[fast1]

And I'm not talking about fancy cruise control or "driver assist", I mean real self-driving.

Yep, that's already here. I got to experience that in a friend's E class.

 

[westwest888]

I think you guys are all smoking a pretty wild strain down in Santa Clara. The hubris is staggering. As if you're just one all nighter code bender away from pushing a binary that will:

1/ not make the same mistakes as humans
2/ not make mistakes safe driving humans don't make
3/ won't maim or kill
4/ will follow the ethical profile of the owner
5/ will obey US laws

I've seen every type of self driving prototype tooling around SF with 3 engineers in the car with laptops. I'm still saying 25 years before it can go 5 miles on SF surface streets at 5:00PM with parking lanes as travel lanes and get me home in the same 27 minutes it takes a risk calculating human who can deal with insane ambiguity.

Here are a few snaps. Also saw a ton of the XC90 before they got banned for blowing red lights they couldn't see (but any sober human would know to stop when other cars are stopped).

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[RandR]

Its easy to make one autonomous car behave reasonably its a very different issue when you have the roads full of them................Chaos Theory is a wonderful thing

 

[Stick_Figure]

There will be accidents with self driving cars. People will be hurt or killed. The point I would make is there will be a lower accident rate than there is now, and the automated cars will get better with every generation.

There may come a day that human driven cars are not allowed on public roads. That is decades away; there are just too many cars on the road to make that change any time soon. But it would be a sad day.

Great progress has been made with prosthetics. A robo middle finger is just a few years away, if only we would shift resources to this important aspect of self driving cars.

 

[westwest888]

There will be accidents with self driving cars. People will be hurt or killed. The point I would make is there will be a lower accident rate than there is now, and the automated cars will get better with every generation.

There may come a day that human driven cars are not allowed on public roads. That is decades away; there are just too many cars on the road to make that change any time soon. But it would be a sad day.

Great progress has been made with prosthetics. A robo middle finger is just a few years away, if only we would shift resources to this important aspect of self driving cars.

The problem is in year 0 to year 10, self driving cars add to the number of accidents. 33,000 accidents become 33,001 accidents as bugs are found and preventable mistakes are made if the driver was just driving. At the same time, driver assist systems do not get credit for the saves because they aren't quantifiable. There are no points for near misses. You could save someone every day for 2500 days and if your program gets him in a fatal accident on the 2501th day it was all for nothing.

The heartless libertarian attitude of "well this will eventually be safer" is not how our legal system is set up. Kill a beautiful child and her picture will be on cable news every day for 90 days while everyone demands answers.

The arrogance of silicon valley is that some people will be "too stupid" and "should have known better" when their self driver plows into something at full speed where anyone except a heart attack victim would stop. Everyone thinks our incremental progress means they can occasionally defer control and tune out for a minute. Now is the point of maximum risk, where a misinformed public thinks they bought magic for a $2500 option.

As I've documented here in the past, systems like PAS do not follow normal human driver behavior and cause others to react to the car's inattentiveness (with road rage).


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[Stick_Figure]

The problem is in year 0 to year 10, self driving cars add to the number of accidents. 33,000 accidents become 33,001 accidents as bugs are found and preventable mistakes are made if the driver was just driving.

Time will tell. Humans are not setting the bar very high. Sometimes at a stoplight I will count the number of drivers passing by who are looking at their phone. My observation is >10% of drivers are using their phone at any given point in time while driving. My wife was hit by one; every time I slow down in traffic, I check my rearview to see if the driver behind me is paying attention. If people are being honest, a percentage of forum members who came here to read about 718 reviews (sorry guys) are reading this in their car.

My prediction is accident rates will be immediately lower with self driving cars, and it will improve from there. Yes, we are going to see pictures of pretty young blond girls killed in self driving car accidents. But there will be LESS pretty young blonds killed than before.

 

[chows4us]

driver assist systems do not get credit for the saves because they aren't quantifiable.

Not entirely true and depending upon the definition of driver assist, anything federal mandated assists the driver.

