Google Unveils Self-Driving Car With No Steering Wheel 583
cartechboy writes: "We've already discussed and maybe even come to terms with the fact that autonomous cars are coming. In fact, many automakers including Mercedes-Benz and Tesla have committed to self-driving cars by 2017. Apparently that's not ambitious enough. Google has just unveiled an in-house-designed, self-driving car prototype with no steering wheel or pedals. In fact, it doesn't have any traditional controls, not even a stereo. The as-yet-nameless car is a testbed for Google's vision of the computerized future of transportation. Currently the prototype does little more than programmed parking lot rides at a maximum of 25 mph, but Google plans to build about 100 prototypes, with the first examples receiving manual controls (human-operated). Google then plans to roll out the pilot program in California in the next several years. So the technology is now there, but is there really a market for a car that drives you without your input other than the destination?"
So when will the taxi drivers start protesting? (Score:5, Interesting)
These this will naturally become shuttles and taxi services almost immediately. Given the protests of Uber and Lyft, what will the outcry be for these?
Re:So when will the taxi drivers start protesting? (Score:5, Funny)
I totally recall when taxi drivers were homicidal psychopaths with mohawk hair cuts. Thankfully we will now have fleets of mannequins named "Johnny Cab" to cheerfully take us around.
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These this will naturally become shuttles and taxi services almost immediately. Given the protests of Uber and Lyft, what will the outcry be for these?
Cabbies don't have enough money to have a voice that's heard, The people with the money will just watch until these are cheaper than cabbies and then implement.
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Re:So when will the taxi drivers start protesting? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I don't care if somebody is late, I don't want taxi's performing dangerous and/or illegal maneuvers. Also, when you hold up a bus or train, you could be making more than one person late.
All that being said, having autonomous cars would probably make things go a lot smoother, and we wouldn't have to worry about being late so much because of traffic jams.
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Once all the cars are autonomous, and networked there won't be traffic jams.
Re:So when will the taxi drivers start protesting? (Score:5, Interesting)
and we wouldn't have to worry about being late so much because of traffic jams
I'd expect there to be far more traffic jams because no longer is there an incentive not to let your car drive into the city.
Can't find a parking space - just leave your car driving around. Intelligent cars would actually seek out traffic jams so as to minimize fuel use.
Almost at your destination and crawling along. Get out and walk the last bit and let your car get there in its own time.
Stuck in traffic jam, get out, pop to the newsagent catch up with the car and get back in again.
For the more proactive, stick your Brompton in the back and let the car drive most of the way to the city. Once it starts getting snarled up in traffic, hop out, cycle the rest of the way and let the car do the rest of the journey on its own ready for when you want to leave.
Time it right, and the car will arrive just as you're ready to load your shopping (and bike) back into the car. Hopefully, these automatic cars won't block the roads for the drivers trying to leave the city so the route out will be fast, unlike human drivers who block junctions all the time.
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I have a perfect record getting people to the stations, sometimes needing to cut off a departing bus, or running up to a train to keep the doors from closing. An autonomous cab cannot do that (yet?).
God, I hope not. What the world really needs is less of that, not more.
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The implications of a technology like this go far beyond taxi drivers.
In the moment when autonoumous cars go mainstream, half of the car manufacturers will go bancrupt and the other half will have a very good time.
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The power looms did take away their jobs and make those with jobs into far more dangerous and unhappy ones. Eventually, it worked out so everyone alive at the time it worked out benefited. But the luddites were absolutely correct in that it lowered their individual standard of living.
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Or maybe there are more controlled environments - moving people around certain parts of airports springs to mind - which will be the first targets. Places where pedestrian and other traffic isn't allowed. Public and legal acceptance is far more likely there, and it'd be a better and eventually cheaper service than waiting for one of a handful of buses.
Re:So when will the taxi drivers start protesting? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the lively hood of someone depends solely on the kindness of strangers, then the system is broken.
Frankly,. I would like to see min. wage doubled and tipping ended.
And I am a generous tipper to wait staff.
