Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 556 posts

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#421

Post by NovaS1X »

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.

>There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows.

So what? Can you only bike on sunny days? Get better gear.

Hell I motorcycle year round even when it drops below freezing. When it gets real crazy I just take the bus for a day or two.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#422

Post by lmm »

braindeath wrote: post #387
lmm wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thats more or less prohibitively expensive, because your hiking location would be outside of parking zone most likely, thus you're on the clock the whole time. Not my idea of a relaxing experience. An extra hour or two doesn't make a lot of difference when you're already booking for a weekend. Of course if you get stuck on a mountain overnight or something then you'd have a penalty charge, but frankly that would be…

> Of course hiring a car for a weekend costs a couple of hundred quid, but realistically you're going to do that what, ten times a year at most? Nice. The “at most” is an interesting rhetorical (and grossly dishonest) trick you used there.

Go on then: how many times did you actually go hiking over the weekend in the last 365 days? In my experience people greatly overestimate how much time they're actually going to be able to spend on their hobby; they plan things out with the idea that they're going to spend every weekend doing xyz, but life gets in the way.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#424

Post by huntertwo »

rossdavidh wrote: post #380

The "easiest" (read: least difficult) to automate would be long-haul, between cities. But, we have an "automated" system for that, it's called railroads, where one driver can steer dozens or hundreds of cars. The hardest to automate is in-city driving, where the environment is much more complicated to parse, and there are many more kinds of fellow-users (pedestrians, bicyclists, etc.). So, naturally, that's where the…

Perhaps a city is more complicated because of the environmental hazards you mention, but I'd imagine it's easier to outfit a city with self-driving friendly sensors or lanes than those long-haul routes. In the article, it says this is how China is approaching the problem.

I personally believe a society with autonomous cars and regular cars sharing normal roads is a pipe dream in both a technical and political sense.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#425

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

rossdavidh wrote: post #372
mitfahrener wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess. Single male, able body, no kids. When you have kids, you'd appreciate having a car/rent a car/uber when grocery shopping for example. And the city is full of people with kids. We are not the minority here. Not everyone is interested in a scooter that is inherently unsafe at moderate speeds.

original comment said "why would I prefer a driverless taxi if an electric car with a human driver costs no more?" Which would not seem to be talking about a scooter.

Also the original comment ignores the people that would pay considerably more for a driver less taxi, just to avoid interacting with a human driver.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#426

Post by [deleted] »

vkou wrote: post #415
acd wrote: post #409

The solution is pretty simple. We need to design electric highways that have a self driving lane. In the self driving lane there is guidance in the road that assist self driving cars. Since the cars are self driving they can coast in 80km/h sharing the lane with trucks. Add electric supply and rails to lessen the tire friction and we are a long way to reduce carbon emissions from transportation. For city centers cars…

> The solution is pretty simple. We need to design electric highways that have a self driving lane. So, build train lines.

[deleted]

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#427

Post by fredophile »

vkou wrote: post #412
fredophile wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why are self-driving cars still unable to drive in snow Have you seen people driving on the first snowfall of the year? > or navigate a parking lot without nearly getting t-boned? Driving in a parking lot is tough. Lots of pedestrians, lots of other cars, and way more people driving in reverse than you'd see in most scenarios.

> Have you seen people driving on the first snowfall of the year? Most of those people don't have winter tires. > Driving in a parking lot is tough. So when is the O(N) rate of growth going to get SDVs to the point of an attentive 16 year old?

> Most of those people don't have winter tires.

You'd think that they'd drive extra cautiously in snow in that case.

> So when is the O(N) rate of growth going to get SDVs to the point of an attentive 16 year old?

Does it need to beat an attentive 16 year old or does it just need to beat a distracted early to mid 30s parent with a small child or two in the car? Self driving cars only need to be better than the average human to reduce overall accidents. Having said that, I'd probably be more likely to hop into a car driven by a random person than a self driving car that I know is only marginally better than an average human.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#428

Post by davnn »

beokop wrote: post #399
tehsauce wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misusing big O notation

It’s pretty clear that the author isn’t using the technical definition of big O but rather is using it in a descriptive way. It’s not ambiguous in any way so what’s the harm?

I would say no harm, but rather confusing to people that do not know big O, and useless to those who do.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#429

Post by rtkwe »

acd wrote: post #409

The solution is pretty simple. We need to design electric highways that have a self driving lane. In the self driving lane there is guidance in the road that assist self driving cars. Since the cars are self driving they can coast in 80km/h sharing the lane with trucks. Add electric supply and rails to lessen the tire friction and we are a long way to reduce carbon emissions from transportation. For city centers cars…

Any product that requires refitting existing roads is pretty much dead in the water, there's a chicken and egg problem inherent in that solution because before there's a push for billions of dollars and decades to be spent refitting the highway system there has to be a big demand for that project/product and that will only happen with a proven viable self driving car. And even once it starts the vehicle will only be useful once enough roads have be refitted. So a company has to 1) convince the US government to dedicate years and a few billion dollars to build them the infrastructure to run their product then 2) protect that funding across a couple decades (including multiple party switches) and 3) not go broke in the process waiting for the infra to be in place for people to actually buy their product.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#430

Post by fredophile »

DickingAround wrote: post #216
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 mil…

I think we just need to have more flexible options that don't require owning a car. When I lived in Vancouver I didn't own a car. I got around using transit, biking, or walking most of the time. I was also a member of a local car coop. If I needed a vehicle for a short trip or to run an errand I could rent one in one hour increments. I appreciated the flexibility of being able to rent a truck for an hour or two to haul some furniture or rent a car for a day or two for a short trip.
Post reply on HN