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Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

wsj.com

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Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#71

Post by prostoalex »

mikeash wrote: post #31

The article really wants to compare with electric vehicles, for some reason. The subheading says "they are being snapped up faster than electrified vehicles." This is repeated in the article, which says the relevant options packages "are being snapped up at a far higher rate than electrified vehicles." Discussing the Q50's technology package and how many buyers opt for it, it says "That’s three times as many people w…

WSJ editorial board does not like the electric vehicle, emission and carbon tax credits, considering it crony capitalism http://www.wsj.com/articles/voters-should-be-mad-at-electric...

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#72

Post by mikeash »

Alupis wrote: post #50
mchahn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and am currently in the middle of a 360. You have no faith in AI. The car will always be better at driving than the human. It would be much better at handling a 360 than a human ever could. Actually humans are very bad at handling 360s unless you are a pro.

Humans are very, very good at handling unknown complex situations. In order for any AI to handle any situation, it must first be programmed to do so. If that situation was an unknown, you get undefined behavior. Undefined behavior in a car traveling down the road is not a good thing to place a bet on... especially your life. This is why majority of sane driverless vehicle talk has concluded a human driver must always…

Humans are mostly terrible at handling unknown complex situations on the road.

For many human drivers on the roads right now, the response to a sudden weird situation is either going to be "brake heavily" or "swerve dangerously."

You don't have to get "undefined behavior" in response to an unknown situation. The AI can simply default to braking to a stop in the absence of any better programmed alternative. This will already put it on par with most drivers. Better, in fact, because the AI can begin braking instantly.

I personally find that the majority of driverless vehicle talk vastly overestimates the average human driver, and demands unreasonable perfection from the computers.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#73

Post by BrandonY »

Someone1234 wrote: post #11

Just for comparison, you can get a Subaru Legacy Premium with Eyesight for $25,835 (or a Crosstrek for thereabouts, and an Outback for $2-3K more), since at least summer 2015. So nothing Honda are doing here is revolutionary technologically, they're just bringing the same technology to a new market ($5K cheaper), which is still something. I highly recommend that if you invest in THIS technology that you go all in and…

I also really enjoy my Subaru EyeSight. I've only run into one terrible experience, and that is when I went into a automated car wash. As soon as the first big scrubby thing approached, the EyeSight flipped out and slammed on the brake, which was jolting and scary. Kind of obvious looking back on it, of course, and now I remember to turn it off when I wash my car.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#74

Post by mikeash »

MattHeard wrote: post #68
hmahncke wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed the same thing, and my guess is that the WSJ is generally dismissive of climate change risk, and against government incentives to combat climate change, and wanted to frame this article as what the government should be doing instead of encouraging hybrid/electric vehicles.

From the article: > After a decade of spending much of its time and billions focused on boosting fuel-efficiency, Washington is increasing its focus on technology that could save lives. This ignores that one of the justifications for fuel-efficiency regulation is the lives saved from reduced pollution.

And it's not like Washington has stopped its drive towards greater fuel efficiency either. What a weird attempted connection!

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#75

Post by [deleted] »

wmeredith wrote: post #41
mikeash wrote: post #31

The article really wants to compare with electric vehicles, for some reason. The subheading says "they are being snapped up faster than electrified vehicles." This is repeated in the article, which says the relevant options packages "are being snapped up at a far higher rate than electrified vehicles." Discussing the Q50's technology package and how many buyers opt for it, it says "That’s three times as many people w…

In the public mind EV = futuristic car. Self driving vehicle = futuristic car. The article author is either making the conflation to appeal to the audience or is similarly myopic.

[deleted]

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#76

Post by prostoalex »

kazinator wrote: post #15

Americans could rather use a robot highway driving instructor. "Consider moving over to the right line; you're driving at the speed limit, and a speeding car is approaching; you may confirm this in the rear-view mirror." "I have detected that you came to a full stop at the end of a generous freeway entrance ramp in light traffic. Suggested future action: look over the shoulder as early as possible and match the speed…

From personal experience a lot of people would benefit from Blinker Usage 101.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#77

Post by TrevorJ »

mchahn wrote: post #20
adekok wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normal desktop failure modes don't work well here. "Hi, this is your car. I've discovered that the road is icy, and am currently in the middle of a 360. Would you like to (a) take over, (b) call an ambulance, or (c) retry?" Too late! You've crashed.

