bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

doesn't matter whether some are opposed or not, they're coming, and soon.

every manufacturer is working on it. major tech companies are working on it (intel, apple, google, ...). there's just too much money, momentum, tech advances, and brainpower working on it for it to not happen.

there's entire sections and artices of major media devoted to it.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...f-driving-cars
https://www.wired.com/tag/self-driving-cars/
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/google-self-driving-car-waymo/
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science...ake-ncna819111
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...f-driving-car/

will there be setbacks, problems, accidents, political issues, hell protests? yes. some people still think humans didn't go to the moon and think nasa is a waste of money. well they're just wrong.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

it's also about a lot more than meaning you can take your hands off the wheel and pedals. some examples.

trucking, a labor intensive, thankless, pretty mindless industry, driving huge tractor trailers millions of miles daily, will be transformed by self-driving technology, even if it's only interstates and highways to start with. maybe a driver's still on board, but instead of driving, spends the majority of their time going online to coordinate drop-off / pick-up, pay bills, make sure any permits, regulations, etc. are done, handling the weigh stations and of course any mechanical issues that might come up.

emergency services, a labor intensive, thankless (until you need it) business will also be transformed by self-driving technology. a self-driving ambulance could get to the accident or ill person (doesn't have to be only about car accidents of course), with an emt on board who is prepping the medical equipment en-route to make sure they're completely ready to go (e.g., IV's), upon arrival.

school buses, airport shuttles, hotel shuttles, taxis, the list goes on and on, before getting to 'personal' vehicle replacement, but that will come too.

mmarshall

How many people have actually walked on the moon? You can probably name them on the fingers of one hand...maybe one or two more at most. And that was almost a half-century ago. Using your theory, and comparison to self-driving cars, we'd probably have the entire Solar System populated by now.

I don't think anybody in this thread is arguing that we won't actually have some self-drivers coming down the pike...the main issue is if they will be acceptably safe, efficient, or feasible. And on that, a lot of good opinions vary...no one can claim to know it all.

SW17LS

As a car person I sure wish I agreed with you, but unfortunately I don't think thats the case at all. I think the majority of people would much rather sit back and play on their phones while the car did the driving. In fact, I'm almost certain of it. Even I would in many situations.

Transit options don't really exist in many places, and even when they do they are really impractical for most people. Take DC, people don't "like" driving a car in bumper to bumper traffic on the Beltway, theres nothing about it to like. However, the mass transit here isn't very practical unless you live and work in very specific areas.

Big Andy

12 people have walked on the moon - do you have 6 fingers on each hand?

Seriously, at the pace this technology is developing I can see the first driverless vehicles hitting the road before the end of this decade, with passenger vehicles following shortly after. Who wouldn't want to sit back and relax while the car takes over the drudgery of the bumper to bumper commute? These sort of technologies hit a critical mass and there's no stopping them. In 1939 airforces were still flying biplanes, within 6 years we had jet engines and intercontinental ballistic missiles, 30 years later we were on the moon.

mmarshall

Respectfully, I don't think you quite got my point, Andy. Some people seem to be trying to compare the pact of self-driving car development to humans walking on the moon. Humans (and, yes, not very many of them) walked on the moon almost 50 years ago...and, outside of orbiting space stations, have done virtually nothing in the category of human space-travel since, though a couple of successful interplanetary satellites have been launched for research, at least one of which reached the edge of our Solar System, as far as Pluto.

Big Andy

With respect, Mike you're confusing technological development with a Cold War race with the Soviet Union that cost vast amounts of the US's GDP to put that first man on the moon and declare victory. It was a great achievement but then the public went "so what?", interest declined and funding was cut - where were the returns? Since man first walked on the moon we've had an explosion of exploration of the universe and technology designed to give real world returns in the fields of communication, navigation, weather forecasting, climate monitoring, internet connectivity etc. To suggest that we've done so little in the last 50 years is wrong, You say " a couple of interplanetary satellites" - since man walked on the moon there's actually been 13 solar probes, 2 Mercury probes(three more planned), over 31 probes to Venus, over 25 successful Mars probes, 13 asteroid probes with more en-route, 12 Jupiter, 4 Saturn, a dozen or so Comet probes and 5 have left our Solar System altogether.
I'd say the pace of space exploration has massively accelerated since Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, we just haven't had to waste money and risk lives by sending such fragile cargoes up there.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

and respectfully i don't think you got mine either.

being the 'some people' here, i'll respond... i wasn't comparing the two technically or the rate of progress, i said (wrote) some people claimed that we never even went to the moon - i would call them technology deniers, and i feel the same about those who strongly believe (like Och) that there's simply too many technical problems and scenarios to make self-driving cars possible and safe. i get that his perspective is densely gridlocked manhattan of today, but i could easily see a mayor like deblasio designating sections of manhattan as self-driving cars ONLY so they don't have to deal with aggressive human drivers cutting them off, etc. as for pedestrian risks, i think self-driving cars will be much more cautious than people drivers and won't be mowing them down.

mmarshall

Your view is certainly not alone.....neither is mine.


