Driverless Cars

[nissangirl74]

Nevada is going to be a pioneer. In March 2012, they will allow cars without drivers on state roads. The company who is spear-heading the project: Google.

The move comes after successful lobbying by Google, itself a leader in driverless vehicle development. While issues such as liability in the event of an accident have yet to be clearly resolved, the state’s approval of autonomous vehicles on public roads gives Google a base of operations for vehicle testing and development. Google will undoubtedly sink a significant amount of money into Nevada’s economy, and the state is already pondering the benefits of driverless taxis and delivery vans.

http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/10 ... rless-cars

How do you feel about this? Do you think it is good or bad for the auto industry? How about the enthusiast? Do you think this will create a generation of non-drivers?

Your thoughts?

[Amays U G37S]

We're not that far into the future yet and the first seriously bad thing to happen will make them disappear and take away the concept for a while. I think its possible, I just don't think we've mastered the technology to actually do it on a mass population basis.

But if it works, would this make people unlikely to strap in and be safe? What will cars become without the focus of the 'driver seat'? A luxury suite on wheels?

[Jesda]

Fine by me only as long as I'm not forced to use such a vehicle.

[sbird1]

I'm down for driver-less taxis. That will make the fares be much cheaper since you don't have to compensate a driver or tip. Sounds like a good plan to me. This would also make products cheaper since you won't have to pay for a driver with a CDL to deliver goods. The "Nodoz" and other uppers companies may suffer, but who cares.

[wannaslide]

i dont know if i could trust it ,everything these days seems to have issuies what happens if they have faults .

abit off topic here but what happens if you dont tip the taxis drivers lol ,we dont really do any tipping here ,will i have to tip everyone in the states ?

[elwesso]

I would think for something that someone wouldn't drive anyway, like a taxi ride or delivery vehicle I'd see this being a significant benefit... Hell, I may even try one for my daily commute if the option existed.

[Jesda]

Scenario 2:
One semi-truck is trying to pass another, but he's only going 1mph faster so it takes him a god damned hour to pass, blocking both lanes.

Scenario 2:
Computers drive the trucks. The would-be driver instead works in the meat department at Safeway.

Its a win/win/win/win/win.

[InfinitiEric]

We're not that far into the future yet and the first seriously bad thing to happen will make them disappear and take away the concept for a while. I think its possible, I just don't think we've mastered the technology to actually do it on a mass population basis.

But if it works, would this make people unlikely to strap in and be safe? What will cars become without the focus of the 'driver seat'? A luxury suite on wheels?

What? The technology has already been developed. If we were more opened minded and not set in our ways we would already have driveless vehicles on the road today.

[bundy26]

It could be good but it could be a disaster , I still trust human common sense even though there are some boneheads on the road and I am passionate about driving myself.

[Dattebayo]

This should help cut down on drunk driving, tho I don't see how this is gonna help at all with the whole taxi and truckers thing. I rather see that as a way to piss of the trucking and cab employees.

[hitbychance]

epic facepalm, it's a prius!

[C-Kwik]

I'm down for driver-less taxis. That will make the fares be much cheaper since you don't have to compensate a driver or tip.

Half the fun of a cab ride is the conversation with the driver. Well, at least when using the cab as party transport.

[themadscientist]

I'm down for driver-less taxis. That will make the fares be much cheaper since you don't have to compensate a driver or tip. Sounds like a good plan to me. This would also make products cheaper since you won't have to pay for a driver with a CDL to deliver goods. The "Nodoz" and other uppers companies may suffer, but who cares.

I actually wouldn't mind that myself except when being chased by machine gun-wielding government agents of course.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjRXyWFLkEY[/youtube]

I think I have made it clear in the past I don't want my car so encumbered. I'm all for an AI driving assistant that monitors car status and and such, but I drive.

[flohtingPoint]

I can sleep while being driven to work or crash out on the way home? Where do I sign up... The only time I have fun driving a car is on a track anyway.

[themadscientist]

You bring up an interesting point. Perhaps I have been too hasty in rejecting this. It would be pretty cool if I was feeling frisky to wink at my lady and say "180, take the long way home" and jump in the back seat. oh wait, I would clock my head on the roll cage and lose my wood. I need a normal car!

All BS aside, think about this. Automated cars require networked computers. What happens when the first automotive viruses start crashing the networks and car CPUs?

Better get some antivirus software for your ish.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jvqPvDU ... re=related[/youtube]

[Dattebayo]

All BS aside, think about this. Automated cars require networked computers. What happens when the first automotive viruses start crashing the networks and car CPUs?

If you think about it, most people are barely equipped to drive their cars as it is. Also, we have crazy people, road-ragers and drunks on the road; I would consider this tantamount to a virus or some kind of failure now...

[themadscientist]

Nothing compared to ALL of the cars flipping out simultaneously. Imagine the worst driver suddenly becoming every car on the road, including yours. No thanks, RS will be immune.

[Dattebayo]

Nothing compared to ALL of the cars flipping out simultaneously. Imagine the worst driver suddenly becoming every car on the road, including yours. No thanks, RS will be immune.

I wouldn't step in one unless there was some sort of triple redundancy or anything.

[themadscientist]

I don't expect there will be such redundancy. We have been taught to trust technology completely. Runaway prius anyone?

[MinisterofDOOM]

I still don't like the idea. Maybe it's old-fashioned, but I'll take the risk of "human error" over the risk of machine error any day. And you've seen how much credit I give humans in general.

The issue is much like that of the flying car. It doesn't come down to a question of how likely things are to go wrong. It comes down to a question of the consequences when things go wrong. When we're talking about lives you've got to be careful.

