of a generous freeway entrance ramp in light traffic. Suggested future action: look over the shoulder as early as possible and match the speed…

"It looks like you're trying to make a left turn! Need some help?" -Clippy

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#34

Post by teod »

vonmoltke wrote: post #19
mrspeaker wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My initial thoughts about self-driving cars was that they would be less bad for the environment, thanks to more people being able to share one car - but the more likely scenario will be opposite: convoys of cars with one sleeping person in each.

As I mentioned in a previous thread some time ago, where does this notion of self-driving cars suddenly meaning shared cars come from? To some people these things seem to be joined at the hip.

To me, it seems like the incentives to own a car may not be so great once self-driving taxis are available, especially in the city. No need to worry about parking, insurance, maintainence, or gas.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#35

Post by toast0 »

saidajigumi wrote: post #9
nugget wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be more willing to live 2 hours outside of SF if you could hop in a self-driving car 3x/week and watch a movie/surf the net during a trip into the office? That's the most exciting part of it for me.

On one hand I get this; folks have been pulling crazy long commutes in the NYC area for decades. But the very idea of four hours per day of commuting being "exciting" in the age of completely practical remote work is baffling to me.

Sure, but many [crazy] people are already doing 4 hour commutes, so they can keep they job they want, in the office, and have an affordable house. If they can do that and make commute time entertainment time, that's actually a significant improvement in their life.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#36

Post by turtlebits »

vonmoltke wrote: post #19
mrspeaker wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My initial thoughts about self-driving cars was that they would be less bad for the environment, thanks to more people being able to share one car - but the more likely scenario will be opposite: convoys of cars with one sleeping person in each.

As I mentioned in a previous thread some time ago, where does this notion of self-driving cars suddenly meaning shared cars come from? To some people these things seem to be joined at the hip.

Once cars are autonomous, it makes it drastically simpler to carpool/rideshare or even pick up and drop off riders that may share the same or partial route as you.

Also if your car is able to drop you off, it can be a shared resource when you don't need it.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#37

Post by acveilleux »

melling wrote: post #10
stcredzero wrote: post #2

In the early 2000's, I was hanging out sometimes in western North Carolina, and there was this young woman who has in the habit of getting together with some friends and driving around the clock to get to Colorado and back on short trips, instead of flying. I'm wondering if this technology isn't going to be used for such purposes.

Throw in 90-100 mph driving speed and we have a great way to travel. There"s no reason we can't have higher speeds on highways with only self-driving vehicles?

Emissions would be a problem (until Tesla takes over the world.) The energy required to sustain 90-100mph is mostly a factor of aerodynamics.

If the distance between the cars could be kept sufficiently short like perhaps a few inches only then maybe.

High-speed trains have flush coupling between the streamlines cars to deal with that. The incremental resistance from length is almost negligible and so they can maintain 200 mph speeds.

I wish north america would embrace high-speed rail like in Europe.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#38

Post by ska »

TrevorJ wrote: post #4

The real problem with self-driving cars is the car to human handoff. Over the long term it's incredible unlikely that humans will be any good at all at remaining aware and 'up to speed' on the current situation in the event that the car needs to give control back to the driver due to road conditions, hardware failure, or sudden situation that it cannot contend with.

That assumes that you have a car to human handoff, and that it would be useful. Honestly that's a pretty strong assumption because of the reasons that you mention and related issues.

The technological solution may be that there is no (or vanishingly small numbers) situation where emergency transfer is likely to improve outcomes. So you just don't do it. Non-emergency (i.e. I'm going to park now and hand off control to you) are a separate case.

This may plausibly be the best technical solution - how marketable it is, that's another story.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#39

Post by naasking »

TrevorJ wrote: post #4

The real problem with self-driving cars is the car to human handoff. Over the long term it's incredible unlikely that humans will be any good at all at remaining aware and 'up to speed' on the current situation in the event that the car needs to give control back to the driver due to road conditions, hardware failure, or sudden situation that it cannot contend with.

> or sudden situation that it cannot contend with.

The idea that humans are any better at handling situations they've not previously encountered is dubious.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#40

Post by mikeash »

jtouri wrote: post #32

There was a startup that for $10,000 it was a third party option package that was self driving. I wonder how it is doing with all these car companies that create their own options for self-driving.

I think you might be referring to Mobileye. They're actually doing really well, because their technology is what drives most of these first-party systems.
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