Naysayers take note!
#1
Naysayers take note!
There's been lots of "oh, this will never happen" around here on this subject over the years.
Well, it appears to be happening. The march of technology cannot be stopped.
Waymo One, the first commercial robotaxi service, is now picking up passengers in Arizona
https://www.latimes.com/business/aut...205-story.html
Well, it appears to be happening. The march of technology cannot be stopped.
Waymo One, the first commercial robotaxi service, is now picking up passengers in Arizona
https://www.latimes.com/business/aut...205-story.html
#2
Yeah, those hideous vehicles have been on the roads for quite a while now, with a lot of them in Tempe around the ASU campus.
And I see that story has some misleading information. It was not a highway, it was a Tempe city street a half mile from the downtown area.
"The experimental vehicle, with an apparently inattentive Uber employee behind the wheel, plowed into a woman walking a bicycle across a highway at night. "
And I see that story has some misleading information. It was not a highway, it was a Tempe city street a half mile from the downtown area.
"The experimental vehicle, with an apparently inattentive Uber employee behind the wheel, plowed into a woman walking a bicycle across a highway at night. "
Last edited by Fun71; December 5th, 2018 at 08:01 AM.
#3
Although the cars will drive themselves, a Waymo engineer will sit behind the wheel in case anything goes wrong. Waymo did not say when the cars will start arriving without a human minder or when the program will be expanded.
1. The highways are an open system.
2. Someone has to take liability for the inevitable wrecks caused by number 1.
I think there will be autonomous railroad engines here soon. There are already autonomous airport trams, and I think subways will happen too. These work under the "they won't stop in time anyway" principle. For instance, if you stop on a railroad track, the train is not at fault, since it cannot stop in time. Even a computer cannot stop it in time.
Now, I fully expect autonomous cars soon in HOV -style lanes in major cities. The problem with an open system, you cannot plan for everything that can happen. In a closed system, a central tracker knows where everything is. Train #1 thinks it sees something, Central Control says there is actually nothing there, and the fences are all well maintained, so there is actually nothing there, and we can proceed.
Any robotic car, on its own, in an open system will have one of two problems: False positives, or ignored positives. False positives mean picky cameras and cleaning lenses and random panic stops. Ignored positives mean dead pedestrians. You cannot hit that needle eye with today's tech in an open system.
#4
More information from a local news outlet:
The self-driving vehicles are still susceptible to glitches. An Associated Press reporter taking a ride in an autonomous minivan alongside Krafcik near company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters mid-October experienced that firsthand.
The minivan performed smoothly, even stopping for a jaywalker, before abruptly pulling to the right side of the road. Ahead was a left-turning FedEx delivery truck.
In a digital message to the two human backup drivers, the van said it “detected an issue” and it would connect to a rider-support agent. Rider support didn’t respond, so they switched to manual mode and returned to headquarters.
Wow, a delivery truck turning left caused the system to essentially crash. As Koda posted, these are not ready for use in an open system.
Originally Posted by KTAR.COM
The self-driving vehicles are still susceptible to glitches. An Associated Press reporter taking a ride in an autonomous minivan alongside Krafcik near company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters mid-October experienced that firsthand.
The minivan performed smoothly, even stopping for a jaywalker, before abruptly pulling to the right side of the road. Ahead was a left-turning FedEx delivery truck.
In a digital message to the two human backup drivers, the van said it “detected an issue” and it would connect to a rider-support agent. Rider support didn’t respond, so they switched to manual mode and returned to headquarters.
#5
It will happen. Though a lot of problems will have to be worked out. I live out in the country, most back roads do not have lines painted on them. You have to pull off the road to let large tractors/combine by. Another thought what happens in bad weather like snow when roads are covered or other kinds of bad weather.
#7
#10
#11
120 years ago cars were never going to be other than a toy for the rich, 200 years ago trains couldn't transport people over 35 mph because they would be asphyxiated, At the battle of Agincourt in 1415 there was one authenticated casualty from a gunshot, but the longbow would never be surpassed.....
Roger.
Roger.
#12
#13
Those are different issues. If you trample a man with a horse, or run him over with your car, you are at fault. If you run a man over with a train, slow or fast, you are at fault. A weapon of war is automatically your fault, that's the point. A good comparison is, a mag-lev car powered by a fusion power lump, that runs someone over, is still the fault of the driver, but an autonomous car, normal, via gas engine, is not the fault of the driver, and that's the issue. It's legal, not technical.
#14
No they don't. The freeways and city streets are full of cars driving as they typically do, the same as other areas of the country during heavy rain, snow, fog, etc.
Last edited by Fun71; December 6th, 2018 at 10:55 AM.
#15
#16
#17
#18
Well that would put a damper (ha!) on their use in areas with frequent heavy rain, such as practically everywhere along the Gulf Coast, or in areas of the north and midwest where it snows a lot.
#19
#22
In Iraq (not as often in Afghanistan) there would be severe dust storms that would completely obscure the road. We still had to drive our Mitsubishi L200s and Toyota Hiluxs like any other day.
I still believe driverless cars will be like the ones seen in the movie 6th Day.
The automated cars seen in the movie Total Recall will take longer to be accepted:
#24
Agreed.
It does if you're counting on a LIDAR system for "seeing" the roadway and other vehicles. Water droplets, whether rain, fog, or snow will diffract / block the laser. I've been in countless storms on the Gulf Coast where it rained constantly for days, sometimes up to a week, without letting up. In a typical thunderstorm that happens almost daily during parts of the year, the streets can flood in a matter of minutes, with water over the curbs so you couldn't see the edge of the roadway. I have not seen any data on how the autonomous systems can handle that situation. Maybe they can, but I haven't heard about it.
