Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen' • Hacker News Board

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#71

Post by mattlutze » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #65

mattlutze wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fantastic amount of value in cities and urban areas. Self-driving cars can work as a massive network to reduce or eliminate congestion and give people back hundreds of millions of hours spent stuck in traffic. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/22/us/traffic-commute-gridlo... They can also, if Level 5 becomes a thing, reduce traffic collisions. And if they all end up electric, through route optimization they c…

How would they "reduce or eliminate congestion"? Congestion is inherently caused by too many people trying to go to or through the same place at the same time. That's not possible without reducing the amount of people trying to travel during a given time period in a given place.

There's lots of reasons for congestion existing.

https://www.geotab.com/blog/traffic-congestion/

Given the same number of cars on the road, a self-driving fleet would eliminate many mechanical failures and many human failures, and be able to adapt to sub-optimal infrastructure at a network-wide level.

Infrastructure would also be easier or more efficient to improve, because you'd have removed much of the human variability that makes identifying choke points difficult.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#72

Post by robbrown451 » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

listenallyall wrote: post #22

Level 5 means no human intervention, under any circumstance. Ice, snow, night, fog, unmarked roads, tunnels, mega-urban, isolated rural, parking lots/structures, etc, etc. I think he's correct. It's hard to think of any technology that works without human intervention whatsoever, no matter the conditions. We've had autopilot for decades, we're certainly not flying planes without pilots. Or even getting them from runw…

Planes are different in that there is a large ratio of passengers to "drivers". There isn't the same economic incentive to eliminate pilots when the cost of flying a plane is still going to be quite a few dollars a minute.

The thing is, there are some conditions where people probably just shouldn't be driving. Like we shouldn't be driving in a heavy snow storm, at least not for most trips where you can just wait it out. Planes will wait out storms, even with human pilots. I don't see a problem with "level 4.9" cars that occasionally say "I'm going to wait out the storm" or that will avoid certain routes (such as "crazy mixing bowl" intersections where you can instead just take a side street)

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#73

Post by creato » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

robbrown451 wrote: post #54

waynecochran wrote: post #43

The technology is not the only problem. The lawyers that are defending every dead body, and there will be dead bodies, that will sink self-driving cars. Even if everyone is 95% safer with self-driving cars, those that are killed by a self-driving car (in combo with a public that is easily swayed with non-objective arguments) will be hard to dismiss.

I don't understand this. If there are 1/20th the amount of deaths, how is that going to sink self driving cars?

Most drivers on the road are effectively being subsidized by bankruptcy protection, because most cannot possibly cover the liability they are exposing themselves to by driving. This "subsidy" is far less valuable to a self driving car manufacturer than individual drivers.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#74

Post by gedy » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #65

mattlutze wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fantastic amount of value in cities and urban areas. Self-driving cars can work as a massive network to reduce or eliminate congestion and give people back hundreds of millions of hours spent stuck in traffic. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/22/us/traffic-commute-gridlo... They can also, if Level 5 becomes a thing, reduce traffic collisions. And if they all end up electric, through route optimization they c…

How would they "reduce or eliminate congestion"? Congestion is inherently caused by too many people trying to go to or through the same place at the same time. That's not possible without reducing the amount of people trying to travel during a given time period in a given place.

Freeways can handle much more traffic, but people get jumpy beyond a certain density and cause traffic jams "for no reason"

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#75

Post by brians » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #65

mattlutze wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fantastic amount of value in cities and urban areas. Self-driving cars can work as a massive network to reduce or eliminate congestion and give people back hundreds of millions of hours spent stuck in traffic. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/22/us/traffic-commute-gridlo... They can also, if Level 5 becomes a thing, reduce traffic collisions. And if they all end up electric, through route optimization they c…

How would they "reduce or eliminate congestion"? Congestion is inherently caused by too many people trying to go to or through the same place at the same time. That's not possible without reducing the amount of people trying to travel during a given time period in a given place.

By offering laminar rather than turbulent flow. Take a two lane highway where traffic moves at 100 kph. It contracts to one lane at 100kph. Humans will pull up close, stall in one lane, do a flaky and awful zipper merge. Latency will be higher than necessary and throughout lower.

Self driving cars can plan the whole exchange, negotiate (or be directed by an intersection controller) to decelerate, align, merge, and maintain high throughout at low latency. ATC does this for planes already; we have the coordination technology. It’s just about getting drivers to listen to precise instructions without deviation. For everywhere I know of, that’s going to take automation.

Reading up on standing waves taught me a lot; you might like adding that wrinkle to your model.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#76

Post by rgbrenner » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:20 PM UTC

listenallyall wrote: post #61

rgbrenner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a summary of his entire background in order: Formula 1 engineer for many years; Technical director for a Le Mans Prototype vehicle; Head of VWs self driving division for the past 1 year. He has no software background... he specializes in making gas cars go fast. He has no idea how to make a self driving car.. and honestly, why would we think he would? He hasn't exactly been pioneering vision systems, or anythi…

Jeff Bezos never worked at Barnes & Noble or Borders. What does he know about selling books?

If Bezos started a book company, then failed and admitted he's not sure if it's possible to sell books... then I would question whether or not he has the background to sell books... especially if I look around, and other experts in the field don't agree.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#77

Post by Edmond » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

Maybe this exec should be fired for incompetence and lack of vision.

While self-driving is obviously a challenging problem, I am still bemused by people who think "it will never happen".

An auto exec who believes that, is unfit for the job and definitely unfit for the future of that job.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#78

Post by threeseed » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

rgbrenner wrote: post #18

Since when has VW been at the forefront of self driving cars? Is there a reason their insight would be especially accurate? This just reflects VWs ideas to accomplish the goal... ie: they have none. Let me know when Google says it's not possible.

Apple is in the top tier of self driving cars though.

And since he recently worked there I am sure he knows quite a bit about where the industry is at.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#79

Post by coolspot » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #65

mattlutze wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fantastic amount of value in cities and urban areas. Self-driving cars can work as a massive network to reduce or eliminate congestion and give people back hundreds of millions of hours spent stuck in traffic. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/22/us/traffic-commute-gridlo... They can also, if Level 5 becomes a thing, reduce traffic collisions. And if they all end up electric, through route optimization they c…

How would they "reduce or eliminate congestion"? Congestion is inherently caused by too many people trying to go to or through the same place at the same time. That's not possible without reducing the amount of people trying to travel during a given time period in a given place.

When roads belong exclusively to self-driving cars, they can increase speed, reduce gaps between cars and eliminate traffic wave effect.

Imagine highway where everyone drives 80mph with 5ft of distance between cars. No one suddenly changes lanes, no one suddenly slows down for no reason.

Here is illustration from Waymo testing facility: https://youtu.be/hKfEivMfDPU

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#80

Post by mamon » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

ptx wrote: post #24

ogre_codes wrote: post #21

This is arguably one of the biggest competitive advantages Tesla has. For $47,000 I can get an EV from Tesla with a better self-driving system[1] than a $100k Audi, BMW, Mercedes, or Lexus. I haven’t pulled the trigger on a Tesla yet, but I can’t imagine paying $40,000+ on a new car that isn’t a Tesla right now. For many people Tesla has made EV and self-driving table-stakes and nobody else is delivering on that. [1]…

So, considering the accidents, maybe Tesla is "better" at self-driving in the same way Intel was better at speculative execution before they had to patch it.

The only company that knows what they are doing is Waymo (which actually launched self-driving taxi service in Phoenix), Tesla and others are kind of "fake it until you make it" crowd.