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Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

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Re: Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

#31

Post by dsrguru »

threeseed wrote: post #18
alkonaut wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are probably trying to solve the same problem from two different directions. Google appears to be making an advanced and expensive solution to "full" autonomous driving. The limitation will not be in where it can go, but it is initially limited in weather/environmental conditions. The target audience is likely not production cars in the short term, but a system like theirs can for example make their stre…

Never thought of this before but you might be spot on. Maybe Google has no intention of making autonomous cars for normal use but exclusively for Street View. Street View is hopelessly out of date in many places (4 years in some parts of Sydney for example) and it has to be super expensive to keep thousands of people continuously driving around the world. And Street View will likely be a vital and profitable data sou…

Well, even if improving Street View is a shorter term goal, it seems pretty reasonable to assume that Google has at least some intention of using that same core technology to pioneer, or at the very least compete in, the very lucrative market of autonomous consumer vehicles down the road.

Re: Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

#32

Post by ceejayoz »

aianus wrote: post #29
glenra wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A car that only reliably self-drives in good weather conditions is still (a) quite a hard problem, (b) almost certainly a commercially viable product on its own (c) a pretty good start on a car that reliably self-drives in any weather.

I'm not sure about (b) since you'd need to buy two cars unless your boss will accept "but it was raining" as an excuse not to show up for work.

A self-driving car hardly has to be only self-driving.

Re: Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

#33

Post by aianus »

ceejayoz wrote: post #32
aianus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about (b) since you'd need to buy two cars unless your boss will accept "but it was raining" as an excuse not to show up for work.

A self-driving car hardly has to be only self-driving.

You're right of course, I feel silly now. It wouldn't be as cool, though. I was imagining something like a limo without the driver compartment.

Re: Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

#34

Post by nabla9 »

threeseed wrote: post #17
nabla9 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LIDAR does not work in rain, on wet roads or in the snow. Google car drives only in good weather in California for a reason. In Sweden they could drive maybe a week in a year. ... Sommaren är kort de mesta regnar bort ..

Apparently LIDAR does work in rain albeit with degradation in it's effectiveness. Regardless I wasn't aware of this before. Why would Google chose this technology ? It's bizarre.

There is nothing else that gets the accuracy Google needs. Sensors are currently unsolved problem. Multi wavelength radars don't yet have the accuracy and they don't work well with nonmetallic objects (There is limit of how much radar can use power (safely) and how expensive it can be. What works for F-22 don't work for Google)

Google is not planning to monetize this technology anytime soon, despite the hype.

The difference between crude human/animal intelligence and top notch AI-research is still huge. If people would need the accuracy that Google's car needs to move reliably and do split second decisions, we could never leave our house. We operate using just two cameras and accelerometers. The clear picture and spatial recognition is done using top notch heuristics in the unconscious. With self driving car it's the opposite. They need millions of very accurate distance measurements per second to drive. Driving like Google car does with cameras only is not happening yet.

Re: Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

#35

Post by augustl »

I own a 2013 XC60 and as a programmer, I'm amazed at how well their current automation works in practice. The car reads road signs to show me the current speed limit in the dash (actual OCR, not a GPS database). It works amazingly well, except when it's very dark in the winter. Adaptive cruise control flawlessly follows cars based on radar, even in somewhat dramatic full stops, e.g. when there's suddenly heavy traffic ahead. I always have my foot on the break pedal just in case, but I'm yet to have to intervene.

Re: Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

#36

Post by protomyth »

haberman wrote: post #24
Qworg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's system is not yet arbitrary. They prerun the roads the system drives on. I'm excited to see more "in the wild" units - more competition and innovation is always a good thing.

Yes, it is clear that the Google system needs quite a lot of data about the roads it is driving on. But given those roads with a high amount of detail, the Google system can (from my understanding) support keying in an arbitrary destination. I may be reading too much into this, but when I read "test route" in the article, it gave me the impression that the Volvo approach is sort of like a train without the tracks --…

No, they picked a test route to be decently representative and allow them to setup their tests correctly. It is not an A to B thing. role_v's comment is a pretty good explanation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7698495

The quote ghaff posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7698610 it seems like you are describing Google more than Volvo.

Re: Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

#37

Post by ghaff »

nmcfarl wrote: post #21
ape4 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you dislike automatic transition I guess you'll not like self driving cars.

It’s quite possible that’s true of many people. But I like manual transmissions as they force me to pay attention to the act of driving quite frequently. Without that constant reminder, I have a tendency to zone out and go on autopilot myself, which is of course dangerous. Manual transmissions are my hack to attack this issue - but I’d love to have a self driving car where I was reasonably confident that my zoning ou…

I suspect that "zoning out" will be a big question as these technologies are brought to market albeit in a different way than you describe. Many of the things being worked on will likely be useful and potentially available as assistive systems well before they could be delivered as part of a complete autonomous system. However, there will almost certainly come a point when you can provide too much of certain kinds of assistance unless you're prepared to actually turn over full control to the system.

You can't have a system that doesn't need a person to do anything 99% of the time but requires that same person to take over control at a moment's notice to deal with some situation that the computer doesn't know how to handle or, indeed, didn't even recognize.

Re: Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

#38

Post by fijal »

alkonaut wrote: post #15
haberman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This effort does not appear to be as ambitious as the Google approach. The cars drive a specific test route around "50 kilometers of selected roads in and around Gothenburg." That's quite a different thing than a system where you key in an arbitrary destination and the car drives you there.

I think they are probably trying to solve the same problem from two different directions. Google appears to be making an advanced and expensive solution to "full" autonomous driving. The limitation will not be in where it can go, but it is initially limited in weather/environmental conditions. The target audience is likely not production cars in the short term, but a system like theirs can for example make their stre…

4-way stop turn-taking is a problem that does not exist in europe btw

Re: Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

#39

Post by andrelaszlo »

chiph wrote: post #3

No rotating laser dome on the roof?

I spotted one of them close to where I work:

https://plus.google.com/105073266122249925354/posts/a7XDM2xg...

There's SOME kind of thingy on the roof. Not sure what it is though. Any ideas?

Didn't want to go too close though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_83efj9Xdg :)

Re: Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

#40

Post by jareds »

aianus wrote: post #29
glenra wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A car that only reliably self-drives in good weather conditions is still (a) quite a hard problem, (b) almost certainly a commercially viable product on its own (c) a pretty good start on a car that reliably self-drives in any weather.

I'm not sure about (b) since you'd need to buy two cars unless your boss will accept "but it was raining" as an excuse not to show up for work.

As someone who is blind I'd buy a car if it could drive me where I need to go 75% of the time. This assumes that it weather forcasts would be accurate enough to let me know the car could get me to the grocery store and dry cleaner any time during the current day rather than leaving me stranded at my destination unable to get back home.
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