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Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

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Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#71

Post by secabeen »

jabelk wrote: post #32

I wonder whether they will first become available as a product that individual people can buy, or if Google will open some sort of service where you can sign up for a monthly "car plan" for X miles. Or maybe partner with a taxi company/Uber, where you pay per ride but the cars are driverless. I imagine all 3 models will be tried at some point, and it'll be interesting to watch their development and which one eventual…

While I sort of like the idea, there's still going to be lots of traffic in and around those bus/van depots. We're also going still need storage near urban downtowns for all those 1-person cars that spend 95% of their day idle waiting for the 5pm rush.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#72

Post by petercoolz »

This warmed my heart. And thinking about it from a business perspective, not everybody needs to own their own self-driving car. Ie. it can self-drive itself home for use by the next person. Which means economically, the car price can be many multiples of the cost of current cars (imagine a $100k car that is shared between five families rather than five families each with their own car).

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#73

Post by secabeen »

spankalee wrote: post #2

So far Google's self-driving cars have been designed to have the driver take over in certain situations. I wonder how that works without a steering wheel and pedals. Are the cars manually drivable at all?

When they drive entirely on Google property (like this parking lot), they don't need controls. If they want to drive on public roads, the law requires manual control.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#74

Post by User9812 »

c23gooey wrote: post #49

I feel as though they really havent embraced the driverless concept with their prototype. Why have seats that are fixed and facing forward? What about a couch? Why is there a dash? The people in the video are essentially watching the car drive itself, when they could be doing anything else. There are probably a multitude of reasons why the things above are the way they are. However, the prototype seems like just anot…

They should add a table, or two sets of seats facing each other, and an optional table that pulls out between them. Then show 4 people in the car, having a little business meeting on the way to their office, or have a family of 4 in the car, eating sandwiches or something on the table as they go to school.

That should be one of the key points, you can use this time productively, and not just spend it looking out the windshield. You can visit with your children on the way to their school, and not have your back to them as you divide your attention between the road and their conversation. Show a side-by-side of a parent driving, scatterbrained and frustrated, then show one sitting next to their child in the automated car reading a book together as it drives.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#75

Post by sirdogealot »

eurleif wrote: post #52
c23gooey wrote: post #49

I feel as though they really havent embraced the driverless concept with their prototype. Why have seats that are fixed and facing forward? What about a couch? Why is there a dash? The people in the video are essentially watching the car drive itself, when they could be doing anything else. There are probably a multitude of reasons why the things above are the way they are. However, the prototype seems like just anot…

>Why have seats that are fixed and facing forward? Seats facing forward means that acceleration pushes you backward into your seat. Any other direction would increase motion sickness. And what would be the advantage of the seats facing a different way? >What about a couch? The seats do look like a couch to me...

>what would be the advantage of the seats facing a different way?

When you got into a head on collision, you would (perhaps) be spared the whiplash.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#76

Post by teraflop »

gfodor wrote: post #20
rquantz wrote: post #15

It seems like a mistake to remove manual controls entirely, not necessarily because of safety concerns, but because there are a fair number of times when you need the car to go somewhere without having a route. I'm thinking of things like: Moving your car ten feet so somebody else can get out of the driveway; handling double parking during alternate side parking hours; moving the car because you were waiting to pick…

In the long run, if self driving cars work, people will no longer be qualified to operate their vehicles. Would you let your toddler move the car 10 feet to pick up grandma? That said they will almost certainly have a manual override in these things, it will just be tucked away out of view.

I think there's room for a control system that gives a human a reasonable degree of direct control over the car's movements, while still having it be able to refuse potentially unsafe commands.

Compare it to a microwave oven. The microwave flux inside the oven is high enough to cause severe burns if you were exposed to it, but the system is designed so that it won't run with the door open -- and it's fail-safe, in the sense that any failure (or combination of failures) is overwhelmingly more likely to result in a safe shutdown than in unsafe exposure.

It's still possible to burn yourself on hot food, of course, but my point is that nobody thinks of a microwave as a dangerous piece of equipment that you need to be "qualified" to use, in the way that they think of a car or a table saw.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#77

Post by anigbrowl »

FireBeyond wrote: post #46
jpatokal wrote: post #4

Given that they're capped at 25 mph, these are legally "low-speed vehicles", not cars, which means they're way less regulated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-speed_vehicle

I think, too, that there's a logical disconnect between "we focused on learning, not luxury", and "we want to hear about what you want in a vehicle where you sit back and enjoy the ride" (probably, to most, -not- a dearth of comforts).

As long as it's safe (duh) and moderately comfortable, I'd be just as happy to read or suchlike. Chances are these cars have good internet connectivity as they're probably going to be used in cities and you can stick an arbitrarily large antenna into the car body, so work, gaming or video consumption are practical too (on your tablet or other personal device). what else do you need - a cup holder and easy-to-clean interior?

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#78

Post by wamatt »

rquantz wrote: post #15

It seems like a mistake to remove manual controls entirely, not necessarily because of safety concerns, but because there are a fair number of times when you need the car to go somewhere without having a route. I'm thinking of things like: Moving your car ten feet so somebody else can get out of the driveway; handling double parking during alternate side parking hours; moving the car because you were waiting to pick…

Another option might be to use a collapsible steering wheel.

It could neatly and automatically retract into the dash, when not needed.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#79

Post by dunmalg »

eurleif wrote: post #26
rquantz wrote: post #15

It seems like a mistake to remove manual controls entirely, not necessarily because of safety concerns, but because there are a fair number of times when you need the car to go somewhere without having a route. I'm thinking of things like: Moving your car ten feet so somebody else can get out of the driveway; handling double parking during alternate side parking hours; moving the car because you were waiting to pick…

If the car's display shows a map of the surrounding area, and that map includes not just static objects like buildings, but also includes other cars, people, etc. (based on sensor information), is touching a spot on the map to make the car go there really a chore?

Touch-screen interfaces are inherently imprecise. Ever tried to select a destination on a GPS map?

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#80

Post by Mister_Snuggles »

rquantz wrote: post #23
jackvalentine wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, perhaps in the context of a personal vehicle there does need to be manual control. However I can see these more as a form of private public transit, a fleet of driverless google cars cruising around and anyone with a subscription a la zipcar can hail them and go. Perhaps in this context, Google could operate parking garages where they can be recharged and cleaned while keeping them off the street an…

That sounds cool, although most cities already have something similar in the form of buses, which are cheaper and more efficient than what you're talking about. In any case, they will probably not start by having a huge fleet, but by selling them as personal vehicles.

These would be buses on steroids.

Imagine if you could fire up an app on your phone that would make a driverless car magically appear to take you somewhere. Once you get to that somewhere, it would scurry off to take someone else somewhere or recharge or go towards where Google's analytics show that it's likely to be needed next.

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