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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'

#51

Post by robbrown451 »

wwweston wrote: post #32

Opinion: level 5 autonomy would be cool, but it's not where most of the value of self-driving cars is. Most of the value in being able to travel by auto without attention is in trips longer than 15 minutes. Commutes, tourism, vacations. Shipping. Most of which is certainly highway driving. If it's possible to automate highway driving under most conditions (and safely transition either to a stop or human-piloting when…

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 far more efficient of resources to have cars be used most fo the day, rather than sitting idle.

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

#52

Post by toast0 »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #14
shrubble wrote: post #8

If we put a wire in the road or maybe rfid tags every 40 feet, we could easily have self driving cars. However that would mean that everyone would have access to it. The idea of self driving cars now is, a winner take all situation where whichever funded effort that succeeds, generates outsized profits from licensing or going public at a high valuation.

Staying inside a lane isn't the hard problem.

To elaborate on this, camera based lane keeping systems are readily available and generally work well if the lane markings are in good enough condition and aren't obscured by snow.

A signal embedded in the pavement wouldn't be subject to wear, but it would make adjusting lanes much more difficult (if you've driven in the bay area, you've probably noticed lane lines moved back and forth for construction pretty regularly) and it would actually be worse in the snow/ice --- a consensus lane appears which may not follow the marked alignment, and following the marked alignment would involve driving over accumulated snow and ice.

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

#53

Post by [deleted] »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #44
rgbrenner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a summary of his entire background in order: Formula 1 engineer for many years; Technical director for a Le Mans Prototype vehicle; Head of VWs self driving division for the past 1 year. He has no software background... he specializes in making gas cars go fast. He has no idea how to make a self driving car.. and honestly, why would we think he would? He hasn't exactly been pioneering vision systems, or anythi…

> He has no software background... Yeah, because making Formula 1 cars "go fast" involves no software whatsoever, right? I love how you dismiss "Formula 1 engineer for many years". Maybe if he helped build a payment processor we could take him seriously. > He has no idea how to make a self driving car.. and honestly, why would we think he would? Because he's running the autonomous car division of the biggest automake…

[deleted]

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

#54

Post by robbrown451 »

waynecochran wrote: post #43

The technology is not the only problem. The lawyers that are defending every dead body, and there will be dead bodies, that will sink self-driving cars. Even if everyone is 95% safer with self-driving cars, those that are killed by a self-driving car (in combo with a public that is easily swayed with non-objective arguments) will be hard to dismiss.

I don't understand this. If there are 1/20th the amount of deaths, how is that going to sink self driving cars?

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

#55

Post by mattlutze »

wwweston wrote: post #32

Opinion: level 5 autonomy would be cool, but it's not where most of the value of self-driving cars is. Most of the value in being able to travel by auto without attention is in trips longer than 15 minutes. Commutes, tourism, vacations. Shipping. Most of which is certainly highway driving. If it's possible to automate highway driving under most conditions (and safely transition either to a stop or human-piloting when…

There's a fantastic amount of value in cities and urban areas. Self-driving cars can work as a massive network to reduce or eliminate congestion and give people back hundreds of millions of hours spent stuck in traffic.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/22/us/traffic-commute-gridlo...

They can also, if Level 5 becomes a thing, reduce traffic collisions. And if they all end up electric, through route optimization they can significantly reduce energy consumption requirements for vehicle usage.

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

#56

Post by bobthepanda »

wwweston wrote: post #32

Opinion: level 5 autonomy would be cool, but it's not where most of the value of self-driving cars is. Most of the value in being able to travel by auto without attention is in trips longer than 15 minutes. Commutes, tourism, vacations. Shipping. Most of which is certainly highway driving. If it's possible to automate highway driving under most conditions (and safely transition either to a stop or human-piloting when…

> If it's possible to automate highway driving under most conditions (and safely transition either to a stop or human-piloting when those conditions aren't met), then at least 80% of the value is there.

