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Autonomous Car Progress
- Thread starter stopcrazypp
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- Autonomous Vehicles
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Because Musk is right?
You are not really answering my question. If Musk is right that autonomous cars will not solve traffic and will actually make traffic worse then why is he pushing FSD so much? Why does he want the millions of Tesla cars are the road to be FSD if it will make traffic worse?
voyager
Active Member
What I pointed out in other threads, simple:
1. ride-hail companies want driverless so they can save on human drivers (largest expense)
2. car companies want driverless as a gadget, a comfort feature which comes in handy for
car owners, especially if they are bridging distances, in between cities for instance.
Nonetheless, experts already warned that slow, cautiously moving taxis, especially when they
are built/sized like rolling real estate (Cruise Origin) I should add, will cause more congestion!
To be honest, I am always baffled by the symantics-like discussion here about what FSD (or ADS)
is supposed to constitute, without anyone bothering what they really mean for personal mobility.
1. ride-hail companies want driverless so they can save on human drivers (largest expense)
2. car companies want driverless as a gadget, a comfort feature which comes in handy for
car owners, especially if they are bridging distances, in between cities for instance.
Nonetheless, experts already warned that slow, cautiously moving taxis, especially when they
are built/sized like rolling real estate (Cruise Origin) I should add, will cause more congestion!
To be honest, I am always baffled by the symantics-like discussion here about what FSD (or ADS)
is supposed to constitute, without anyone bothering what they really mean for personal mobility.
While traffic might be worse, safety will be better. And since you don't have to do the driving yourself you can use that time for other purposes, work, reading, watching movies, sleeping, etc.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Good answer. I think Elon should lead with that.
But I would just add that safety is not automatically better just because the car is autonomous. It is a common misconception that autonomous cars will automatically be safer just because they have perfect situational awareness and will never get tired, drunk or distracted. Those things will definitely help safety and will help counter the big reasons why humans are unsafe. But autonomous cars can make other mistakes that humans don't make. The bottom line is that we will need to train autonomous cars to make safe driving decisions in order for them to be safer. That's why AV companies are working so hard on autonomous driving. Training the AV to make smart driving decisions in all situations is very hard.
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EVNow
Well-Known Member
There are multiple things happening at the same time that affects traffic / mobility. They have to be analyzed together - instead of one at a time, like we see here.
- Move to autonomous vehicles
- Move towards working from home
- Virtual meetings
- Flexible work timings
Let us see how things may change ... say 5 years in the future compared to pre-Covid times.
Everyone is going to first decide whether they want to WFH or go to office. They may go 100% or few days a week - and may establish a pattern. They will do a lot more virtual meetings compared to in-person meetings. All this will reduce traffic. We got a taste of this because of Covid.
Will more people travel to work (compared to pre-Covid) - because of autonomous vehicles ... ? I'm not so sure. Yes, there will be some .... but I think most people bit the bullet, drive to work even though it sucks. Those will continue to drive to work but will have a relaxed drive, instead of tough drives. A lot of younger people already take uber (and in some cities mass transit).
The biggest question is will more people drop out of commute compared to people starting to commute because of self-driving cars ? Of course !! Does anyone even think differently here ... ?
I hope in the future most travel is optional and not for work. People will self-regulate based on traffic ...
ps : I wonder whether billionaires like Musk can even imagine how ordinary people with family responsibilities live .... WFH is such a blessing for people with smaller kids, nobody wants to instead go to work just because they don't need to drive.
pps : I'm only talking about people who are industries where WFH is possible. Obviously there are a lot of industries where it is not - and they commute, whether they need to drive or not.
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The solution is to add tracking strips to the middle of road lanes. Hell, while they are adding the strips, they could add charging features to it, so your car charges as it's driving down the road. Those strips would contain navigational data so the car knows where it is.
It would be like a ride-rail that you car could navigate. Basic cars could "latch" onto the strip and provide basic TACC, keeping the car in the middle of the lane. Cars could communicate with each other through the strip, alerting others that it's going to slow down for a lane-change, etc.
It would be like a ride-rail that you car could navigate. Basic cars could "latch" onto the strip and provide basic TACC, keeping the car in the middle of the lane. Cars could communicate with each other through the strip, alerting others that it's going to slow down for a lane-change, etc.
voyager
Active Member
Ever contemplated that autonomous cars, in the double meaning of the word: self-controlled and maneuvering independently, may well be an illusion. WSJ wrote June 2021 that already $80 billion has been spent on ADS (FSD).
Toyota is for instance a major doubter of what AV developers are working on. Reason why it is working
on a new city (maybe a couple of blocks) where V2V and an electronic overlay will monitor and implement
the whole autonomous vehicles thing. Btw, I was in a session with Zoox and Nuro two months ago. Both
presenters admitted that SAE L5 is decades away at least! No doubt, not something they will readily admit
when it is time to tickle VC once again!
IMO it is better to start thinking about ‘viability strategies’ rather than pressure authorities like the NHTSA
into adapting legislation and changing the rules of the game. Five solid reasons why it will take longer,
and that I haven’t seen AV developers seen address properly.
