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Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

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Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#311

Post by sown »

Theodores wrote: post #152
prawn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, one of my first thoughts was about how much I enjoy road trips. But realistically, the bits I don't enjoy are having my attention pegged to the road and my foot to the pedals. A driverless car still leaves that progression through the landscape, the scenery, the togetherness. Taking your family on a road trip where the travel was in a capsule with two bench seats facing each other, and a table between, would be…

Sounds like you are waiting for the VW Camper Van version to come out. However, if you could sleep and drive there could be a whole new class of commuters cluttering up the roads on 4-8 hour commutes, or a whole new breed of tourists that set the car to drive through the night to the next destination so they wake up somewhere different, outside some cafe for brekkie.

> or a whole new breed of tourists that set the car to drive through the night to the next destination so they wake up somewhere different, outside some cafe for brekkie.

Or, maybe there'll be a 'random' button; the car surprises you about where it intends on going.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#312

Post by Thlom »

cylinder wrote: post #276
Touche wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see an actual study on this. There are only a few cities in the U.S. where public transportation is good enough to get by without one and while those are typically big cities they aren't big enough to compensate for the number of cities with poor public transportation.

I came from a car-dependent city to NYC, which is one of those cities where being car-free is less of a hassle than owning a car. However, I still want a car. No, I do not want to have one car for each person in my family. No, I do not want a massive SUV. No, I don't want to commute by car (hate traffic). I want a simple hatchback or wagon that I can use on weekends to haul stuff, I want to be able to drive to the be…

If it's not too long you could try a (electric) cargobike to get groceries etc. :)

But yes, cars are necessary sometimes. We need a solution for people who only need a car a couple of times a month or less. A fleet of self driving cars you can rent perhaps? Like a taxi service without the driver.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#313

Post by Joeri »

Touche wrote: post #236
e98cuenc wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is (indirectly) to me. I often visit the US, and I'm always amazed that I can't seem to go anywhere walking. The distances to go anywhere are huge. It seems to be that way because cities in the US where designed / build with cars in mind. In Europe cities were obviously not build with cars in mind, and as a result I enjoy here a much higher density of amenities (and suffer much worse driving conditions / parking t…

> It is (indirectly) to me. I often visit the US, and I'm always amazed that I can't seem to go anywhere walking. The distances to go anywhere are huge. It seems to be that way because cities in the US where designed / build with cars in mind. Huh, why would you think that? I'm not sure there's a major city in the U.S. that wasn't already a major city pre-car. And cities weren't redesigned post-car, that's why a lot…

I visited orlando last year, and it was impossible to get anywhere on foot, mostly due to distance but often also because pedestrians had not been taken into account in the road planning process. In fact, there was a large shopping mall visible across the road from our hotel, but no allowances had been made for crossing that road in anything but a vehicle, so we had to take a taxi to get there, or 2 buses.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#314

Post by gambiting »

ams6110 wrote: post #306
hyperbovine wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are blowing the post you are responding to far out of proportion. (Who said anything about self-driving cars becoming mandatory?) Your whole comment seems to be spoiling for a fight where none was sought, which is much more disagreeable to me as an HN reader than any of the other behaviors you mention.

You can bet that as soon as they solve all the technical problems, Google will be lobbying to make them mandatory.

Even if they don't lobby for them, insurance will very quickly make them the only option. Eventually, insurance cost for manual cars will be many times greater than the one for self-driving cars, making all manual cars prohibitively expensive to drive - and then after another decade or two of that, the percentage of manual cars left on the market will be so tiny,that they will be banned altogether, restricted to race tracks and private property.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#315

Post by dzhiurgis »

jeremyjh wrote: post #289
dzhiurgis wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything relating to public transportation will be the major pain point. It is heavily regulated, subsidised, unionised, etc. London isn't able to replace ticket sellers with machines yet, so you can imagine how long it will take to replace the drivers. Alternatively, they will see this a profit eating activity and resist until the people wouldn't take it anymore.

When I was in London in 2009 I bought metro and surface train tickets from a machine.

