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The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

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Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#401

Post by Sammi »

jameshart wrote: post #343
ignostic wrote: post #209

Everyone seems really concerned with the edge cases right now. What about insurance and liability? What about when X happens and it's raining? These are (usually pretty minor) technical challenges, and I haven't heard one yet that we won't be able to overcome with today's technology. Under given circumstances the car will be safer than a human or it isn't. The moment it crosses that threshold (for most conditions) th…

"a full network of communicating cars and fail-safes" is a long way away, though. And to get there you have to go through a long period of some self-driving cars, sharing the road with old-fashioned human piloted ones. As a human driver, I spend a lot of my time anticipating the behavior of my fellow road-users. That car coming up from the side street - did they see me? They're on their phone, maybe they didn't see m…

Self driving cars see 360 around themselves at all times. Real world data is used to train self tuning algorithms that drive the cars. These cars see everything and they know everything about how irrationally other human drivers are, and they don't take any chances. They drive slowly when they identify a danger, and they react almost immediately when there is a surprise, compared to the relatively sluggish reactions of humans. And humans make mistakes, lapses in judgement, are tired, and take stupid chances all the time. Self driving cars drive perfectly all the time. Sure they can't do much if someone deliberately drives into them, but it won't be their fault.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#402

Post by mattbessey »

BrandonMarc wrote: post #309
Joeri wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, choose to have a dedicated vehicle then. But don't be surprised when the majority of people refuse to pay 100% of the price for a vehicle they only use 3% of the time.

Interestingly, people pay 100% the price of a microwave oven, which is usually used just a few minutes per day. Going that direction ... Did you know? A typical microwave oven uses massively more electricity simply powering the LED clock compared to the amount it uses actually cooking food.

[citation needed]. I can't find any information to verify this.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#403

Post by icebraining »

genericone wrote: post #331
15characterlimi wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not a great idea to stop on the highway.

In a driver-less future, all cars communicate their intents to other nearby cars, stopping on a highway will be as safe as pulling over on a shoulder is today. It will feel dangerous, and it will be unsettling knowing cars are passing you by at speed, but the driver-less aspect of all cars ensures a high degree of safety. That would be the result in the long term. But in this transition period TO driverless cars, I a…

I believe car-to-car communication and auto-slowing-down based on that will come much sooner than driverless cars (US regulators are already talking about making V2V communications mandatory by 2017), so by the time the first driverless cars are sold, it'll probably be reasonably safe to slow down on the highway.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#404

Post by gedrap »

gbog wrote: post #377
john_b wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Since when do we need multi tons machine to move a being that is usually below 100kg from a to b" You don't always need them. Short intra-city drives don't require a large vehicle. But most public transportation in the US is rather poor, so people buy a car that will cover their worst case usage: driving multiple people and their luggage between cities, possibly hundreds of miles. An electric egg car isn't safe or…

> People buy large cars in the U.S. simply because they are useful. You surely know that this cannot be true. In China, again, many rich people buy expensive luxury cars, and really have no need for them, except if you include "social status" in "needs". I have a simple litmus test for detecting unneeded goods that people are trying to force into our minds: ads. We need normal food (neither fast nor organic), normal…

I am living in Beijing at the moment (Haidian), spent most of my life in Europe. I get what you mean and understand the efficiency of Chinese transport vehicles. But one huge thing you are missing is the cultural differences. They are pretty big.

>>>normal food (neither fast nor organic), normal shoes (not Nikes), a door on our house with keys, etc

I get what you mean. I spent a little time in the north-east Beijing villages and I know what you mean by minimality. But again, 'not normal' shoes will last longer. The house with a bit more than just doors will make you feel safer (or is just me a paranoid Westerner?).

Yes, there might be some lobbying and brain washing, as you call it. But as you can see, the culture is totally different. It's neither good nor bad. It's just the way it is.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#405

Post by joshgel »

DougWebb wrote: post #98
alextgordon wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People won't see it like that. If a human driver makes a mistake, it's "human error". If a robot driver makes a mistake it's criminal negligence -- because robots are capable of not making mistakes. In other words, robots are held to a higher standard than humans.

