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Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

economist.com

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Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#211

Post by bluGill »

jplayer01 wrote: post #195
w0utert wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think people using a driverless car service would care less about having to share their ride? In theory if people would just carpool much more right now, the number of cars on the road would go down a lot, and they could divide the costs. But somehow they don't. I don't see why people who don't consider carpooling right now would order a driverless car that needs to pick up some other people before going w…

Convenience. Habit. Cultural pressure. Regulatory changes. Etc. It isn't as simple as "People don't do it now, why would they do it in the future?" There are many ways to make automated car sharing far more attractive to people than car pooling ever could.

This isn't a technology problem, it is a geometry problem. Car pooling/sharing cannot work very well because eventually the car needs to go down some "dead end" that you didn't want to go down to pick up/drop off somebody, and that time is wasted. If you are the last one on and first one off it is great, for everybody else it is wasted time where they are not making any progress getting to their destination. Everybody would be better off (less congestion - less expensive roads need to be built) if everybody carpools, but you are always personally better off to be the one person who doesn't.

It may seem like you can solve this by just picking up in the neighborhood. However there are not enough people in any given neighborhood to make that work. This morning exactly one person (car) passed me on my way to the bus stop - I don't know if this person would go the same direction as me or not: there isn't much opportunity for ride sharing within one neighborhood.

Transit has the same problems. It solves them by forcing people to walk to the stop/station. At least everybody feels like they are making progress. They also come on a schedule which means you can't leave when you want to.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#212

Post by de_watcher »

Zarath wrote: post #71
zaroth wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quarterly safety numbers that Tesla releases are difficult to draw conclusions from, because they do not represent a controlled experiment over the same road conditions. However here are the numbers for millions of miles per crash (higher is better). With AutoPilot, Without AutoPilot but With Active Safety Measures, Without AutoPilot or Active Safety Measures, and NHTSA Average Vehicle 19Q3 - 4.34 2.70 1.82 0.50…

Good to see improvement, but is this controlled for the fact that autopilot is mostly on highways? I'm not sure what the crash rate per mile is on the highway vs driving in a city.

I don't know about per-mile, but there are more crashes in the city per hour.

(that's data from the highest crash rate country where you were able see so many crashes that you develop a feel)

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#213

Post by ed312 »

de_watcher wrote: post #206
bogle wrote: post #133

If we expect driverless cars to be further delayed and we continue building our cities to encourage micromobility (bikes, electric scooters, segregated lanes, car free streets, etc.) then at which point does the value of the driverless car become moot because we no longer drive? Does this sound unlikely? Consider European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam which have encouraged cycling over the last two decades and…

There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows. So we can't bike everywhere. The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities. We can even add lanes or pavements by removing all parking spaces in the city centers.

You can absolutely bike in the cold, and in the rain, and even in light snow. Also, public transit & busses can get you further without even the dreaded prospect of burning a calorie.

Removing free rental of public space to park your private vehicle is something I _do_ endorse though!

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#214

Post by moduspol »

theieindjri wrote: post #38
crocal wrote: post #8

The article misses an important point. It’s not only a problem of technology, it’s also a problem of risk acceptance. While we accept to be killed by our own mistakes at the wheel, society (we) will not accept that a machine makes the same, even if the failure rate is on average /better/. This is the fundamental issue Elon Musk has. The driverless bar for safety is way higher than very clever driver assistance or eve…

I don't understand why so many otherwise smart people fell for FSD hype. I'm not talking about the many con artists - I'm talking about the tech-savvy people who genuinely bought into FSD hype. How is it not obvious that FSD most likely requires artificial general intelligence and is, thus, probably somewhere between "many decades away" and "humans will never achieve it"?

It's a matter of defining "full self-driving."

If you're accustomed to horses and see someone selling cars, it'd be reasonable to say, "Those are ridiculous. There are numerous places only my horses can reach. There will virtually never be a time cars fully replace horses." And you'd be right. It's still true--there are places horses can reach that cars cannot. But because of the value of cars, society has reoriented itself such that reaching those places doesn't matter to the vest majority of us.

I think self-driving cars will be the same. We don't need them to operate in every single road / circumstance ever. There may always be roads that self-driving cars can't drive on. But it'll become irrelevant because the vast majority of places people want to go will become navigable by self-driving cars, whether through the cars getting better or the roads becoming more easily navigable.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#215

Post by Reason077 »

studentrob wrote: post #58
emiliobumachar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think total coverage is necessary. If 10% of the cars are self-driving, to a first approximation there will be 10% less drunk drivers. Cost is definitely an issue, but reducing accidents and increasing convenience have a cash value which could pay for it if the research pans out. What social factors do you have in mind?

> If 10% of the cars are self-driving, to a first approximation there will be 10% less drunk drivers. It seems unlikely that people who buy/use early self-driving cars have the same percentage of drunk driving as the general population. Surely employment rates would be a factor, for example.

I'm not sure whether or not there is a correlation here. Anecdotally, it seems to me there are plenty of wealthy, employed people who buy new cars and crash them after drinking.

