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

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

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 923 posts

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

#351

Post by bamboozled »

rmtech wrote: post #309
rdiddly wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I told you I could offer you a 99% automated intercity solution? That's right, a solution where 99% of the people involved have no obligation whatsoever to engage with piloting the vehicle... EVER! Where the vehicle just sort of seems to... drive itself? Is this some futuristic sci-fi fantasy? Well hold onto your hat, because the future is NOW! Behold! https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7177/6894934663_0619c8bea3.…

Trains kind of suck though. I used them a lot in the UK because I didn't have a car. The UK has an OK train network. The problem with trains is that they are very, very inconvenient for most journeys. Sunday evening? forget it. After 11pm? Nope. Journey that runs perpendicular to the local line to London? Lol, enjoy a 5 hour journey to go 100 miles. Want to take cargo like a new washing machine? Lol. Want to go somew…

"Trains kind of suck though. I used them a lot in the UK because I didn't have a car."

You're blaming trains because you want to have a boozy night out? Get a hotel or start and leave earlier like everyone else.

This is just a silly comment.

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

#352

Post by beefield »

lsc wrote: post #344
beefield wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We will eventually update markings and beacons on the roads to make it easier for the cars. Or even easier, platooning. I don't understand why autonomous cars is a bigger thing than platooning. I mean, platooning solves 95% of use cases of self driving cars [1] and is orders of magnitude easier problem to solve. [1] At least for me. I do not mind driving in the cities myself, but if I just could nap or watch a movi…

https://peloton-tech.com - I mean, that's just one company, I think there are a handful working on just the problem you're talking about.

Yes. Can you estimate how much these companies have received funding compared to self-driving tech companies/projects? My wild guess (based only on the general visibility) is that it amounts pretty much to a rounding error.

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

#353

Post by NicoJuicy »

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…

You forgot one thing.

Autonomous cars won't have the same algorithm as selfish humans to position themselves.

A human will go to one of the busy places and will probably drive back to the original point of pickup.

While a computer will be notified ( 1 car only parked on the busy place) and immediately replaced by a new available/nearby car. Making the process more efficient, more remote places will be handled faster. Busy places more efficient.

Not all cabs will need to earn money, since the biggest expense will be the car driving and not the human driver ( waiting for work).

And as always, if income > fine. They will just pay the fine, some companies even negotiate it because of the sheer amount.

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

#354

Post by jstummbillig »

einrealist wrote: post #257
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't even bloody keep the yellow markings on the road visible, and "paint" is a technology we've had for thousands of years. Where in dog's name is the money for installing and maintaining all that smart infrastructure going to come from?

I am more fearful of trolls, tricking the technology. I doubt, that the software / hardware will have a common sense, like we humans have. Its this common sense that keeps us alive in unexpected scenarios, like when the paint on the road is missing.

> I doubt, that the software / hardware will have a common sense, like we humans have

Aren't sanity checks basically common sense? I would suspect they already play a major role in making autonomous driving a reality.

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

#355

Post by megablast »

_greim_ wrote: post #321
colordrops wrote: post #165

I agree in part in that I am skeptical that full self-driving cars will happen in the next few years, but he is completely wrong when it comes to the long term. Not only will the tech get as good as humans, but most forget to account for the fact that the environment will meet the cars part way. We will eventually update markings and beacons on the roads to make it easier for the cars, implement networks in which the…

To put this in perspective, imagine this hypothetical conversation happening a century ago: "I have this new auto-mobile concept which doesn't require a horse and which can go fast; I envision up to fifty miles per hour. It will require a smooth, hardened road surface, but that will be achievable someday." "Forget about it. We already have millions of miles of roads, which are bumpy, made of dirt, and hard to build a…

Yes, imagine that world. We wouldn’t have a million direct deaths every year, a million more caused by pollution. We wouldn’t waste trillions a year on roads, hospitals, signs, sprawl, and so much more. Just so someone can get a donut at 3am.

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

#356

Post by IanCal »

alkonaut wrote: post #323
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…

I don’t mind driving 200 times one hour commuting a year. I want to a) not own a car but be picked up by one I can share with others b) be driven home after having a drink. Both of those use cases are only working if there is a 100% (or close to) self driving solution. Driving 95% of the way or 95% of the trips is nice, but I wouldn’t pay Tesla autopilot money for it. The value in the 95/95 autopilot is because it wi…

The 95% thing can also be very different depending on how it's split up. 5% of miles have a random "you need to take over" vs. the most rural 5% of roads need manual control make a world of difference.

A car that can only drive within major cities in the UK and on motorways would be entirely fine for the vast majority of people. Exceptional journies I can always rent a car that suits my needs for the one week in several years I'm in the Highlands.

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

#357

Post by rmason »

Almost all the self-driving programs use rules based solutions literally a big if this do that. Only one, comma.ai, uses artificial intelligence.

There's video on YouTube from three years ago with George Hotz predicting that Level 4 or 5 would never be reached without artificial intelligence. It made sense to me then and it still does today.

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

#358

Post by ottowinter »

tomp wrote: post #234
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…

How much do pilots actually pilot vs how much do they just assume responsibility? I.e. I as a passenger feel much safer knowing that there's someone actually responsible to prevent me from dying (because if the plane crashes, the pilot dies with me), not just some C_O suits pushing PR through legal trying to gaslight the public and avoid any culpability ( cough Boeing cough ).

That's exactly the point, even if pilots use autopilot most of the time (level 4 autonomy).

Guess when they take control? When something bad is happening (and there are literally a million things that can go wrong and the autopilot could not fix, ever).

Guess why MCAS did not result in more crashes (the system has been known to malfunction a couple of times before the crashes)? Righty because there were pilots that could manually control the plane well enough to land safely.

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

#359

Post by 0xB31B1B »

rmtech wrote: post #309
rdiddly wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I told you I could offer you a 99% automated intercity solution? That's right, a solution where 99% of the people involved have no obligation whatsoever to engage with piloting the vehicle... EVER! Where the vehicle just sort of seems to... drive itself? Is this some futuristic sci-fi fantasy? Well hold onto your hat, because the future is NOW! Behold! https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7177/6894934663_0619c8bea3.…

Trains kind of suck though. I used them a lot in the UK because I didn't have a car. The UK has an OK train network. The problem with trains is that they are very, very inconvenient for most journeys. Sunday evening? forget it. After 11pm? Nope. Journey that runs perpendicular to the local line to London? Lol, enjoy a 5 hour journey to go 100 miles. Want to take cargo like a new washing machine? Lol. Want to go somew…

1) trains go basically everywhere frequently in Japan, it’s very much a functioning rail network, they exist and kick ass.

2) a train doesn’t need to replace 100% of personal car trips to be useful. I’m sure you’re not transporting dishwashers or taking trips after 11 pm every day. Covering 90% of use cases is sufficient, and the other 10% can be handled by either renting a car or taking an Uber.

3) we can and should make busses faster than cars during times of congestion by giving them their own lanes.

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

#360

Post by holoduke »

I believe the first fully automated transport system will go via the air. Air is so much easier to control. The complexity of automating vehicles in a very chaotic setting (land) exceeds that of building drones capable of flying from a to b. It will start with freight transport and slowly as reliability increases you get human transport via drones as well. Fully automated land transport is only possible when the system is clean and predictable. That means closed roads are open to only the entities which are part of the automation. Very difficult to establish.
Post reply on HN