Toyota is for instance a major doubter of what AV developers are working on. Reason why it is working
on a new city (maybe a couple of blocks) where V2V and an electronic overlay will monitor and implement
the whole autonomous vehicles thing. Btw, I was in a session with Zoox and Nuro two months ago. Both
presenters admitted that SAE L5 is decades away at least! No doubt, not something they will readily admit
when it is time to tickle VC once again!
IMO it is better to start thinking about ‘viability strategies’ rather than pressure authorities like the NHTSA
into adapting legislation and changing the rules of the game. Five solid reasons why it will take longer,
and that I haven’t seen AV developers seen address properly.
- Mimicking the human brain. Billions of brain cells multiplied by tens of thousands of synapses in each individual human brain make for more instant connections than there are stars in 20 to 40 thousand galaxies. Housed in a roundish ‘cockpit’ capable of swiveling (human head), equipped with two amazingly effective optic and ditto hearing sensors (eyes and ears) and a hard-drive full of constantly updatable lessons, topped off by the human intuition, they enable us to split-sec reference what we see, hear and feel when driving. Hard to beat those, if ever.
- ‘Other cars’. Ever realized that before you can expect driverless vehicles to take over, you will probably need to phase out conventional, manually operated cars, and probably need overlaying grid control? AVs will be mainly limited to campuses, industrial parks, gated communities, or ‘smart cities’ like the one Toyota is planning right now.
- ‘Road anomalies’. A lot will probably need to happen before AVs can be considered safe. Intersections may need to be changed, improved, standardized. ‘Road anomalies’ may have to be removed, not to confuse an AV. It’s going to be a long and very costly process. Until that time, slow and cautiously maneuvering AVs will actually contribute to more congestion.
- The displacement aspect.The types of SUVs and MPVs which are used by ride-hail providers, are not conducive to autonomously maneuvering. Vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists should of course not become casualties of driverless taxis that can’t quite cope with traffic, because of its inherently complicated nature and unpredictable fluidity.
- No Standardization in sight.There’s a winner-beats-all mindset, in which each AV developer is working on its own to bring an AV. Not good from a standardization perspective, which may be the most important prerequisite for any system that’s supposed to take over from human drivers. That requires all developers to open up and share their proprietary secrets. Fat chance that will happen any time soon.
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EVNow
Well-Known Member
LOL. How about repairing all those crumbling bridges first ?
See above.
The world doesn't generate enough surplus to feed all the hungry - let alone re-lay millions of miles of roads for AVs.
I'm not going to address those points individually - but enough to say the brain has not evolved to drive. So, you don't need full capabilities of the brain to drive. I don't think the world needs to be drastically changed to make AVs happen, AVs will work in the present world.
Lots of places can't seem even to keep the lane markings painted.
Doggydogworld
Active Member
The US alone produces about 2 bushels of corn per year for every person on the planet. Roughly 500 calories per day. Not quite enough to survive, but that's just one crop from one country.
We feed most of it to animals. Almost a third goes into making fuel.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Don’t take it literally ….
Besides, eating mainly corn will kill all the diabetics
ps: Surplus, not of food, but of distributable income. Ofcourse, no doubt, we can feed all the hungry in the world and repair crumbling infrastructure in the US if people with money agreed on these priorities.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
First recall of an autonomous vehicle:
www.autonews.com
Startup Pony.ai agrees to automated driving software recall
NHTSA said this was the "first recall of an automated driving system" and that the specific software at issue had been in use by three vehicles.
www.autonews.com
EVNow
Well-Known Member
As on a Metro, a bus or a train we do today already.
But robotaxis will in addition offer the huge comfort of travelling like business class, alone, door-to-door without transfer. High demand for robotaxis could increase volume of vehicles a lot.
What one could do is increase bus routes, both frequency and number of routes to reduce passenger congestion and waiting times. Robobus could make this happen as costs of buses are high. And regulate other traffic.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
You mean like how most people in US don’t use any of those.
Infact I’ve never used a mass transit in Seattle area in the last 20 years I’ve been here.
The service is that bad (and sparse).
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Certainly not in most of the US.
Based on the most recent data I can find, only 5% of US workers use public transit to/from work. And of that 5%, almost 3/4th of them are concentrated in just 7 large cities... and roughly 4/10 of those are in ONE city (NY).
Outside of a handful of large cities public transit is fairly rare, and generally terrible if it exists at all in the US
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Oklahoma Senate passes bill to allow AVs on public roads:
www.teslarati.com
Oklahoma Senate passes SB 1541, allowing autonomous vehicles to operate on public roads
The Oklahoma State Senate passed State Bill 1541 by a 44-1 vote on Monday evening. The bill aims to allow autonomous vehicles to operate on public roads within the State. The bill, authored by Senator Paul Rosino, a Republican, detailed that 19 states in the U.S. already allow autonomous vehicle...
www.teslarati.com
EVNow
Well-Known Member
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
I don't think he is talking about HD maps. I think he is talking about labeling data for training vision. But Whole Mars is lying. Waymo, Cruise, Zoox do their labeling in house. Don't trust anything he says about Waymo.
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