Why doesn't Google just buy Tesla already?
I always though Tesla's were going the no-brainer for driverless cars.
Nissan pledges commercially viable autonomous drive by 2020.
31–40 of 83 posts
Re: Nissan pledges commercially viable autonomous drive by 2020.
#32"Work is already underway in Japan to build a dedicated autonomous driving proving ground, to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2014. Featuring real townscapes - masonry not mock-ups - it will be used to push vehicle testing beyond the limits possible on public roads to ensure the technology is safe." Meanwhile Google has driven +200K miles on real highways and streets with their autonomous car.
> Google has driven +200K miles on real highways and streets
I have got to say, I am pretty amazed they have managed to swing that. Permission to drive autonomous robot cars around the everyday streets of litigation and safety-obsessed California? An accomplishment of equal size to any one technical challenge in the car's making, I would say!
Re: Nissan pledges commercially viable autonomous drive by 2020.
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I stated to the reply above yours; we're not talking about replacing all cars on the road with automated cars overnight. We're talking about selling automated cars alongside regular cars. So your argument doesn't really hold water. Yes if we had an automated car ready to replace everyone's normal car, we'd start saving tons of lives tomorrow and I'd be a monster for opposing it. But that's not reality, that's not…
You're not alone, but the reality is that the automated cars might react to the human drivers much more quickly than the other way around.
I am sure that the automated drivers will react faster, but the problem is that they can only react to events they have been programmed to react to and only in the ways they have been programmed to react.
There's no ensuring either of:
a) It will react to everything that it needs to react to / not react to things that it shouldn't.
b) It will react in the proper way when it does react.
This is the problem.
Like I said if it were all automated drivers on the road, I think we'd have a really amazing safety record. But the problem is that with human drivers and automated drivers on the road, the human drivers are going to do all kinds of stupid shit, and how much of it will be reacted to properly? I don't know.
It seems to me most people on HN significantly underestimate the complexity of solving this problem of automated drivers alongside human ones.
Plus, I am also uncomfortable with training human drivers to just trust the computer and pay no attention to what's going on around them. I think that's the worst outcome of automated drivers.
Re: Nissan pledges commercially viable autonomous drive by 2020.
#34Cars are way too dangerous. We accept the absurdly high number of injuries and deaths they cause only by lack of a better mean of transportation.
I hope self-driving cars will have hyper-efficient safety mechanisms, especially to protect pedestrians and bikers, not just the car's passengers. This would be a huge progress for humanity.
Re: Nissan pledges commercially viable autonomous drive by 2020.
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I politely disagree. Having driven next to self-driving cars for the past few years in the bay area, in my opinion they are far more competent than most drivers. They don't stop tracking the road to put on makeup or check their phone. They don't get distracted by the kids in the back seat. They have their sensors on the road constantly, and not just in front of them. They don't have blind spots. Will bugs happen even…
I don't think you read what I wrote. I said people are terrible drivers. I think likely a fleet of all automated cars will be safer than a fleet of human drivers. The problem comes in the interaction between automated drivers and human drivers. Among other things.
The thing is, you're trying to say that automated cars are a bad idea, but all the arguments you make actually militate for getting rid of the humans ASAP!
Re: Nissan pledges commercially viable autonomous drive by 2020.
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you seen car accident stats? I'll concede that bugs do occur, but it would take some serious failure to make it any worse than the average driver. Even decent or good drivers are not that great, especially when you factor in distraction, tiredness, poor judgement of road conditions, etc.
If you were to replace every human driven car on the road with only autonomous cars, I will agree with you that the accident rate would likely be much lower over all. But there's two problems here: 1) We won't be replacing all the cars overnight. The problem comes with the interaction between terrible human drivers doing wildly unpredictable, insane things and the inflexible, unadaptable automated cars. And 2) I'm no…
The truth is our lives are in the hands of more software programs than we may care to admit.
Re: Nissan pledges commercially viable autonomous drive by 2020.
#37"Work is already underway in Japan to build a dedicated autonomous driving proving ground, to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2014. Featuring real townscapes - masonry not mock-ups - it will be used to push vehicle testing beyond the limits possible on public roads to ensure the technology is safe." Meanwhile Google has driven +200K miles on real highways and streets with their autonomous car.
> Google has driven +200K miles on real highways and streets I have got to say, I am pretty amazed they have managed to swing that. Permission to drive autonomous robot cars around the everyday streets of litigation and safety-obsessed California? An accomplishment of equal size to any one technical challenge in the car's making, I would say!
As I understand, they didn't ask permission. They simply announced one day that they'd been doing it for a year, and then lobbied California to legalize it afterwards. Given the potential benefits of being the state that makes autonomous cars a thing, I imagine it was an easy sell.
Re: Nissan pledges commercially viable autonomous drive by 2020.
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you seen car accident stats? I'll concede that bugs do occur, but it would take some serious failure to make it any worse than the average driver. Even decent or good drivers are not that great, especially when you factor in distraction, tiredness, poor judgement of road conditions, etc.
If you were to replace every human driven car on the road with only autonomous cars, I will agree with you that the accident rate would likely be much lower over all. But there's two problems here: 1) We won't be replacing all the cars overnight. The problem comes with the interaction between terrible human drivers doing wildly unpredictable, insane things and the inflexible, unadaptable automated cars. And 2) I'm no…
the interaction between terrible human drivers doing wildly unpredictable, insane things and the inflexible, unadaptable automated cars.
There are only so many things bad human drivers can do, the physics is pretty limiting. It isn't like they can teleport in front of another car. Even the craziest things like opposing traffic jumping the median into oncoming traffic isn't all that crazy, it isn't conceptually different from a deer jumping in front of a car.
I'm not comfortable with dying or being injured due to a software error regardless of whether its likelihood is higher or lower.
Hard to argue with that.
Re: Nissan pledges commercially viable autonomous drive by 2020.
#39Meanwhile... California is trying to build a 100 billion dollar bullet-train boondogle that will be ready in 20 years. By that point our efficient electric cars will be able to link together in high speed freeway 'trains'. What if that money was invested in developing the autonomous cars? The public thinks everyone else is going to ride the train and free the highway up for them... what a waste.
While this is a good idea in theory, i'd say the autonomous highway isn't going to work well if you give grandma the option to tap on the brakes when she gets nervous.
The thing is that autonomous cars should just not allow it, like in the word autonomous.
Re: Nissan pledges commercially viable autonomous drive by 2020.
#40"Work is already underway in Japan to build a dedicated autonomous driving proving ground, to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2014. Featuring real townscapes - masonry not mock-ups - it will be used to push vehicle testing beyond the limits possible on public roads to ensure the technology is safe." Meanwhile Google has driven +200K miles on real highways and streets with their autonomous car.
> Google has driven +200K miles on real highways and streets I have got to say, I am pretty amazed they have managed to swing that. Permission to drive autonomous robot cars around the everyday streets of litigation and safety-obsessed California? An accomplishment of equal size to any one technical challenge in the car's making, I would say!
There is a real driver behind the wheel ready to take control at anytime.