Mercedes-Benz's Self-Driving Concept Car Is Here 167
cartechboy writes: Mercedes-Benz has finally taken the wraps off its autonomous concept car, dubbed the F015 Luxury in Motion Concept. Shown at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas last night, the concept is a self-driving, fully-connected, hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid that touts a vision of driving in the future. Mercedes says this concept is not only a means for getting someone from one point to another, but also a usable space for entertainment or work as well as a platform for communication and interaction. The hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid system is unique in that it produces zero emissions at all times. It consists of a hydrogen fuel cell stack, a lithium-ion battery, and two electric motors. The F015 has a driving range of 124 miles with a fully charged battery, and up to 684 miles with a full tank of hydrogen. While not intended for production, Mercedes shows us that it has the technology today to produce a zero-emission vehicle that can drive itself. In related news, Audi has just shown off an A7 that drove itself 550 miles from San Francisco to Las Vegas for CES.
"while not intended for production" (Score:2)
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Re:"while not intended for production" (Score:5, Insightful)
Man will you be surprised in 3-5 years.
Just look at voice recognition's progress within the last two years alone. It had reached a plateau of about 80% accuracy, even when speaking slowly, clearly, and without regional accent. Now? I can mutter drunkenly and it'll get it more often than not. I can say very local business words like Phydeaux (upscale pet store) and get the spelling right!
It's called machine learning. The more experience/scenarios etc these self driving cars get, the better they'll be.
I'd say I'm as confident as you (but in the opposite direction) that within 10 years computers will out-drive humans in all scenarios. It won't even be close. 360 degree sub-millisecond informational input versus our meatbag eyes and reflexes??
Re:"while not intended for production" (Score:4, Informative)
Meanwhile, back in the real world, my car can't even figure out when I say 'redial', and gets about four of of ten numbers wrong when I try to dial a number directly.
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"Meanwhile, back in the real world, my car can't even figure out when I say 'redial', and gets about four of of ten numbers wrong when I try to dial a number directly."
That's because it's not a Benz.
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That's unfortunate that you bought a crappy car. My voice recognition works great.
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Re:"while not intended for production" (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree with your assertion, and it just so happens that I have a software development background that includes voice recognition, visual interpretation, and vehicle communication systems.
Voice recognition is a really cool subject. There are a finite (and surprisingly small) number of sounds that make up the English language. But for each of those sounds there are nearly an infinite number of dialects. This is combated by looking at the context of each individual sound to find known sound patterns. This can still result in thousands of different words, so we look at the context of the sentence. And through out this effort you have to deal with people talking quickly/slowly, while emotional or out of breath, with a southern drawl or a New York accent, or ESL folks that may say put words in an order that makes the context obvious. Heck, we did it for early onset dementia patients. The amount of work it took to dial in the VRE even when we knew the specific user and their inflection/dialect was massive.
When it comes to visual recognition, the AI for a car doesn't need to understand what a dog is, it just has to recognize that there is an IR source on the current trajectory. The AI doesn't need to comprehend what a boulder is, it just needs to recognize that there is an obstruction in the road.
The AI doesn't need to be able to identify that there is a lady wearing a yellow spotted sun dress doing interpretive dance while high on mescaline in the middle of the road, it just needs to identify that there is something in the road and respond accordingly (slow down, swerve, stop, etc...)
The exact same thing is true for humans. For example: the other day I was driving my wife's car. I was pulling out from the gas station and something caught my eye after I thought traffic was clear. So I slammed on the brakes thinking I missed something. Turns out it was a reflection of a dash light on the side window.
Yeah, there will be false positives. A vehicle may decide that a pothole is actually an obstruction, or that the railroad track is the end of a road. But in the vast majority of cases these are targets that the vehicle can identify from a significant distance away. It's not like you're going to be driving on the open road then come screeching to a halt for no reason.
And each of these false positives is something that will be handled through refining the AI system. Through IR, RADAR, real-time 3-d surface mapping, V2I communications, V2V communications, etc...
It's coming, and quickly. And many municipalities and states are looking to leverage the V2I systems. If you have a V2I enabled vehicle in Las Vegas, you can actually get the system to tell you how fast you should drive to avoid hitting red lights. Most major metros already have systems in place picking up tire pressure and blue tooth signals to determine traffic volume and speed, which is how those fancy "12 minutes to exit 123" signs get populated.