> and am currently in the middle of a 360. You have no faith in AI. The car will always be better at driving than the human. It would be much better at handling a 360 than a human ever could. Actually humans are very bad at handling 360s unless you are a pro.

>The car will always be better at driving than the human.

I don't think this is true yet. We can interpret the incoming data incredibly well in ways the machine vision can't yet match. This is absolutely vital for driving. The difference between an empty trash bag in the road and a toddler in the road is a matter of vital importance, and correctly identifying the difference matters a lot.

Humans area actually capable of being incredibly good at driving. The problem is we are also incredibly unreliable.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#78

Post by gist »

Alupis wrote: post #50
mchahn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and am currently in the middle of a 360. You have no faith in AI. The car will always be better at driving than the human. It would be much better at handling a 360 than a human ever could. Actually humans are very bad at handling 360s unless you are a pro.

Humans are very, very good at handling unknown complex situations. In order for any AI to handle any situation, it must first be programmed to do so. If that situation was an unknown, you get undefined behavior. Undefined behavior in a car traveling down the road is not a good thing to place a bet on... especially your life. This is why majority of sane driverless vehicle talk has concluded a human driver must always…

> This is why majority of sane driverless vehicle talk has concluded a human driver must always be in the driver seat, ready to take control.

Would add also something that requires an actual driver to take the wheel periodically to not get lazy and forget what it's like to drive (as apparently what has happened with some airline pilots?)

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#79

Post by akamaka »

ben1040 wrote: post #27

This looks like the "Sensing" feature that Honda has implemented on some of their other vehicles. I just bought a 2016 Accord that does the same thing -- there's a camera mounted on the windshield, another camera in the front grille, and a radar sensor on the front bumper. Calling it "self-driving" is kind of a misnomer and I think the article kind of blows it out of proportion. It will track the car in front of you…

I blame Elon Musk for this shift in the meaning of "self-driving".

It used to be a term that was only applied to driverless cars, but last year Elon announced that they plan to make the Tesla a self-driving car at the same time as announcing similar driver assistance features.

While Tesla's driver assistance features are much more advanced than these, it's not much of a stretch after Elon already fired the first marketing shot by shifting the goalpost of what it means to be "self-driving" so much.

Re: Honda's $20k Civic LX now offers self-driving capability for highway use

#80

Post by muhfuhkuh »

prostoalex wrote: post #71
mikeash wrote: post #31

The article really wants to compare with electric vehicles, for some reason. The subheading says "they are being snapped up faster than electrified vehicles." This is repeated in the article, which says the relevant options packages "are being snapped up at a far higher rate than electrified vehicles." Discussing the Q50's technology package and how many buyers opt for it, it says "That’s three times as many people w…

WSJ editorial board does not like the electric vehicle, emission and carbon tax credits, considering it crony capitalism http://www.wsj.com/articles/voters-should-be-mad-at-electric...

It's just another one of the pile of vitriol against electric vehicles. Day after day, whenever someone mentions Tesla or Prius Plug-ins or the Nissan Leaf or whatever, it seems to kick in a auto-response of "what is the ROI of electric vehicles? You'll have to drive a million miles to get your investment back!" (as if buying a new non-exotic car is any kind of financial instrument). They also always talk about how many fossil fuels it takes to manufacture (or even charge) the electric vehicle, ignoring the fact that it not only takes the same amount to make the ICE car but it still has to run _directly_ on fossil fuels. When all of these arguments are refuted, the last argument is always about how cars sound better with gas engines and the rumble and other appeals to manliness or whatever rubbish.

There is a very large contingent that wants the status quo and either hires astroturfers outright to spread FUD, or influences opposition via media/ad buys. The rest opposed to electric are just old-school fuddy-duddies and the kids they've managed to influence. And, I've seen these arguments play out on everywhere from car specialist forums, YouTube comment sections on Teslas racing ICE cars, to right here on Hacker News when talking about electric cars.

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