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Self driving cars and beyond

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Re: Self driving cars and beyond

#111

Post by emodendroket »

megy wrote: post #110
emodendroket wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, beyond that, I have to wonder if self-driving cars are really the solution we're looking for, rather than more mass transit.

Mass transit is clearly the solution we need, but it is tricky to convince people since they are so used to private transport.

Right, like, OK, maybe mass transit isn't the solution for rural areas. But most Americans do not live in rural areas; they live in metro areas, which can probably be served by mass transit. Even the suburbs, I think, could plausibly be served much more by mass transit.

Re: Self driving cars and beyond

#112

Post by King-Aaron »

clfougner wrote: post #39
ilovecars2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your opinion on flying for pleasure (i.e vacation)? We know that flying too is very damaging for the environment and creates terrible noise pollution. Would love to hear your thoughts on this!

That isn’t the same thing at all. When you fly for a vacation, the flying is a means to an end (transportation), not the goal in itself. This discussion is about driving for fun, in which the driving is the goal in itself, not transporting yourself to a “fun” destination.

We get it, you take the bus.

To not be completely facetious though, it's going to be hard if not impossible for you to understand someone's passion for something, if you don't have any concept of enjoyment for it yourself.

A great many people find enjoyment in driving, for she sake of the activity itself. There are inherent risks and environmental downsides to it, for sure, but the same could be said for many things.

Your comment is however, the sort of thing that the grandparent comment was about - this attitude is expressed a lot on DN, and while this is an assumption on my part, it makes me feel that these people (such as yourself with your comment) must live in an environment where you haven't had the chance (or necessity) to use vehicles in the capacity that gives you an appreciation of the leisure aspect to them.

Even if that's not the case, however, it does pay to at least recognise that while you're strongly against something you can at least be objective in how you express your opinion.

BTW I think cars are super fun, I'm actively involved in motorsport, and I can completely understand when people aren't interested in it.

Re: Self driving cars and beyond

#113

Post by stillsut »

Treegarden wrote: post #106
stillsut wrote: post #103

The most interesting phenomenon is "sleepers": people who sleep Friday night as their car drives to some scenic overlook sunrise and drive them home from retreat on Sunday night. Rural back roads will be moving at full stream in the dead of night with 'ghost cars' when they were once were completely quiet; zoning will limit noise, speed, illumination, toll's win go up, but airbnb's will flourish. In the urban zone, t…

I think the part about gross cars is a trivial problem. You pay a 100$ deposit for the account and if you puke in the car you lose the deposit. If that happens to often you get banned or whatever.

The problem is you can't cut people off of the only form of urban transportation available. Who is banned from the subway?

And the other problem is there are a lot of people who want to get around without getting their identity associated or reputation checked by a centralized system.

Re: Self driving cars and beyond

#114

Post by ehnto »

I am an advocate for autonomous cars, but I have to wonder if tech behemoths aren't forgetting a huge portion of people live outside of cities. It's important to note that rural people will be needing and buying new non-autonomous cars for decades yet and I don't know that there is actually a way to integrate autonomy into rural driving habits.

Re: Self driving cars and beyond

#115

Post by MrFoof »

taneq wrote: post #99
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 400 bar Say what now? Unless it's a misprint, that restrictive a cooling system sounds like it flows basically no air?

That'd gave to be 400psi, or maybe kPa. 400 bar is more than most hydraulics run at.

Most race car brake cooling air ducts are made of silicone and rated to at most 20psi (125kPa). Brake cooling ducts are powered primarily through ram air effect, and cost a few bucks a foot.

Not sure what OP is referring to, but if they're talking about a replacement to the 10-12cm high-temp diameter silicone air hose that typically gets routed to just front of brake rotors (and rated to 230C sustained, 260C intermittent), those measurements are MUCH higher than anything I've seen on genuine, real race cars, including WEC prototypes.

Now, the initial ducting may be made of a composite (including carbon fiber), which obviously can be tremendously strong, but the last bit of it is usually silicone.