I agree, again. Places like Phoenix and SoCal are prime for these vehicles; I just don't see them being used extensively in other parts of the country unless there is a dramatic change in the technology they use for navigation.
#25
Agreed.
It does if you're counting on a LIDAR system for "seeing" the roadway and other vehicles. Water droplets, whether rain, fog, or snow will diffract / block the laser. I've been in countless storms on the Gulf Coast where it rained constantly for days, sometimes up to a week, without letting up. In a typical thunderstorm that happens almost daily during parts of the year, the streets can flood in a matter of minutes, with water over the curbs so you couldn't see the edge of the roadway. I have not seen any data on how the autonomous systems can handle that situation. Maybe they can, but I haven't heard about it.
I agree, again. Places like Phoenix and SoCal are prime for these vehicles; I just don't see them being used extensively in other parts of the country unless there is a dramatic change in the technology they use for navigation.
It does if you're counting on a LIDAR system for "seeing" the roadway and other vehicles. Water droplets, whether rain, fog, or snow will diffract / block the laser. I've been in countless storms on the Gulf Coast where it rained constantly for days, sometimes up to a week, without letting up. In a typical thunderstorm that happens almost daily during parts of the year, the streets can flood in a matter of minutes, with water over the curbs so you couldn't see the edge of the roadway. I have not seen any data on how the autonomous systems can handle that situation. Maybe they can, but I haven't heard about it.
I agree, again. Places like Phoenix and SoCal are prime for these vehicles; I just don't see them being used extensively in other parts of the country unless there is a dramatic change in the technology they use for navigation.
Taxis, shuttles, and delivery trucks within cities will be first adopters -- fleets. This is where it starts, and as older vehicles (and people) go out of service, we will see adoption of the tech by the general public. The vehicles for private owners without driver controls are certainly further out, because we all know that private owners often ignore dash lights for failing sensors.
Cue up Rush's "Red Barchetta"...
#26
A couple of good reads on this topic.
https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/114478...nges-obstacles
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/all-w...-tero-heinonen
https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/114478...nges-obstacles
Last month, Google suggested that this driverless utopia may actually be much further away than many people may realize. In a speech at SXSW in Austin, Google's car project director Chris Urmson explained that the day when fully autonomous vehicles are widely available, going anywhere that regular cars can, might be as much as 30 years away. There are still serious technical and safety challenges to overcome. In the near term, self-driving cars may be limited to more narrow situations and clearer weather.
This comes as a shock. In just 5 months of intensive development of our Level 5+ self-driving and self-mapping RED Autonomous Driving System, we fought against some of the major shortcomings of the current sensor systems commonly used in the autonomous test vehicles. These shortcomings are many...
...
Some of the six severe problems with the sensor systems are evident imminently, some of them will manifest themselves only when there will be more autonomous vehicles in operation. All of the shortcomings are severe and need to be fully tackled before autonomous cars can hit Main Street.
...
Some of the six severe problems with the sensor systems are evident imminently, some of them will manifest themselves only when there will be more autonomous vehicles in operation. All of the shortcomings are severe and need to be fully tackled before autonomous cars can hit Main Street.
Last edited by Fun71; December 7th, 2018 at 03:20 PM.
#27
A couple of good reads on this topic.
https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/114478...nges-obstacles
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/all-w...-tero-heinonen
https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/114478...nges-obstacles
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/all-w...-tero-heinonen
Anyway, exciting times for the automotive community. I'll still be using my cars to drive up north to the lake for a long time to come, but perhaps down to one daily driver sooner than I would have thought a couple of years ago.
#28
GM investing $3 billion to produce all-electric trucks, autonomous vehicles
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/27/gm-i...ic-trucks.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/27/gm-i...ic-trucks.html
#29
Thus ends the inherent threat to life, liberty, and property posed by "autonomous" vehicles.
#30
allow only centrally controlled vehicles there. This would eliminate the problems of false positives and false negatives of a single vehicle, as it would "know" if there is a vehicle there even if it can't see it, as the system would tell it that there is another car there.
That may occur. What absolutely won't occur is full autonomous vehicles on the roads we have today. Let us recall something. Ten years ago, a tier one automotive company had to go before Congress and testify that we would work ever so much harder to fix
a problem that wasn't there, and was never, ever, recreated. What that problem was was that an idiot, driving a Toyota product, had his foot on the wrong damn pedal, or he entrapped it with a floor mat, something that has been a common occurrence since the
foot feed was invented, and wrecked his car, killing himself and his family. He did not think to: put it in neutral; turn it off; hit the brakes; hit the parking brake; check and see why the pedal was stuck. He didn't do any of that, and this wasn't a race car. Full brake
application would have brought even a car under full throttle to a stop shortly.
Instead, we now hook our mats. The accelerator pedals are now miniscule to avoid entrapment. There is now software to cut the signal from the gas pedal when you hit the brakes. But, no one drives any better. After a few years of absolute junk science,
the best minds could not replicate the "unintended acceleration," even by cutting into the system and inserting fake signal. I don't think Toyota will ever advertise on ABC due to their unethical journalism from that event.
This sort of **** is why we won't see autonomous vehicles by a major manufacturer in any area where people can just be. Our world now sues product manufacturers for the fault of being purchased and used by idiots, instead of properly blaming the idiot himself.
"I was running across the highway to take a shortcut and Google's Car 188574 ran my friend over right in front of me!!!" Never mind the fence, the no trespassing signs, the warnings; Google still would lose millions to a case like that.
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