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Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

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Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#601

Post by XajniN »

nradov wrote: post #515
XajniN wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true for rentals, they don’t want idiots screwing up their gearboxes. But, most cars on the streets are manuals, and you can’t get a driver’s license if you don’t know how to drive one.

That is only true in poorer European countries with older, cheaper vehicle fleets. Most new car sales in more affluent countries no longer have manual transmissions. Modern automatics with 8+ forward gears or CVTs are more fuel efficient than manuals and easier to integrate as part of hybrid systems. And of course EV sales are growing rapidly: they don't use conventional transmissions at all.

New car sales - of course, but average car age even in Germany is around 10 years, it gets better only in wealthy small countries like Switzerland or Luxembourg.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#602

Post by jansan »

coutego wrote: post #588
AussieWog93 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hmmm, being from Europe and having driven on a holiday in the US, I'd say that people are more careful and respect rules better in the US than in Europe (certainly than Southern Europe, but even in parts of the North). Driving in US reminded me of driving in the UK. Of course, US is a big country and my perception could be not very typical. Extrapolating from one data point is dangerous. It's like comparing driving i…

I agree, driving in the US (only went to Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia) is more relaxed than in Germany and driving is less aggressive (yeah, there is the occasional nutjob in Atlanta). I like the four-way stops in the US, which forces people to communicate with each other.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#603

Post by rcxdude »

sgc wrote: post #539
rcxdude wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self driving cars are much more likely to be public transport than individually owned. It's also extremely likely that it requires ride-sharing to be viable, which will substantially reduce traffic as well as car ownership (I suspect there may be enough cost pressure that most self-driving vehicles are more like minibuses than cars, which would also help a lot with pollution and congestion, but this may require regul…

Self driving fleets will be driving around to avoid parking while staying in the high use areas, and contributing a lot to traffic, perhaps more than if everyone just had their own car.

Yes, there are a some things that will push towards higher traffic, including induced demand as it becomes cheaper and easier to move around. This would need to be offset by ride-sharing (and perhaps to some extend by the reduced demand for parking, though I don't think this can really increase throughput much). Like I said, I think ride-sharing, especially with higher capacity vehicles, can offset this significantly, but it may require regulatory pressure to get everyone to play ball on it.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#604

Post by martindbp »

gzer0 wrote: post #43

Friendly reminder that this system is HEAVILY limited, with the following restrictions: - Must be under 40 mph - Only during the daylight and only on certain highways - CANNOT be operated on city/country streets - CANNOT be operated in construction zones - CANNOT be during heavy rain or fog or flood roads And for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjZSZTKYEU4 Tesla FSD navigating the complex city streets of…

Mercedes plays tic-tac-toe while Tesla plays Chess. It's just not comparable.

Tesla is taking a radically different and open approach to autonomy compared to every other player. That opens them up to intense criticism though as there are thousands of videos online, with successes and failures. When close to a half a million people are using an autonomous system across the full ODD and all of the US and Canada it's going to be very easy to compile a collection of critical failures. But IMO this is the best way to make fast real progress in this space and not just a limited Disney ride.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#605

Post by aziaziazi »

tuatoru wrote: post #589
afavour wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not want to deal with the hassle but I wouldn’t assume that applies to everyone. A fully autonomous car (however unrealistic it may be) would be a game changer simply for the economics alone. Not paying full tax, insurance etc for a vehicle while retaining all of the transport possibility would be incredibly tempting to anyone on a budget. Not having to build housing with parking included could do great thing…

> Not having to build housing with parking included could do great things for housing availability. This is a purely political decision that does not depend on the availability of autonomous vehicles. It won't happen because it would reduce property prices.

Wait what, garages are required by low in US houses?! Doesn’t that piss off people that don’t own one? Do they cheat, like building without the garage but saying daughter’s room is the reconverted garage?

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#606

Post by Closi »

xigency wrote: post #450
0xr0kk3r wrote: post #431

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…

Yeah, self driving cars would be a step backward as currently imagined. We need high speed rail to connect our cities.

Future transport is unlikely to be single mode - it’s almost definitely multimodal and will include both cars (why not self driving?) and rail.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#607

Post by PeterStuer »

rcxdude wrote: post #464
0xr0kk3r wrote: post #431

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…

Self driving cars are much more likely to be public transport than individually owned. It's also extremely likely that it requires ride-sharing to be viable, which will substantially reduce traffic as well as car ownership (I suspect there may be enough cost pressure that most self-driving vehicles are more like minibuses than cars, which would also help a lot with pollution and congestion, but this may require regul…

"Self driving cars are much more likely to be public transport than individually owened"

I've only seen this as a 'just so' greenwash pr story from the automotive industry to offset the projected 300% increase in total road miles driven anually. Please explain why peole would be compelled to ditch their multidude of private cars just because they now come with a 24/7 free driver included?

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#608

Post by hutzlibu »

fasthands9 wrote: post #507
rcxdude wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self driving cars are much more likely to be public transport than individually owned. It's also extremely likely that it requires ride-sharing to be viable, which will substantially reduce traffic as well as car ownership (I suspect there may be enough cost pressure that most self-driving vehicles are more like minibuses than cars, which would also help a lot with pollution and congestion, but this may require regul…

Autonomous driving would reduce car ownership but it almost would certainly make traffic worse. The cost to get driven around or have things delivered would be less while demand would stay the same.

"The cost to get driven around or have things delivered would be less while demand would stay the same."

Demand might also go up.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#609

Post by jalapenos »

worik wrote: 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…

Why buy "self-drive", when you can already pay a human to drive for a tiny fraction of the price?

I haven't driven a car for over ten years, and I don't miss a thing. No traffic misery. No parking misery. No government misery (tickets etc). No spending on never-ending this and that. No getting angry about roadworks or other people cutting me off and other nonsense.

It's absolute bliss.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#610

Post by systemtest »

afavour wrote: post #511
worik wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need high speed rail to connect our cities. Perhaps we need to slow down a bit, in general?

If the rail isn’t faster than the car then it won’t ever see wide scale adoption. It’s not even remotely difficult to clear this bar when the political will exists. Why slow down when there’s no actual need to?

A car can go faster from Amsterdam to Berlin than the train, yet I still see people on the train.
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