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Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

bloomberg.com

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Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#461

Post by panick21_ »

maleldil wrote: post #326
sneak wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do humans drive without these sensors?

With superior reasoning abilities. Extra sensors generating more data make reasoning simpler.

Extra sensors also generate a lot of extra complexity in fusing all the sensors into a common consistent view of the world. And if your goal is just 'more data' then you might as well just add more cameras, that's also 'more data'. I guess what you wanted to say way 'diverse data'.

As with everything else there are benefits and costs to those approaches.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#462

Post by panick21_ »

sneak wrote: post #312
andrepd wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are bad. Electric cars are a bit better than ICE cars, and self-driving cars might one day be better than human-driven cars. But they're still terrible: they're still big, inefficient, polluting, loud, dangerous, and take up precious space. Cars are completely unsuited to cities, and cities which are designed around cars are terrible . This to say: the future is having cars removed from cities entirely . Focusin…

Los Angeles has already been built, however.

Make the boardwalk wider (so you can have fun things like restaurants on the boardwalk), add 2 direction bike lanes on both side and have thin single direction car lane in the middle.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#463

Post by wefarrell »

panick21_ wrote: post #448
nichochar wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Disclaimer] I worked for Cruise for 4 years. I agree with everything you said, but chuckled at this particular part (which is very wrong): > Tesla is significantly ahead of everyone else. Everyone in the industry knows that Tesla is nowhere near the tip of the technology. What Tesla does is _fantastic marketing_. Their whole self-driving division is just a mechanism to sell more cars. At a high level, this is why: -…

George Hotz is 'in the industry' and seems to disagree with you. I have heard others say the same. It seems people who work at Waymo/Cruise are totally convinced by those things. Different approaches lead to different paths to solutions, I am not convinced that either will be successful and not convinces Waymo/Cruise is ahead. Unlike those, Tesla actually makes money and uses the technology stack in more limited form…

If Tesla wants to be serious about self driving cars they should be seeking regulatory approval and running pilot programs with test drivers. Without regulatory approval it’s just a toy, albeit an incredibly dangerous one.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#464

Post by panick21_ »

D13Fd wrote: post #200
oblio wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be blunt about this. Most of this research is funded in the US and the hyper individualistic Americans as a group don't believe in public transport.

That’s really not true. Americans love good public transportation where it’s available and works well. Most US cities have lots of buses, and many have light rail. But in a big country with a spread-out population, public transportation is tough. American corporations perhaps aren’t as interested in public transportation, because there is no money to be made. And that is who is largely funding this self-driving vehic…

From everything I am learning about the US on Youtube by transport people, they universally despise bus service in North America cities.

Some have light rail but at a far smaller rate then cities in Europe.

There are tiny cities in Europe that have more light rail then cities 10x the size in North America.

My tiny town of less then 100k people literally has more extensive bus and train connection then most cities in the US that have million+ people.

> But in a big country with a spread-out population, public transportation is tough.

Compare for example Switzerland (lots of maintains, rivers, hills and so on), with a equally sized metro area like Torronto, Dalles and so on.

The reality is many of your metro areas are the literal exact opposite of spread out, they are just badly designed.

Zürich for example is a city that has only like 600k people, with maybe 1.5M in the larger metro area and Zürich has more trains and trams going then whole Texas city triangle.

So please stop with the excuse about how everything is so spread out in the US. Its not spread out, its just badly designed.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#465

Post by panick21_ »

SergeAx wrote: post #282
oblio wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be blunt about this. Most of this research is funded in the US and the hyper individualistic Americans as a group don't believe in public transport.

Self driving tech could and will be applied to public transportation too. With self-driving mini-buses we can serve more destination much more efficiently, fine-tuning commute supply to better fit the exact demand.

While this is somewhat true, in the overall problem of transit, this is a tiny problem dwarfed by far larger problems. For this argument to make sense, there are about 5000 ways to improve current US cities in terms of transport that don't require this amazing technology.

Its not technology that is limiting good transit, but will.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#466

Post by panick21_ »

bergenty wrote: post #389
nicbou wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have both. You can have fewer cars and excellent public transportation.

I rather have a full fledged car infrastructure and excellent public transport.

Here is an idea. You can have a 'full fledged car infrastructure' with about 1/5 of the car infrastructure you ALREADY HAVE. In fact, there is already way to much car infrastructure, far more then anybody can maintain. Most town in the US and the highway system have maintenance backlogs that will literally never be cleared.

Here is an idea, build public transports so that less people use the car infrastructure, and just like that you get higher utility out of your existing car infrastructure.

Seriously, the amount of 8 way stroads in the US is a fucking joke. There is essentially never a need for an 8 way road anywhere at any time. And for sure not absurd 20 way highways.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#467

Post by panick21_ »

wolframhempel wrote: post #147
Lutger wrote: post #106

Huge waste of money that could have been poured into public transport to actually solve our problems and improve our lives. What a tragedy.

