Driverless cars are stuck in a jam • Hacker News Board

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#551

Post by bpyne » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 1:06 PM UTC

Daishiman wrote: post #508

clarry wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By my calculation, my car (including running costs) comes down to about 300 eur/month assuming I keep it for 5 years and get at least 1000 eur back when I sell or scrap it. (Reality: I'll probably get more out of it, or keep it longer) Rentals start at around 28eur/day, so if I rented one every weekend (saturday+sunday), that'd be 224 eur plus fuel. Hardly cheaper. Of course I don't travel every weekend, but when I d…

> Owning a car means I don't worry about making reservations, fetching and returning the vehicle, etc. It's always near the door, and I can go on a whim if a sudden need comes up, like it did just today. But it does mean you worry about parking, scheduled and unplanned repairs, car wash, etc. I think there's still an untapped marker for on-demand car hire like Zipcar and similar.

Don't forget registration and inspection every 2 years (could be more or less depending on the place you live).

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#552

Post by magduf » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

bpyne wrote: post #551

Daishiman wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Owning a car means I don't worry about making reservations, fetching and returning the vehicle, etc. It's always near the door, and I can go on a whim if a sudden need comes up, like it did just today. But it does mean you worry about parking, scheduled and unplanned repairs, car wash, etc. I think there's still an untapped marker for on-demand car hire like Zipcar and similar.

Don't forget registration and inspection every 2 years (could be more or less depending on the place you live).

Good point, I forgot that too. Here in my state, yearly inspection is a bit of a PITA but pretty cheap, but there's a "car tax" ("personal property tax") that's usually hundreds or even into the thousands per year for newer cars. Other states have something similar but they call it a "registration fee".

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#553

Post by magduf » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #509

magduf wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in that case you're losing potential interest on that money, and also (much more significantly) depreciation.

The last time I got any interest worth mentioning on money was more than a decade ago. Yes, assets depreciate, cars more than most. So don't buy new, buy second hand.

>The last time I got any interest worth mentioning on money was more than a decade ago.

What's "worth mentioning"? My bank gives me about 2% on savings; it's not huge but it's certainly enough to switch banks over. If you're not making any interest in a bank, you're at the wrong bank.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#554

Post by clarry » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

bpyne wrote: post #551

Daishiman wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Owning a car means I don't worry about making reservations, fetching and returning the vehicle, etc. It's always near the door, and I can go on a whim if a sudden need comes up, like it did just today. But it does mean you worry about parking, scheduled and unplanned repairs, car wash, etc. I think there's still an untapped marker for on-demand car hire like Zipcar and similar.

Don't forget registration and inspection every 2 years (could be more or less depending on the place you live).

It's once a year here, for cars as old as mine. It's not a big deal though; it takes less than an hour and you can usually go without even having a reservation. Costs less than one tank of gas.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#555

Post by zrm » Sat, Nov 02, 2019, 11:28 PM UTC

listenallyall wrote: post #519

zrm wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you think we should stop having computers in planes, what are you proposing as a solution to that? More to the point, what does it have to do with systemic risk or reducing it by staggering updates?

The comment was criticizing your flippant attitude towards treating humans like beta testers, with the attitude that it's OK to kill a few, just not too many, and dismissal of goatinaboat's initial concern. I don't have a specific answer, because I agree that it's a problem far different than rolling out updates of a new browser version on everyone's laptop. "Technical solutions" acceptable in that scenario simply ar…

Here was goatinaboat's initial concern:

> One bad software update kills... everyone.

That's a fair concern. If you push a software update out to a hundred million cars at the same time which causes some of them to crash into oncoming traffic at high speed, you could have a large number of fatalities by the time you identify that there is a problem with the update.

But phased deployments do mitigate that concern, because it provides time to notice the problem before the bad update is more widely deployed.

That doesn't imply "treating humans like beta testers" because systemic risk is a real concern even when you have thorough internal testing. Even a thousand test vehicles will not encounter the full set of conditions that hundreds of millions will. You would expect to see a flaw that occurs for one vehicle out of 2000 occur 0 times on a fleet of 1000 test vehicles but 50,000 times on an installed base of a hundred million. Having a total of 50,000 fatal traffic collisions in one day is totally unacceptable, but having 10 on a bad day would mark a significant improvement from the status quo.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#556

Post by listenallyall » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 5:43 AM UTC

zrm wrote: post #555

listenallyall wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment was criticizing your flippant attitude towards treating humans like beta testers, with the attitude that it's OK to kill a few, just not too many, and dismissal of goatinaboat's initial concern. I don't have a specific answer, because I agree that it's a problem far different than rolling out updates of a new browser version on everyone's laptop. "Technical solutions" acceptable in that scenario simply ar…

Here was goatinaboat's initial concern: > One bad software update kills... everyone. That's a fair concern. If you push a software update out to a hundred million cars at the same time which causes some of them to crash into oncoming traffic at high speed, you could have a large number of fatalities by the time you identify that there is a problem with the update. But phased deployments do mitigate that concern, beca…

It's one thing to say "mitigate," which you do here, acknowledging that significant risk still exists. That's very different than the wording of your first comment, "technical solutions." A solution implies the risk is negated.