Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen' • Hacker News Board

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

#881

Post by mavhc » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 11:43 AM UTC

MauranKilom wrote: post #464

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.

You might want to consider https://xkcd.com/1958/ .

Right, the main question is can one murderer murder lots of people at once with new technology. Can they buy a machine gun, or reprogram every car to crash, or lobby the government to force doctors to prescribe the opiates they sell.

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

#882

Post by naravara » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

wozniacki wrote: post #866

naravara wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. For the cost of all this retrofitting of roads, you’d be able to build the most insanely comprehensive transit system anyone has ever heard of. FWIW though, it probably is possible to use this sort of technology for buses and shuttles. You can’t fix markings on ALL the roads, but you can make sure the markings are good enough on main arterials to have a dedicated bus lane.

For the love of everything holy, some of us just dont want public transit - especially having seen the horrors of most public transit options even in the best managed nations and conditions. From one of my previous comments on a different post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19638171 - - - - Reducing the number of cars (and therefore traffic) on the roads will benefit everybody You seem to have a rose-tinted vi…

> Ride-sharing, autonomous vehicles and emission-free vehicles should all alleviate the issues we currently face with traffic, parking and accidents.

No they won’t. This is just willful self-delusion on the part of transit haters.

Most of your concerns are either just plain petty (like, just wear headphones if you don’t like hearing other people) or lacking in perspective (cars kill way more people than whatever safety concerns on a transit system you want to gussy up).

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

#883

Post by gaius__baltar » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

kohtatsu wrote: post #722

TwoBit wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So presumably every self-driving vehicle is going to be constantly streaming all sorts of information in their purview to a central hub? That is a privacy nightmare without regulation on scrubbing extraneous information, done before upload: for example blocking out of pedestrian data; not just faces but clothing and gait, and probably also any data captured through windows. It would be ideal to have a limited view of…

> That is a privacy nightmare

I don't want to disappoint, but the future will have no privacy whatsoever.

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

#884

Post by GFischer » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

cameronh90 wrote: post #545

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.

What's stopping people from destroying yield signs and other safety critical road infrastructure now? Sometimes common sense helps, but it you're out to cause chaos, there's a ton of things you can do today that would cause crashes - but most of the time, people don't.

They do that very often. I once drove the wrong way on a one-way street because some troll had changed the arrow's direction.

Fortunately there was almost no traffic.

Signs get vandalized or stolen all the time here in Uruguay. Mostly vandalized.

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

#885

Post by ragazzina » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 3:46 PM UTC

rgbrenner wrote: post #18

Since when has VW been at the forefront of self driving cars? Is there a reason their insight would be especially accurate? This just reflects VWs ideas to accomplish the goal... ie: they have none. Let me know when Google says it's not possible.

> Let me know when Google says it's not possible.

https://www.cnet.com/news/alphabet-google-waymo-ceo-john-kra...

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

#886

Post by Kirby64 » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #664

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 "edge case" I worry about is driving on ice or snow. Driving safely on frozen surfaces is not a solved problem for human drivers, but most of us insist it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If the vehicle drives as slowly as it should in those conditions, it would probably frustrate a lot of people who really depend on their false sense of invincibility.

Ice or snow should be WAY easier for a self-driving car than a human (especially one with no or little experience).

A car has access to all 4 wheel sensors independently, it can apply brakes on each 4 wheels independently. It can always turn the steering wheel in the right direction, and it wouldn't panic.

Also, it would always drive the 'right' speed limit... sure, other human drivers might get annoyed, but assuming the true 'full self driving' future happens, there shouldn't be many of them on the road in time anyways.

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

#887

Post by ogre_codes » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

spookthesunset wrote: post #554

ogre_codes wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sh…

> that “last 1%” happens every trip at any time.

Are you are going to randomly have to park in a wedding lot? The only example you gave which might happen in the middle of a trip, the Tesla can handle just fine for long enough to pass control over to the driver.

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

It's still the driver's responsibility to drive sober. Even so, I'd far rather someone who is drunk be behind the wheel of a self driving car than otherwise.

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

#888

Post by lsc » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

beefield wrote: post #698

lsc wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, but I think the truck convoy companies are run a little bit more like regular companies than startups? they have a reasonable near-term goal and sales pipeline. Like, I think if you have a couple modern trucks you can go have peloton install their system and you can use it right now.

Yes, but what we are missing is a platform[1] where I can join a random convoy going the same direction than me. And pay something for the lead car or offer myself as a lead car in case I feel like driving and earning some money. This would be in startup territory for me that would deserve more VC money than autonomous technology. At least just now. [1] I assume also some regulatory developments for this are missing…

Actually, I think there's a huge opportunity for the incumbent car manufacturers there. Considering how much identification many consumers have with their car brands, this could work out well (maybe even better) if it were only compatible with cars from the same manufacturer.

I mean, you could do a retrofit kit for regular cars, too... but that seems harder to get exactly right (I mean, considering the cost of a fuckup) and would require a bunch of new marketing infrastructure, whereas if Ford, say, just bought peloton and said "hey, make this work across our model lines" - well, that'd be a pretty good argument for buying a ford.

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

#889

Post by st1ck » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

isatty wrote: post #551

0xB31B1B wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some people own cars. Car ownership rate is around 11% according to [1], which doesn't look that high.

That said, Singapore public transportation (at least SMRT trains [2]) is freaking strict about food and drinks. I could not even have a sip of water without triggering a warning message. So anyone who can't control their thirst or hunger (like, you know, basically any kid) isn't really welcome there.

[1] https://www.budgetdirect.com.sg/car-insurance/research/car-o...

[2] https://www.smrttrains.com.sg/Journey-with-Us/Travel-Informa...

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

#890

Post by lsc » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #715

lsc wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. Americans seem to want these giant 4x4s even when they leave the city twice a year; they'd be better off (certainly safer... most trucks are more dangerous for other people and for the occupants) if they had a little car for city driving and rented the off road cargo hauler when they needed it. A city-only car would be totally useful for people who live in cities; you just rent something when you want to go…

Sure there are niche markets where fully self-driving and self-driving only cars may make sense. But they still need to handle fault cases: e.g. they cannot only rely on a beacon sent by traffic lights because that beacon or the whole traffic light might out of order. So, imho, while smart infrastructure may help self-driving cars and traffic management it does not allow you to avoid the "hard work", which to make su…

eh, my argument is that as long as they are intelligent enough to safely get to the side of the road, I think there's a very large number of people who would be okay with a car that "broke down" every 10K miles if it was otherwise great. (heck, I've been in some sort of breakdown or accident in an uber more often than that, even not counting app failures, so people would probably tolerate a lot more than that if the things were really self-driving.)

Note, you still have the safety problems to solve. You need to know how to get out of the road if the road infrastructure is on the blink. I'm just saying that "I don't know what to do so I will pull over" as long as it doesn't happen too often, is an acceptable answer.