As the 2017 cars start rolling out and more data becomes available, we'll see technology leaping ahead. For example, in Wisconsin, our 511 site has a public facing developer API, so even if the state can't invest in some cool new apps and vehicle information systems, individual developers and manufacturers can: http://www.511wi.gov/Web/extra... [511wi.gov]
-Rick
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Very nice post. This particular line made a question pop into my head: Do we have any human-driven cars that have a companion AI "driving" a virtual car, where the AI is doing risk aversion and noting where the human differs from the AI for later review and/or machine learning?
Using your example, the vehicle "sees" a railroad track but, because of the sudden shift in terrain, thinks it's an end of
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I'm not aware of anything like that currently, but I'm on the other side of the equation at the moment. I work for a state DOT, so I'm seeing things primarily from the V2I perspective.
I know that years ago Cadillac had an infrared detection and HUD alert system, but I don't believe it did any analysis of it.
I would be surprised if the major autonomous vehicle players aren't looking at machine learning though. Someone had previously mentioned a vehicle with collision avoidance that would force a vehicle to s
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Interesting, thanks for the reply!
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Re:"while not intended for production" (Score:5, Insightful)
"And the award for most contrived example goes to...." I kid, I kid.
But seriously, how many human drivers would pass your test? I'd imagine they're do worse that the automated cars by a long shot. Here's why: a human driver in your example is going to to be overwhelmed with information as soon as the snowboarder appears, in this confusion they are likely to forget the dangers of swerving right or left.
In contrast, the machine does not become overwhelmed. The world passes very, very slowly to it. What does it see? Everything in your example, but in a simplified context. It sees the guardrail. The guardrail is a known item to it, it signifies danger. It cannot cross the guardrail. It sees the truck in the other lane, it is a large object and moving quickly, it cannot move into the path of this object. There is a new object in the road, an object that maybe be a person or animal. It may have to collide with this object. It begins to apply the brakes in a controlled fashion, and lightly impacts the snowboarder. All because it wasn't driving 60mph on an icy mountain road like a goddamn idiot.
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The first option is always to break. Contrived example I think goes to you, lol.
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And here's some counters:
The autonomous vehicle, detecting slippery road conditions, and not being an over confident idiot driving way over a reasonably safe speed would slow down. Making emergency maneuvers less risky.
The autonomous vehicle, using V2V information, knows exactly where that oncoming truck is, and is able to communicate it's knowledge of surrounding risks and travel plan (ie: I'm going to stay in this lane, you stay in yours!) reducing the risk of a head-on collision.
The autonomous vehicle, u
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Voice recognition is a joke. 9 times out of 10 my gf's android phone is way off and can't recognize half the words.
And yesterday I tried Youtube's automatic close captionning, on a video with a guy speaking correct american english, in a very quiet room, and it was really funny, as ALL sentences where complete and utter garbage.
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I'd also say, that as more of these cars are on the road, they'll create more accurate represenations of those roads to navigate by, and changes in conditions would require attention will be diminished. The reality is that scaling does matter. More cars = More data = Better decisions = better experience.
I can easily imagine, GoogleCar/Lyft changing how we commute. Imagine autonomous busses.
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By surprised you mean, wont see any autonomous cars then yes, yes I'll be surprised.
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Time is moving faster than you expect. The model year 2017 vehicles in the US are all required to have a V2V communications systems in place when they roll of the line. Most of the V2V interfaces also support V2I communications.
We will be seeing some radical advances in automation, crash avoidance, and information services to motor vehicles in the next 10 years.
And the autonomous vehicle with self-drive functionality doesn't need to understand 100% of all possible traffic/infrastructure interactions. As soo
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We don't need real AI. We need good-enough-to-be-safe AI, with human intervention available when the AI calls for it.
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It's a concept car. Concept cars never are almost never turned into a product, they are intended to generate press and publicity, which this one is succeeding in doing.
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a car doesn't really need a real AI.
a real AI is so much more different concept than something that logically drives a car perfectly in all possible situations. it just needs to drive a car, it doesn't need to be able to come up with the concept of what a car is on it's own.
that kind of says how far we are from the hipster shit singularity in reality.
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"Humans can recognize things in real world which machine can't without learning first. "
Alas, no. People see what they expect to see, their brain is hardwired that way.
That's why they never see the biker, they expect to see cars only in the mirror.
Machines do not make that mistake.
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Machines do not make that mistake.
You're right. Machines see a bunch of random blobs and think it's a bike.
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You're right. Machines see a bunch of random blobs and think it's a bike.