And I know I've always been in the "Only fools use the question 'What if?' to avoid progress" camp. But I just haven't seen any evidence to suggest that we have the capabilites to design fully automated cars that can coexist with human drivers in an ecosystem as dynamic as public roads. If the automated cars have their own roads, specially designed with all sorts of sensors and tools and metering and ground-up-designed intercompatibility, sure. But sharing the road with humans? We're not ready to make a car that's ready to do that.

It comes down to this I guess:
Humans do more than just process raw input data to arrive at a conclusion. We're intuitive, and it's a powerful ability. Machines are not intuitive, they are by design the opposite. They see only what they look for, and derive only what it tells them. They can't see past that, or make more of it. Before we make a car that can drive itself alongside humans, we need to make some spectacularly, monumentally, history-changingly powerful advancements in AI.

[breadbox]

MY uncle has been automating things in Germany for most of his life, a lot of his tech goes into assembly lines and stuff. But I have seen trucks and tractors using his systems of which he has many kinds of different setups using the same basic concepts and It be cool for stuff like public transit. but Screw lazy people who cant drive anyway, let them take the bus and I'll still have fun driving like I do.

An automated vehicle is going to have so many safety features that it'd be annoying to have a personal automated vehicle.

[breadbox]

Examples of useful automated vehicles would be:

Trucks operating in landfills.
Trucks carrying parts and equipment around a large facility.
The maintenance vehicles in the center tunnel of the chunnel. <---- the tunnel is so tight that the two trucks passing each other at over 40kph are only 20cm apart, not really feasible for a person to do, however a computer can do it all day everyday.

[themadscientist]

You are experiencing a car accident

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBtMq0QzIdQ[/youtube]

[sbird1]

I'm down for driver-less taxis. That will make the fares be much cheaper since you don't have to compensate a driver or tip.

Half the fun of a cab ride is the conversation with the driver. Well, at least when using the cab as party transport.

It's funny you should say that. I told my friend the same thing and I wrote there and he reminded me of the time we were in Baton Rogue and the cabbie smoked us out on the way to the airport. Best taxi ride ever.

[nissangirl74]

UPDATE.
http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/10 ... ou-buy-one

"..... In its 2012 U.S. Automotive Emerging Technologies Study, research firm J.D. Power talked to over 17,400 vehicle owners about upcoming car tech. And do you know how many of them expressed interest in self-driving cars? 37%. For those keeping score at home, that's over 1/3 of respondents.

Of course, that figure slipped to 20% after folks heard the price: an estimated $3,000 on top of MSRP. But still, one in five is nothing to sneeze at.

Not surprisingly, interest is strongest among men age 18 - 37 (i.e. younger, more tech-friendly consumers). It was also especially high -- 31% -- among owners of premium vehicles, perhaps because they've already had a taste of parking-assist and other technology often available on luxury rides. But even among non-premium owners, interest still clocked in at a respectable 18%.

The author was not surprised by the above statistic but I find it very alarming. I would have bet money that men in that age group would be the least likely to want one because it removes them so far away from the driving experience. I find it hard to believe that all of the men who are in favor of this are of the mindset of TMS and are just thinking about how much a** they can get while going to and from work. When the hell did the lazy crawl into your guys' demographic?

[Jesda]

You know what?

Driverless cars are for soulless pieces of sh*t.

Send their a*ses to Antarctica.

[themadscientist]

I'm not surprised at all. These people grew up in a world more littered with and reliant on technology. These men were raised to be ashamed of what my generation would call "manly" so perhaps they see less symbolism in the freedom afforded by a car. It was a right of passage in my day as a young male to get your first car, the first taste of adulthood. It's less so these days with cars being more of a utilitarian item.

I don't look down on this, they are just different than us older folk. I can see some advantage to the concept, but us older types also tend to look past today and if this catches on then the days of being "allowed" to drive your own car are numbered. Networked driverless cars cannot have human-driven vehicles "off the grid" intermingling with them. F that.

[Bubba1]

I can see a place for them, as Generation Y seems in no hurry to get drivers licenses which could eventually create a need for them. But I only see it working in places where human drivers are generally polite and predictable, like Nevada. I think in northern NJ/NYC and Boston, densely populated areas filled with time crazed drivers, where ground acquisition in 25' increments, and getting to the front of the pack by any means possible is a holy quest, would make the Nevada programming fail as badly as Nala on a date. They'd have to add much more to the programming than a hand with an extendable middle finger or bull horn equipped with anatomically impossible insults. Without a infusion of testosterone in the programming, a driverless car will probably end up parked on a NYC sidewalk in order to protect its occupants.

[hannibal]

What was the issue with Camrys and Corollas a few years back? The electronic throttle would stick and hitting the brakes didn't cut the throttle either. So you had runaway cars with drivers along for the ride.

No thanks. If people couldnt figure out to turn off the ignition in an emergency, I could never feel safe knowing theres a faulty automated car with an even more faulty driver/passenger.

[zacmil]

I'm not completely opposed to the idea of an automated car. Where I see them actually being useful is on the interstate. I go to school approximately two hours from where I call home, and I absolutely hate it when I have to make that trip--it's long, straight, and boring. I'm not engaged as a driver, I'm simply a nanny; I make sure I stay in my lane, I don't speed (too much), and I don't run into anyone. I can't help but think about how much time is being wasted--how much homework I could accomplish in those two hours. My ideal solution would be to have some sort of rail system, but for some reason Americans seem to hate the thought of trains. I see automated cars as a way to split the difference. If my car is able to take care of nanny duty for me, then I'm free to take care of a reading assignment or to work on a term paper.

I'd, of course, still want to be able to take back control in the event of some emergency or malfunction, but otherwise I don't mind letting my car handle a boring interstate trip. I don't see it being very effective anywhere else though, I would imagine that there would be too many variables.