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Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

wsj.com

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Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#141

Post by niccaluim »

akamaka wrote: post #105
lbenes wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language is organic and constantly changing. I used to insist on calling my drone, a remote controlled quadcopter, as drones were those autonomous military vehicles dropping bombs on weddings in the Middle East. But everyone now from the news to the FAA calls my little RC toy, a drone. Sure, it bothers me to watch words like self-driving and hoverboard lose their meaning. If someone as influential as Obama can't prot…

When you put it that way, it's really interesting to think of it as a language shift rather than just a question of marketing honesty. If the average person describes the car he already owns as "self-driving", perhaps that will accelerate acceptance of real driverless cars.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if these are the same people who call the picture on their desktop their "screensaver."

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#142

Post by superuser2 »

kazinator wrote: post #127
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor blinker usage drives me nuts. Yes, there are some cases where, well, stuff happens. A driver forgets until the last minute. Many times I see them hit the blinker a split second after they've changed lanes. But far more frequently, I see the driver who is drifting between lanes at will, without thinking of the blinker, and seemingly without a care in the world. This is disturbing, especially since if I'm seeing t…

If you want to cut in, gaining an advantage over traffic, it behooves you to keep your intent undisclosed. Some drivers in the advantaged lane will make it difficult to merge if they see the intent, by closing the gaps. (Those who make it easy are enablers of cutting-in behavior, despised by everyone). It's safer if you don't announce your intent; you don't want to be encouraging the driver in the target lane to be t…

This is fucking ridiculous. Surely all drivers have to change lanes at some point to get where they're going; why do they all actively attempt to thwart other drivers from getting into the lanes they need?

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#144

Post by jmiserez »

lbenes wrote: post #87
akamaka wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame Elon Musk for this shift in the meaning of "self-driving". It used to be a term that was only applied to driverless cars, but last year Elon announced that they plan to make the Tesla a self-driving car at the same time as announcing similar driver assistance features. While Tesla's driver assistance features are much more advanced than these, it's not much of a stretch after Elon already fired the first mark…

Language is organic and constantly changing. I used to insist on calling my drone, a remote controlled quadcopter, as drones were those autonomous military vehicles dropping bombs on weddings in the Middle East. But everyone now from the news to the FAA calls my little RC toy, a drone. Sure, it bothers me to watch words like self-driving and hoverboard lose their meaning. If someone as influential as Obama can't prot…

Don't forget "hacker":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(term)#Hacker_definitio...

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#145

Post by jzwinck »

mikeash wrote: post #72
Alupis wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are very, very good at handling unknown complex situations. In order for any AI to handle any situation, it must first be programmed to do so. If that situation was an unknown, you get undefined behavior. Undefined behavior in a car traveling down the road is not a good thing to place a bet on... especially your life. This is why majority of sane driverless vehicle talk has concluded a human driver must always…

Humans are mostly terrible at handling unknown complex situations on the road. For many human drivers on the roads right now, the response to a sudden weird situation is either going to be "brake heavily" or "swerve dangerously." You don't have to get "undefined behavior" in response to an unknown situation. The AI can simply default to braking to a stop in the absence of any better programmed alternative. This will…

Not only can a computer begin braking more promptly, it can brake more accurately. Many human drivers hit the brakes 100% when they sense danger, then the full force of braking startles them (no training), then they let off again. This can increase stopping distances dramatically.

Next up is per-wheel braking. Not just stability control, but actual directed thrust. The computer can control each wheel independently. Humans just have one brake pedal. Four wheel steering might even make a comeback.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#146

Post by malz »

jklowden wrote: post #94
ben1040 wrote: post #27

This looks like the "Sensing" feature that Honda has implemented on some of their other vehicles. I just bought a 2016 Accord that does the same thing -- there's a camera mounted on the windshield, another camera in the front grille, and a radar sensor on the front bumper. Calling it "self-driving" is kind of a misnomer and I think the article kind of blows it out of proportion. It will track the car in front of you…

Free-market ideology if you ask me. The first sentence suggests the hapless government wants to spent $4 billion on research for something you you can have today for $20K. A little later it mentions Washington's "time and billions" spent on fuel-efficiency instead of "saving lives". The government has also funded electric-car research and encouraged Detroit to build them. Contrasting self-driving with electric drive…

Also the $4b isn't for research, it's for regulation and testing, according to

http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self...

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#147

Post by JonFish85 »

dsmithatx wrote: post #106
jklowden wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free-market ideology if you ask me. The first sentence suggests the hapless government wants to spent $4 billion on research for something you you can have today for $20K. A little later it mentions Washington's "time and billions" spent on fuel-efficiency instead of "saving lives". The government has also funded electric-car research and encouraged Detroit to build them. Contrasting self-driving with electric drive…

It was stupid for this article to start talking about the $4 billion Obama has talked about for research. This article is about features and not a real self driving car. If anything the features make this car very dangerous in the hands of people concerned with their phones and tablets and kind of proves the need for investments like the $4 billion. To me it sounds like the free market is about to make the road damn…

In cases like these, if a collision occurs, who is at fault? Presumably it is the "driver", especially in this case, right? But if/when this gets into the court system, when do people start going after the "self-driving" manufacturers, who have much, much deeper pockets than your average car owner.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#148

Post by vkou »

kazinator wrote: post #127
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor blinker usage drives me nuts. Yes, there are some cases where, well, stuff happens. A driver forgets until the last minute. Many times I see them hit the blinker a split second after they've changed lanes. But far more frequently, I see the driver who is drifting between lanes at will, without thinking of the blinker, and seemingly without a care in the world. This is disturbing, especially since if I'm seeing t…

If you want to cut in, gaining an advantage over traffic, it behooves you to keep your intent undisclosed. Some drivers in the advantaged lane will make it difficult to merge if they see the intent, by closing the gaps. (Those who make it easy are enablers of cutting-in behavior, despised by everyone). It's safer if you don't announce your intent; you don't want to be encouraging the driver in the target lane to be t…

> (Those who make it easy are enablers of cutting-in behavior, despised by everyone).

Heaven forbid we want to avoid a collision, instead of tailgating, so that you can get to wherever you're going two seconds sooner.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#149

Post by bliti »

chiph wrote: post #138
bliti wrote: post #126

The elephant in the room is this one: When will highways be upgraded/updated for self driving? I don't mean V2I (vehicle to infrastructure) capabilities, but properly painted and maintained lane lines, reflectors, and signage. The infrastructure is just not there. You can't simply rely on a car's sensing abilities for self driving.

That $4bn could go a fair way towards developing a longer-lasting highway paint, then restriping the interstates with it.

I think the current paint is OK, it just needs to be serviced. It might be a good idea to include the V2I sensors in the paint itself due to its thickness (I've measured the lane lines locally and they are about 10mm thick). But the basic maintenance is key. This is a bureaucratic problem due to how infrastructure maintenance is used as a political tool (politicians in power usually advertise how public works generate n jobs). The problem here is not the actual tech, but the politics. The tech will eventually get there. The politics? Good luck with that...

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#150

Post by elif »

kazinator wrote: post #15

Americans could rather use a robot highway driving instructor. "Consider moving over to the right line; you're driving at the speed limit, and a speeding car is approaching; you may confirm this in the rear-view mirror." "I have detected that you came to a full stop at the end of a generous freeway entrance ramp in light traffic. Suggested future action: look over the shoulder as early as possible and match the speed…

My reaction is the complete opposite.

I see people buying these $20k safe cars for their teenage children, who will be

1) less skilled as drivers

2) feel empowered to push the limits of impaired driving

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