A Robo-Car Just Drove Across the Country 258
Press2ToContinue writes with this news from Wired: Nine days after leaving San Francisco, a blue car packed with tech from a company you've probably never heard of rolled into New York City after crossing 15 states and 3,400 miles to make history. The car did 99 percent of the driving on its own, yielding to the carbon-based life form behind the wheel only when it was time to leave the highway and hit city streets. This amazing feat, by the automotive supplier Delphi, underscores the great leaps this technology has taken in recent years, and just how close it is to becoming a part of our lives. Yes, many regulatory and legislative questions must be answered, and it remains to be seen whether consumers are ready to cede control of their cars, but the hardware is, without doubt, up to the task."
That last one percent is a bear, though.
I wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
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"I bet no one will miss that ugly pale one. Damn, she kinda looks like a man. She'll do."
Re:I wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
That they'll get plenty of sleep for 90% of the trip, until they need to hit city streets.
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That they'll get plenty of sleep for 90% of the trip, until they need to hit city streets.
It would make more sense to have a separate driver for the few miles of city streets on each end of the route. Or if the route is usually the same, just ask Google to map it and put it into their navigation database.
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Yeah, its hard to believe fixed routes won't be entirely mapped soon. Aren't there city buses that can already do that? I believe so. Because its a small fixed route it can be completely mapped and analyzed to the point where there aren't any surprises except what normally isn't there, you can pick it all out, you already know all your navigation decisions, etc. It will still take a couple more decades for the whole thing to get routine. I doubt truck drivers are losing TOO much sleep yet.
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there are a few problems that crop up if you don't have someone along for the bulk of the ride:
1) Who refuels it?
2) Whose job is it to prevent the cargo from being stolen?
3) Who ensures that the cargo remains properly secured?
4) Who is legally responsible if the cargo is unsecured?
5) Who answers questions at weigh stations?
6) Who gives the okay to start driving again after someone crashes into it?
Some of those can obviously be dealt with easily, others not so much, especially when it comes to questions of legal liability and providing sufficient (dis)incentives to ensure the public's well-being.
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Who refuels it?
The folks at the truck stop, who have a contract with the trucking company.
2) Whose job is it to prevent the cargo from being stolen?
Two people are responsible: The guy who puts the padlock on the back of the trailer, and the guy who checks the cameras when a breach is detected.
4) Who is legally responsible if the cargo is unsecured?
The insurance company
5) Who answers questions at weigh stations?
The guy at the other end of the phone call.
6) Who gives the okay to start driving again after someone crashes into it?
After a collision, I think a human would show up to deal with the situation.
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I want to be clear about my intent here. I'm not trying to suggest that driver-less trucks are infeasible. On the contrary, I agree with what I would assume is your belief as well: that driver-less trucks will be the future. I'm merely pointing out that the problem is much harder than you're giving it credit for. Moreover, your latest response is trivializing a complicated situation by suggesting that a handful of trite answers are sufficient to address it.
For instance, we currently lack a nationwide network of stations that offer full-service for your trucks. It's certainly doable, but so far as I know it's not currently in place, and that's one of the simpler problems to address.
Your notion that a padlock and camera is sufficient to deter theft falls apart when we consider all of the flatbed trailers out there, or the fact that we live in a world where bolt cutters and masks exist. As it is, I see flatbeds loaded with lumber, steel pipes, and all manner of other material go by regularly, with the only things stopping me from stealing them being a trucker and my sense of what's right.
And I wasn't talking about who pays for lost cargo when I asked about unsecured loads (yes, that would be the insurer). I was asking who gets charged with manslaughter when the aforementioned steel pipes come loose and impale the passengers in the car following your truck. My family once had to swerve around one of these tires [travellogs.us] after it came loose from a flatbed. Trucks are pulled over all the time for violations in properly securing their loads, and that's despite the fact that the driver is currently held legally responsible for it. Heaven help us if it's a corporate drone three states removed who may or may not be traceable.
And what phone numbers would the folks at the weigh station call? Do we require trucking companies to register themselves in a national database, or do we just let them paint it on the side of the truck? Who do they call if the paint has faded? How do they tell the truck to pull off to the side of the weigh station while they wait for a human to arrive to deal with any problems that can't be answered over the phone?
