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

441–450 of 923 posts

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

#441

Post by ogre_codes »

spookthesunset wrote: post #289
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…

What about dirt forest service roads? What about the dirt parking lot at that wedding you just went to? How will it find a parking spot? How will it get into a ferry where people direct you to the correct spot? How will it deal with an accident up ahead where some drunk bystander is trying to direct traffic? How will it know to ignore the drunk guy? What if it isn’t a drunk guy but a sober person directing traffic? D…

The big reasons I want a self driving car is because I want to eliminate the boring drudgery and make the routine parts of driving safer. If I have to drive the last 1% myself, it's not a big deal. I suspect this is how most people feel.

I haven't done the math, but time spent on forest service roads, wedding parking lots, and boarding ferries is quite low overall. And the idea of driving in those instances doesn't bother me. Having the car take care of the other 99.999% of my driving live is what I do care about.

> None of those are edge cases because every time it drives it will encounter some novel edge case that has never happened before and it will have to perform better than a human.

If most of your driving involves drunks directing traffic, forest roads, and dirt-lot weddings then a self-driving car is likely not for you.

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

#442

Post by Tiktaalik »

robbrown451 wrote: post #51
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 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…

Having every parked, idle car driving around aimlessly around looking for fares is going to create incredible traffic congestion.

Studies have shown that the growth in Uber/Lyft has increased traffic congestion. This system autonomously will be even worse.

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

#443

Post by skywhopper »

_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…

What are the incentives, though? There’s not actually that much money to be made here, despite dreams of self driving taxis (something that could never be possible). Maybe in the trucking industry, but the tech doesn’t exist and is nowhere close to being reliable enough consistently enough.

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

#444

Post by Tiktaalik »

mattlutze wrote: post #55
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…

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…

If self driving cars make driving in any way more attractive than now, they'll increase demand which will increase congestion.

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

#445

Post by mattlutze »

bobthepanda wrote: post #247
quickthrower2 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I drive to work there is an empty transit lane for cars with 2+ people which seems to imply that most rush hour cars have just the driver in. If everyone is ubering in robot cars then they’ll probably share. It’s not that weird as people share public transport and choosing between $10 to get to work and $3 is a no brainer. They might even Uber to the train station then Uber from the destination train station to…

> "they'll probably share" The people who are driving, or at least a significant portion of them, pick driving over public transport because of perceived privacy and control. I don't think uptake of shared mobility is going to be so popular where that becomes the norm.

Easily scheduled, ubiquitous micro-buses or other vehicle form factors may change the 20th century compulsion of having to have your own private car.

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

#446

Post by scoot »

clouddrover wrote: post #413
scoot wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to try to swear like a 60's Brit, at least get you bloody grammar right. ;-) "bloody" is an adjective, not an adverb, so : "We can't even keep the bloody yellow markings on the road visible"

It's bloody well both: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bloody

Hmm, you're absolutely right! (And the dictionary I consulted is as wrong as I was.) So why does the post I was replying to not work as is?

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

#447

Post by est31 »

the-pigeon wrote: post #410
est31 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but if the system is designed in the wrong way, hackers could kill millions in a single moment. Admittedly, this danger already exists as in all modern cars between driver and car there is a layer of (hackable and wireless network connected) software.

Hackers could hijack a missile and kill a lot of people too. This is why we have security. And honestly modern cars are so computerized already I think your argument applies to them as much as autonomous cars.

> Hackers could hijack a missile and kill a lot of people too.

That's a sunken cost fallacy. Only because other things are hackable as well doesn't mean there is no danger.

> And honestly modern cars are so computerized already I think your argument applies to them as much as autonomous cars.

I've said that in my comment above as well, but it was in an edit before you replied so I guess you didn't refresh before submitting the comment.

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

#448

Post by mattlutze »

vl wrote: post #168
bobthepanda wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Self-driving cars will of course increase congestion because it will be possible just to chill out and do something else while car is driving itself. In Silicon Valley normal story will be “I worked in the car for 3 hours while commuting to the office”.

Work also needs to be decoupled from inner city offices (so you don't have to go into the city/office/etc) and local and regional legislation needs to be enacted in concert to lower overall personally operated vehicle density.

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

#449

Post by jakeogh »

smabie wrote: post #420
jakeogh wrote: post #245

A car that has "self" is equiv to a living being, and it wouldn't be ethical to lock it inside a box. It's not going to happen any time soon and it will never happen with conventional binary computing; a non-wetware system capiable of emulating a mouse would melt itself through the road. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22061718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21250424

Are you suggesting that it's immoral to create a self-driving car? I'm not sure what you are talking about...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21106367

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

#450

Post by sjy »

jstummbillig wrote: post #354
einrealist wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Common sense is not just a large number of sanity checks, it also includes the ability to solve some of the problems identified by failed sanity checks. For example, common sense might lead you to break the road rules in an emergency, or drive a car with a safety problem for a short distance instead of getting it towed.
Post reply on HN