But even if it is true that those who drive cheaper, older cars are more likely to drive drunk? Today's new cars with high-tech self driving features are tomorrow's affordable used cars. You have to start somewhere.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#216

Post by DickingAround »

bogle wrote: post #133

If we expect driverless cars to be further delayed and we continue building our cities to encourage micromobility (bikes, electric scooters, segregated lanes, car free streets, etc.) then at which point does the value of the driverless car become moot because we no longer drive? Does this sound unlikely? Consider European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam which have encouraged cycling over the last two decades and…

This is kind of silly. It's nice to imagine a world where people don't need cars. But most/all european cities, many of which we laid out before cars, still have cars.

We all have cars because cars are incredibly useful; Got 4 young kids and you need to get groceries for the week? You're not going to bicycle them to the store and all that food home again in the mountains. Live in the city and want to go hiking 20 miles away? You're not going to settle for 30MPH when you could be doing 70MPH to get there. The reasons for cars are endless. That's why we have them.

(BTW, I pretty much only bike in my city. But it's pretty obvious why people have cars.)

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#217

Post by bluGill »

bogle wrote: post #187
redwood wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be happening in Europe but for 95% of Americans it's sadly a pipedream.

What is stopping American cities from changing their infrastructure investment from automobiles to micromobility? Is there one, big, standout reason that could be addressed? It's a change that takes decades and it's fighting against incumbents with deep pockets but it could be done.

What do you mean by micromobility?

Walk? There is no place you can walk to from your house. Our strict zoning codes have carefully kept anyplace you might want to walk to farther from your house than walking distance. Even if we eliminated all codes today (ignoring all downsides) it will be many years before it makes much a difference.

Bike? Cities in the US are too large and spread out. You can get farther in a car than a bike. There is some opportunity, but not much because few people live within reasonable bike distance of work so they will have a car: once you have a car you may as well drive: you can fit more in the trunk than the bike racks, so it is easy to be lazy.

In addition, streets tend to wind around, you often spend far longer than desirable getting out of your neighborhood. This is only a few minutes by car, but on a bike it is a lot longer and you feel that when you spend a lot of time going the opposite direction of your destination because that is how the roads go. This is really hard to fix without knocking down houses. This same issue mean that transit cannot work, even if density is high enough (it typically is!) the winding roads mean the bus can't run fast enough to get people anywhere in a reasonable amount of time.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#218

Post by petilon »

minutillo wrote: post #178
petilon wrote: post #96

Tesla is already selling "Full Self-Driving Capability" for $6000. Excerpts: Coming later this year: Recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs. Automatic driving on city streets. Fine print includes this: The activation and use of these features are dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which m…

They've been selling it for years, I think since 2016. They've delivered it so far to nobody.

But they just delivered "Smart Summon" feature where the car drives itself to you in a parking lot. The rollout of this feature has been glitchy. But it gives them a lot of data which they will learn from and improve. Once they fix all the bugs in Smart Summon they will have made a major step forward. Self-driving safely in a parking lot is very hard--there may be kids walking about randomly, other cars moving in unpredictable ways, and so on. In fact, my guess is that self-driving in a parking lot is harder than self-driving in city streets, because there are more rules, more room and more predictability in city streets.

I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla delivers city-street self-driving in a year or two.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#219

Post by bluGill »

300bps wrote: post #173
bogle wrote: post #133

If we expect driverless cars to be further delayed and we continue building our cities to encourage micromobility (bikes, electric scooters, segregated lanes, car free streets, etc.) then at which point does the value of the driverless car become moot because we no longer drive? Does this sound unlikely? Consider European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam which have encouraged cycling over the last two decades and…

If you don't need to drive why would you buy a driverless car? I don’t anticipate many people will ever buy a driverless car. The whole concept of buying a car is kind of ridiculous. You pay for it then you continue paying for registration, insurance, maintenance, park, etc all while it sits idle 90% of the time. Driverless cars allow you to be picked up at your front door and dropped off exactly at the spot wherever…

You buy a car because it is there for you. When you want to go it is always where you left it and ready to go. People tend to forget about this: you don't have to reserve your ride ahead of time, you just go when you are ready. To be useful shared cars will be idle most of the time as well: if they are not you cannot be sure one is ready and waiting for you when you decide you want to go. Otherwise you may as well take the bus which is cheaper than a shared car can ever be because more people are on it at a time.

Since there isn't much savings possible in a shared car without losing the whole advantage of a car you may as well buy your own: the ability to leave your golf clubs in it is more than worth the extra costs.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#220

Post by AlexandrB »

de_watcher wrote: post #206
bogle wrote: post #133

If we expect driverless cars to be further delayed and we continue building our cities to encourage micromobility (bikes, electric scooters, segregated lanes, car free streets, etc.) then at which point does the value of the driverless car become moot because we no longer drive? Does this sound unlikely? Consider European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam which have encouraged cycling over the last two decades and…

There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows. So we can't bike everywhere. The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities. We can even add lanes or pavements by removing all parking spaces in the city centers.

> The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities.

They only solve them by doubling the traffic problems. I'm not a civil engineer so I'm not sure which problem is harder to solve, but this hardly seems like a free lunch.

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