Again, I agree that all of these issues are solvable, but suggesting that your trite answers are sufficient is doing a disservice to the people working on the technological, political, and economic issues surrounding the subject.
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As it is, I see flatbeds loaded with lumber, steel pipes, and all manner of other material go by regularly, with the only things stopping me from stealing them being a trucker and my sense of what's right.
Since truckers are vulnerable to firearms like everyone else, the only thing stopping you is your sense of what's right. Otherwise you could just shoot the driver and roll him into a ditch, at which point he won't be arguing with you about cargo.
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There is a continuum of behaviour in play here. Most people would be unlikely to proceed with stealing cargo if killing someone was required. That's why having a bloke leaning against the van when you're unloading it keeps the yobbos from running off with your cargo.
Add a firearm to the bloke and you block another section of people who'd try threats and low to mid-end violence from taking the risk in the first place.
The sense of what is right might encompass nicking a crate of beer off an unattended van,
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Unsecured loads - there is no change, the person responsible is the person who secures the load prior to the vehicle setting off - same as before.
It doesn't matter if the truck is driven by a driver or a machine, an unsecured load is an unsecured load either way.
Lumber, you can't realistically just run off with somebodies trees, that is why they don't have a high level of security. How would you fence stolen trees? If you were mad enough to steal trees then the driver might not be able to stop you.
Drivers a
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I agree*. I said as much in my last post, had you taken the time to actually read it.
* I agree with everything besides the baseless and fallacious ad hominem attack.
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It's also inevitable. I don't think the issues you've raised will be major impediments. If there are any, and there always are, it will be something else that hasn't yet occurred to anyone.
*even when you take into account Hofstader's Law (heh).
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Completely agreed.
The one caveat I might add, however, is that these issues may be significant enough that they won't be solved until we have truly driver-less trucks, i.e. ones that won't need drivers on city streets either. So long as we continue to need them on city streets, the cost to include them for the rest of the trip will be compared against the cost of overcoming these issues, and I suspect that balance will continue to lean towards the status quo.
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1) Garage attendant / robot / automated.
2) People who design the locks, police, security etc.
3) The people loading the cargo
4) The people who loaded it / vehicle manufacturers if bad design.
5) The owner of the truck/haulage co, phone them(?).
6) Emergency services or breakdown service.
Seems like pretty easy questions.
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Who refuels it?
An attendant at a fuel stop, eventually a robot.
Whose job is it to prevent the cargo from being stolen?
The cops. It's not the driver's job to fight crime.
3) Who ensures that the cargo remains properly secured?
4) Who is legally responsible if the cargo is unsecured?
Ah, finally a meaningful question. Cargo securing equipment will probably improve, with smart straps that know when they're coming loose and which it's easier to know are properly attached to begin with. The straps will eventually tighten themselves, just like engine head bolts are going to ere long.
Who answers questions at weigh stations?
Documentation.
Who gives the okay to start driving again after someone crashes into it?
Probably an enhanced insurance adjuster.
Some of those can obviously be dealt with easily, others not so much, especially when it comes to questions of legal liability and providing sufficient (dis)incentives to ensure the public's well-being.
All cheaper than drivers.
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In the long-term, absolutely. In the short-term, it may be cheaper just to keep the drivers on for the entire trip until we can get to the point where we don't need them for any part of the trip.
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That they'll get plenty of sleep for 90% of the trip, until they need to hit city streets.
It would make more sense to have a separate driver for the few miles of city streets on each end of the route. Or if the route is usually the same, just ask Google to map it and put it into their navigation database.
Possibly, but then how do you get to the pickup/dropoff points w/o being in that last 10%?
Remote drivers for last mile (Score:3)
Fit the truck with two way communications and let a remote operator in a remote location take over. One driver could service 10 or more trucks, driving only last-mile areas.
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Truck depots will just relocate to areas where they can be directly off the highway.
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Ummm, maybe. But not in our lifetime.
Re: I wonder (Score:2)
Lawn ornament deer?!
Two words, infra red.
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
Most truck drivers already know the writing is on the wall. The older ones could not care less, they'll be off the road for good before there is enough states stitched together to make any usable routes. The younger ones don't care either, they barely like their job to begin with and anything that makes their life less stressful all the better.