Re: Self driving cars and beyond

#116

Post by dsfyu404ed »

gervase wrote: post #22
ilovecars2 wrote: post #6

This is kind of a meta comment, but I’ve been lurking on HN for a while on car posts in particular. I have the impression that HN in general doesn’t like cars all that much, and in fact we would be much better of without them. I can’t argue with the facts: congestion and pollution in large cities, such as London, have never been higher where almost all on-road public transport is still run on diesel. However, I think…

Let's assume your worst-case scenario comes to pass, and politicians decide (or are influenced) to outlaw manually-driven vehicles from public roads. First, you would still be able to drive on private tracks; plenty of car enthusiasts already do this today. If your enjoyment is derived from driving fast, or taking curves, this should be able to satisfy your requirements. Second, if your satisfaction is derived from a…

>First, you would still be able to drive on private tracks; plenty of car enthusiasts already do this today. If your enjoyment is derived from driving fast, or taking curves, this should be able to satisfy your requirements.

This is false choice. It's like saying you can still drink beer and watch sports in a bar even if you can't buy beer and can't buy a cable subscription.

Re: Self driving cars and beyond

#117

Post by dsfyu404ed »

dmix wrote: post #89
zerostar07 wrote: post #40

Nobody talks about the infrastructure though. Roads, signs etc can't stay the same, they have to adapt to facilitate autonomous vehicles

I guess you didn't watch it before commenting...this video series mentions infrastructure multiple times throughout. Almost a whole video in this series talks about infrastructure financing and taxation. As gas taxes, driver's licenses, traffic tickets, parking fines, etc will be eliminated. And 30% of court time currently dedicated to traffic will be eliminated. It mentions taxing each Uber/Lyft/Waymo fleet ride or…

>It's going to be a GREAT time to be a city traffic engineer in the next decade....

No. It's gonna suck. The people who drive Teslas are the people the politicans will be leaning on you to please. Reality will still have 1995 Camrys and E-series.

Re: Self driving cars and beyond

#118

Post by joshhart »

ehnto wrote: post #114

I am an advocate for autonomous cars, but I have to wonder if tech behemoths aren't forgetting a huge portion of people live outside of cities. It's important to note that rural people will be needing and buying new non-autonomous cars for decades yet and I don't know that there is actually a way to integrate autonomy into rural driving habits.

I'm not so sure. I bet the suburbs will spread out into rural areas when people don't have to drive and can just hang out and watch Netflix on the way to work.

Re: Self driving cars and beyond

#119

Post by ehnto »

joshhart wrote: post #118
ehnto wrote: post #114

I am an advocate for autonomous cars, but I have to wonder if tech behemoths aren't forgetting a huge portion of people live outside of cities. It's important to note that rural people will be needing and buying new non-autonomous cars for decades yet and I don't know that there is actually a way to integrate autonomy into rural driving habits.

I'm not so sure. I bet the suburbs will spread out into rural areas when people don't have to drive and can just hang out and watch Netflix on the way to work.

America is huge, it would take hundreds of kilometers of suburbia to reach many towns. And there are tens of thousands of small towns that are themselves hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest burb.

Part of my comment about rural driving habits involves lifestyles in towns too, getting to work isn't such a big deal. Work is only 5 minutes away but they will still drive because after work they might need to drive 30km down some dirt track to get the kids from a friends house. Parking at the football club which is actually just a grass patch requires communication between humans about who is leaving first or maybe Stuart needs to get out to the jetty by 5 so we need leave room for him at the back. That kind of stuff is hard to solve autonomously. Driving in the country is just a bit more socially aware I guess.

The thought of autonomous cars on thin country roads is hard too. Sometimes there are dips or parts of the road that you know are dangerous through tribal knowledge and experiencing it previously. The car would have to have full geometry of the road for one. Second it would have to know that people sometimes pull out of this blind corner driveway and that if you continue doing 110kmph past it assuming it's a sealed highway you will one day have a head on no matter how quickly your car can react.

The conclusion I come to is that fully autonomous, no controls in the car, is unlikely to happen at all, as there will always people needing non-autonomous or semi-autonomous driving.

Re: Self driving cars and beyond

#120

Post by visarga »

userbinator wrote: post #100
visarga wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You already got one or more GPS wireless tracking devices in your car, though.

I have a GPS but I can turn it off when I don't want it, and I'm pretty sure it's off because it ceases to function when it's unplugged.

Do you also turn your phone off, because phones can be triangulated by cell towers.
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