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Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

theregister.com

551–560 of 778 posts

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#551
post #367

What do we want from self driving cars? Naturally I wand a car I can summon from the pub that will drive me the 20km, over country roads, to my house while I mix cocktails or have a nap. That may never happen, current technology does not seem up to it. Then what? Modern cruise control, that keeps my car a constant distance form the car in front (unless it roars off at a speed higher that what I am comfortable with) i…

I reckon a "drive 1-2kms on a designed route and park" capability alone would be pretty useful for city planning. Imagine if instead of needing to put parking spaces everywhere, planners could just plan robust routes that any car could use to go and park itself. You could could achieve it today by telling people to just walk from a car garage, but the uproar whenever there isn't enough parking right next to the exact place they want to stop is too huge for it to ever happen

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#552
post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do we want from self driving cars? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I want public transportation infrastructure and far, far, FAR fewer cars. I think the US should strive to reduce car ownership by 75% over the next 20 years, at least in cities over a certain population size. I don't want any more money invested in self-driving cars. But I'm also a grown-up of a certain age and realize the bright-eyed 20-something…

This ship sailed like 60 years ago (blame your parents, speaking of consequences). At this point, autonomous driving is the best we can do in places like Los Angeles or San Diego.

I've been traveling around visiting US cities.

Cities like San Antonio, TX with its Riverwalk and Atlanta with its Beltline not only show every other city a path towards walkable and sustainable future but also how a city can invest tens of millions in walkable infrastructure that yields billions in economic investment and development.

Also, I don't have a car so I've been taking bus, train, plane, and occasional car rental to travel between towns and cities. Recently I've started taking buses. What I've discovered is that I can get on the bus in the morning, plug in my phone and laptop to AC power, and using my mobile hot spot work all day while on the bus. The buses travel on interstate highways which have excellent continuous mobile service. Amtrak trains are awful for working because lack of stable internet connection.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#553
I see this as a win for everyone. Yes, Mercedes has been faster to get a legal approval but the fact that they got it is a huge win for the industry. Same as the rate of electrification, I think Tesla will not be hurt as they position themselves as enablers. Smart marketing move by the way.

And as « there is no such thing as bad publicity », it keeps people talking about the concept of autonomous vehicles. Which seems to work like a charm according to the number of comments I see for this post !

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#554
post #430
post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, thanks for being an asshole. Second, the product has been released, I did not engineer it, and people online are arguing about it. I’m interested in whether the criticism I’m seeing is valid. Is your idea that anyone who claims something is unsafe, for any reason, should be immediately trusted? If not, how do we have such a discussion? How do we weed out poor arguments? I gave a first-principles argument for w…

It is assumed unsafe. It must be proven safe. This can be done via a engineering, statistical, or other appropriate analysis done by entitys with full access to the design specifications, usage information, etc. who are competent to do the analysis and who have no conflict of interest/unbiased. This has not been done for Tesla FSD therefore it must be assumed to be unsafe. As Tesla deliberately misclassifies their Fu…

I don’t think we are talking about the same thing and I’m not interested in discussing it further with you.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#555
post #433
post #367

What do we want from self driving cars? Naturally I wand a car I can summon from the pub that will drive me the 20km, over country roads, to my house while I mix cocktails or have a nap. That may never happen, current technology does not seem up to it. Then what? Modern cruise control, that keeps my car a constant distance form the car in front (unless it roars off at a speed higher that what I am comfortable with) i…

I want tell it where I want to go and take a nap. Unrealistic maybe, but it colors my interest or lack of interest in the middle of the road options. Half paying attention systems strikes me as dangerous for people.

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Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#556
post #433
post #367

What do we want from self driving cars? Naturally I wand a car I can summon from the pub that will drive me the 20km, over country roads, to my house while I mix cocktails or have a nap. That may never happen, current technology does not seem up to it. Then what? Modern cruise control, that keeps my car a constant distance form the car in front (unless it roars off at a speed higher that what I am comfortable with) i…

I want tell it where I want to go and take a nap. Unrealistic maybe, but it colors my interest or lack of interest in the middle of the road options. Half paying attention systems strikes me as dangerous for people.

> I want tell it where I want to go and take a nap.

So, Waymo/Cruise (at this point in time) basically.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#557
post #367

What do we want from self driving cars? Naturally I wand a car I can summon from the pub that will drive me the 20km, over country roads, to my house while I mix cocktails or have a nap. That may never happen, current technology does not seem up to it. Then what? Modern cruise control, that keeps my car a constant distance form the car in front (unless it roars off at a speed higher that what I am comfortable with) i…

Recently I was reading that in Europe, most cars sold don't even have automatic transmission, yet the drivers there are much safer than than people in the US or Australia. There was some speculation that because they shift gears manually, they have to pay more attention to the road and can't do things like drink coffees while driving. They also enjoy driving a lot more than we do. I wonder if other technology would h…

Hehe that has nothing to do with having to watch the road because of stick shifting, that's the result of road safety design and setting very high demands on driver's permit. Where I'm from, it takes an average of 40 hours of driving lessons in which they drill you an driving safely, before you're able to pass the driver's license exam.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So there is never any economic need to transfer the cost of using the transportation network from those using it, to taxpayers at large. Like most things in a thriving, functioning society, socializing the costs is what makes it work. Let me reframe your statement: > So there is never any economic need to transfer the cost of using the education system from those using it, to taxpayers at large. In fact, socializin…

> Like most things in a thriving, functioning society, socializing the costs is what makes it work. What is it about transportation wherein socializing the costs of using it would make it work? Toll roads work all around the world, and better than the routes where the costs are socialized. > Yet this same education system is what has produced a society capable of enormous economic output over the relatively short his…

> As the costs of providing education have become increasingly socialized, the spending efficiency has decreased as rent-seeking institutions like teachers unions have taken over:

I have nothing else to say but to point at this comment and say that calling a teacher's union a 'rent-seeking institution' is nonsense. As a libertarian you should be cheering for unions because they are the natural consequence of workers using their power in a free market to come together and negotiate as a block.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Tesla is the lack of LiDAR not training data. You need to be able to accurately do bounding box detection in order to determine whether that billboard of a person is real or not or if that dog with a hat should be avoided. Research has conclusively shown that vision only systems simply can't match LiDAR for this task.

Don't humans drive with vision only?

We usually use our ears, too.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#560
post #367

What do we want from self driving cars? Naturally I wand a car I can summon from the pub that will drive me the 20km, over country roads, to my house while I mix cocktails or have a nap. That may never happen, current technology does not seem up to it. Then what? Modern cruise control, that keeps my car a constant distance form the car in front (unless it roars off at a speed higher that what I am comfortable with) i…

>Naturally I wand a car I can summon from the pub that will drive me the 20km, over country roads, to my house while I mix cocktails or have a nap. You're kind of joking, but this is more practical/safe than it sounds. Most people drive to eat and drink out. You know how they all get home? By driving back. That's driving after drinking however many bottles of beer and glasses of wine. Every night they go out to eat a…

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