And all of that cycles around the fact that it'll be a long time before someone in some state's capital let's 80,000 pounds just roll down the road unsupervised. Most truck drivers are pretty convinced that their jobs will just turn into watching a machine roll down the road, and sign the paperwork when that machine runs into something.
Also, besides the obvious state law stuff that needs to get passed. Security will need to be addressed as well. There already is a problem with semis that are not automatic and they have a human watching the goods for a majority of the time. Imagine a semi just rolling down the street and someone decides to flatten the tires with a spike strip. Yeah, an alarm might go off, but the thieves will be long gone with the goods by the time anyone gets to the disabled machine.
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Here's a radio interview with a robotics researcher who actually works on autonomous vehicles to tell you the same
The guy with his nose in the mud is often not the best guy to ask what is coming over the horizon.
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The guy with his nose in the mud is often not the best guy to ask what is coming over the horizon.
True. The real story is that by the time a real, mass-market driverless car with no manual controls is possible, teleprescence and 3D printers will have made trucks and cars pretty much obsolete.
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I laughed out loud. Only on /. could you read such out-of-touch drivel. You're going to 3D print your apples and milk?
That's why I said 'pretty much obsolete'. Obviously some things will still need to be transported, but nothing like the amount that's currently rolling along our highways. People keep talking about how their driverless car will make their commute so much easier, while ignoring the fact that their job probably won't exist in twenty years, and almost certainly won't require them to commute if it does.
But, hey, keep believing the world will be just the same as it is today only with shinier cars, if you like. D
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it'll be a long time before someone in some state's capital let's 80,000 pounds just roll down the road unsupervised.
America is criss-crossed by a lot of Interstate highways. If any state drags their feet too long, the trucks will be routed elsewhere, and that state will lose revenue and jobs.
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America is criss-crossed by a lot of Interstate highways. If any state drags their feet too long, the trucks will be routed elsewhere, and that state will lose revenue and jobs.
What revenue and jobs? I thought that was kind of the point of driverless trucks?
Besides, with no need for humans in the cab, the fundamentals of trucks can be redesigned. No need for bunk space, windshield, driver seat, etc. Change the design of the cab to dramatically increase aerodynamics. Program convoys of 3–4 (so as not to be a nuisance) trucks to draft off of each other going down the highway to dramatically increase mileage. I'm betting driverless trucks can be a lot more fuel efficient than y
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But, the real answer to your question is what governments do with ANYTHING new--tax it.
And they keep your taxes in a gingerbread house in the woods and they eat little children. Fucking taxes...
Re:I wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
Short term solution: experienced driver in the lead truck responsible for the 2-5 following him. Much simpler driving for the automatic ones, and a real human there for taking care of problems.
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Ah, you've just invented ... a train.
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This whole "who prevents cargo from being stolen" argument is moot in my opinion. If a someone wants to steal cargo, they can threaten driver with a gun. Maybe he will be able to draw a gun soon enough, maybe not. If cargo is expensive enough, he may even be killed. Also only in US drivers can have a gun. In europe there is also many trucks. What happens when driver hears something strange at night? He just pretend he's still asleep so that thieves don't threaten him. Cargo is insured and his employer will
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This whole "who prevents cargo from being stolen" argument is moot in my opinion. If a someone wants to steal cargo, they can threaten driver with a gun.
Armed robbery, possibly murder if the driver puts up a fight could see you in jail for life or even the death penalty. Blocking a driver-less vehicle onto the road in the middle of nowhere and helping yourself to free stuff is the equivalent of a misdemeanor in most places. To think the two are the same thing is pretty misguided.
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Hey, we're talking about the Teamsters' Union here; as in, "Where are you, Jimmy Hoffa?" They are continuously re-watching "Mad Max: The Road Warrior," and getting all leathered-up, with mini-crossbows on their wrists. When those robot trucks hit the roads, they will meet unfortunate "accidents".
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I read this a few hours ago, and remembered a video of a Mercedes self driving semi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] is one of the videos (not sure if anyone had posted similar in the past few hours)
Hello, THEFT? (Score:2)
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The same thing train engineers are thinking.
Trains have solved the problem that driverless cars are trying to solve. Instead of cameras, GPS, and detailed maps, they simply use tracks to guide them. Guess what? After a few hundred years of using trains, we've found it helps to have a human on board. Same will be true of "driverless" cars and trucks.
-Chris
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The same thing train engineers are thinking.