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There are any number of every day scenarios where a self drive car would stop because it had no idea what to do.
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So yeah Google or whomever could claim their car is really safe. It doesn't
No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry. While I love technology, my not-so-humble opinion is that we're nowhere near the level of reliability needed for a car that's completely free of manual control.
Simply put, having seen the arc of technology advance over the last 30+ years, I still don't trust an automated driver system with my safety. PERIOD.
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Unless the automated car is on rails, it must retain manual control so that the user will be able to bring it to a guided stop. Even elevators come with an emergency stop button and they have only three states, going up, going down and stationary. A car without manuals controls to guide it to a safe stop in the event of control failure whether purposeful or accidental is really fucking crazy.
Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:5, Funny)
A quick call to google's helpdesk is all that's needed to stop the car in an emergency.
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A quick post on google's support group is all that's needed to stop the car in an emergency.
FTFY
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I called google support for my nexus 4. The result was a very kind lady who solved my problem quickly.
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I've called Google more than once due to errors with listed phone numbers. (The phone number listed when you searched for one of my company's departments was a different department. You can imagine how annoying the flood of wrong "I looked it up online" numbers was.) The people I spoke with were very helpful and knowledgeable. I'll admit that finding a support number for Google isn't easy, but it can be done.
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Then that manual stop button might come in handy.
Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry. While I love technology, my not-so-humble opinion is that we're nowhere near the level of reliability needed for a car that's completely free of manual control.
Simply put, having seen the arc of technology advance over the last 30+ years, I still don't trust an automated driver system with my safety. PERIOD.
Millions of people fly in airplanes every day that rely on computer controls (since there is no mechanical linkage between the pilot and the control surfaces). And 30,000 people die each year at the hands of human drivers.
While the real time image recognition may not be quite ready for prime time, it will get there and when it does, computer drivers will be safer than human drivers. Google's driverless cars have already racked up 700,000 accident free miles in autonomous mode (albeit with a human ready to take over). Their car has already surpassed my own record, it's only been about 150,000 miles since my last accident (a car changed lanes into me, while the accident was not my fault, if I'd had computer-like reflexes and perfect awareness of my surroundings to know that the lane beside me was open, I may have been able to avoid the accident by sudden braking and/or making a quick lane change)
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Millions of people fly in airplanes every day that rely on computer controls (since there is no mechanical linkage between the pilot and the control surfaces).
If that's what counts as 'computer control,' then we already have computer control today. There are plenty of computer systems in cars, and some won't even start without going through a computer system.
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The driver isn't in direct physical control of the vehicle and hasn't been for some time. Progress towards fully autonomous vehicles is a matter of degree, not of kind.
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Progress towards fully autonomous vehicles is a matter of degree, not of kind.
This is a true point. It's been true ever since we stopped walking.
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The problem is that you confuse manual controls and manual control inputs. What type of control a person or computer uses is irrelevant. What is relevant is the mind making the decisions about what inputs to make. Computers are yet to be sophisticated to handle many situations as well has humans do.
The driver isn't in direct physical control of the vehicle and hasn't been for some time. Progress towards fully autonomous vehicles is a matter of degree,
Completely false. Whether it is fly by wire or cables the inputs are still made by humans and that is the important part.
The brain is the important part of the machine and not the nerves. Computer brains are not
Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:5, Informative)
Just look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (look ma no hands)
While the A380 is capable of autolands on properly equipped runways (which by the way
takes quite a bit of work by the pilots to set up), this video doesn't show one.
Final approach and landing are in fact flown in full manual mode. It's Lufthansa policy
to land manually whenever possible, as to not lose manual flying proficiency.
Other airlines do have other policies, but I doubt any use autolands routinely -
as I said, they are more work.
Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm afraid your assertion is quite false - about 90% of all landings done daily by large civil aircraft (737 upward) is done by the autoland system, with the only requirement for a manual landing being to retain certification for the pilot.
Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm afraid your assertion is quite false - about 90% of all landings done daily by large civil aircraft (737 upward) is done by the autoland system, with the only requirement for a manual landing being to retain certification for the pilot.
Using ILS, I totally believe. Full autoland, i.e. flare, touchdown, rollout: I'd like to see a very good source.
Considering that autoland requires that the runway be equipped with ILS CAT III(b), this seems unlikely: China has one FAA approved [faa.gov] CAT III runway, Hong Kong 25R.
There are none in Singapore, none in Thailand, there's one in Australia (Melbourne 16), three in India (all the same airport though, Delhi).
Of the 1369 ILS-equipped runways in the US [faa.gov] (Excel warning), just 113 have CAT III (no idea whether those are level a or b).
Sure, most of them are at the biggest an busiest airports, but considering that an autolanding
plane severely limits a runway's capacity due to increased spacing requirements, I doubt ATC
would be too happy to accomodate lots of autolands especially on those.
They just don't have the timeslots.
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[citation needed]
IAAPilot, though not of the big ones. My understanding is that this is totally false. Autoland (ILS CATIII) requires a specially equipped runway, airplane, and crew (training) and each of these must be kept certified to do it as well. By no means all runways, airports, and crews are certified to do this - in the case of runways, most are not, even of those that the commercial operators fly to.
It's true that many approaches are done automatically, but an approach is most definitely NOT a lan
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Human level AI? I would rather not, most human drivers are bad. Try to use the cruise control on a crowded highway and you know what I mean. Just maintaining uniform speed is an impossible task for most drivers. Oh there is a minor bend in the road, I need to slow down, there is a minor hill, I need to slow down, look an accident on the other side of the road, I need to slow down.
In almost all cases a computer will be able to react way faster and with more precision than a human can. Yes there will be some
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It's kind of like the people that don't want to wear seatbelts because they are afraid they'll end up in a crash and be hurt so bad they can't undo the seatbelt to get out.
If you haven't figured that out, if you are so messed up you can't undo a seatbelt, there's no way in hell you'd have been able to get out of a car.
Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but there's a big difference between flying around in a plane in a pre-planned course that's been cleared of other traffic and driving around on the ground on an expressway or city street.
Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:4, Funny)
You don't suppose, do you, that the "Stop button" you mentioned might not be a way to tell the car to, well, "stop moving at any point", do you?
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It doesn't actually need image recognition. We've had systems deployed for decades that can handle identify the existence of possible collisions based on detecting obstacles and their relative vectors. It doesn't need to know that large blob on a collision course is a Ford Taurus, just that it's going to collide in 3.2 seconds on the current vectors.
If you're curious what uses those types of systems in real time now, just look at m
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How do autopilots in airplanes work? They work on the assumption that they have a clear path along their assigned course based on the flight plan and when that assumption is incorrect (assuming the potential obstruction has TCAS), alarms start going off to prompt pilots to do something to avoid the probable crash. As long as the pilots and ATC do their jobs right, most collision avoidance is taken care of before the plane even lifts off.
This is very different from driving on the streets where there are no "
Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry. While I love technology, my not-so-humble opinion is that we're nowhere near the level of reliability needed for a car that's completely free of manual control.
Simply put, having seen the arc of technology advance over the last 30+ years, I still don't trust an automated driver system with my safety. PERIOD.
Sorry. While I love humans, my not-so-humble opinion is that we're nowhere near the level of reliability needed for a car that's manual control.
Simply put, having seen the arc of traffic fatalities advance over the last 30+ years, I still don't trust a human driver system with my safety. PERIOD.
Cars are not safe: people will die. I'd rather have shitty AI that we can iterate on and improve every time it kills someone than having to start with fresh teenagers each time. An AI can learn from millions of cars, and not miss the learning opportunity of fatal crashes. Also, people have really bad sensors for driving compared to what an AI can use. Maybe its not better than good drivers yet, but I'd prefer a shitty AI that we can iterate on to people who barley manage to pass a driving test on the third try driving in the dark while distracted, and we let people do that... Compared to a person, such an AI could be a lot better at refusing to drive in unsafe conditions (it won't give into rage or peer pressure and do something stupid). That might be annoying, but having a car that can pick you up by itself might counter that out.
