I keep thinking of one aspect. What will happen to the big car manufacturers?
With driving cars, you would no longer need big engine options or things of that nature. Primary just comfort items would be options, such as leather vs cloth. This will no doubt remove the complexity of car manufacturing. Will style even matter at that point, if everyone is driving at the same pace like robots, with their head down in their tablet/book reader? So if cars turn more generic, will the industry be decimated?
I would think they would just change their focus and compete on interior options.
One car would boast the best lazy boy recliner. Another the biggest flat screen.
Hell, you could design cars shaped like cube vans with gym equipment in the back.
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If the current model of owning cars is kept, I see self driving cars being released within 10 years, but not catching on until 25+ years. Otherwise it will be like a Tesla car, very expensive with the new tech, with no future outlook of when it will really become affordable by the average joe. Perhaps once generation 3 or 4 of the tech passes and components are cheaper and more widely produced will self driving cars finally be affordable by the average person. Until then, it will have to be a hybrid of manual vs self drive cars. Unless of course the governments abandon the existing industry model and subsidizes the manufacturing of the cars to bring them into an affordable range from the beginning.
Comparing all these features like ABS, traction control etc though to self driving cars is not the same. All of those are assists, with the human still making the first decision (ie, hitting the brake pedal, steering the wheel). If you wanted to, compare self driving to features such as automatic collision braking, etc. However, most people don't have that again due to price even though tech has been around a long time.
It's such a complex issue that we don't have any idea on what direction this will be taken or how it will be adopted. I'd have to say this would almost be on the same level as the internet in terms of advancement. Truly changing every aspect of mankind (at least in developed areas). At that point no one had a clue of the potential or what we'd have today.
My Android can't go a day without freezing so google better step up their game
What a relevant complaint to make. After all, a phone and a car have nearly identical hardware and operating systems and you just know the same Google engineers are working on both.
What I would want is a button on my car that I can turn self driving on and off. But it has to be fully automated self driving. Meaning I could be asleep or reading or drunk and it would drive me home. If it's a half measure where I have to fully pay attention and be ready to take over if the car blue screens then nah. I understand it would be safer because it would in theory avoid accidents better than I would. But there is zero convenience to a half self driving car.
Plus how much are people really going to pay attention when the car is driving? A bet a lot at first because it would be terrifying. But people adapt quickly and are lazy. So it wouldn't be long before people are only half paying attention when the car is driving anyways. You would become a passenger not a driver. Do you pay the same attention when you are in the passenger seat compared to the drivers? Probably not and especially not all the time.
It'll be a sad day when people are no longer allowed to drive cars. I don't know about you guys, but I like driving. Mandated self driving cars in the future seems so...I dunno, depressing and monotonous.
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What a relevant complaint to make. After all, a phone and a car have nearly identical hardware and operating systems and you just know the same Google engineers are working on both.
'twas a joke.
The underlying point still stands though. Computers and sensors fail all of the time.
At some point in the future, I expect self driving cars may be extinct, but I suspect it will be market driven, rather than government regulation driven.
There will be a point where no one is buying a car that drives itself, just as many things of the past have been replaced by computers.
Perhaps that will come from some kind of technology that make the whole idea of a car, in any form - obsolete, but may also happen well before that.
One thing that may affect government regulations for making them mandatory - Roads with no human drivers probably have a massively higher capacity than roads do today.
Theoretically, you could have cars travelling much faster than they do now, with mere inches between them, and you could eliminate traffic lights, as vehicles could coordinate with each other and have intersecting vehicles travelling through intersections at the same time, with very little delays.
I am curious as to what the plan would be if there was some sort of catastrophic failure with the computer and sensors that drive the car?
Say we replace all of deerfoot traffic with self-driving cars. It only takes one failure in one car to cause a big accident. Are we going to expect people to be paying attention at all times and take over? That's not going to happen. Hell first thing I do with my self driving car is go pub hopping!
As an individual, sure, there are probably instances where a human is going to be able to react more effectively to a dangerous situation than a computer. But in the near future a group of computer-driven vehicles is going to be far more effective at avoiding dangerous situations. Imagine if there was an accident and a half-mile of cars on Deerfoot all immediately knew about it and immediately adjusted their speed in a controlled way, thus avoiding multi-car pile-ups. Imagine if your car could not only swerve into another lane to avoid a collision, but it could communicate with the cars in that lane even before swerving, so those could take reactionary maneuvers as well. Self-driving cars could also be aware of which cars around them are self-driving and which are manual, thus adapting and allowing extra reaction-time for manuals.