Doesn't really matter. On average you don't want the car to be hitting said blobs, whether it's a bike, sign, people, another vehicle, animal, or random road debris.
Of course, the 'race for the self-driving car' seems to be shaping up to be a bit like the race for the first heavier than air flying vehicle. You ended up with multiple companies working on multiple solutions, and many of them more or less succeeded in a relatively short period of time. In some cases they had to carefully consider time zones
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It's like bug spray for bureaucrats.
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If I can get a reasonable alternative, say a company has a fleet of these things to pick people up and drop them off I would be so happy.
I expect you'd like a pony, too.
Best thing is, they're self-driving, so long as you don't really care where you end up.
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But then the second user joined (Score:3)
> There was a time when Slashdot was full of people who'd think more than two seconds about their brave new economic ideas, rather than just demanding a pony.
Yep, that time was October 5th, 1997. Then the second user joined the site, and the idiocy began.
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During peak there would be the possibly of carpooling effectively creating a privatized transportation system.
People can do that today. Most don't, because they don't want to have to spend ten minutes waiting outside someone else's house and end up late for work because they couldn't get out of bed on time.
None of these utopia schemes work so long as everyone has to travel at roughly the same time.
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They do, they are called taxis, public transit, van pools, etc. There are many alternatives to personal vehicle ownership.
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I agree with your assessment of the alternatives and I choose not to expose myself to those issues and therefore choose to own a personal vehicle. This is a choice and not mandatory as the GP stated.
When they test these autonomous cars... (Score:1)
Do these tests cover use cases such as encountering a flash flooded road where what used to be a road is now a river? Driving on ice? Etc.
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Did your driving test cover that?
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Mine did. Denver in December (Score:2)
Icy roads? Yeah, when I was 16 I took my driving test in Denver Colorado, in December. So several feet of snow on each side of the road and plenty of ice around. Come to think of it, that was kind of dumb.
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Re:When they test these autonomous cars... (Score:5, Insightful)
And if that is the response, that is why autonomous cars will NEVER work on public roads.
Either the car drives itself 100% of the time, or I drive it 100% of the time.
If someone thinks that you're going to be driving along in your car not paying attention to the road, and suddenly the computer is doing to say "fuck it, I don't know, you do it" they're complete morons.
Human reaction time will not allow a driver who is disengaged to suddenly be in control of the car.
There is no "sometimes the computer drives and sometimes you do", unless it's a complete transition. But when the computer is driving, I should be able to climb in the back and sleep, or read the paper.
Otherwise the entire system is doomed to fail, because it simply won't work in the real world.
I see zero value in an "autonomous" car which is periodically going to decide it isn't responsible. And I'm sure neither Benz nor Google plan on indemnifying you from legal responsibility.
In which case this will always simply be a toy.
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The horseless carriage was a novelty at first. I mean, who wants to ride in a machine that has no mind of its own? Something that can't even avoid minor obstacles on its own?
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The horseless carriage was a novelty at first. I mean, who wants to ride in a machine that has no mind of its own? Something that can't even avoid minor obstacles on its own?
Your analogy is silly, unless it was a 'horseless' carriage that required you to pull a horse behind it just in case it refused to drive anywhere under its own steam.
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There is no "sometimes the computer drives and sometimes you do", unless it's a complete transition. But when the computer is driving, I should be able to climb in the back and sleep, or read the paper.
Agreed. This has to be the case. All the real value use cases for autonomous requires 100% autonomy and liability on the car.
From drop me off downtown and then go find a place a park on its own (empty) and then come pick me up when I call it; to dropping the kids off a school (no adult), and return home (empt
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Because if a driver is expected to sit in the driver seat, hands on the wheel, ready to take control, but not actually in control the entire time, then there is no reason to have an autonomous car.
That's not entirely true. Hands-free cruise control, for example, could be useful even if you have to keep an eye on the road to check nothing disastrous is about to happen.
But, yeah, in a city, forget it. When my 'driverless car' starts sliding sideways on ice, I don't want it to suddenly tell me to take over and then blame 'human error' when I crash.
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But, yeah, in a city, forget it. When my 'driverless car' starts sliding sideways on ice, I don't want it to suddenly tell me to take over and then blame 'human error' when I crash.
I have the feeling that the standard would be 'I can't handle this, pull over to a safe stop; if you want to continue before conditions improve you do it' rather than just abruptly handing control over to you.