1. ABS brakes do not get credit for saving lives. But they do get credit of reducing crashes. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811182

2. ESC (aka PSM) does get credit for saving lives and ESC is a driver assist. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812042

3. Speculation is that advanced driver assist could save 10,000 lives https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...cles/2015-09-29/driver-assist-systems-seen-saving-about-10-000-u-s-lives-a-year


You are right about the approaches to some technologies not being standardized. Then again, lots of things are not totally standardized. I still see mostly halogen headlights although you might think HIDs are more popular. Not in my side of the world. HIDs are still fairly rare. I know PAS uses radar but Subaru uses dual cameras with the first generation being B&W and the second generation being color. Do some research and you will find people claiming eyesight saved their lives (e.g., https://www.reddit.com/r/subaru/comments/4agnf2/subaru_possibly_saved_my_life_today/ or https://www.camelbacksubaru.com/blo...baru.com/blog/2014/july/24/video-how-subaru-eyesight-saved-this-womans-life.htm) just read some subaru forums.

There are no points for near misses. You could save someone every day for 2500 days and if your program gets him in a fatal accident on the 2501th day it was all for nothing. ... Kill a beautiful child and her picture will be on cable news every day for 90 days while everyone demands answers.

True. But that is only immediate public reaction and government studies won't care. I have no idea if autonomous cars are a week away or 25 years away, but if history serves in the advances in computing, I'd guess a few years away and not decades. I know this, all of which are computerized ...

ABS can stop the car better than me.
ESC (PSM) can save me. It is the Hand of god reaching down to save you
I have been in cars doing parallel parking where I know I wouldn't even bother to try to parallel park. They are that good.
And i know for a fact that systems like adaptive cruise and automated braking work well enough to bet my life on them (within the design limits of the system).

Now all these, and others like LCA, LKA, and other safety technologies are a far cry from driving in a city. I get that and find fully automated cars just creepy.

 

[chows4us]

Germany's Gabriel says EU break-up no longer unthinkable | Reuters

a break-up of the European Union is no longer inconceivable, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told Der Spiegel magazine.

BTW, if there is a FREXIT and the EU falls apart, its very conceivable that all this worry over EV falls apart with it.

Just saying ...

 

[gcurnew]

Make my self-driving car able to fly, too. That way it knocks off two unrealistic, utopian transportation "futurist" dreams at once.

 

[Brett_Coon]

Make my self-driving car able to fly, too. That way it knocks off two unrealistic, utopian transportation "futurist" dreams at once.

Wow, who would have thought a thread dedicated to complaining about a new car model would be full of so many Luddites.

Oh, wait, nevermind... ?


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[westwest888]

Driver assistance functions prevent accidents and transitively save lives. Companies like Volvo use technologies such as this to pursue Vision Zero, where zero people die in a Volvo. This a truly worthy goal and vision.

Companies like Tesla used a "convenience feature" to kill and decapitate an enthusaist early adopting customer. That guy would be alive if he just f-ing drove. This is an insane use of the technology.

Retreating to "well over a long horizon we could save lives on the net" is not defensible. You're one life behind already. Deliver 500,000 of those cars for $40k and you're going to find out that idiots are very clever, and find bugs engineers with a 130 IQ never thought of (or had time to rushing to be first to market).




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[fast1]

Wow, who would have thought a thread dedicated to complaining about a new car model would be full of so many Luddites.

Oh, wait, nevermind... ��


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Can't think of anything more foolish than standing in the way of technological development. How fast changes take place is impossible to predict, but if history is any guide, the changes typically came faster than most thought.
As far as automated cars is concerned, I expect that it will be evolutionary, whereby each model year will have the computer taking over more and more of the driving. For those who aren't aware of how far automated driving has come, take a test drive in a 2017 MB E class with semi-autonomous Drive Pilot system engaged.

 

[asolare]

Germany's Gabriel says EU break-up no longer unthinkable | Reuters

a break-up of the European Union is no longer inconceivable, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told Der Spiegel magazine.

BTW, if there is a FREXIT and the EU falls apart, its very conceivable that all this worry over EV falls apart with it.

Just saying ...

It is not only "no longer unthinkable" it is becoming increasingly likely to happen.

 

[asolare]

Can't think of anything more foolish than standing in the way of technological development. How fast changes take place is impossible to predict, but if history is any guide, the changes typically came faster than most thought.
As far as automated cars is concerned, I expect that it will be evolutionary, whereby each model year will have the computer taking over more and more of the driving. For those who aren't aware of how far automated driving has come, take a test drive in a 2017 MB E class with semi-autonomous Drive Pilot system engaged.

