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The Driverless Car Revolution Should Not Begin with Cars

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Re: The Driverless Car Revolution Should Not Begin with Cars

#21

Post by andrewfong »

jorleif wrote: post #14
rickdale wrote: post #3

The only flaw I see with beginning with semi-trucks is the perception of driverless cars to the masses and the potential damage a driverless semi-truck accident could incur vs a driverless Prius or something smaller. Not saying there won't be a market for it in the trucking business, but seems smart to start on the smaller cars just for the sake of perceived safety.

Exactly what I thought. There is an awful lot of damage a semi-truck can do if things go wrong. But, then I realized, that there is not necessarily a need for the "trucks" to be big. Maybe you could go the Roomba route, and make them much smaller than traditional trucks, maybe even smaller than conventional cars. Since no driver is needed, you can scale out with many of them, rather than having one very large truck.…

If the trucks are small, they're no longer compatible with standard-sized shipping containers, which would throw up a significant barrier to adoption.

Re: The Driverless Car Revolution Should Not Begin with Cars

#22

Post by stretchwithme »

kposehn wrote: post #9

> Compared to driverless cars, driverless trucking is technically way simpler. When going from one warehouse in a sparsely populated area to a another warehouse in a similarly sparsly populated area, there’s a lot less that can go wrong. Not quite. Long haul trucking has far more things to go wrong than a short jaunt from two packed urban spots to another. A lot goes wrong on these trips. Flat tires, accidents, bad w…

I suspect a mile of highway has fewer hazards than a mile of Manhattan.

Trucking from the suburbs of a port city to the suburbs of another city could be 98% highway. Not many toddlers will be walking into traffic they way they might on a residential street.

Re: The Driverless Car Revolution Should Not Begin with Cars

#23

Post by andrewfong »

panic wrote: post #10

Why does it have to be a driverless car revolution? It seems more likely we'll get there incrementally, adding pieces of the experience one by one as safety features. Eventually, with all the safety features enabled, the car will be able to drive itself.

There was a post about this a couple weeks ago about why incremental change might actually be less safe than a "revolution". Basically, if a car can handle 90% of the scenarios it faces, the human driver would zone out and have difficulty responding to the remaining 10%, especially if there's little to no warning of when that 10% will happen.

Re: The Driverless Car Revolution Should Not Begin with Cars

#24

Post by akjj »

jorleif wrote: post #14
rickdale wrote: post #3

The only flaw I see with beginning with semi-trucks is the perception of driverless cars to the masses and the potential damage a driverless semi-truck accident could incur vs a driverless Prius or something smaller. Not saying there won't be a market for it in the trucking business, but seems smart to start on the smaller cars just for the sake of perceived safety.

Exactly what I thought. There is an awful lot of damage a semi-truck can do if things go wrong. But, then I realized, that there is not necessarily a need for the "trucks" to be big. Maybe you could go the Roomba route, and make them much smaller than traditional trucks, maybe even smaller than conventional cars. Since no driver is needed, you can scale out with many of them, rather than having one very large truck.…

There's a lot of cost in the mechanics of the truck and the fuel which make full-sized trucks more economical. Not to mention the convenience of not having to load and unload lots of small deliveries. I would be very surprised if self-driving mini-trucks were anywhere near economically competitive with human-driven semis.

Re: The Driverless Car Revolution Should Not Begin with Cars

#25

Post by tlb »

The major benefit of self-driving isn't saving the costs of a driver's salary, it's reducing accidents. Commercial truck drivers are skilled and alert, so it's hard to be safer than them. Average commuters are distracted and accident-prone, so you can reduce accidents with near-future technology.

Re: The Driverless Car Revolution Should Not Begin with Cars

#26

Post by danohuiginn »

kposehn wrote: post #9

> Compared to driverless cars, driverless trucking is technically way simpler. When going from one warehouse in a sparsely populated area to a another warehouse in a similarly sparsly populated area, there’s a lot less that can go wrong. Not quite. Long haul trucking has far more things to go wrong than a short jaunt from two packed urban spots to another. A lot goes wrong on these trips. Flat tires, accidents, bad w…

>the best start is short-haul intermodal

bingo. In container ports, long-distance drivers will generally dump their trailer to be shunted and loaded internally, and pick up another one. Separate cabs are attached to move things around within the port.

These could relatively easily become driverless. It's a highly controlled and automated environment. Every moment a ship is in the port costs money, so there's a big reward for improving reliability and shaving seconds off (un)load times. It might make financial sense even in Asian ports with low wage costs for drivers.

Same with mining or heavy industry. Where companies might now build their own railways, in the future they could build a road and run driverless trucks along it. Being outside of public road systems makes the legal situation easier, and you can always have a human jump in to drive the last mile.

Re: The Driverless Car Revolution Should Not Begin with Cars

#27

Post by cinquemb »

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #18
dlsx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the power of going on strike has been completely disintegrated with an automated fleet of trucks sitting back ready to be deployed. Disruption will come, and they won't be able to stop it.

He's not referring to a strike, but to politics.

Because strikes have never been used as political tools by organized labor groups…

Re: The Driverless Car Revolution Should Not Begin with Cars

#28

Post by sigstoat »

graylights wrote: post #16

Driverless trucks is a real opportunity that could save a lot of money in shipping. But it could be exploited. If a person walks out in front of a truck, the automated truck better stop. Which an unguarded truck would become easy to rob with little risk. A flat tire would mean the truck calls in for help and is stranded defenseless on the side of the road. That said a fair amount of loss could probably be absorbed wi…

by the time you're crazy enough to step out in front of any sort of semi in hopes it will stop, so you can rob it, i don't think you're doing risk calculations in a rational way.

Re: The Driverless Car Revolution Should Not Begin with Cars

#29

Post by tempestn »

andrewfong wrote: post #23
panic wrote: post #10

Why does it have to be a driverless car revolution? It seems more likely we'll get there incrementally, adding pieces of the experience one by one as safety features. Eventually, with all the safety features enabled, the car will be able to drive itself.

There was a post about this a couple weeks ago about why incremental change might actually be less safe than a "revolution". Basically, if a car can handle 90% of the scenarios it faces, the human driver would zone out and have difficulty responding to the remaining 10%, especially if there's little to no warning of when that 10% will happen.

Yes. Also, when a company knows it needs to design a 100% driverless car, safety will necessarily be the primary concern when designing the firmware. While that's theoretically the case regardless, recent Toyota fallout[1] shows that car companies perhaps aren't paying enough attention to this given that they have a human driver ultimately making the decisions.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6636811

Re: The Driverless Car Revolution Should Not Begin with Cars

#30

Post by danohuiginn »

graylights wrote: post #16

Driverless trucks is a real opportunity that could save a lot of money in shipping. But it could be exploited. If a person walks out in front of a truck, the automated truck better stop. Which an unguarded truck would become easy to rob with little risk. A flat tire would mean the truck calls in for help and is stranded defenseless on the side of the road. That said a fair amount of loss could probably be absorbed wi…

One human 'captain' for a convoy might make sense.
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