Well, sure, there will always be those who still believe in a Flat Earth, a 6000-year world-creation-history, end-of-world prophectic hard-dates, and other nonsensical positions....that goes without saying, and is probably not worth even arguing about. Same with actual tech-deniers. So, I won't even get into that here. But there's a difference between being a tech-denier and those, like Och (who I personally agree with) who accept the reality of the rudimentary) presence of the technology, but are not (yet) convinced of its safety.


Even in liberal, left-wing NYC, I don't think the voters would put up with that. NYC is not London. If Deblasio tried something like that, he'd probably lose the next election.

SW17LS

Remember that with every technological advance along the way there were always people that resisted and said "that will never happen", or "it will never catch on". If you asked people in 1940 whether the technology we already have is possible a high % of people from that time would say no. Self driving cars are inevitable.

How many people who live in and vote in NYC do you think own cars, or drive cars? If anything the sort of law suggested above would be received as a benefit to transit using, foot walking, taxi using Manhattanites.

mmarshall

I agree...as I told bit, no one is arguing that. The main question is...how long will it take before we have safe self-driving cars? On that, opinions differ....and a number of them agree with me and Och.




There are LOTS of people in NYC, both with and without cars....probably more in actual numbers, just within the city's legal borders alone, than in our entire Metro DC/MD/VA suburban region, although I agree that, because of the specific travel-conditions in this area (i.e. suburban sprawl all over the place, relative lack of mass-transit) a much higher percentage of the population here owns and drives private cars.

De Blasio, of course, can do as he sees fit in terms of signing or vetoing bills, but, if I was seeking re-election in that area, I'd think twice before locking out traditional private cars. Like I said above (and I stand by it) NYC is not London.

KahnBB6

iTrader: (5)

I for one am not questioning whether or not we'll have SAE Level 5 self-driving vehicles. We will. Right now we have effectively Level 2.5 to Level 3 self-driving in cars like the the Model S and Cadillacs equipped with Super Cruise. The technology will get there aided in part by machine learning, more testing and fine tuning, and the miniaturization of the current amount of microprocessor equipment required in each self-driving car aiming for the full monty of self-driving with no human intervention.

The murky part of this gets into economics, the amount of time hard goods like cars, trucks, vans and SUVs actually last and most important of all the economic divide between people who can afford almost anything they want to buy and people who can barely afford much at all just to survive.

https://jalopnik.com/will-the-autono...-be-1820345556

And then there are the car and driving enthusiasts and people who may be okay with an autonomous car taking over their rush hour traffic commute but still actually prefer and enjoy driving or a unique vehicle outside of daily grind travel. There are also people who live very far "off the grid" with their vehicles.

I'm not going to get into the internal combustion engine vs electric drive system debate in this thread because I see those as completely separate subjects and situations in reality-- no matter how much self-driving cars are often tied to electric cars. Even if battery technology currently sucks there are many fun enthusiast electric cars right now and they aren't made by Tesla.

But I do think that even with the specter of higher insurance for manual human driving and politicians who would like to, if they had their way, force people out of their human driven cars (presumably even ones with autonomous and manual human controls!)... I think that even with those factors there will be a LOT of resistance to such a move because fundamentally this is getting into the human right to the freedom of individually determined travel and even individually owned means of travel. If human driven cars are under threat, are motorcycles included in this as well?



As nutty as it may sound right now I actually agree with Alex Roy on the topic title of his article:

http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/5979...-human-driving
https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/commen...human_driving/

I'm not interested in the Cannonball Run history that Roy has behind him but I do think there are some fair points in there, the biggest one being that there are a lot of voices and proponents pushing self-driving cars and policies aimed at making them completely dominant but even a year after he wrote the article I don't see many unified voices on the side of people who are either car & driving enthusiasts and especially among people who might advocate for vehicles with human controls to still be legally allowed on the grounds of a human right to individual freedom of mobility.

What I see a lot more are proponents and public speakers who advocate ONLY for the self-driving and non-ownership models.

Look, I live in a big city and despite a car being very easy to use and park here if not mostly required for daily life there are public transportation systems. In even denser cities around the world having a car just as your means of primary transportation makes even less sense and that's okay given the cities you would apply that logic to.

However only catering to dense cities is not what the growing self-driving car industry is about. Make no mistake, it is an industry.

A few days ago, Bob Lutz elaborated on his draconian scorched earth prediction about human vs autonomous driving:
http://www.autonews.com/article/2017...-times-goodbye

It's hard to determine for oneself whether or not to see Lutz's doomsday predictions as being right on the money or a dystopian vision warning of hypothetically HOW far things could go.

