Autonomous Cars - Are They Realistic?

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

https://youtu.be/PvRy986gvVQ

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Sixth point: WHO IS LIABLE FOR WHAT THE CAR DOES?

I know the other points often get the lime light .. but for me at least .. This is the elephant in the the room.

I live in a sue happy society .. a sue happy country .. a sue happy world.

If you dangle a multi-$$$Billion net worth OEM carrot/incentive in front of people .. the suing will 'come out of the wood work'.

Even when the car has no 'pain free' choices .. any choice it makes , results in liability .. hit the 8yr old or the 80yr old .. hit the fence or hit the kid .. etc .. etc.

Weather it's good or bad .. I don't expect the sue happy society/country/world I live in to change any time soon.

And the OEM's lawyers all know this .. and will put up the red flags all day every day.

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This isn't to say it will stop it from ever happening .

I think a very slow many decade long roll out of small steps .. will eventually come to market .. but not any time soon.

I think it will continue to be tiny steps .. park assist .. Brake Assist .. lane change assist .. cruise control .. etc .. tiny steps each slowly decade by decade becoming more and more common place .. OEMs gathering more and more data about what the $cost will be to them , vs the higher prices they can charge for putting it in the car .. cost not just to R&D or to make and distribute .. but also the $ cost of all that liability .. all those law suits .. etc.

Even as it does slowly come to market .. I expect it will easily be ~50 years before even around ~10% of the cars on the road would be driving fully autonomously.

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Even if all the technological and liability and everything else were solved tomorrow .. it just isn't in the OEM's best interest to roll out much faster than that ~50 years.

OEMs maximize their profits and income .. by getting people to buy again and again as often as possible .. It is not in there interest (and they don't want) you to use a ~6 year old cell phone like I still do .. or drive a 19 year old car like I still do .. etc.

It doesn't matter if they have the iPhone8 tech ready when they are selling the iPhone2 .. they don't want to skip all of those profit cycles or the 3,4,5,6,7.

They want to sell a given model for say ~4 years (+/-) .. then they want to make the smallest improvements needed for you to buy the next model .. which they sell for ~4 years .. then they again make the smallest improvements needed for you to buy the next model ... etc .. etc.

If they could convince everyone to buy new model every year they would do models and the small improvements each model year that way .. if the consumers only bought new models every 15-20 years then that's the cycle the OEM would make those small improvements.

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But that's just my 2 bits.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Liability has prevented many technological upgrades to become widespread in the general aviation market, for example. Sure the operating scenario of a cropduster is totally distinct from the one of a major airliner which enables a lot more automated controls due to the IFR support on major airports. So, unless infrastructore to support autonomous driving becomes not only widespreaad but also protected from vandalism as it usually is in commercial airports and military bases, I won't hold my breath for a full-autonomous car, truck or bus to become effectively viable. Autonomous operation requires a more controlled environment, and some human override might not be out-of-question if need arises.

[teoman]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I have a friend who speaks English better than 99% of native speakers, yet in written form his Korean education becomes obvious. My assumption is that writing in a non-native language is more difficult than speaking.



I understand even less of the words you use than AllDark. freebeard is a bot for sure! Mods!

Writing/speaking vs communicating are two very diffierent things.

[NeilBlanchard]

Joe Scott has a new video that fits into this discussion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmjuEikY4ew

[Grant-53]

Mostly we will see autonomous electric vehicles in urban settings owned by fleets. The city transportation department and the vehicle owners would carry liability insurance.

[Natalya]

Y'all are too worried about this. It's good this is the way things are going. My parents got a Clarity last year, I've driven it a couple times, it has lane-keeping assist, auto-braking, variable-speed cruise control, warns when you're following too closely, etc. You'd have to TRY hard to crash that car, and I'm not sure that it would let you crash it!

The more cars on the road like that, like the fewer accidents will even be possible. I want more cars like that on the road so they don't smash me in my rare G1 Honda Insight.

[Joggernot]

Originally Posted by Natalya

Y'all are too worried about this. It's good this is the way things are going. My parents got a Clarity last year, I've driven it a couple times, it has lane-keeping assist, auto-braking, variable-speed cruise control, warns when you're following too closely, etc. You'd have to TRY hard to crash that car, and I'm not sure that it would let you crash it!

The more cars on the road like that, like the fewer accidents will even be possible. I want more cars like that on the road so they don't smash me in my rare G1 Honda Insight.

I have a G5 Honda CRV 2018 that has all these features. Put it on cruise control in traffic and it maintains a fixed, adjustable distance behind the car in front. Has automatic braking if the car in front stops, and it will take you to a complete stop with smoking tires, if needed. It will drive itself for a short time before you have to "wiggle" the steering wheel to let it know you are still there. Untested hack for long drives is to tape a can of Red Bull to the steering wheel, and it should stay in the lane for a long time. Took a while for this old guy to get used to it, but now I like it. Specially nice for those long Texas drives we make.

[sendler]

My big reservation to adding all of this tech to cars is that it is jacking up the price. Of the car and for insurance because the amounts and frequency of totals from a collision are higher. Too bad we feel the need to make our cars "fool" proof since this is another example of how we are moving to a world where more poor people cannot afford to get where they are going.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by sendler

My big reservation to adding all of this tech to cars is that it is jacking up the price. Of the car and for insurance because the amounts and frequency of totals from a collision are higher. Too bad we feel the need to make our cars "fool" proof since this is another example of how we are moving to a world where more poor people cannot afford to get where they are going.

It’s optional equipment on most cars, and the expense will come down over time and eventually result in less collisions and lower insurance premiums.

Most of the features are a marginal parts expense to existing systems. Since the power steering already has an electric motor for example, then it’s a small matter to use it to steer automatically.

It’s a logical evolution of technology.