I'd have a hard time adapting to a self-driving car, but crowd-accident avoidance would easily be one of the biggest possible selling features for me.
It'll be a sad day when people are no longer allowed to drive cars. I don't know about you guys, but I like driving. Mandated self driving cars in the future seems so...I dunno, depressing and monotonous.
Time for a motorcycle?
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For people who like to drive, do you like driving in traffic or just like being behind the wheel?
Why not just drive on a racing track if you want to 'drive'?
I don't like putting my own safety in someone elses hands. I like driving because I've never been in an accident and been in 3 when other people are driving. Not putting my life in the hands of a computer when I have never even come close to being in an accident.
The whole thing would fall apart in winter anyways, auto driving cars on ice introduces unpredictable factors that would nearly guarantee issues. Imagine if nobody knows how to drive and there's a flash freeze. Good luck getting to work.
Last edited by AcGold; 05-27-2015 at 06:02 PM.
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The whole thing would fall apart in winter anyways, auto driving cars on ice introduces unpredictable factors that would nearly guarantee issues. Imagine if nobody knows how to drive and there's a flash freeze. Good luck getting to work.
My car already is smart enough to know where to put power to the wheels when I'm sliding around in the winter. Why would it be a stretch to think it couldn't self drive the same?
I can see it being an issue if it can't easily detect lanes or curbs, obviously...but as long as you're not driving in fresh powder there would likely be some lane definition via tire tracks and the like to help the computer.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AcGold
The whole thing would fall apart in winter anyways, auto driving cars on ice introduces unpredictable factors that would nearly guarantee issues. Imagine if nobody knows how to drive and there's a flash freeze. Good luck getting to work.
Unpredictable eh? So a human would use what, psychic powers to deal with these situations better than a machine?
Driving a car involves calculations of physics, situational awareness, and basic decision making. Only in the last of those three are humans better performers than machines - so far. The problems facing traffic aren't exactly difficult to comprehend, and huge amounts of money and research are going to be thrown at it. Thinking that they won't eventually work it out, even if it takes a decade or two, is just wishful thinking based on a misunderstanding of what computers are and aren't good at.
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Oh sure programming one car to drive through a snowstorm is doable but in rush hour in bad conditions it will be nearly impossible for nothing bad to happen. Too many unpredictable factors and I've been in situations that require intuitive problem solving ability that a computer would have issues with.
Oh sure programming one car to drive through a snowstorm is doable but in rush hour in bad conditions it will be nearly impossible for nothing bad to happen. Too many unpredictable factors and I've been in situations that require intuitive problem solving ability that a computer would have issues with.
Doubtful... all the cars need to do is communicate their status to the other cars around them and they can handle scenarios. In fact a computer with enough data can handle thousands of probable scenarios in a fraction of a second and be prepared to execute a plan for any of them..
Last edited by sureLoss; 05-27-2015 at 06:41 PM.
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As MMF said, I don't think the introduction of self-driving vehicles will mean that you won't be able to still drive.
Absolutely will be able to drive yourself.
Insurance will be through the roof though.
Lots of misconception here. You will sleep in a self driving car,if you want. You don't operate the vehicle. So instead of flying to Vancouver and having a recliner ruin your flight, you will sleep while the car drives you there overnight.
You will then send it to park for free wherever it needs to go to find it, and summon it back when you need.
People who don't drive much will share a pool of cars and summon one when you need. People who previously were unable to drive will now have that freedom. And of course, those who love to drive all can.
I can't wait
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The pedestrian avoidance feature would probably be an additional $5000 on top of that.
Why does it need pedestrian detection though? I would think the most basic feature of a self-driving car would be an 'anything-directly-in-front-of-the-car-detector'.
To be clear, according to Volvo this isn't a self-driving car.
This is a car that some idiots thought had a pedestrian detection feature, which is an optional safety feature Volvo offers in its cars. The car is NOT a self driving car. It looks like the driver was trying to show off a feature the car never had to these people by driving the car directly at them.
The pedestrian detection feature is a safety feature that removes human reaction time out of stopping the car if a pedestrian/another car/etc were to suddenly appear in front of the car. It is not intended to be used as a feature that allows you to pay less attention on the road or self drives the car.
Last edited by sureLoss; 05-27-2015 at 07:26 PM.
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