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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'

#551

Post by isatty »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #359
rmtech wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Japanese rail network is awesome but it does not stop everywhere and it’s quite expensive. Japan is huge and taxis get expensive real quick.

Consider Singapore, which is tiny, has a kick ass public transport system (trains and busses) and where it costs 90-100k SGD to own a beater Corolla: people still own cars.

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

#552

Post by jgalt212 »

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…

There is something to this, in the sense that Palm (and others) couldn't get their machines to do complete handwriting recognition so Palm's solution was to have the computer and the human meet in the middle with Graffiti.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_(Palm_OS)

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

#553

Post by jupp0r »

yellow_lead wrote: post #482
the-pigeon wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'll bite. Aside from Tesla owners, I do not know anyone in my life today whose vehicle connects to the Internet. Of course, I mean to say I don't see how your comparison to present day is accurate.

My 2017 Ford connects to wifi.

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

#554

Post by spookthesunset »

ogre_codes wrote: post #441
spookthesunset wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

> If I have to drive the last 1% myself, it's not a big deal. I suspect this is how most people feel.

Which is all well and good until you realize a few things:

1) that “last 1%” happens every trip at any time. You will always encounter an edge case the machine cannot handle. Period.

2) as a result you have to always pay attention in order to immediately take over

3) you can’t because you (the royal you) are three sheets to the wind plastered drunk.

Sorry. If I have to pay attention for that 1%, it ain’t full self driving. And anything that encourages you not to pay attention 100% of the time is unsafe and shouldn’t be allowed in the road. And if I have to pay attention 100% of the time in order to take over, what the fuck is the point?

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

#555

Post by hetman »

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…

Modifying the environment sounds a lot like the the level 4 autonomy the exec said would be quite possible.

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

#556

Post by moksly »

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 makes you say this? Gut feeling? Or do you have any supportive evidence?

We’ve done self-driving as a POC for a decade in Denmark, and it hasn’t really improved much, to the point where we too are considering, that it’s probably never going to work in the real world.

Don’t get me wrong. Self driving already works, it just doesn’t work on roads. Roads where you’ll suddenly have a bunch of leaves flying around. Roads where the paint job is cracking, perhaps even missing. Roads where the street signs are old and faded.

In ten years of testing with some of the best in the business, we’ve had maybe two days worth of self-driving.

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

#557

Post by spookthesunset »

scarejunba wrote: post #468
spookthesunset wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those unexpected situations are not edge cases either. Virtually every time you drive you’ll encounter a novel case that has never been seen before. Your human brain is good at improvising. Computers? Not so much...

My average drive distance is under 10 miles. The expected number of miles for Waymo to disengage once is over 3 orders of magnitude higher. I'd have to take 1000 trips before Waymo would have disengaged. That does not jive with your numbers (1 disengage per trip, roughly 10 miles), unless you're saying that Waymo's numbers are juiced by few city miles?

Last I checked waymo drives a very prescriptive route and doesn’t go over like 35mph or something. It’s also not running at scale, meaning a non trivial amount of them on the road.

Call me back when waymo can drive in all seasons in random places anywhere in the US.

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

#558

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bobthepanda wrote: post #369
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computers can or will deal with the other actors as well as humans do now, which is quite a low bar anyways.

My point is that unless you get rid of them completely, traffic flow is not going to increase. You can't have free-flowing traffic everywhere and also have pedestrians safely crossing the street, and the lower bound on a traffic light cycle today is the amount of time it takes an old person to cross the street from curb to curb.

That neglects limited access roads and wide boulevards. In either case, even if pedestrians aren’t banned, they are rare enough to be an exception rather than a rule. For example, the old guy trying to make their way across 8-lane Chang-an Road in Beijing...well, there is a reason Chang an road forces pedestrians onto bridges.

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

#559

Post by spookthesunset »

ericd wrote: post #329
spookthesunset wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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? Does the car obey in that case? Most people wouldn't instantly know how to handle those cases either. Many people would obey the drunk guy. Maybe that's the right thing to do. None of those are edge cases because…

> But Tesla's fleet is getting more driving experience every day than you will get in your entire life, and every time they train on one of those exceptions, the entire fleet will benefit.

Prove they are getting better. They run into the sides of trucks and off ramps on the freeway quite often (and don’t you dare blame the driver... it’s “full self driving” remember?)

Can you prove a machine learning algorithm does the right thing in novel cases it hasn’t encountered before? Nope.

And also, don’t reply with “well can humans”. That is a lame rebuttal. Computers will be held to an almost 100% non-failure standard before society accepts them. And that will never happen because of, well, reality.

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

#560

Post by rorykoehler »

simias wrote: post #380
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…

I think self-driving cars are like fusion reactors, they're perfectly possible on paper and, like, totally 15years away from now. I'm sure it'll be possible some day, but I'm not positive that it'll be possible in the general case before we reach the Singularity. And when we get there self-driving cars are going to be a small side-effect of this unprecedented revolution. I can't help to draw a parallel between these…

The difference is SDC taxis are already in operation in the wild. Maybe it's only in a small part of Phoenix but its happening right now. Full SDCs in all developed high density urban areas will probably be a thing in this decade and the next decade for sure.
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