Indeed, it's my understanding that the collision avoidance detectors in many of these new vehicles are always on. So if you fall asleep or whatever it'll hit the brakes before you ram into something.
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Stop being so extreme... I already have a car that will not automatically stop without hitting the car in front of me. Yes, in rare cases (extreme stop or someone cutting me off so close the car doesn't see it), I have to respond. But unless I see one of those two scenarios, I just cruise home while chatting hands-free with my wife. And it's wonderful.
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Yeah, when we bought a new car last year, we were laughing at all the models that now come with 'lane assist' based on tracking the lane markings, because you can't see the lane markings on our roads for about nine months a year...
But, hey, I'm sure a 'driverless car' that's been tested on a highway in California will handle it just fine.
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You're apparently an idiot who's getting all hyped up about cars that can 'drive themselves' in extremely constrained conditions that bear no resemblance to real life for most of the drivers in the world.
Yes, one day there'll be driverless cars on the road, capable of handling any conditions without human intervention. But that day won't be any year soon.
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Stop being so extreme... I already have a car that will not automatically stop without hitting the car in front of me. Yes, in rare cases (extreme stop or someone cutting me off so close the car doesn't see it), I have to respond. But unless I see one of those two scenarios, I just cruise home while chatting hands-free with my wife. And it's wonderful.
And this is what the driver of the Ford Kuga (which has Automatic Emergency Braking) thought before she rammed into the back of my stationary Honda Integra.
A perfectly good sports car written off by some moron on the phone who thought technology would magically save her from harm.
Also there are more than two scenarios that require you to brake, almost all of them not programmed into AEB.
Autonomous cars are better at driving than you not because they're good but because you're such a terrible driver
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I disagree. It doesn't have to be a "sudden" transition... the transition can be in planned scenarios (like transitioning from freeway to non-freeway driving). The car could also pull to the side of the road when weather conditions become too adverse.
"Driver must be prepared to take control at any time" is a reasonable disclaimer for early self-driving cars, and may even become the law in many states.
Just because you won't buy such a car doesn't mean there are not plenty of people who would.
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Uh...weather information isn't quite that pervasive. That said, I don't think we even need to go THAT far.
Suppose you're driving along and you suddenly get hit by torrential snow or rain. What would you do?
Well, of course, the first thing you do is slow down. "Never outdrive your senses," to coin a phrase. So if rain or snow is affecting your visibility, you slow down. Why wouldn't a self-driving car do the same, while flashing a "Please take over driving" alert?
To me, a self-driving car is essentially
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To me, a self-driving car is essentially a really clever cruise control. Which means it's great for the highway but not so good for crowded city streets.
It's worth noting that Google's current self-driving car platform is intended primarily for use on crowded city streets. They don't go very fast, and so aren't intended for highway driving at all. They do an outstanding job of dealing with pedestrians, cyclists and other automobiles.
They don't handle bad weather all that well yet, though.
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And if that is the response, that is why autonomous cars will NEVER work on public roads.
Either the car drives itself 100% of the time, or I drive it 100% of the time.
I would love a car capable on cruising along pre-approved rural interstates, but handing over control to me for city driving. Set your destination to a city 7 hours away, and watch a movie, read a book, or maybe even take a nap, while the car keep a more vigilante "eye" on driving than a human possibly can for any extended period of time.
Of course it should be 100% capable of driving itself when in charge, and not suddenly hand over to a human. When it needs refueling, or if the weather deteriorates it nee
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It sounds silly but that's exactly how autopilot and fly by wire systems work in Airbus and Boeing aircraft and they have hundreds of passengers at a time.
Actually, modern aircraft have collision avoidance systems. While Boeing planes tend to default to 'trust the pilot', Airbus's planes will act to avoid collision no matter what the pilot does.
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And if that is the response, that is why autonomous cars will NEVER work on public roads.
Either the car drives itself 100% of the time, or I drive it 100% of the time.
If someone thinks that you're going to be driving along in your car not paying attention to the road, and suddenly the computer is doing to say "fuck it, I don't know, you do it" they're complete morons.
It sounds silly but that's exactly how autopilot and fly by wire systems work in Airbus and Boeing aircraft and they have hundreds of passengers at a time.
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It sounds silly but that's exactly how autopilot and fly by wire systems work in Airbus and Boeing aircraft and they have hundreds of passengers at a time.
And pilots, with far more training and much more time available to determine what's happening and correct it... fly a perfectly good aircraft into the sea.