Given that planes, which rely on a class of specifically trained professionals with minimum hour requirements, still have issues with this from time to time, I don't think this is a realistic thing for cars.

Driving standards, at least in the US, are very low, and raising them is a hard problem.

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

#57

Post by threeseed »

rgbrenner wrote: post #23
dx034 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's the CEO of the self driving car division. I'm pretty sure he's well aware of their tech.

Here's a summary of his entire background in order: Formula 1 engineer for many years; Technical director for a Le Mans Prototype vehicle; Head of VWs self driving division for the past 1 year. He has no software background... he specializes in making gas cars go fast. He has no idea how to make a self driving car.. and honestly, why would we think he would? He hasn't exactly been pioneering vision systems, or anythi…

So much ignorance and inaccuracies in one comment.

(a) He was the Head of F1 Development and Advanced Technologies which involves significant software exposure. F1 has a ridiculous amount of software both on car and in the factory to process all of the sensor data and design future cars. I've first hand seen their streaming big data stacks and they are on par with anything you will see at a top tier startup.

(b) He was the Head of Product Design for Apple's Car and we know they were going to have autonomous capabilities as well as hundreds of ML models powering AR, Maps, facial recognition etc. If you think you can get away without deeply understanding software whilst leading a major Apple project then you really don't understand how that company works.

(c) He's the CEO of VW Autonomy. He doesn't even need to be an expert in software. He just needs to be able to listen to his engineers.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-hitzinger-2163a035

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

#58

Post by dpflan »

DasIch wrote: post #48
wwweston wrote: post #32

Opinion: level 5 autonomy would be cool, but it's not where most of the value of self-driving cars is. Most of the value in being able to travel by auto without attention is in trips longer than 15 minutes. Commutes, tourism, vacations. Shipping. Most of which is certainly highway driving. If it's possible to automate highway driving under most conditions (and safely transition either to a stop or human-piloting when…

This 80% solution already exists in the form of trains and airplanes. Self-driving cars that only go 80% of the way would compete against those forms of transportation which have established business models, networks and in the case of trains are subsidized in a way that self-driving cars likely won't ever be. Additionally the key advantage of cars is flexibility, not having to figure out how to get to or from the tr…

Yes, the tremendous capital influx into AV could probably support advances in trains and rail infrastructure. Yet, we will chase after this idea — it receives copious media attention because it is technically challenging and is “sci-fi” idealism that is hard to mitigate and feels like a good idea for society. Also, the investments seem like chasing after what everyone else is chasing after (FOMO); an automaker would find it difficult to “pivot” from vehicle production to advancing rail (competition) so capital will be stuck in that industry.

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

#59

Post by javiramos »

lukifer wrote: post #50
wwweston wrote: post #32

Opinion: level 5 autonomy would be cool, but it's not where most of the value of self-driving cars is. Most of the value in being able to travel by auto without attention is in trips longer than 15 minutes. Commutes, tourism, vacations. Shipping. Most of which is certainly highway driving. If it's possible to automate highway driving under most conditions (and safely transition either to a stop or human-piloting when…

I think self-parking (as in “go find a space, possibly auto-paying”, not auto-parallel-parking) could also be a game-changer, not only for convenience and cost, but even zoning and city planning.

Lots of innovation and investment happening in this space. Expect parking lots in ~5-10 years to look very different — a lot of automation is coming.

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

#60

Post by pts_ »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #27
ogre_codes wrote: post #21

This is arguably one of the biggest competitive advantages Tesla has. For $47,000 I can get an EV from Tesla with a better self-driving system[1] than a $100k Audi, BMW, Mercedes, or Lexus. I haven’t pulled the trigger on a Tesla yet, but I can’t imagine paying $40,000+ on a new car that isn’t a Tesla right now. For many people Tesla has made EV and self-driving table-stakes and nobody else is delivering on that. [1]…

>>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.
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