Trains have solved the problem that driverless cars are trying to solve. Instead of cameras, GPS, and detailed maps, they simply use tracks to guide them. Guess what? After a few hundred years of using trains, we've found it helps to have a human on board. Same will be true of "driverless" cars and trucks.
-Chris
This. And Pilots. So the truck ( or train or plane) can drive itself 99% of the time, but when an emergency happens or something routine which we don't trust the computer to do, the human is there to handle it. The same thing will happen with trucks if anything happens at all. Driving a truck will just become a job where you sit around in the cab watching instruments 99% of the time. You can't and shouldn't eliminate the human.
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After a few hundred years of using trains, we've found it helps to have a human on board.
Nope. We have humans on board trains because of unions. And we used to have more of them, but we deleted the guy in the back of the train and replaced him with a black box with a flashing light called FRED.
The only possible use for humans on cargo trains is to handle minor derailments, major ones requiring more personnel than you would reasonably keep on a train. That, and to shut any doors that fly open, assuming they care.
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lot's of siding tracks are under manual control and they also need to hook and unhook cars as well.
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lot's of siding tracks are under manual control
Solvable problem
and they also need to hook and unhook cars as well.
The best way to solve this problem is to distribute motive force across the train. The engines basically just become generators, and can be distributed throughout the train. Then portions of the train can be split off while in motion.
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I bet Truck drivers will still be in service due to how often they get away with overloaded trailers.
The reason they overload trailers is to haul more cargo without paying more drivers. Once the driver is obsoleted, the incentive to overload the trailer is mostly gone too.
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The reason they overload trailers is to haul more cargo without paying more drivers.
Really? You can't think of any other costs that could be cut by doing the same job with, say, 10% fewer trucks or 10% fewer journeys?
Also happened in 1995 (Score:4, Informative)
CMU had a car drive itself across America in 1995, 98% autonomously:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tjochem/nhaa/Journal.html
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The 1995 CMU vehicle was sponsored by Delco Electronics which, two years later, became part of Delphi (which engineered the car in this story).
Do you know (Score:2)
that 99.9% of the routes that cars drive today are on the same few miles of road? Do you know that its really easy for different computers to exchange information. In other words if its pre-mapped, its pre-mapped for EVERYONE, and you really don't need to pre-map a ton of routes hither and yon to get everyone doing 98% automated driving. That's 98% fewer accidents.
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That's 98% fewer accidents.
Because, as we all know, a computer-controlled car will never have an accident. Even if someone steps out in the road right in front of it, the magic unicorns will save them.
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It won't even amount to a statistic. Yes, there's plenty of work to continue to do, but even today cars can drive well enough to avoid the vast majority of accidents that humans get into because they're attentive and alert at all times, and they have much better adapted sensors, deployed in more and better locations, etc. The driving record of the existing autonomous systems is really incredibly good. Yes, they may only drive in conditions they're already prepared for, but as I said, most driving is of that
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Most humans drive fine in 'conditions they're already prepared for'. It's the other fraction of one percent where most of the accidents happen.
Disagree (Score:4)
Most drivers accidents are in places they are familiar with. Its not entirely clear if this is simply due to mostly driving in such places, but it is commonly asserted that over familiarity often leads to inattention. I know this is true for me, and so presumably for many others. The fact remains, human drivers have a high error rate, and so far all the automated driving systems being tested in the US fall far below that number, even given that they drive in controlled circumstances.
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I know the plural of anecdote is not data but that doesn't ring true to me based on those I know that have been in traffic accidents. Most of it is plain not paying attention or hitting some kind of blind spot where you thought it was clear. Even the ones where the environment played a role they misjudged that particular turn as icy and slippery, not that they were surprised by winter conditions. Or they made some bad assumptions about what people would do.
If you only count the "freak accidents" like tire b
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If I knew the car next to me was computer controlled, I'd emergency brake it into the gutter just for laughs
And the camera footage will quickly lead back to you.
Yeah, and you'll still have a license? (Score:2)
Not hardly. I've driven in NYC, Boston, many other cities all over the US, as well as in more rural areas, in the NE, on bad roads, snow, ice, etc. I think I know all about driving in the US. Most people just want to get from A to Z. Once automatic driving is here it will rapidly kick the humans off the road, nobody will be stupid enough to ride with you.