I don't think it's quite that... If a human driver makes a mistake, the driver is liable. If the car makes a mistake, the car manufacturer is liable. This is true today; if you're driving along and you swerve into someone/something, that's your fault. But if your wheel falls off because of a manufacturing defect the car company is going to get sued. The car company faces a much higher liability risk, because they're…

But regardless, isn't the total liability the same. N number of cars x N drivers paying for N insurance policies vs N number of cars x 20 car companies paying for N insurance policies.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#406

Post by phaemon »

mattbessey wrote: post #402
BrandonMarc wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, people pay 100% the price of a microwave oven, which is usually used just a few minutes per day. Going that direction ... Did you know? A typical microwave oven uses massively more electricity simply powering the LED clock compared to the amount it uses actually cooking food.

[citation needed]. I can't find any information to verify this.

Apparently a Microwave typically uses about 1.5W on standby, so that's: 24 * 3600 * 1.5 = 129600 Joules per day

So, if it draws about a kW in use, that means that if you use it for less than 130 seconds per day, or just under 2 minutes, you'll actually use more power on standby than on cooking / heating.

I think I use my microwave more than 2 mins each day, but there are days I don't use it at all, so I'm not sure how it would even out.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#407

Post by adav »

jameshart wrote: post #343
ignostic wrote: post #209

Everyone seems really concerned with the edge cases right now. What about insurance and liability? What about when X happens and it's raining? These are (usually pretty minor) technical challenges, and I haven't heard one yet that we won't be able to overcome with today's technology. Under given circumstances the car will be safer than a human or it isn't. The moment it crosses that threshold (for most conditions) th…

"a full network of communicating cars and fail-safes" is a long way away, though. And to get there you have to go through a long period of some self-driving cars, sharing the road with old-fashioned human piloted ones. As a human driver, I spend a lot of my time anticipating the behavior of my fellow road-users. That car coming up from the side street - did they see me? They're on their phone, maybe they didn't see m…

There's always a more cautious option in each of those scenarios. If the self-driving car always errs towards that, hopefully it'll mitigate disaster.

Following good driving principles to the letter - accounting for stopping distances etc, like in the Highway Code (UK) - will hopefully allow time for those unpredictable road users. Humans are more risky in that we give ourselves less time to react to begin with.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#408

Post by neolefty »

jameshart wrote: post #343
ignostic wrote: post #209

Everyone seems really concerned with the edge cases right now. What about insurance and liability? What about when X happens and it's raining? These are (usually pretty minor) technical challenges, and I haven't heard one yet that we won't be able to overcome with today's technology. Under given circumstances the car will be safer than a human or it isn't. The moment it crosses that threshold (for most conditions) th…

"a full network of communicating cars and fail-safes" is a long way away, though. And to get there you have to go through a long period of some self-driving cars, sharing the road with old-fashioned human piloted ones. As a human driver, I spend a lot of my time anticipating the behavior of my fellow road-users. That car coming up from the side street - did they see me? They're on their phone, maybe they didn't see m…

How about making eye contact? When I'm driving, eye contact & facial analysis ("did that person see me?") is significant in my risk assessment of other vehicles. That is, if I know that the other driver knows, then I don't have to worry as much. I will still be careful, but I don't have to be quite as wary.

It sounds like the equivalent of eye contact for automated traffic is the "full network of communicating cars", but there must be a middle ground with mixed traffic, where automated cars are extra-careful about manual vehicles. Will that be annoying or reassuring to other drivers?

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#409

Post by neolefty »

fernly wrote: post #378
TheEzEzz wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be at least 50 million residential garages in the US alone. If we automate all cars and switch to a Cars-as-a-Service model that is 50 million large rooms suddenly available. That's a lot of reclaimed real estate. Edit: If the average garage is 250 sq ft (pretty small), average cost of real estate is $100/sq ft (pretty low), then this is a $1.25 trillion windfall. Not bad for a small side-effect of autonom…

Yeah, but how many of those garages are packed full of stuff, with the car parked out in the driveway, anyway?

If you own your garage, I'll bet you'll fill it up pretty quickly. But people who pay extra rent for garage space will reduce their use. So there will be some extra space, if not 50 million.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#410

Post by neolefty »

pyoung wrote: post #344
dclowd9901 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is your insurance company. If you get in an accident, they're not going to want to pay for it, and they're going to go after Google for the damages. Now we're right back where we started.

Why couldn't Google just offer their own insurance plan? They could bundle the cost with a monthly or yearly service/maintenance fee. If the margins are so high on insurance products, I'm sure they would be more than happy to keep the profits themselves.

It depends on how they decide to hedge their own risk.

  Buy from an insurance agency = safe but more expensive.

  Self-insure = cheaper but riskier.
But what would they insure against? Individual accidents or class actions?
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