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If you actually trust a computer more than your own judgement in an accident situation, I feel sorry for you.
Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
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And if you think your judgement and perception is better than this computer system, you are full of hubris and a menace to other road users. It works both ways.
Whatever. My driving skills (or lack thereof) are a known quantity to me. I have some grasp of what I can and cannot do in a vehicle.
I think that's unlikely, at least for most drivers. How many times have you experienced an emergency stop from 70mph? Or practiced regaining control from a skid? Or when sliding on ice, or aquaplaning? Most drivers will have no idea how their car behaves in those situations and have no idea how good their skills are because they've never been tested in those circumstances, or have only tested them once or twice. One would expect that a self-driving car's abilities will have been tested much more.
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And we know that the Google cars' safety record is that of an exemplary driver. And no - your driving skills are *not* a known quantity to you - you are assuming they are, but as you are human that is patently not the case. You even admit it yourself - you have "some grasp" - not an entire, thorough understanding of everything you can and can not do (unlike the Google cars). Infinitely more people have driven themselves off cliffs and into lakes than Google cars have - why you'd assume they'd do such a t
Re: No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not about judgement. It's about abilities.
A self driving car can simultaneously look in every direction around the car and never have to blink. If an object is detected and the car needs to stop, it takes a person time to physically lift their foot from one pedal and press the other(s). Not much time, sure, but in a sudden stop scenario, every little bit helps.
Humans have much better non-linear thinking. We can navigate dirt roads, or unmapped territory. But for day to day commuting on established roads, automation is the way to go. Computers never get sleepy, they don't get distracted and they can be programmed to obey speed limits. Google's test vehicle is already well above the safety record of an average driver, with nearly half a million miles, safe and sound.
And that's just the prototype.
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computers are also:
1. hackable.. one bored 16yo with a laptop on an overpass + 20000 wirelessly networked cars on a highway = fun.. oh and state mandated kill switches are only there for the children, right?
2. careless about self preservation. A computer will happily cause an accident due to a programming bug or sensor fail. Was that a rock or a plastic bag? A human can tell, but your computer? doubtful. How about that truck carrying those huge metal pipes? Is that top pipe about to fall off the back a
Re: No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:4, Insightful)
This kid can break military-grade encryption? If that's the case we've got far bigger problems on our hands.
So you'd run over a rock in a plastic bag because you thought it was a plastic bag, whereas the radar on the driverless cars would have seen through the plastic bag and seen the rock. The pipe on the back of the truck? Well, the car would keep a safe distance, enough for it to avoid any falling object in front of it. That's what humans should be doing anyway. The cars' LIDAR scans for objects approaching the road, and can do so far better than any human can, so your kid-running-into-the-road situation would work out worse with a human behind the wheel. The LIDAR can see farther, with more accuracy, and in 360-degrees. You can't.
The rest of your post is ill-though-out guesswork ascribing idiocy and incompetence to the development team. They are experts in this field - you are not. You spend a lot of your time on Slashdot, being racist and sexist. I wonder who's more trustworthy when it comes to logical appraisal? You've demonstrated you are a slave to gut instincts and untrusting of data which might change your world-view, so no-one in their right minds should be listening to you.
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If you actually trust a computer more than your own judgement in an accident situation, I feel sorry for you.
I may not trust it more than my judgement but I trust it more than the other crazies on the road. Equally they trust it more than my ability but less the their own ability's. Logically the best option is for both sides to trust the computer. Now while I want a self driving car I want one with manual controls, not so I can take control mid critical moment but because I occasionally need/want to go off road or poorly maintained logging roads that I doubt the self driving car would handle well.
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ah you must be a Windows user, this mistrust of computers is common with your kind :P
All jokes aside though, will it get my favorite parking spot at the shop? Or stop spontaneously in a lay-bye to admire a spectacular view on a high mountain road? I do trust computers to do a better job than the average human when it comes to driving, but I must admit, a manual control input would be nice for some things.