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5 years? I'll take bets against any company having autonomous trucks on our interstates for anything more than experimental purposes within the next five years. I'm not saying it won't happen, but there's a huge optimism bubble with some of the posters here thinking this will be commonplace real soon. Ain't gonna happen in my lifetime.
Paradigm Change (Score:2)
I think its one of those things that once it comes to fruition everything simply changes. Its like automobiles. Most people laughed and insisted that horses would be around for another 100 years and cars were 'a fad' or 'a toy for the rich', etc. Once Ford made the first cheap car horses were done in 10 years flat, off the road.
It will be the same way. Safe, automatic driving will free up people's time, it will reduce costs greatly, and it will start a whole series of changes in the transportation infrastru
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The way I see it, you're minimizing the hurdles that are yet to be overcome. And they will be overcome, but not in ten years.
The comparison with horses didn't have to deal with weather, and roads (trails) already existed to kickstart it. There were no initial infrastructure changes required...how does it automatically pull off the highway and get in line at a service station?
I think we're likely to see some type of hybrid implementation much earlier than full automation. Something like autonomous highway mo
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I didn't mean to suggest otherwise, sure, it will start with 'highway mode', but that won't be a long phase. For obvious reasons people will desire the ability to drive on surface roads. Actually parking will come before surface roads, Ford already has a system that can autonomously move the car and park it, driving at low speeds in a dense environment. It will only be a matter of time, I still say about 5 years, before these capabilities have effectively merged and we have a car that can deal with most sit
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You may be correct, but humans deal with death by humans pretty well, death by machine, autonomous machine, I'm not so sure we'll cope with this too well. One death and the media will be immediately on it's back. So it might be the future but don't expect the statistics to help you, we view non-typical events caused by outside actors with much higher relevance than everyday events caused by humans. So while we don't hear anything much about car crashes everyday in the media (unless they are big ones) we'll
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Those are all considerations, but 50,000 people are killed in automobile accidents in the US alone every year. When that carnage is reduced to 2500 the naysayers will have zero ammunition, especially since the COST is huge and thus the savings also huge. Just as people accepted the hazard of cars over that of horses to gain advantages so will they accept driving by machines. The more economically sensible alternatives pretty much always win out over time.
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Wow US roads are unsafe, there are like 3k in the UK. The economically sensible solution is socialised medicine yet this has not won out in the US, see how you spend 3x what we spend in the UK on health per capita but don't even cover everyone, so that's working well for you guys. People are dumb, and most law systems are predicated on blame, I'm not sure people will accept the logic that fewer people dying by robot hands is better than more by human hands. People don't accept that vaccines are good when al
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Actually the number has declined pretty sharply in the last 10 years, to 32,719 in 2014. Its still a huge number, and the number of injuries is staggering, numbering in the several millions. I didn't look for an economic loss estimate but at the rate of 90 deaths per hour in the US it has got to be quite expensive. Every person in this country is effectively paying something like $1000/yr just to pay for the consequences of crappy human driving.
Yeah, we could lower our medical costs drastically, by 300% any
Re:Also happened in 1995 (Score:5, Funny)
And in all that time they still cannot make a car that can drive itself in inclement weather
Not everyone has weather. I live in California. It doesn't snow here, and a few years ago, it stopped raining as well.
Highway vs Surface Streets (Score:2)
It seems that every week there is another headline trumpeting the imminence of self-driving cars. However, when I read articles written by researchers in this field, I get the impression that self driving cars are going to be here sometime between 10 years and never. I think the disconnect is that any car that drives itself will do so on the freeway, but a human will have to drive it on the surface streets.
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Consequently, it is likely that the "about to go on surface streets alarm" option will be very popular.
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It seems that every week there is another headline trumpeting the imminence of self-driving cars. However, when I read articles written by researchers in this field, I get the impression that self driving cars are going to be here sometime between 10 years and never. I think the disconnect is that any car that drives itself will do so on the freeway, but a human will have to drive it on the surface streets.
I don't think never, but I'd guess 10 years at the very, very earliest. However the technology will mature and it will become standard in the not too distant future, and probably mandated some time after that, most likely starting in Europe and eventually North America.
