Inside the fake town in Michigan where self-driving cars are being tested

[BoerumHill]

Heh yes wdolson is correct. Sorry for the early morning stream of consciousness.



I retain too much fondness for my boyhood home to ever refer to it by the popular derisive name of the 1980s. My career path led me to Manhattan but my heart didn't come along. NYC has been very good to me, but I'm looking forward to retirement along the shores of Lake Michigan in the early 20s.

 

[doug]

Here's a video of a Ford vehicle driving around Mcity.

Ford Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Research Vehicle: 1st Automaker to Test Autonomous Vehicle at Mcity - YouTube

The obvious sensors you can see are a front facing camera, four Velodyne spinning lidar units, and two roof mounted GPS antennas.

 

[ilovemycoffee]

Where's the Michigan left turn in this town? That would be an interesting problem for autonomous cars.

 

[Drucifer]

So they built a whole fake town to do this?!? And Elon just uses all the highways on the planet to do the same thing. Check and mate.

 

[electracity]

So they built a whole fake town to do this?!? And Elon just uses all the highways on the planet to do the same thing. Check and mate.

You are confusing autopilot with autonomous car. There isn't a lot of evidence that Tesla is working on autonomous car, except as a customer of Mobileye. What Google is doing is what autonomous car development looks like.

 

[Drucifer]

You are confusing autopilot with autonomous car. There isn't a lot of evidence that Tesla is working on autonomous car, except as a customer of Mobileye. What Google is doing is what autonomous car development looks like.

Oops, my bad. Jumped the gun a bit on that one.

 

[Beryl]

I don't see the motivation because:

2) Self-driving cars is all about the big metropolitan areas. People that live in Colorado are probably less likely to desire it, and less likely to get it.

Like another Colorado native to chime in but as someone who spent over 30 years living in several Colorado cities (some 70 miles from Denver), I craved it as much then as I do now.

 

[larmor]

Need to add a dealer and simulated service center so autonomous car can take itself to get repaired...

 

[electracity]

Need to add a dealer and simulated service center so autonomous car can take itself to get repaired...

Dude, EV doesn't require repair.

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Oops, my bad. Jumped the gun a bit on that one.

Tesla is probably driving a couple of autonomous cars. But with all the other development Tesla software people are doing it seems unlikely their strategy is to release a google/uber type taxi this decade. I'm sure Tesla's long term autonomous car strategy has several forks, considering the uncertainty.

 

[larmor]

Detroit making EVs on paper only-in which case they should make a paper town.
IF they can find a way to sell and service an EV, they will. Current auto business model is based on taking your money to 'service' the car.

Dude, EV doesn't require repair.

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Tesla is probably driving a couple of autonomous cars. But with all the other development Tesla software people are doing it seems unlikely their strategy is to release a google/uber type taxi this decade. I'm sure Tesla's long term autonomous car strategy has several forks, considering the uncertainty.

 

[Matias]

Apparently LIDAR cost has dropped one order of magnitude since Google first used it

VLP-16

But it would still need to drop couple of orders of magnitude to be practical in cars.

 

[electracity]

Apparently LIDAR cost has dropped one order of magnitude since Google first used it

VLP-16

But it would still need to drop couple of orders of magnitude to be practical in cars.

But it doesn't need to be cheap in Taxis. Vehicle utilization is much higher.
Solid state lidar is in development. My two year old $289 Neato vacuum has cheapo rotating lidar.

 

[asus389]

Those roads in "M-City" look way nicer than the actual roads we have in Ann Arbor. They need to add some potholes.

 

[Trev Page]

I sure hope Tesla can do this without resorting to using Lidar. I'd hate to have a car with spinning turrets and getting all the stares...

 

[physicsfita]

Those roads in "M-City" look way nicer than the actual roads we have in Ann Arbor. They need to add some potholes.

A few months ago, I had a conversation with someone on the research team. He was mentioning how they had graffiti-tagged some of the street signs for added realism. I asked him if they had fired a shotgun at any of the signs to match what happens to them up north. He said they'd get on that. :biggrin: As for potholes -- it's Michigan! Just wait a year or two... :tongue:

 

[doug]

I sure hope Tesla can do this without resorting to using Lidar. I'd hate to have a car with spinning turrets and getting all the stares...

Tesla can't do full autonomy with the current sensor suite. That Ford is a research platform, I've seen the one they gave to Stanford. Newer versions of the lidar sensors more self contained without anything spinning externally. As the lidar units get cheaper and if full autonomy is the goal, I don't see why Tesla wouldn't use them since they are able to build a proper 3D point cloud of the surroundings.

 

[Kevin Harney]

Tesla can't do full autonomy with the current sensor suite. That Ford is a research platform, I've seen the one they gave to Stanford. Newer versions of the lidar sensors more self contained without anything spinning externally. As the lidar units get cheaper and if full autonomy is the goal, I don't see why Tesla wouldn't use them since they are able to build a proper 3D point cloud of the surroundings.

Except Elon has stated that he hates LIDAR and will avoid it if at all possible.

 

[Ryan H]

Elon has also pointed out that redundancy is necessary for full autonomy if/when a device fails. I can't see it being cost effective to have redundant LIDAR on cars.

 

[asus389]

A few months ago, I had a conversation with someone on the research team. He was mentioning how they had graffiti-tagged some of the street signs for added realism. I asked him if they had fired a shotgun at any of the signs to match what happens to them up north. He said they'd get on that. :biggrin: As for potholes -- it's Michigan! Just wait a year or two... :tongue:

Yeah the irony is that I read they are also testing new road-making materials around here to handle the worse conditions and heavy weight of the trucks. Can't come soon enough.

 

[bwa]

Yeah the irony is that I read they are also testing new road-making materials around here to handle the worse conditions and heavy weight of the trucks. Can't come soon enough.

Autonomous trucks would reduce weight since most trucks are large to maximize labor cost efficiencies. For instance, something like half of road wear is garbage trucks. Park a main carrier semi with full 80,000 pound trailer on a heavy road and send 1,000 - 2,000 pound car size robots to collect each block's refuse, about 1 to 2 trips per block, and cut out about half the road wear. That's 50% savings right there for road maintenance to today's quality (or, better quality becomes more affordable). Similar principles apply to many truck loads (but I think garbage trucks are the real low hanging fruit here, along with UPS, Amazon & FedEx).

When I say "robot", what I mean is a working autonomous car with refuse bin and dumper armature/hooks automated for the purpose of refuse collection. It wouldn't need any passenger compartment or passenger-centric crumple zone. Just Tesla sled, dump box, door & robo arm with control computer and sensors.

Edit: just think swarm and mothership. For those that know those terms.

LTL is an example of how trucks are oversized and we even know it. It is a struggle for most companies to fill their trucks. Even with the high cost of labor, a lot of smaller delivery trucks are on the roads.