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Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:4, Interesting)
If you drive on the same streets that I do, you trust me with your safety. As my driving skills are below median, this should be a lot more worrying to you then the prospect of being in a computer-driven car. (Fortunately for you, surveys show that below-median drivers are rare.)
Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Google car has done something like 700,000 miles and crashed twice. Both times this occurred, it was under control of the human occupant.
I drive to work every morning and the number of times I see people not paying attention is extraordinary. Women doing their makeup, people texting, trying to argue with their children etc.
Honestly, in my view, removing the steering wheel is a safety feature.
Re:No steering wheel? No deal. (Score:4, Informative)
> "I don't believe..."
That's not really a counter argument.
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I think I would feel much safer driving on the Autobahn at 150 km/h surrounded by self-driving cars that I am feeling right now when driving on the Autobahn.
Also, let your car drive you to and from parties! Wohoo! Party on!
I for one am looking forward to our self-driving overlords. Over 100 years on, the automobile becomes even truer to it's name.
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Sorry. While I love humans, my not-so-humble opinion is that we're nowhere near the level of human reliability needed for a car that could be under manual control.
But seriously, if self-driving cars could be demonstrated to be safe, I'd prefer NOT to have humans behind the wheel, with their poor reaction times, willingness to get drunk, and tendency to play with their cellphones. Getting killed in a car accident is one of the leading causes of death (especially in certain age brackets). Everyone accepts th
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Again, I don't give a damn about "10 years from now".
People in the 50's and 60's were predicting flying cars being common by now.
We all know how THAT turned out.
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That's not what was meant at all and you know it.
It's that you only trust fulfilled promises. Not predictions.
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Do you really trust the other people on the road? At least self-driving cars don't get drunk or distracted.
Do I trust other driver?
No. Which is why I'd rather apply my own Mk.1 Eyeball and pattern recognition software than that of a computer.
MAYBE if EVERY car on the road was turned into a self-driver, I'd have a little more trust. But, the reality is that self-driving cars are going to be sharing the roadways with human-driven cars for several generations AT LEAST. And I don't trust the self-driven cars to appropriately identify/deal with erratic/dangerous situations.
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Yeah, I agree. The mix of computers and humans is probably a recipe for disaster. I've seen many a software package attempt to figure out what I want or intend to do and they usually get it wrong. Now imagine a computer trying to predict the actions of a mix of human and computer vehicles...
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Right. I'm not saying auto-driver systems are a Bad Thing.
Simply that I don't trust them ENOUGH to completely relinquish every last bit of driver control and become an idle passenger.
If the current designers of auto-driver systems thing their software and hardware are infallible, I think they're nowhere near ready for prime-time. They're still caught in "what a wonderful fantasy" stage.
The driver should always retain an option to override an obviously malfunctioning vehicle.
The inability to do so could ge
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There are possibly some hybrid scenario's conceivable in which an auto-automobile (how about calling them a2mobiles?) could serve a very useful intermediary purpose.
Highway driving is much simpler and much more tiring than city driving, so that could be an easy win. Especially with dedicated lanes for a2mobiles, the programming thing could become almost as easy as programming an elevator.
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Have you nothing besides ad hominem to hurl at his argument?
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I don't buy it, with driverless shuttles/cabs all over the place there would be tons of people fucking/doing drugs/pissing/vandalizing in these (expensive) things.
You'll damn well need a user account and probably have 24/7 cameras on you if these things ever get off the ground.
I am ready! (Score:2)
Who else is ready for completely self-driving cars? Time for a Slashdot poll!
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Can't happen soon enough. Also, I like the form factor.
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Me too - as soon as it is affordable, convenient and drives better than I do. They've got one out of three already.
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We can't even keep our little text workstation software free of bugs.. You've got to be kidding me.
No thanks (Score:3)
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
No thanks. If I have the choice I don't want to share the road with cars who depend on the reaction speed of humans when shit happens. It has been proven over and over again that humans are not good in those situations.
