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Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

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Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#141

Post by brianwawok »

pts_ wrote: post #60
NikolaNovak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I can’t imagine paying $40,000+ on a new car that isn’t a Tesla right now It's personal & subjective, and nobody will persuade anybody in a thread, but FWIW I absolutely positively can. - I'm unlikely to utilize self-driving any time soon - The stories of their firmware terrify me. And I don't want a DAW and computer games running on my ECU :O - More pragmatically though, the Tesla UI paradigm is completely foreign…

They should look into how the US Navy switched back to physical switches from touch screens on ships for unambiguous commands.

Gas and steering are physical controls though.

Radio and other such features do not need dedicated buttons. Crazy how many buttons my normal car has.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#142

Post by jariel »

tylerrobinson wrote: post #106
jariel wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the contrary he should be admired for his candour. It's very easy for execs to talk up utopian smack, it's harder the other way around. I for one agree: L5 may not be viable for many decades at least, not with the tech we have. It may never happen because conditions will change to the point wherein it won't make sense. What is viable, that nobody really talks about are 'controlled areas' - for example, highways bu…

> Special roadways This is a point that always seems to be missing. All of our roads are/were constructed at a specific size with specific engineering requirements and specific materials. If we have a major change in the technology of the cars, it seems to be perfectly reasonable that we could have a new type of road to accommodate that. For example, before interstate highways it probably would have sounded strange t…

Not just materials: human drivers. Signage, sizes, safety tolerances. etc.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#143

Post by intended »

jasonjei wrote: post #128
baybal2 wrote: post #109

I think he is the one and only sane C-level person in the industry, after hearing this. People claiming most of AI hype barely know what the "AI" people mention is. And people who go as far as drawing rosy pictures of human like general AI being your personal chauffeur are past ridiculous. The entire idea of human-like general AI for practical applications is like trying to make people using horses for transport in 2…

I don’t think it’s impossible if certain roads/highways or lanes become marked as autonomous only. Just as pedestrians and bicycles are banned from using high-speed roads, manually-operated cars could be banned from using certain roads/lanes, removing a lot of variables that manually-operated cars bring.

Defeating the promise of automated driving, and underscoring the obviousness of its impossibility, since this is roughly as useful as a Tram.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#144

Post by petermcneeley »

jasonjei wrote: post #128
baybal2 wrote: post #109

I think he is the one and only sane C-level person in the industry, after hearing this. People claiming most of AI hype barely know what the "AI" people mention is. And people who go as far as drawing rosy pictures of human like general AI being your personal chauffeur are past ridiculous. The entire idea of human-like general AI for practical applications is like trying to make people using horses for transport in 2…

I don’t think it’s impossible if certain roads/highways or lanes become marked as autonomous only. Just as pedestrians and bicycles are banned from using high-speed roads, manually-operated cars could be banned from using certain roads/lanes, removing a lot of variables that manually-operated cars bring.

If you have to restrict to marked highways then you could have had this "self driving" technology in the 80s.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#145

Post by maxerickson »

lostlogin wrote: post #134
robbrown451 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree. Most of the value is in taxi services, where you get dropped off / picked up exactly where you want, there is no need to dedicate so much land and structures to parking, there is no need to have cars sit idle for 95% of their existence, and no need to search for parking spots and walk long distances. Of course, I live in a city, where parking is a major pain. But the other things still hold. It it…

> Most of the value is in taxi services I’m imagining how gross a taxi would be that doesn’t have a driver to provide passengers a low level of behaviour moderation.

It'll probably just be smooth, hard plastic.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#146

Post by ubertoop »

jasonjei wrote: post #128
baybal2 wrote: post #109

I think he is the one and only sane C-level person in the industry, after hearing this. People claiming most of AI hype barely know what the "AI" people mention is. And people who go as far as drawing rosy pictures of human like general AI being your personal chauffeur are past ridiculous. The entire idea of human-like general AI for practical applications is like trying to make people using horses for transport in 2…

I don’t think it’s impossible if certain roads/highways or lanes become marked as autonomous only. Just as pedestrians and bicycles are banned from using high-speed roads, manually-operated cars could be banned from using certain roads/lanes, removing a lot of variables that manually-operated cars bring.

I wish governments would consider the death and injury toll of manually driving, and fastlane (pun intended) infrastructure for self driving cars, such as specific roads and lanes.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#147

Post by 0xff00ffee »

I was at an ML conference in 2017 and the keynote speaker asked the audience how many years they thought it would be until ADAS lvl 5 was on the market. The keynote had proudly proclaimed 5 years, and then audibly scoffed when about 90% of the hands went up for "20 or more years". There's such a disconnect between real engineers and cheerleaders.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#148

Post by peteradio »

coolspot wrote: post #79
bobthepanda wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would they "reduce or eliminate congestion"? Congestion is inherently caused by too many people trying to go to or through the same place at the same time. That's not possible without reducing the amount of people trying to travel during a given time period in a given place.

When roads belong exclusively to self-driving cars, they can increase speed, reduce gaps between cars and eliminate traffic wave effect. Imagine highway where everyone drives 80mph with 5ft of distance between cars. No one suddenly changes lanes, no one suddenly slows down for no reason. Here is illustration from Waymo testing facility: https://youtu.be/hKfEivMfDPU

Lol that is going to lead to the mother of all pile-ups not if but when something just so slightly goes wrong. Imagine somebody dropping shit from an overpass or really anything. Better build a giant cage over all the highways!

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#149

Post by Geee »

simfoo wrote: post #115
Geee wrote: post #98

Volkswagen doesn't develop self-driving tech. They use Mobileye's solution like everyone expect Tesla, Waymo and GM/Cruise. They aren't really in the position to make that argument. Level 5 means that the car can drive autonomously > 95% of the time, and it will absolutely be possible. Level 4/5 distinction doesn't really make any sense once the autonomy gets beyond certain percentage. It doesn't mean that it's level…

This is not true. VW fully owns AID which is developing its level 4 stack. VW is also invested in Argo

I stand corrected. Still, VW is using MobilEye's tech in their ride-sharing service [0], which probably means that their own tech is not very close to the competitors.

[0] https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/volkswagen-mobileye...

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#150

Post by judge2020 »

lostlogin wrote: post #134
robbrown451 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree. Most of the value is in taxi services, where you get dropped off / picked up exactly where you want, there is no need to dedicate so much land and structures to parking, there is no need to have cars sit idle for 95% of their existence, and no need to search for parking spots and walk long distances. Of course, I live in a city, where parking is a major pain. But the other things still hold. It it…

> Most of the value is in taxi services I’m imagining how gross a taxi would be that doesn’t have a driver to provide passengers a low level of behaviour moderation.

This isn't much a problem in terms of self-driving, but solutions to this aren't hard; eg. someone could use the app before they enter a self-driving taxi to report that the car has stains, trash, food, etc. left in it. The company behind it could then queue it to be cleaned.
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