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Nearly every single major automaker on the planet is predicting that self-driving cars will be available for purchase by 2025, so I'm tending to give them the benefit of the doubt, since it would seem like they'd have the best information available to make such a bold prediction. I suppose it could be possible that they're just all stating the same exaggerated claims for fear of looking like they're behind in the technological race, but that would be equally speculative.
Also, keep in mind that "self-drivin
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Indeed, the difference between "can basically relax on the way to work" and "allowed to use driver-less car without a license" may indeed be 20 years.
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Google has had successful tests on surface streets. Delphi is a fuel pump and gasket company, and they're not spectacular at that stuff. Obviously they're stunting to try to change that image, but the people they need to impress aren't going to be impressed, because what they're doing is far from state of the art.
When hype turn to Tripe. (Score:4, Insightful)
Lane following is one of the simplest things for vehicle technology to do. All it does is follows the lane lines and keeps a speed/ or minimum distance from the vehicle in front. I bet every time they had to change highways the driver took over. Also notice it was not raining heavily, snowing or recently snowed in the trip. Current technology has problems in those cases. Comparing lane following to autonomous driving is like comparing algebra to calculus.
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The problem with Lanes could be solved with road imbedded sensors. Passive RFID technology would be up to the task.
Until kids^H^H^H^Hterrorists move them so all the self-driving cars go driving into a ditch.
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Just one car per terrorist attack, surely. An autonomous car involved in such an accident could surely inform others cars locally to yield control to their human overlords. Or just stop.
Still, probably easier to develop the AI of the cars to not rely on such lane markings in the first place. And cheaper in the long run.
I see a problem here (Score:2)
If this "RoBo" car were to run me off the road "yielding to the carbon-based life form behind the wheel only when it was time to leave the highway and hit city streets". There's nobodies a$$ to kick.
EULA will not stand up with a 3rd party victim or (Score:2)
EULA will not stand up with a 3rd party victim or criminal court.
That explains it (Score:2)
So that's who cut me off! Explains the odd-looking counter-gesture. [shutterstock.com]
Not that impressive really... (Score:2)
Newer Tesla Model S cars will be able to basically do the same thing this summer with its auto-pilot 'lane holding' firmware update.
It may not be obvious to those who aren't paying close attention to the advancement of self-driving technology, but driving hundreds of miles on a highway is actually fairly easy for today's AI and requires only a basic sensor stack (GPS, HD camera with IR for nighttime, 600 ft radar sensor up front, and a slew of sonar sensors for close up decisions). Lane holding and traffic-
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It may not be obvious to those who aren't paying close attention to the advancement of self-driving technology, but driving hundreds of miles on a highway is actually fairly easy for today's AI
I always see lots of claims about technology this, and technology that, but never any discussion and the actual hard parts, politics, insurance, safety, public acceptance etc. Even if I had a car that could do this, how comfortable would you be taking your hands off the wheel and trusting your life to some developer you've never met? And when the first accident happens (regardless of cause) what impact does that have to public adoption? It also doesn't address the fact that a lot of people actually enjoy dr
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how comfortable would you be taking your hands off the wheel and trusting your life to some developer you've never met?
I've never met the developer that designed the cruise control or the brake mechanism either.
Actually, they ARE linked! (Score:2)
I always see lots of claims about technology this, and technology that, but never any discussion and the actual hard parts, politics, insurance, safety, public acceptance etc.
Actually, politics and technology ARE linked.
Because the technology will roll-out *very* slowly, it's going to start appear in everyday life very progressively. People will get time to get accustomed to it in small baby steps. By the time technology actually get mature enough, people will have grown up with it and are completely accustomed to it. They won't see it as bringing the end of the civilisaiton as we know it, only as a useful thing that was always there.
So basically it did nothing new or useful. (Score:2)
Following a highway is not a thing to brag about. Cars you can buy right now are already capable of doing this.
The last 1% is nothing to worry about (Score:3)
IF, and that's a big pessimistic if, eventually autonomous car is deemed unable to navigate local city streets, then what you will see are large parking lots springing up around highway exits, where robo-cars will park itself when it leaves the highway.
There, either the human driver takes over immediately and go away, or more likely, the car alert the sleeping driver to wake up. The driver, after sleeping all the way since he got on the highway, gets off and have a meal and refresh himself, then drove off.
