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The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

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Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#391

Post by prawn »

chillingeffect wrote: post #277
unexistance wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

working with technology teach me one thing: technology cannot solve everything :D So what can be done with unknown situation encountered by the auto-car? alert the human: Please take control of the car, undetermined obstruction ahead (or something to that effect)

Yeah sure that sounds great, alert the human, but guess what? The human is asleep, reading, writing, or drunk.... as has been promised elsewhere as one of the main advantages to a self-driving car. "This future is better than the current one b/c you don't have to pay attention " So if you're telling me I still have to suddenly pay attention, poof! up in smoke goes the advantage of this supposedly self-driving car. I…

You're responding to one person's suggestion as though it presents the ultimate plan of those dedicated to this technology.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#392

Post by stormbrew »

brc wrote: post #372
dclowd9901 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is your insurance company. If you get in an accident, they're not going to want to pay for it, and they're going to go after Google for the damages. Now we're right back where we started.

No. Current driver-based insurance policies might be based on the ability to hold the driver personally responsible if they are negligent. Insuring a vehicle is just figuring out what the likely payout ratio across a cohort of those vehicles is going to be, then working backwards from there to come up with a premium that will cover the claim amounts, administrative costs and provide a pool of funds to invest. Lots of…

Also, in terms of regulatory capture, it's almost certain that the legal requirement to hold insurance for your car will continue. But the combination of the fact that payouts will probably move towards class action against software bugs (where class action suits usually have a lower per-person payout, and will be paid out by massive policies held by the car companies) and the fact that in general fewer of those people will ever need a payout thanks to safety improvements (especially as we move into most cars on city roads being driverless) will mean insurance companies will have to pay out less.

I will never understand why people think insurance companies will be a barrier to adoption. Insurance companies are going to love this. I think the tipping point will be when insurance rates on driving your own car skyrocket.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#393

Post by prawn »

sixQuarks wrote: post #212

What happens when some asshole with some knowledge of the algorithm decides to troll commuters? For example, standing around an intersection, pretending to move forward/backward, forcing cars to just stop there.

The cars will gradually edge forward until the pedestrian is no longer an issue. That trolling option is available to pedestrians now and I don't encounter it day to day.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#394

Post by prawn »

danielweber wrote: post #118
arikrak wrote: post #10

It won't be able to drive around New York if it follows the rules so strictly. It will never be able to turn. They'll have to add a setting for aggression...

Google cars sometimes got stuck at four-way stop sign intersections if they literally obeyed the rules on the book. They had to be a little aggressive to get their turn.

That is a flaw I noticed with four-way stops when I drove in the US. The only way to break a stand-off once the first arrivals had moved through (and no one could remember the order of arrival) was to be the aggressive one that just went.

I'm from Australia and roundabouts solve this problem very easily. Even during reasonable traffic, I barely need to slow down at the roundabouts near my house as they're so effective. And this is at intersections about the same size as those with the four-way stops I encountered in LA.

Robotic cars can probably pass through gaps like lines of ants crossing each other if roundabouts are too difficult to introduce.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#395

Post by prawn »

kumbasha wrote: post #293
genofon wrote: post #51

I'm wondering how much self-driving cars will improve the system? far less accidents, much faster, less traffic jams, more efficient, no traffic light, different speed limits etc...

0 day exploit kills 300 in a pileup on the freeway...

Almost 100 people a day die by motor vehicle in the US right now so while your above example would hit the media hard, unless it's a daily occurrence it's probably improving on the current situation.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#396

Post by prawn »

scrabble wrote: post #215

I'm wondering how a robot car is going to park in a driveway -- or in a parking lot.

Very easily. Not to mention that storage will be simpler as cars will be able to park closely together without requiring doors to open before moving to where you can enter them, or in elevated storage.

At some point in the future, most people will be unlikely to own a car (just use one on demand) so their driveway will go mostly unused and their garage will be used for something else also.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#397

Post by prawn »

kumbasha wrote: post #294
sean-duffy wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the government was willing to pull those kind of tactics to have you killed, I'm pretty sure they could do it without self-driving cars.

Your government maybe. What about North Korea's government?

They also have many methods at their disposal - North Korea's government can throw you in a labour camp easily enough.

In the US, a car accident in an environment where accidents are less common (presumably the case with robo-cars) will stand out more.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#398

Post by jpatokal »

intended wrote: post #368

Reading a lot of comments here, the theme seems to be that the benefits will trickle down to the average consumer. I can see immediate cases where it's just going to go to those with sufficient economic muscle. Less need for a garage means smaller houses, and more of them (for example). Improved insurance? Probably the same insurance premiums (inflation adjusted), with a higher premium for more human miles driven. If…

Which is why all the wealth generated by the Industrial Revolution went to the feudal lords in their castles?

As a trivial counterexample, since automated taxis will be considerably cheaper than human-driven ones, they'll become an affordable commodity usable for day-to-day travel, instead of a rare luxury used only when absolutely necessary (or somebody else foots the bill).

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#399

Post by frik »

cseelus wrote: post #244

Apparently Mercedes Benz has come quite far regarding autonomous driving. In September 2013 they let one of their S-Class models drive the historic route from Mannheim to Pforzheim in Germany with some journalist(s) on board[1]. On this route the worlds first long-distance (194km/121mi) ride in a motorized car was undertaken in 1888 by Bertha Benz, wife of Carl Benz, who developed, what is known today as the worlds f…

I see no Lidar. What are the sensors?

"With sensors Bertha analyzed their environment [...] detailed and peppered with additional information navigation map"

I suspect a front-radar, camera and a detailed navigation map with GPS points especially for this route.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#400

Post by ericlevine »

chillingeffect wrote: post #256
TheEzEzz wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be at least 50 million residential garages in the US alone. If we automate all cars and switch to a Cars-as-a-Service model that is 50 million large rooms suddenly available. That's a lot of reclaimed real estate. Edit: If the average garage is 250 sq ft (pretty small), average cost of real estate is $100/sq ft (pretty low), then this is a $1.25 trillion windfall. Not bad for a small side-effect of autonom…

Way to only see everything with rose-colored glasses. Has it even occurred to you there might be any possible cons to your scenario? First of all, the lot the cars come from is going to require real estate, so subtract that from your windfall. Where will they be at night or other low-use times? Second, subtract the additional resources in gas/electricity it takes to get to my house from god-knows-where it came from.…

Of course I'm way late to the game here, but thought I'd add one more voice of dissent:

The real estate costs can be extremely low for self-driving cars. Imagine a tower of, say, 10 cars stacked vertically with an elevator mechanism to bring them to and from ground-level. Since each autonomous car is interchangeable, you can just treat the vertical parking lot as a stack. When demand is high, pop off the stack. When demand is low, push back onto the stack. No need for ramps or anything else that existing parking garages use. And just to be totally clear, humans don't interact with this tower, it's just a storage mechanism for empty cars after they've unloaded passengers.

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