Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 269 posts

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#101

Post by archgoon »

iskander wrote: post #38
nostromo wrote: post #32

Too bad it doesn't mention if this is better than a human or not. So, I decided to figure it out... 2.9 trillion miles driven in 2009 http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/09dectvt/09dectvt.pdf 10.8 million traffic accidents in 2009 http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.p... If my math is correct the average american can expect to get in an accident every ~250,000 miles driven, (NYC to LA 90 times) s…

I don't know much about this google project. Can autonomous cars (i) drive on the highway (ii) drive at night (iii) drive in snow or rain?

They talk about weather issues in this video at 3:40.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkYFIhJ3rnY

In summary: They can handle darkness and rain, but not snow.

If you're interested, Sebastian Thrun has an intro to the topic as this course (you can preview all videos and problems)

http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs373/CourseRev/apr20...

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#102

Post by riffic »

RobotCaleb wrote: post #93
eblume wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I drove behind one yesterday as it returned to Google HQ in Mountain View. It was pretty exciting. It was also rush hour, and people didn't like that it tried so hard to give a safe amount of space in front and behind itself - it ended up being a little bubble of lane-changing space that moved slower than the rest of traffic. Not that I hold any of this against the car - it was clearly doing the intelligent thing. Bu…

Weird. Your post didn't have a reply link. I had to click the permalink for it. Anyway, I wanted to say that I read an article about a guy in Seattle that always kept a couple car lengths ahead of him. I seem to remember the article saying he was able to get home quicker that way than by behaving like the rest of the cars on the road.

http://trafficwaves.org/

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#103

Post by ceejayoz »

sp332 wrote: post #100
ericd wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really reasonably cost effective for most people.

Neither is a Google car, though. Adding self-driving requires five figures, probably even in production.

A limo with a driver is always going to be fairly expensive. A self-driving car should come down in price a lot faster.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#104

Post by bryans »

abraham wrote: post #52
duck wrote: post #36

The cars still need to learn how to handle snow-covered roads That is going to be hard to pull off. For places that get a lot of snow, often you can't even be sure if you're on the road or not.

In theory autonomous care would be able to include a number of other factor to decide if they are on the road or not. Including, GPS, wifi signals, the grade of the road, the texture of the road, etc.

What about situations where lanes have been plowed off-center? Even the most accurate GPS and accelerometers aren't going to help the vehicle understand that the appropriate path has been shifted.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#105

Post by nitrogen »

jlgreco wrote: post #85
snewman wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car sickness tends to happen when you're focusing on the interior of the car. That's what leads to the disconnect between your visual field and your mechanical sense of motion. I expect this is the main reason that drivers are rarely affected -- they're always looking out the window (more or less), so their visual sense of motion remains aligned with their other senses.

In my personal experience, car sickness is caused by high jerk ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerk_%28physics%29 ), primarily during deceleration. (This is also commonly known as "bad driving".) I imagine this is something that self-driving cars won't have a problem with.

That doesn't necessarily account for people getting car sick on long, smooth, winding canyon roads driven at constant speed. The jerk induced by following the curves in the road should be lower than that caused by braking.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#106

Post by fl3tch »

nostromo wrote: post #32

Too bad it doesn't mention if this is better than a human or not. So, I decided to figure it out... 2.9 trillion miles driven in 2009 http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/09dectvt/09dectvt.pdf 10.8 million traffic accidents in 2009 http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.p... If my math is correct the average american can expect to get in an accident every ~250,000 miles driven, (NYC to LA 90 times) s…

A lot of those accidents happen in rain and snow, which the Google folks admit are not as well tested. Under clear conditions on open roads, humans probably do better than 300K miles too.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#107

Post by stephengillie »

greg_bt wrote: post #97
roblev wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having to own a car opens up more options Want a big car for a family trip? Just order one and it turns up where you are, ready to take you where you want to go. A sleeper car for two? A flash sports car for the afternoon? A van for the day? Pay-as-you-go personal transport from anywhere to anywhere where you can still be productive during the journey... Sounds pretty revolutionary to me.

This idea already exists as car sharing schemes, it is incredibly handy. Self Driving cars will only improve car share schemes. See the following sites for examples of car share schemes. http://www.modo.coop/ http://www.zipcar.com/

What if you join Zipcar to Ridejoy to Uber to autonomous cars? Half taxi, half bus, totally convenient.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#108

Post by doomslice »

w0utert wrote: post #61
hnriot wrote: post #3

While this is very encouraging, the TC article is also very misleading. For example: "There have, of course been some accidents that involved Google’s self-driving cars in the past. All of these, however, happened while humans were in control of the cars." - isn't this far more likely to be the case, since the human only takes control when the car can't figure it out? Also, who's commute doesn't involve temporary con…

Good points. Without any statistics about the frequency and nature of situations where the human driver still has to intervene, numbers like '300K miles without an accident' are meaningless. For all I know the Google cars might have had a near-accident every 10 miles if it weren't for the human driver that's always there to save the AI when it fails. The fact that Google never discloses anything besides mile counts,…

Would you be ok with a computer that augments your own driving (similar to those cars that automatically brake when they sense an accident)? If so, then it's just a matter of continuously improving on this augmentation.

Even if it never reaches the level where you can truly step away from the wheel while the computer drives 100 miles in rush hour traffic, attaching an AI to help avoid accidents in many common situations still sounds revolutionary. I forsee something similar to a plane's autopilot -- where it greatly reduces user error yet sometimes still needs a human to take over when it doesn't know what to do.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#109

Post by stephengillie »

riffic wrote: post #102
RobotCaleb wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird. Your post didn't have a reply link. I had to click the permalink for it. Anyway, I wanted to say that I read an article about a guy in Seattle that always kept a couple car lengths ahead of him. I seem to remember the article saying he was able to get home quicker that way than by behaving like the rest of the cars on the road.

http://trafficwaves.org/

I too live in the Seattle area, and I've heard of this technique. Sadly, when implementing it, all you see is the angry drivers behind you who rush to pass and gobble up the traffic bubble you've been saving.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#110

Post by nitrogen »

Goronmon wrote: post #76
apaitch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commuting does kind of suck if you're trying to roll in during rush hour. But without super-heavy traffic I find driving to be rather enjoyable in itself. Even more so if you're riding a motorcycle :) Perhaps the problem is not commuting, but the fact that many companies want their employees at work at 9:00 and out of work at 5:00?

The problem for me isn't commuting, it's having to invest so much money into a huge pile of metal and plastic that someone distracted by someone or something in their own pile of metal and plastic can destroy in an instance, possibly killing me and anyone with me. Or maybe I get distracted and the result is similar. I just don't see the few cases where it's enjoyable to be worth the other costs. I'd consider it simil…

Feel free to refrain from driving, in that case; just don't get in the way (in a legal sense) of those who still want to.

Smoking is a much greater nuisance than driving, because a nearby smoker will foul the air for a fairly large radius through no choice of the people around them. Driving only affects other people who choose to be on the road.

Post reply on HN