OR, the passengers don't even know how to drive. Some other driver drove to the lot next the highway, get off, the car take over to get on the highway, reach the lot near destination, and some other driver came and drive the car to the destination. Think kids of divorced parent, or kids going to visit grandparents.
Same approach applies much more easily to trucks. Now truck drivers only need to go round and round between the last leg on both sides, letting the truck drive itself over the long haul. That means cheap transport, no need for long tiring trips away from home, and fewer accidents.
JUST automating the highway portion is going to give huge benefits, there is no need over worry about the last 1% of the trip.
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JUST automating the highway portion is going to give huge benefits
Who to? I drive about 15000km a year, I'd be lucky if 5% of that was outside the city. I'm assuming the robot option is not free, so how many people will be willing to pay a premium for something hardly used by most people?
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- Many people no longer need to own a car; if they need one, they just dial one up and have it arrive 15 minutes later. Or you would have 1 small EV for your daily needs, and order up a truck, family car, or long-range vehicle as needed.
- You would no longer need to have a driver's license. No more need to drive your kid to school either, the car can do it for you.
- Parking will be hassle-free: let the car worry about
Can't Wait For This (Score:2)
I'm imagining the new vehicle thefts that will occur with driverless vehicles. No witnesses, no concern over kidnapping charges. Which truck had the diamonds again?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ca... [cbsnews.com]
They're coming for me!! Their COMING!! (Score:2)
No, no it did not (Score:2)
A robo-car just did the easy part of driving across the country, the part that other people already did years and years and years ago. It didn't do the hard part at all.
Saying that this car drove across the country is a lie at best.
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Is it really a lie if it results in a commercial product capable of removing a *lot* of monotony from truck driving? I hate highway driving - here in OK, it's 2 hours of *nothing* in every direction, I'm likely to fall asleep, and adding entertainment is adding distraction. IMO, it doesn't matter if someone has done it before, it matters if/when *I* can get one to improve *my* life. (Not that I am a truck driver...)
Auto accidents are the #5 most likely way you'll die ~w/1-in-100 odds. (http://www.livesci
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Is it really a lie if it results in a commercial product capable of removing a *lot* of monotony from truck driving?
Yes. Yes it is. Whether the results speak to anything else has no bearing on whether the claim of driving across the country is or is not a lie.
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Indeed. The last 1% is likely to be 99% of the work.
Many of the cars we test-drove last year already had systems to detect when the car was leaving the lane on the highway, and some had cruise control that would automatically slow down if the car in front did. Adapting that tech to drive on the highway by itself for a few thousand miles in good conditions shouldn't be particularly hard. It's dealing with the unexpected that's difficult, and that's where most human screwups happen, too.
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Many of the cars we test-drove last year already had systems to detect when the car was leaving the lane on the highway, and some had cruise control that would automatically slow down if the car in front did. Adapting that tech to drive on the highway by itself for a few thousand miles in good conditions shouldn't be particularly hard.
S-Class plus soda can equals autonomous highway cruiser [roadandtrack.com].
It's dealing with the unexpected that's difficult, and that's where most human screwups happen, too.
Yep. What Delphi just did is showed that they're up to where whoever Mercedes is buying their telematics from was up to some years ago. Congratulations, Delphi, for only being a bunch of years behind.
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Imagine committing a serious dui offense and being assigned an automated assist system that will only take you to and from work, with a possible ration of once a week trips to the grocery store etc.
That's is a viable option for this technology, and a damn good one. It allows the person to get around and the cost to rent it for the duration would be a penalty itself.
It's the phrase: "yielding to the carbon-based life form behind the wheel only when it was time to leave the highway and hit city streets. " if it commits a homicide with them in it, are they responsible?
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Imagine committing a serious dui offense and being assigned an automated assist system that will only take you to and from work, with a possible ration of once a week trips to the grocery store etc.
They could do this today with GPS, and probably do. Who the hell knows (I haven't had a DUI in, oh, this lifetime). If you deviate from your allowed route it could shut the car down, or just call the cops when you stop to come scoop you up for a violation. If the driver is still required to not be drunk then the traditional interlock is also going to be required as well to make sure they are not supervising an automated vehicle while intoxicated.
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They don't even bother with all that, they just check your mileage to see if you've exceeded the distance you needed to travel to and from work. They don't need to punish you in realtime, and the goal is not to reduce profitable recidivism in any case, but to generate revenue.