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The long, winding road for driverless cars

economist.com

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Re: The long, winding road for driverless cars

#41

Post by jfoster »

moxious wrote: post #13

When I hear "Most carmakers have plans to start testing the market with Level 3 or possibly Level 4 autonomous vehicles around 2021"... It makes me think of what a stupendous amount of time that is in engineering terms. And then I think that basically a suit somewhere has a product roadmap, but no real idea of how he's going to get there. Which in turn tends to make the time estimate questionable at best, wishful thi…

The suits at Google & Tesla seem quite well informed about tech challenges. Even if those are extreme examples, I'm quite sure the engineers would be informing the timelines at all other companies, too.

Re: The long, winding road for driverless cars

#42

Post by pif »

I know I will hate the moment when robot cars will pollute the roads, because a road is primarily a social place, full of _human_ interactions.

How many times have pedestrians and cyclists been advised to look for eye contact before crossing? Where are the eyes of an autonomous car?

Re: The long, winding road for driverless cars

#43

Post by roel_v »

prodmerc wrote: post #33
mpweiher wrote: post #32

What we (especially cities) need more than driverless cars are carless drivers.

Having a car is extremely convenient, liberating and saves a whole lot of time.

Actually, I live in a place where I don't need a car (I still have one though), anf that is what is extremely convenient, liberating and saves a whole lot of time. People are just too used to needing transport, and yes out of all transport options, a car is easiest. Improving transport is easier than making it unneccessary, though.

Re: The long, winding road for driverless cars

#44

Post by Intramin »

pinpeliponni wrote: post #37

We haven't even got to the hardest questions yet because driverless cars are still so far away. Think of a situation where you have to choose from either hitting an other car killing everyone inside it but saving you, or driving off the road killing you but saving everyone. Well, we all save ourselves if we can choose (timing, etc). But what if the other car has 5 passengers and you are alone? The driverless car will…

Yes, this is an issue, but really, it's a minor one if you compare it with how many lives driverless cars will save.

Re: The long, winding road for driverless cars

#45

Post by rwmj »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #17
sliken wrote: post #16

Seems like a pretty biased article which seems to largely ignore quickly increasing sensor ability (cameras, pairs of cameras, radar, and lidar). They also ignore quickly increasing amount of CPU power for vision like tasks (parallel) like the Nvidia TX2. No reason that shouldn't keep improving over the next few years. The article also repeats the popular refrain that lidar is the only reasonable solution. Funny how…

If this article is biased because it shows some pessimism towards self-driving hype, what are the dozens of articles that blindly accept Musks near-term prophecy? Here's another good source for some pessimism: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/10/self-driving-cars-how... Here's the best parts: Contrary to Musk and many of the most prominent advocates of autonomous cars, Shladover insists that so-called Level 5 vehi…

But a car that solves the 80% (say it only works on sunny days) is still incredibly useful, and I'd buy one. If it only halves the number of times I have to drive, it's providing real value.

Re: The long, winding road for driverless cars

#46

Post by sliken »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #17
sliken wrote: post #16

Seems like a pretty biased article which seems to largely ignore quickly increasing sensor ability (cameras, pairs of cameras, radar, and lidar). They also ignore quickly increasing amount of CPU power for vision like tasks (parallel) like the Nvidia TX2. No reason that shouldn't keep improving over the next few years. The article also repeats the popular refrain that lidar is the only reasonable solution. Funny how…

If this article is biased because it shows some pessimism towards self-driving hype, what are the dozens of articles that blindly accept Musks near-term prophecy? Here's another good source for some pessimism: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/10/self-driving-cars-how... Here's the best parts: Contrary to Musk and many of the most prominent advocates of autonomous cars, Shladover insists that so-called Level 5 vehi…

Can you really take an article claiming flying is 10 orders of magnitude harder than driving? Because flying hugely more complicated machines in 3D at speeds 10 times those of driving is so simple? 2^10th easier? Or was it 10^10th?

Wow, if an 18 year old can be safe enough to drive, that should make piloting easy at what 3 years old?

Re: The long, winding road for driverless cars

#47

Post by kbos87 »

fulafel wrote: post #36
kbos87 wrote: post #18

I for one hope driverless cars take a hell of a lot longer than people like Elon Musk expect them to. First off, I enjoy driving. I identify with the brand of car I just bought. Yes, I have to deal with traffic and competing for parking in my congested city neighborhood... but that's a choice I made because driving and the freedom that comes along with it are, to me, things I value. If you think I'm a small minority,…

All these concerns are trivial compared to the elephant in the room, climate change and CO2 emissions caused by road transport. To a first approximation, if driverless cars reduce total miles driven by cars, they are good - otherwise they are bad.

I think that's a very fair point, but we should be able to decouple these two things and begin to address CO2 emissions outside the context of driverless cars.

Re: The long, winding road for driverless cars

#48

Post by fulafel »

kbos87 wrote: post #47
fulafel wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these concerns are trivial compared to the elephant in the room, climate change and CO2 emissions caused by road transport. To a first approximation, if driverless cars reduce total miles driven by cars, they are good - otherwise they are bad.

I think that's a very fair point, but we should be able to decouple these two things and begin to address CO2 emissions outside the context of driverless cars.

We need to address them in all contexts that significantly affect emissions, including driverless cars.

Re: The long, winding road for driverless cars

#49

Post by daveguy »

ams6110 wrote: post #5
daveguy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are about 500,000 people who have placed orders for the Model 3 sight unseen. * There are 500,000 people who have put down a fully refundable $1,000 deposit on the option to buy a Tesla Model 3. That's a long way from 500,000 orders placed. (But I agree, "less than 2% of all new car sales in most countries" is a weasely stat, because it is growing fast. They are still a small percent of total sales)

It's because EVs only work for a subset of driving needs (local commutes). If you need to drive long distances, even occasionally, you either need to own another car, or rent one. Either is at best suboptimal compared to owning one car that can do it all. When I can own an EV that will go 300-400 miles per charge and can be recharged in 5 minutes at any corner "station" I will think about it.

In the US it's not as feasible because of driving distances between cities, but in the EU where cities are closer and the train system is healthy I can see EVs gobbling up market share fast.

In the US you would need random charging stations lining the highways like we have gas stations. I expect people are much less likely to want to stop for 30 min at a random gas station than in a city center to recharge.

Re: The long, winding road for driverless cars

#50

Post by daveguy »

llukas wrote: post #21
wcummings wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I can see how that would be a hassle. That said, I cant even remember the last time i traveled more than 85mi (half the capacity, so depleting thr battery in a round trip) in a car, and I dont think im that exceptional, so theres probably still a pretty big market for these things. But personally, Ill stick to the bus. I do all my best thinking on the bus.

So you and grandparent missed somehow Tesla and other companies that demonstrated battery change?

Oh yeah? They're offering that at charging stations? Where is that?

There is an enormous difference between demonstrated and available. Showing something could work doesn't address bad batteries or standardization.

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