Autonomous Cars - Are They Realistic?

[teoman]

Oh dear redpoint5,

I can already see people selling priority.


Model k2000 has priority over other models. It will get to the destination faster.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by teoman

Oh dear redpoint5,

I can already see people selling priority.


Model k2000 has priority over other models. It will get to the destination faster.

Priority will be built into the industry standard protocol, so no tinkering. Perhaps the standard would accommodate a pay-for-priority model, but I kinda doubt it.

The fact is that people with more means already enjoy higher "priority". If you own a helicopter, you have higher priority than those poor saps stuck in gridlock traffic.

Then there's things like priority plane boarding, or "speed passes" at Disneyland. We're living in a world that already is awash in pay for priority.

[teoman]

Locally there was an ambulance limo service. Then they got caught.

[Bicycle Bob]

I just found this thread from the "most popular" list.
I follow the industry press, and there is a lot of buzz around self-driving cars and trucks. There is some serious money interested in putting drivers out of work.

Japan has been running self-driving shuttle busses on company property for over a decade. Having a set route with maintenance priority makes the job easy. In the rest of the world, people are used to staying cautious around railway tracks and freeways. What I'd like to see are guideways, with or without light rails, acting as the expressways in a road system. You could use a velomobile or family-size pod built as a neighbourhood electric vehicle, and drive to an entrance ramp. There, the AI takes over, and times your acceleration to fit you into the first available gap in a train of other personal vehicles and mixed freight. You punch in your exit, and enjoy the ride, possibly picking up a re-charge along the way.

[freebeard]

Which is more expedient: Acrylic tubes down the freeway medians, else holes drilled underground?

[Bicycle Bob]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Which is more expedient: Acrylic tubes down the freeway medians, else holes drilled underground?

The tubes are certainly faster to install, especially given the number of pipes under most urban areas. But, why have a tube at all? Overall, the surface area affected by the vehicles increases, and there are pressure issues. I hope that sound could be minimized other ways.
The tube concept does embody the notion of a very light structure that could be added to a city without much demolition. It would be easy to enforce strict load limits to minimize construction cost. Heavy goods trucks would get longer overall, but that's easy to do.
One way to handle this with minimal air resistance and rolling resistance would be for everything to be smooth and uniform on the expressways. On my electric-assist velomobile, I could head down the entrance ramp at 30 MPH, matching speeds with moving lights. Coasting into what looks like a short tunnel, I would see it match speeds with me just as I got to the far end, and then brake, or let the robot time that to park on the moving floor. This would be similar to boarding an escalator, just on wheels and faster. This minimal covered flatcar would then accelerate to merge with the first passing gap in a train with a bullet nose. If no gaps were immediately available, the entrance ramp lights would slow down to stack traffic there.

[hayden55]

Originally Posted by redneck

.

5G and AI (artificial intelligence) will make it possible.

All you have to do is leave fate (yours) at the door...

>

comma ai already does remote processing over 4g.

[teoman]

Onboard processing is best...

Teslas phone home when charging as far as I know.

[redpoint5]

The only thing worse than "can you hear me now" would be "can you remotely calculate my speed and trajectory now".

[teoman]

Terrifying scenario.