Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by clarky07 » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:37 PM UTC

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…

Comparing to smoking seems to be a huge stretch to me. One thing virtually guarantees cancer and an eventual unpleasant death while providing no measurable benefits at all, and the other allows you to easily travel all over the place cheaply with a relatively small chance of a major accident.

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

#122

Post by spindritf » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:37 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #59

andrewljohnson wrote: post #25

Autonomous cars are the next big tech that changes the world - I put them up there with computer, Internet, and smart phone. When economists think about technology, they look at it as a productivity booster. From that angle, robot cars will have a huge impact - so many commute hours will be transformed to work, or even leisure, which also boosts productivity. So many smart people are about to be given a 10% or better…

> Autonomous cars are the next big tech that changes the world - I put them up there with computer, Internet, and smart phone. I wouldn't be so sure. Yeah, it might prove to be a very good thing for the United States, but for the rest of world there's first Europe's public transport networks (I'm 31, don't have a driver's license, I live in Europe, I'm doing perfectly fine, thank you), and short of us reaching the Si…

> I'm 31, don't have a driver's license, I live in Europe, I'm doing perfectly fine, thank you

I have a license but don't have a car (actually owning a car was too much of a hassle) and you're only telling half the story. Yes, day to day not having a car is fine, but every once in a while you want to buy something larger that is not delivered, or move some stuff, or go for a short vacation, or even just drive out of the city to pick some mushrooms and you're stuck. You either borrow/rent a car or skip on the activity.

A car does provide a kind of freedom that public transport simply can't. A car that drives itself, or, even better, a car that I can cheaply rent that will drive itself to my doorsteps, then drive me wherever I want to go, and then return itself would be absolutely perfect.

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

#123

Post by andrewljohnson » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:44 PM UTC

It won't be consumers who drive the adoption of robot cars, it will be the logistics companies. This will all start with factory-to-doorstep supply chain integration.

First, Amazon and Wal-Mart and Fed-Ex will have giant fleets - then consumers and mid-sized businesses will follow. Small local governments and developed Asian nations like South Korea and Japan will also drive adoption.

Having a fully-automated supply chain will break the competition who doesn't have the capital to get there fast enough. The big companies already automate the factories, and once delivery is automated, the circle is complete.

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

#124

Post by jlgreco » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:46 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #105

jlgreco wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honestly I think it is a combination of where your awareness is focused, and jerk. Long windy roads put varying lateral forces on passengers which probably become an issue if their focus is in the car.

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

#125

Post by saucetenuto » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:48 PM UTC

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.

Meta: there's a delay between when a comment is posted, and when the reply link becomes active. That delay is larger for deeper comment threads. I've never heard an official explanation, but one can imagine a few reasonable ones, e.g. to encourage people to stop and think in heated back-and-forth exchanges.

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

#126

Post by eblume » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:52 PM UTC

andyakb wrote: post #58

jacobquick wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought they were limited to driving on the highway in the empty parts of nevada?

that is for a car with no human in it, afaik. the google cars drive on normal roads with other cars present

To date, all Google autonomous cars have had two occupants - a driver (who is strictly hands-off - she's only there in case something goes wrong) and a tech who monitors the data to make sure things are proceeding as expected.

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

#127

Post by eblume » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:54 PM UTC

joshlegs wrote: post #94

mmanfrin wrote: post #11

I'd love to live in a world where roads were full of auto-driving electric cars that automatically went to recharge and were replaced by fleet cars, and stopped at various points for people to load up. Like personal, on demand busses.

> Like personal, on demand buses That use a heck of a lot more gas ;)

No reason they couldn't be electric. One of the big barriers for electric cars is a short running length and long recharge cycle. Neither is an issue if your 'car' is just an (autonomous) taxi service that runs off to recharge itself when you're done.

Obviously that doesn't mean it isn't using a fossil fuel somewhere along the power chain, but I imagine the efficiency isn't much worse than bus routes - and it's not like they need to target the exact same use case, either.

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

#128

Post by TylerE » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:55 PM UTC

damoncali wrote: post #48

fghh45sdfhr3 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of car sickness is thanks to the driver. And if a good enough software could drive without causing car sickness?

For me, it is a side effect of some problems with my vision. I hear it is curable with vison therapy, but that is quite expensive.

That's actually really interesting.

I've always worn glasses but my vision has gotten progressively worse as I've aged - it's not bad, even now, I can legally drive without glasses - but it's enough to be noticeable.

I also was much less prone to motion sickness when I was younger - I would happily read full novels while riding along as a grade schooler.

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

#129

Post by dclowd9901 » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:57 PM UTC

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.

Seconded. I can take road trips like crazy, but hop in the Mountain View Caltrain shuttles with their crap drivers on a warm day, and I seriously feel like I could lose my lunch.

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

#130

Post by Cushman » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 10:00 PM UTC

ShabbyDoo wrote: post #120

>Google warns that “there’s still a long road ahead.” The cars >still need to learn how to handle snow-covered roads, ... What if the car was smart enough to identify situations where it was unable to auto-navigate safely? It could pull-over and ask the human to take-over for awhile. I would rather see a mostly capable self-driving car come to market sooner than wait around for near perfection. On this note, it seems…

> What if the car was smart enough to identify situations where it was unable to auto-navigate safely? It could pull-over and ask the human to take-over for awhile.

This is precisely what the Google car does, in fact.