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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'

#591

Post by spookthesunset »

tempsy wrote: post #330
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 happens during major power outages though, which isn’t an infrequent event? Like the one that happened in NYC last year when you had citizens directly traffic in the dark? I’m struggling to understand how self driving cars would react to that.

Clearly all the intoxicated individuals who were passengers now become drivers... or it is edge case and edge cases don’t matter for... reasons... or something. Am I getting the FSD hype train right here?

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

#592

Post by FireBeyond »

javagram wrote: post #579
standyro wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a bunch of "tech visionaries" that Hacker News is supposed to embody, this thread is full of such shortsightedness. I self-drove from Southern California to Phoenix, Arizona, so I guess that's like 1/10th of the way. I couldn't have imagined that ten years ago. Part of the job of being a CEO is to sell the dream, even if it's years or decades away.

Elon’s predictions have been wildly out of touch with reality when it comes to self-driving. In Jan 2016: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/686279251293777920 “In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders, eg you're in LA and the car is in NY” Four years later, summon works in parking lots at 2-3 mph, while a person is supposed to be monitoring and watching the car the entire…

Whilst either "being distracted by a fussy child" (if you listen to their marketing copy), or "paying full attention to the vehicle" (if you listen to their legal disclaimers).

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

#593

Post by spookthesunset »

wnevets wrote: post #319
macinjosh wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want an oceanside villa on the dark side of the moon but that's doesn't mean it will happen. Just because there is motivation to do something doesn't mean it is possible.

but if you had the funds to, why wouldn't you?

Because there are million other better uses for that money.

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

#594

Post by [deleted] »

amelius wrote: post #585
jasonhansel wrote: post #575

I think it's pretty clear that mass transit and (e-)bikes--not cars--should become the primary modes of transportation, at least in urban areas, if for no other reason than that they're inherently more sustainable. I would be concerned that self-driving cars will only arrive after Peak Automobile has already come and gone.

How about mass transit using a fleet of self driving cars? I can see that this isn't a future a VW exec would dream of, since it would mean far fewer cars per person.

[deleted]

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

#595

Post by paulmd »

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.

pretty much all cars with modern head units connect to the internet for things like traffic data and software updates.

as of 2017 it is no longer legal to sell a car with no backup camera, and 99.9% of cars implement that with a digitized head unit that, wait for it, connects to the internet.

thus, very new-manufacture cars in 2020 do not connect to the internet, bluetooth, sometimes wifi, etc.

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

#596

Post by Ericson2314 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #477
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.…

The problem in the US is we aren’t going to start getting European level train infrastructure anytime soon. Also it’s arguably not a worthwhile goal, we have so much space, and it’s an uphill battle to change US culture to be one where trains are going to be a good fit for our land use and urban planning.

I think surmounting those challenges is useful in itself, not just as a way to enable trains. Using self driving cars to avoid doing that would be a real shame.

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

#597

Post by spookthesunset »

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…

> Driving 95% of the way or 95% of the trips is nice

People will abuse that. They will get high/drunk/whatever and when that “5%” rolls around (quite unexpectedly mind you), they’ll run into a bus full of nuns. Always assume people will be judgement impaired because “the car can drive itself”....

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

#598

Post by K0SM0S »

spookthesunset wrote: post #589
K0SM0S wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Initially in this decade I fully subscribed to your view, on paper. Then I observed how things panned out and thought some more. Here's a grim reality: at ~3 million per death in a car crash (that was a reasonable estimate of insurance cost, overall, a decade ago or so), with ~37k deaths/year in motor vehicule accidents in the USA for instance, that's roughly $100 billion / year — a mere 0.5% of its $20 trillion GDP.…

The current technology capacity is the showstopper and always will be. Technology works for humans not the other way around. Nobody will adapt our society to conform to self driving cars. It just doesn’t make sense....

As I see it, it's a case of

- ridiculous before the fact

- dangerous as disruption becomes real

- obvious in hindsight

I.e. a "paradigm shift". These things take time, from inception to maturity for adoption, regardless of tech. Usually about a generation: that customers and voters be mostly people born with the idea as an "almost reality" (after PoC, before mass adoption), that's what it usually takes to raise the S-curve.

Cars themselves weren't accepted or desired by most people years after their appearance, it took time to change minds.

But in some cases, it was much faster, like the web or mobile phones. I just hoped this would be a case of that.

(meta: I think it's totally OK to disagree, upvoting you for discussion as a shield against downvoters based on opinion)

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

#599

Post by incompatible »

TwoBit wrote: post #573
aetherson wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you destroy a yield sign, maybe it will eventually cause some problems, or maybe not. We could imagine a world in which destroying smart infrastructure could pretty instantaneously and reliably cause massive traffic jams, which seems like it would appeal more to certain trolls and perhaps protestors. We could also imagine a world in which more subtle attacks could reliably and fairly quickly cause injury/fatality…

If you destroy a yield sign, the system will immediately know because all the cars previously recorded it.

The permanent signs would already be in the database. The signs you'd worry about would be temporary, for road works or accidents, but perhaps these locations could be made electronically available.

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

#600

Post by unlinked_dll »

jasonhansel wrote: post #575

I think it's pretty clear that mass transit and (e-)bikes--not cars--should become the primary modes of transportation, at least in urban areas, if for no other reason than that they're inherently more sustainable. I would be concerned that self-driving cars will only arrive after Peak Automobile has already come and gone.

I can't see bikes taking over in urban area with actual climate. Even the biggest enthusiasts in Chicago or New York will tell you it sucks during the winter.

And I can't see mass transit being viable when our biggest cities with the money and initiative to improve it plan these projects over the scale of decades and billions per mile.

Self driving cars or trolleys on the existing road surface is probably the most realistic form of mass transit out there. We have the vehicles and the infrastructure already.

It doesn't have to be self driving at first either. Uber's forays into mass transit with shared rides and fixed pickup locations was always pretty solid for me and reasonably priced.

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