I think the goal is to solve public transport by having a fleet of autonomous vehicles that pick you up where you are and drop you off where you need to go and would roam freely in between - basically driverless, electric ueber. As cars need charging, they would congregate at some charging plot outside the busy areas. Personally, I rather like this vision as it combines the best of public transport and car traffic. E…

> As cars need charging, they would congregate at some charging plot outside the busy areas.

Great so you have constantly cars driving form the city center to outside of the city, that for sure will cause no traffic at all.

Will be fun when people proposes new elevated highways out of the city so the self driving car can go outside of town to the coal power plant to charge.

The only thing worse then having vehicles driving around with 1-preson, is vehicles with 0-people. Its literally the most inefficient use of space ever.

It makes traffic worse, not better and it makes the city worse, not better.

How about this, a city optimized for walking and biking, where different parts of the city are connected threw buses, trams, subways or regional trains.

> Especially, if the existing, personally owned cars that just stand around 99% of the time vanish over time.

Turns out that cities where people can, walk, bike and take trains they don't own cars. Shocking.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#468

Post by Bubble_Pop_22 »

panick21_ wrote: post #456
oblio wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very small benefit for society but potentially a very large benefit for a select few stakeholders. Musk largely became the richest person on the planet off the back of the promise that nobody else would have decent EV tech (turns out, they do), nobody else would have the battery production capacity (turns out, they do, plus super ironic when Tesla is partnering with Panasonic for battery production), AND the promis…

> off the back of the promise that nobody else would have decent EV tech (turns out, they do) That just simply not true. He became one of the richest people in the world when Tesla cracked really high volume productions of EVs at a quite amazing margin. That is what people didn't believe was possible when they did it in 2018. And at the same time SpaceX, where Musk owns much more stock off, managed to re-usability op…

Lets cut the argument very short.

If Tesla or SpaceX were to disappear tomorrow nobody would experience any existential crisis.

If you disappeared Microsoft, Apple or Amazon or Walmart overnight the whole economy would come to a halt. Same for JPMChase,WellsFargo, BoA etc.

Musk is the first guy to reach the top of the Forbes list while being at the helm of an aspirational company, not one that is structurally important one in the present.

It’s a dangerous precedent, and in fact soon enough it was repeated when bitcoiners and owners of exchanges such as Coinbase and FTX reached the top 10 of the Forbes list.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#469

Post by panick21_ »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #175
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't going to work for the most obvious case: rush hour. Which is the case that is the root cause of most issues. If you're still stuck with peak road usage nearly equivalent to that today, your goal isn't to solve prominent issues today.

If you have a networked grid of cars you can run them much closer together and increase road capacity. (Even with failures, likely less dangerous than leaving critical decisions to individual human drivers.) You can also automate away the poor behaviours that contribute to delays. This would require collaborative networked/distributed self-driving, which is not the same as the let's-use-this-as-an-excuse-for-AI-resea…

> much closer together and increase road capacity

So you are assuming there are essentially no more humans driving?

Also, if you want to improve capacity, how about bicycles and buses?

> Even with failures, likely less dangerous than leaving critical decisions to individual human drivers.

You know what's even less dangerous, like essentially no danger, train.

> This would require collaborative networked/distributed self-driving

So the most complex possible solution that is 100% unproven and even in the best cases is far worse then having a city optimized for walking, biking and trains?

Like I just don't understand. Why do you start with the most inefficient solution possible, and then try to apply (expensive) technology to try to make it better.

How about you start with the most efficient, cheapest technology and apply that in 60% of the cases. Then solve the next 35% of the problem with existing technologies that already solve these problems.

And then for the last 5% you can try to solve them with some amazing future tech.

Its quite simple, design cities to be walkable. Make that safe and a priority. Then extend that by the most energy efficient (and space efficient) mode of transport, bicycles. Then use trains to connect different walkable parts of the city with each other.

Then at the very last step, maybe have some fancy self driving cars for a few special cases.

We know this works. It has been done. And its not expensive, it in fact safes money.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#470

Post by panick21_ »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #168
wolframhempel wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's just a question of capacity. If you can cram a lot of travelers into a subway train during rush hour, you could just as well imagine an uber pool type function where clever route finding combines riders into a single car during rush hour.

Carpooling failed because people prefer having everything under control in the face of how cheap car-based travel is already. Thinking self-driving cars will fix a luxury problem is a pipedream. Whether it is self-driving with an incredibly optimized algorithm (good luck with that) or manual carpooling, the same problems are still going to bubble up. The solutions already exist. We, as a society, just don't want to d…

Driving individual cars isn't cheap. The overall for society are huge. Roads are massively subsidized. Car dependency hurts housing prices as well.

Carpooling failed because it doesn't make sense to use amateur drivers on the same overfilled road network to carry a couple more people. If the entrance to the city is backed up, car-pool lanes don't add much.

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