I don't look at it as standing in the way of technology. Although I hate to be forced to pay for things I don't want, I'm fine with research and technological progress. But I like to drive and as long as I have a choice I will continue to drive myself. I have had several vehicles that had automatic parking features and never had any interest in trying to use that even once. Countless technological advances have been widely introduced to great fanfare that eventually fizzled out because so few consumers cared about them. For example, the big news of 2010 at the CES was the introduction of 3D TV's which were soon offered by just about every manufacturer. They had everything going for them except people who wanted them. Will consumers want to buy and use self driving cars? I don't know and that still remains to be seen but I do know I sure have zero interest in getting one. Just because self driving cars will be invented and perfected doesn't mean consumers will want them unless they are forced to use them by taking away our steering wheels. And as for the role of governmental pressure? The US Federal government wants us all to buy small, efficient cars. In 2016 there were less than 2.9 million small cars sold in the US and over 10.4 million light trucks.

 

[fast1]

Will consumers want to buy and use self driving cars? I don't know and that still remains to be seen but I do know I sure have zero interest in getting one. Just because self driving cars will be invented and perfected doesn't mean consumers will want them unless they are forced to use them by taking away our steering wheels.

The people that own sports cars are the aberration. The vast majority of people own appliances. They want safe, comfortable and inexpensive vehicles to get them from point A to point B. So my guess and the guess of manufacturers who are investing tens of billions in driverless technology, is that there will be a big market for automated cars. Moreover, I will be surprised if the government doesn't get involved, and if they do get involved, the change will take place relatively fast. I remember how the government destroyed muscle cars back in 1970. Within three years they had all bust disappeared because of government air pollution regulations.

 

[westwest888]

I heard the new president doesn't care how much gas we waste. So maybe we can get a real 981.3 instead of that abortion of a 718.


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[Noah Fect]

Wow, who would have thought a thread dedicated to complaining about a new car model would be full of so many Luddites.

Oh, wait, nevermind... 


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That's an unreasonable dig. I'm one of the biggest bears with respect to the 718's role in the US sports car market, but I've also frequently pointed out that all of the breathless hype about AI and machine learning that we all grew up with is actually starting to come true, and at a far faster rate than the well-justified cynicism bred by all that hype has conditioned us to expect.

As Stalin said, quantity has a quality all its own. Amdahl's Law says the opposite, as the computer geeks will point out... but Amdahl was talking about mainframes, not neural nets.

As far as the 718 is concerned, my beef with it is that it isn't radical enough. Porsche should have stuck with the NA flat sixes until it had something truly interesting and innovative to replace them with, like a hybrid or even an all-electric drivetrain. Instead, we got a warmed-over 951, carefully engineered to lose any given comparison to the 911.

 

[Noah Fect]

Driver assistance functions prevent accidents and transitively save lives. Companies like Volvo use technologies such as this to pursue Vision Zero, where zero people die in a Volvo. This a truly worthy goal and vision.

That isnt what "Vision Zero" is. Vision Zero is a political initiative, not an engineering program. Its goal is to reduce traffic fatalities to zero. That will not happen as long as humans are allowed to drive cars... and mayors and city councils from London to Seattle are 100% on board with it.

It won't matter how much popular outrage is directed at the trend toward self-driving cars. If popular outrage and disobedience mattered in the slightest, would we have had to put up with a 55 MPH NMSL for 20 years? Unlike the 55 MPH law, it will be impossible to compose rational arguments against what's coming.

 

[asolare]

That isnt what "Vision Zero" is. Vision Zero is a political initiative, not an engineering program. Its goal is to reduce traffic fatalities to zero. That will not happen as long as humans are allowed to drive cars... and mayors and city councils from London to Seattle are 100% on board with it.

It won't matter how much popular outrage is directed at the trend toward self-driving cars. If popular outrage and disobedience mattered in the slightest, would we have had to put up with a 55 MPH NMSL for 20 years? Unlike the 55 MPH law, it will be impossible to compose rational arguments against what's coming.

We'll see. Vision zero is also marketing hype.

 

[asolare]

Group Asks New York to Ban Self-Driving Cars for 50 Years | Fortune.com