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

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

#101

Post by Noos »

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?

Because the deaths will be network level effects that a person would be helpless to mitigate through behavior. There's no sense of being a careful or responsible driver with a self-driving car; its all whether or not the algorithm or software is correct.

It's a different type of potential error and a much more scary one. I can mitigate human drivers as a pedestrian by taking care walking, but I cannot mitigate an AI that thinks my shirt makes me look invisible due to its learning being deceived by a pattern.

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

#102

Post by monodeldiablo »

bobthepanda wrote: post #56
wwweston wrote: post #32

Opinion: level 5 autonomy would be cool, but it's not where most of the value of self-driving cars is. Most of the value in being able to travel by auto without attention is in trips longer than 15 minutes. Commutes, tourism, vacations. Shipping. Most of which is certainly highway driving. If it's possible to automate highway driving under most conditions (and safely transition either to a stop or human-piloting when…

> If it's possible to automate highway driving under most conditions (and safely transition either to a stop or human-piloting when those conditions aren't met), then at least 80% of the value is there. Given that planes, which rely on a class of specifically trained professionals with minimum hour requirements, still have issues with this from time to time, I don't think this is a realistic thing for cars. Driving s…

Travel by plane is orders of magnitude safer than by car. Your odds of dying in a traffic accident are close to 1:100. Your odds of dying in an air accident are closer to 1:10,000.

If anything, I think your example underlines just how valuable and realistic this is for cars.

Full autonomy was always, IMHO, a silly pipe dream. But that doesn't mean that there isn't tremendous value -- in terms of safety, time, money and environment -- to partial autonomy.

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

#103

Post by njarboe »

threeseed wrote: post #86
robbrown451 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree. Most of the value is in taxi services, where you get dropped off / picked up exactly where you want, there is no need to dedicate so much land and structures to parking, there is no need to have cars sit idle for 95% of their existence, and no need to search for parking spots and walk long distances. Of course, I live in a city, where parking is a major pain. But the other things still hold. It it…

I actually think autonomous taxi services will be niche. Think about Uber cars today. Their entire value proposition centres around them breaking parking laws in order to pick you up. Now the liability for that behaviour is with the driver. In an autonomous car the liability would be Uber which is why they won't do it. An Uber that needs to look for parking in order to pick you up is never going to work in most busy…

Are parking laws different for Taxis than for Ubers? Say in New York City? Lots of Taxis there so if Ubers are working under the same law, seems like an already solved problem. UPS have millions? of parking violations per year, yet it is still in operation.

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

#104

Post by daenz »

Edmond wrote: post #77

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.

A leader that fires people for challenging relevant mainstream opinions is not any kind of leader I want to work for or follow.

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

#105

Post by niftich »

dpflan wrote: post #81
Digory wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the car crowd would say environmental factors tilt toward cars over airplanes. In the US, trains are for freight. It would cost too much to create a new passenger rail network compared to automating existing intercity roads. Now, increasing the throughput of rail using self-driving trains could make a bundle in the US.

Self driving trains seems like an excellent problem space. Are you aware of any companies working on this?

Lots [1][2]. These have seen most deployment in closed networks (e.g. subways, or remote mining railways [3]), but experiments on "normal" interconnected networks are ongoing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_train_operation [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_train_system... [3] https://www.railwaygazette.com/australasia/rio-tinto-complet...

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

#106

Post by tylerrobinson »

jariel wrote: post #89
Edmond wrote: post #77

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.

To the contrary he should be admired for his candour. It's very easy for execs to talk up utopian smack, it's harder the other way around. I for one agree: L5 may not be viable for many decades at least, not with the tech we have. It may never happen because conditions will change to the point wherein it won't make sense. What is viable, that nobody really talks about are 'controlled areas' - for example, highways bu…

> Special roadways

This is a point that always seems to be missing. All of our roads are/were constructed at a specific size with specific engineering requirements and specific materials. If we have a major change in the technology of the cars, it seems to be perfectly reasonable that we could have a new type of road to accommodate that. For example, before interstate highways it probably would have sounded strange to imagine high-speed roads with limited entry and exit. And before that, may have sounded strange to have automated stoplights and traffic signals.

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

#107

Post by Shivetya »

wwweston wrote: post #32

Opinion: level 5 autonomy would be cool, but it's not where most of the value of self-driving cars is. Most of the value in being able to travel by auto without attention is in trips longer than 15 minutes. Commutes, tourism, vacations. Shipping. Most of which is certainly highway driving. If it's possible to automate highway driving under most conditions (and safely transition either to a stop or human-piloting when…

My opinion along these lines lends itself to depiction of self driving cars in the series Tek War. Upon entering the limit access highway or interstate the car drives on its own for the duration until your exit.

that to me is something automakers can easily cooperate with governments to get done and done well. they already mark HOV and Express lanes and with federal legislated lane markings it would make automating those drives pretty simple. Then as the number of cars increase the number of free drive lanes is decreased until the vanish.

using metro Atlanta as an example express lanes have their own entrance and exit points so they are already separated. One set for I75 is wholly elevated two lane bridge work nearly the full length of its run.

Tesla Model 3 owner, I think even Musk is walking back what he "implies" as self driving. As into self driving with human oversight

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

#109

Post by baybal2 »

I think he is the one and only sane C-level person in the industry, after hearing this.

People claiming most of AI hype barely know what the "AI" people mention is.

And people who go as far as drawing rosy pictures of human like general AI being your personal chauffeur are past ridiculous.

The entire idea of human-like general AI for practical applications is like trying to make people using horses for transport in 21st century, by trying to make a horse than if better than a car.

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

#110

Post by DasIch »

dpflan wrote: post #58
DasIch wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 80% solution already exists in the form of trains and airplanes. Self-driving cars that only go 80% of the way would compete against those forms of transportation which have established business models, networks and in the case of trains are subsidized in a way that self-driving cars likely won't ever be. Additionally the key advantage of cars is flexibility, not having to figure out how to get to or from the tr…

Yes, the tremendous capital influx into AV could probably support advances in trains and rail infrastructure. Yet, we will chase after this idea — it receives copious media attention because it is technically challenging and is “sci-fi” idealism that is hard to mitigate and feels like a good idea for society. Also, the investments seem like chasing after what everyone else is chasing after (FOMO); an automaker would…

It seems to me that the problems that trains and rail infrastructure is facing are: bureaucracy, politics and an increasing inability to execute on infrastructure projects on time/budget by governments.

To the extent cost is a a factor, it's unnecessarily high due to these aforementioned issues[1]. So I don't think money invested into self-driving cars hurts trains and rail infrastructure.

[1]: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/1/14112776/ne...

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