I would prefer a sane approach to all of this that allows self-driving and manual human driving to coexist with each other. That would make a lot more sense overall than what I keep hearing repeated over and over about self-driving cars.

If I hear the phrase "autonomous cars are coming...!" one more time... ugh. It's like a press kit was handed out and everyone is expected to use the same catch phrases to beat you into submission with them. You can ALREADY buy a car with low level self-driving functions, so they aren't "coming...!", they're already here, just in limited form. They aren't fully worked out yet to the highest level of non-human involvement as dictated by the SAE standards yet in 2017.

And, yes, there still is tremendous amount of work to in developing completely infallible self-driving cars which are definitely not right now right now.

I don't have a problem with self-driving cars and self-driving vehicle services (although the larger economic impact on transportation jobs is an important, huge subject and debate). What I do have a problem with is being told that something as fundamental as determining my own means of travel, personal conveyance and the ability to control it with training, experience and personal responsibility (many human beings can and do regularly demonstrate this behind the wheel even if some do not) is no longer allowed. That's no bueno.

mmarshall

Bingo. QFT.

KahnBB6

iTrader: (5)

^^ Furthermore, two of the biggest issues with poor driving habits can be dealt with right now without the use of self-driving cars. These were both addressed in Alex Roy's article.

1) Mandate that modern compact breathalyzer ignition-interlock systems be mandated on every new car exactly the way airbags are. They would be integrated similarly to the way anti-theft immobilizer systems are a part of the ignition systems of many modern cars. These used to be very bulky add-on devices but they've improved over the years. You can also add this to older classic cars if it's really necessary so as to not allow it to ever be suggested they are too risky to use any longer pre-brethalyzer interlock mandate.

2) Put the pressure on smart phone makers to lock their devices out for driver use while a vehicle is in motion. There are very basic implementations of this right now which can be defeated but if these lockouts become non-defeatable and you must have OEM or aftermarket stereo integration in such a way that the restriction from active use of a phone (other than voice commands) is restricted from a driver then it has more teeth to it as a driver distraction prevention feature.

I don't have a problem with either of these becoming a thing. With as many Billions that are being invested into self-driving cars I imagine it would be even cheaper to make both #1 and #2 happen if the goal is really to reduce accident statistics due to drunk driving and driver distraction due to portable devices. Then you can have the self-driving car use models alongside human driven cars which can no longer be operated while inebriated or distracted on their phone's screen.

Both those measures would drastically reduce two of the biggest accident statistics today.

Both measures would perhaps be potentially annoying to some folks but personally don't have a problem with potential restrictions like those since I don't drive inebriated and don't stare at my phone while my eyes need to be observing my surroundings in the vehicles that I'm operating.

I think these two things alone would be fair, wise and acceptable very minor compromises for folks who like to drive and who like cars... not to mention anyone who might not be able to afford a brand new car for more practical life considerations. This, however, doesn't line up with the current popular (hopefully it's actually unpopular) mantra that there is nothing that can be done to improve road safety without eventually forcing people not to drive themselves.

Och

iTrader: (3)

Bit, have you ever been to NYC? You need to witness how traffic works around here. It's a very congested, busy city and the pedestrians, drivers, bikers and motorcyclists are all very aggressive and will take every inch of space that they can. I walk, drive and ride motorcrycle around the city almost daily, as well as use public transportation, and without aggression this city would be standing still. It can be very frustrating to navigate around the city using any mode of transport, but when you're navigating on foot it is by far the most frustrating. The blocks here are very short, and walking 10-20 blocks may seem like a very easy and convenient task but it isn't in reality. The sidewalks here are very crowded with hordes of slowpoke tourists from Wiscohiobraka that you have to elbow through, delivery men pulling carts with boxes and construction materials towards service entrances of skyscrapers, street food vendors and crowds around them, people glued to their phones, and everyone else in general. In general you encounter a red light as you approach the end of every short block, and nobody has the patience to wait for the light to change, especially considering the fact that weather around here is horrible, and its either super hot, super cold, raining, snowing or windy. Pedestrian and bicyclists don't pay any attention to the red light (or any other traffic signals/rules), they start crossing as soon as there is an opening in car traffic, and drivers have to be aggressive and advance towards them. If a driver shows hesitation or weakness, non stop hordes of people will start crossing the road in front of him, and not only in the crosswalks but in the middle of the block, etc. And right turns in NYC are simply impossible without some aggression and eye contact.

No manufacturer would ever program their autonomous car to drive aggressively, especially around pedestrians. If NYC dedicates a part of itself to self driving cars only, it better mandate it to be pedestrian and bicycle free as well, otherwise these cars wont move an inch during rush hour traffic.