Humans are still an option. And there are few other roles that are redundant, but every two months workers strike to keep them.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#316

Post by hippee-lee »

revelation wrote: post #192

The comments here are rather disappointing. It doesn't have manual controls? Well thats the point! I want to leave my crap in it and paint it some ugly color? Get with the times, young people already opt to not own cars. I can't double park in the city? Why are you imposing your steel box on people living in cities, many of which do not own cars and want walkable streets? I mean, this is the news website for a startu…

What about driving for fun? Please note, fun has no correlation to speed when it comes to driving.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#317

Post by swalsh »

Oculus wrote: post #30

Tesla (or insert company willing to go big on electric cars) and Google really need to team up on this. Self driving cars have the potential to completely do away with owning personal cars. Imagine a new public/private service that allows people to travel where & when they want without having to deal with the hassles or cost of owning a car. With the added centralization, the headaches that electric cars cause can be…

I'm reminded of a talk I attended about entrepreneurship by the founder of zip cars. She talked about how everyone she talked to would suggest she partnered with car companies. So that's what she did. She would go around talking to all these car companies, and then tell potential investors that's exactly what she was doing. It made for a great story.

Of course the truth was, in the meetings the car companies had no interest in working with her. From their point of view, zip car was a threat to their business. The little bit of money they may make from an exclusive contract would be smaller then all the people who might have bought cars, but didn't.

But the story about the meetings was nice.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#318

Post by sanderjd »

hippee-lee wrote: post #316
revelation wrote: post #192

The comments here are rather disappointing. It doesn't have manual controls? Well thats the point! I want to leave my crap in it and paint it some ugly color? Get with the times, young people already opt to not own cars. I can't double park in the city? Why are you imposing your steel box on people living in cities, many of which do not own cars and want walkable streets? I mean, this is the news website for a startu…

What about driving for fun? Please note, fun has no correlation to speed when it comes to driving.

I suspect people who like to drive for fun will continue doing so, and that eventually it will be a fairly uncommon novelty, like horseback riding.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#319

Post by drbawb »

bitL wrote: post #216

One of the few pleasures of modern world is now slowly being removed! :-D I guess I will treasure my memories of driving Lamborghini Murcielago over 200mph forever and will tell my grandchildren there was a time when you actually could drive a car yourself! And to those that argue young people don't want to own the car - it's mostly about not wanting to spend your life commuting, hunting parking spots or in traffic j…

Many people also seem to be under the mistaken impression that GPS provides sane routes for 100% of the driving you'd ever need to do.

Every summer I visit a shooting range at the end of a handmade [grass/dirt] road that has no mailing address.

Even if I could program that route into a self-driving car: it can be a very difficult road for a skilled driver to navigate in a truck. You have to know where the ruts are, what angle to have the wheels at [lest you get stuck], where the soft spots are [after a rain], etc.

Attempting it in a 4-door sedan loaded down w/ firearms is another matter entirely [unless you like picking grass out of your radiator.]

For some reason: I can't imagine engineers from California have given much thought to this particular use-case.

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Google Maps can't even figure out my morning commute. Google would have me take a _non-existent road_ up to a drainage ditch. Then I'd need to scale a 60% grade up to the chainlink fence that surrounds _the rear_ of my building.

I'll reiterate: I drive a 4 door sedan w/ a 4 cylinder engine... even if I managed the hill I don't know what Google expects me to do about the fence.

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I'm not saying driverless cars can't overcome these challenges. After all the TerraMax[1] was built by a Wisconsin company.

Not everyone wants to own a brutish truck when a bit of human ingenuity can get a Ford Ka through the muds[2] just fine. ;-)

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraMax_(vehicle) [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66yISwURzE4

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#320

Post by michaelrwolfe1 »

gambiting wrote: post #314
ams6110 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can bet that as soon as they solve all the technical problems, Google will be lobbying to make them mandatory.

Even if they don't lobby for them, insurance will very quickly make them the only option. Eventually, insurance cost for manual cars will be many times greater than the one for self-driving cars, making all manual cars prohibitively expensive to drive - and then after another decade or two of that, the percentage of manual cars left on the market will be so tiny,that they will be banned altogether, restricted to race…

What is your reasoning for why insuring manual cars would be any more expensive than it is now? If anything, it would be less expensive since those cars are sharing the road with safer self-driving cars.
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