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The cars shouldn't have a manual override for emergencies - it should have manual controls for when the computers can't handle the regular driving.
Imagine this: you're driving down a country road. It goes from a 2-lane paved road to a 2-lane dirt road to a 1-lane dirt road. At some point during that progression, the AI no longer has enough information to be able to safely operate. It come to a full stop, plays a prerecorded "Manual assistance required" message, and waits for the human to start driving. Once
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Re:No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
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No thanks, wouldn't want a car that I can't manually override when shit happens.
Dude, if you want to drive a car manually you are the shit that will happen to other people on the road.
Not the right way anyway (Score:2)
Driver or automated, that's beside the point: personal automobiles are the wrong way to go. They take too much room and fuel to transport, usually, only one person at a time. That's a waste. What we need is more and better public transportation: buses, subways, trams, railroads...
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How about a detachable luggage compartment (boot/trunk)? You don't own the car, but you have your own luggage compartment in which you keep your miscellaneous crud. Call a car, attach your compartment, drive to the mall, detach compartment, shop and fill compartment, call another car, go home, detach, unpack at your leisure while the car goes on its next mission.
Re:Not the right way anyway (Score:5, Informative)
Why specify a destination? (Score:2)
The joke on Reddit was good. (Score:2)
This is great news. But this looks too staged for my eyes. All you actually see is an electric car going in straight lines. Great step toward the real thing though! Congrats to google!
r7di43ee85
It doesn't have a steering wheel, what did you expect?
No Stereo!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes please. (Score:5, Insightful)
10/10, would buy.
Automated cars are already better than people. The trains in Canada have been automated for decades and they're fine. The Google fleet drove across the US several times, something most human drivers would probably screw up at some point.
The only thing I dislike is the fact that I love my car and I can't think of a way to convert it economically. Otherwise I would, without hesitation. Including removing the steering wheel and pedals.
I don't want to drive it. I want auto-driving cars and I want them now.
Re:Yes please. (Score:4, Insightful)
The trains in Canada have been automated for decades and they're fine.
On tracks where they are the only ones with minutes between trains and controllers watching every move. This is completely different than vehicles on streets.
The Google fleet drove across the US several times,
Only on roads that have been high resolution scans within hours of the Google vehicle passing and with a driver taking over from time to time when the vehicle gets into trouble.
I don't want to drive it. I want auto-driving cars and I want them now.
Sorry but the technology isn't reliable enough yet.
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Again, like planes, trains don't don't have to share a track with other trains. They're controlled from outside by various dispatch personnel and systems.
This is in no way comparable to an open road situation. The fact that you think it is shows that you haven't actually thought about the subject in any sort of depth whatsoever.
Great, That's all I need... (Score:5, Funny)
A car which automatically takes me places I don't want to go, based on my browsing history.
"...but is there really a market" (Score:2)
2 hour commute? Punch in the destination, go to the couch in back, and get some well erned sleep.
is it failsafe? (Score:2)
What happens if the electronics are disrupted by hacking or EMP?
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You can ask the same for normal cars, as they're basically driving computers these days.
It's a Small World After All... (Score:2)
Google's not stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Technology vs. market (Score:3)
So the technology is now there, but is there really a market for a car that drives you without your input other than the destination?
I think the summary has this backwards. Of course there is a market for a vehicle (let's not call it a car for the moment) that drives you around without your input, think of buses, trains, planes, taxis. If the price is right, it will definitely be a success - it doesn't really need to compete with cars to be useful, although it seems likely that many of those who think of their car as an expensive annoyance they have to have to get around would be interested.
But the thing is that this is still a prototype. The technologi is in fact not there yet - it may be in a couple of years, but we don't know yet.
IMHO the prototype makes sense as a statement and as a challenge. With no steering wheel, there's no 99% self-driving non-sense - they have to have a plan for all corner cases, even if that's something like car stops and is remote-controlled around obstacle.
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At least put in a CD / CD changer.
People still use CDs?