Autopilots have proven again and again that 'just dump the problem in the human's lap when the computer doesn't know what to do' is disastrous.
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...or how about the car works all by itself on major roads and highways. On crappy side roads that aren't properly documented in the GPS maps, let alone suitably paved, lit or maintained, it says "I'm sorry, I can't drive down this road, but you can". A solution like this would mean 80% of all journeys would be 100% autonomous and it would mean the vast majority of accidents would be avoided, as considerably few accidents happen on shitty side roads than they do on the major ones.
I doubt anyone would accept
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Don't forget the all important jet engine test. (you won't get that if you're not a Far Side fan)
Where does the hydrogen come from?? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Said it first!
Re:Where does the hydrogen come from?? (Score:5, Informative)
The nuclei were formed in the first few seconds after the big bang. Molecular hydrogen didn't form until about 380,000 years later, after the photon epoch [wikipedia.org].
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Water, and dreams...
Feel good technology (Score:2)
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The majority of electricity is produced by doing something that wrecks the planet somehow, according to somebody.
The point is that electricity is an interesting way to power a car because we can think of more ways of making electricity - both now and in the future - than we can of making gasoline.
The same is true of hydrogen. For instance, you can make hydrogen via electrolysis. If you are somewhere with abundant, cheap, clean electricity - like Iceland - then dumping off-peak electricity into electrolosy
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That's not the only place that Hydrogen can come from though. There have been ways to crack Hydrogen from water using non-electric solar tech.
I hope you're planning to precede them with a distiller, because if you're putting anything other than clean water into that system, you're going to both be creating wastes and destroying electrodes, creating more waste. Now how much does your system cost to maintain? It's already spectacularly inefficient.
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The majority of hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming or partial oxidation of methane and coal gasification. Not exactly zero-emissions technology.
Hydrogen is mostly made from natural gas, with is cheap, plentiful (at least in North America), and domestically produced. The NG->H2->Fuel-Cell process is way more efficient than a gasoline ICE.
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Hello Micheal (Score:2)
They should have had David Hasselhoff as the driver.
Lets start with marketing (Score:1)
Not Content To Merely Drive Like an Asshole (Score:2)
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Now I shall a rear bumper
You accidentally the whole thing
with an LED display to tell other drivers what to do! Now excuse me while I execute 1000 consecutive lane changes in rush hour traffic -- I've got important places to be
There's no room to make 1000 lane changes if people are paying attention. Which self-driving cars will do, unlike the typical jerkoffs driving about.
Need the Concept Bus (Score:5, Insightful)
You want to convince me you are SERIOUS about getting into the driverless car? Then build a Concept Bus - or Concept Garbage Truck.
Those are large vehicles that honestly do not need drivers. They are expect to drive slow, not fast and usually travel set routes. Small cities can easily afford to self-insure them, and they won't have to worry quite so much about the stupid technology ignorant laws, as they will be purchased by the people that enforce, if not write the laws. Finally they are already expensive and the cities pay large salaries to people to drive them.
They will in all probability be the very first driverless vehicles we actually see on the road [as soon as we 1) convince the unions to let us and 2) actually get them to work.]
So forget about concept 'cars' and show me a concept bus or concept garbage truck.
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I don't know where you live but here in Canada garbage trucks are run by private companies, the contract being awarded by the city to the lowest bidder.
So good luck having those private companies invest in anything else than trucks that are crapped out and barely legal on the road, and the lowest wage they can give to any driver which has a driving permit.
Re:Need the Concept Bus (Score:4, Insightful)
But in fact, a private company is a lot EAISER to convince to buy such a device, because they are more focused on the bottom line, rather than appealing to Local 831, USA of the Teamsters (a worthy organization, but they have to put their own interests above those of the city - that's what their members pay them to do.)
A new Garbage Truck can easily cast $500,000. They are large and expensive devices and they typically make over $40,000 a year. For a system that costs $30,000, a small company would easily come out ahead after just one year. If it costs $100k, it takes 3 years.
(Note, you still need employees to LOAD the garbage, you just need 2 men per truck as opposed to 3).
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More than 1 person? The driver gets out of the truck? I haven't seen that here in 20 years! Here the truck drives along the street, has a big mechanical arm that reaches out, grabs the bin and empties it into the truck.
As I said it has been like that for at least 20 years.
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(Note, you still need employees to LOAD the garbage, you just need 2 men per truck as opposed to 3).
The loading of garbage onto trucks was something Australia automated well over a decade ago.
In fact, seeing a person lifting a garbage bin into a truck is a rare sight, so rare that when I went overseas to Thailand last week, I was surprised to see actual garbagemen.
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(Note, you still need employees to LOAD the garbage, you just need 2 men per truck as opposed to 3).
All the trucks in my area are automated, meaning there's a hydraulic arm that picks up the cans and dumps them. They're slower and more expensive than non-automated trucks, but require only a single operator (the driver). I have a brother-in-law who drives such a truck and in discussions with him I've become skeptical that they'll replace the driver in such trucks any time soon, because he encounters enough bizarre situations on a regular basis that having a human on board is essential.
In situations where
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Komatsu Autonomous Haulage System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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The problem is that for the foreseeable future driverless cars will still require human occupants at all times. Otherwise it would be pretty easy to screw with them, from a simple "denial of service" attack where you pen it in with traffic cones for lulz to hijacking driveless long haul goods vehicles. Sometimes the computer just can't figure out what to do and needs help.
Basically, if something goes wrong a human needs to step in, often immediately. Eventually this may change, but notice how even this conc
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Plus, with buses, they can make smaller buses that have more routes and can also respond to demand to better stick to schedules. (If 13 people "check in" at Bus Stop B but no one at Bus Stop A, then the bus can take a shortcut that avoids A and goes to B sooner, to better handle the larger amount of people waiting to get on.)
Even if the tech is viewed as very mature by every automotive professional, Average Joe will still view it with heavy skepticism. Having a human who coul
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Concepts cars are worthless, most never get made.
You want to convince me you are SERIOUS about getting into the driverless car? Then build a Concept Bus - or Concept Garbage Truck.
Those are large vehicles that honestly do not need drivers. They are expect to drive slow, not fast and usually travel set routes. Small cities can easily afford to self-insure them, and they won't have to worry quite so much about the stupid technology ignorant laws, as they will be purchased by the people that enforce, if not write the laws. Finally they are already expensive and the cities pay large salaries to people to drive them.
They will in all probability be the very first driverless vehicles we actually see on the road [as soon as we 1) convince the unions to let us and 2) actually get them to work.]
So forget about concept 'cars' and show me a concept bus or concept garbage truck.
Regarding unions. Their raison-d'être is job creation, protection, and union dues. The problem that many municipalities have is union agreements and idiotic outdated rules. For example of such a rule is , "a driver drives, and does not get out of the truck to pick up or deliver". Another example, "The electrician is responsible for the breakers. We had a swimming pool front door attendant plug in a kettle from home, and with it and the other electrical stuff on the circuit, caused the breaker to
Had a pleasure to see early self-driving footage (Score:5, Insightful)
That was in 1997 when I worked at what later became the KIT [wikipedia.org].
Back then they tested an early artificial neural net controller under real life conditions on the Autobahn A8. The driver just sat with his arms folded behind the wheel.
This technology has been a long time coming and still lawmakers haven't caught on to it.
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And before your KIT, there was the KITT. It even had a voice synthesiser that sounded just like that guy from St Elsewhere. I'm still waiting for Trans-Am to release that model.
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KITT, not invented in Germany but certainly embraced like nowhere else by an entire generation of German pre-teen boys.
Probably lead directly to this prototype.
Oxymoron (Score:2)
Mercedes-Benz's Self-Driving Concept Car Is Here
When are concept cars every really "here," in any practical sense of the term?
omfg, take the hint! (Score:2)
NOBODY wants a self driving car!
Hopefully this still gets read... (Score:2)
(1) Make no mistake, semi-autonomous cars are useless, but meaningful collision avoidance systems are useful and that's the first stepping stone in the process
(2) Autonomous cars are still decades away from any sort of real adoption and automobile manufacturers should (I suspect they are...) develop them in the context of a shared usage vehicle given their much higher utilization than a regular car (an autonomous car could be in use 100% of the time as oppose
Hello, it emits water and energy. (Score:2)
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"Any airbags would have to be integrated into the seats."
I have 3 airbags in my seat right now and I don't even have a Benz.
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The car is a technology demonstrator. However, they plan to sell fuel-cell cars in 2017 and Toyota wants to sell them 2020. Depending on the availability of hydrogen filling stations this technology could be near you in a decade. The interesting thing of the concept car is that they combined hydrogen fuel-cell and batteries allowing to bridge the gap between hydrogen filling stations with the battery. In addition they had their self driving technology already integrated in a normal E or S class car which is