Brexit, for once some facts.

[flecc]

fast forward a few years, the vehicle computer will be mostly self reliant.

I disagree, they will have very limited self reliance and will depend heavily on major infrastructure changes.

Even with those in place they will still have to have a set of human overriding controls to be able to complete all the functions that vehicles carry out today.

This whole vehicle issue is not only about computing ability. It's much more about the scale of transducer limitations and constant changes in the travelling environments.
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[Woosh]

I disagree, they will have very limited self reliance and will depend heavily on major infrastructure changes.

Even with those in place they will still have to have a set of human overriding controls to be able to complete all the functions that vehicles carry out today.

This whole vehicle issue is not only about computing ability. It's much more about the scale of transducer limitations and constant changes in the travelling environments.
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self driving cars have clocked up 1 billion + kms until now, and by the end of the year, 2.5 billion kms without many accidents.
Sure, most of these miles are on motorways and the job of the computer is simplified but they still underline progress made in self driving vehicles. On average, it is estimated that one accident occurs for every 165,000 miles.
Self driving cars are inherently more than 10 times safer than old people driving themselves (I was going to say 100 times safer than if Prince Philip drives the car).

 

[flecc]

self driving cars have clocked up 1 billion + kms until now, and by the end of the year, 2.5 billion kms without many accidents.
Sure, most of these miles are on motorways and the job of the computer is simplified but they still underline progress made in self driving vehicles. On average, it is estimated that one accident occurs for every 165,000 miles.
Self driving cars are inherently more than 10 times safer than old people driving themselves (I was going to say 100 times safer than if Prince Philip drives the car).

I don't trust those figures which come from the interested parties. What I do know is that in demonstration after demonstration, the driver has had to grab back control at one point at least, and the honest companies are admitting to problems they find very difficult to solve. Bicycles figure largely in those, the cause of Tesla's second fatal accident, and they aren't on motorways of course.

Motorways are easy as you recognise, but even they suffer serious problems with optical recognition of the marking lines and shiny road surface in reflected sunshine conditions, something I've experienced myself with my car's system. There is no full solution to that, polarisation only works in one plane and over a limited angle even then. It was this of course which caused Tesla's first fatal accident.

And something all the advocates fail to answer. What happens when two vehicles meet where only only one can pass, such as a narrow bridge? They cannot communicate with each other to resolve this, since that external communication if allowed would enable anyone to hack in and deliberately cause crashes, great for terrorism. Taking control of just one car could cause the most horrific of motorway multiple pileups

I guarantee you that for many decades and probably permanently, self drive vehicles intended for all purposes will have a set of human overriding controls. And that transducer inadequacies, particularly optical ones, will continue to cause accidents.
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[oldgroaner]

I'm sure we'll find a way of putting that wrong.

Human stupidity always has a way of triumphing.
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Well, it has I suppose one thing going for it (or not)
It's pretty much got us where we are today!

 

[oldgroaner]

we don't create a flawed copy. The method used for building AI mimics human common sense.

Oxymoron Warning there Woosh!

 

[Danidl]

I don't trust those figures which come from the interested parties. What I do know is that in demonstration after demonstration, the driver has had to grab back control at one point at least, and the honest companies are admitting to problems they find very difficult to solve. Bicycles figure largely in those, the cause of Tesla's second fatal accident, and they aren't on motorways of course.

Motorways are easy as you recognise, but even they suffer serious problems with optical recognition of the marking lines and shiny road surface in reflected sunshine conditions, something I've experienced myself with my car's system. There is no full solution to that, polarisation only works in one plane and over a limited angle even then. It was this of course which caused Tesla's first fatal accident.

And something all the advocates fail to answer. What happens when two vehicles meet where only only one can pass, such as a narrow bridge? They cannot communicate with each other to resolve this, since that external communication if allowed would enable anyone to hack in and deliberately cause crashes, great for terrorism. Taking control of just one car could cause the most horrific of motorway multiple pileups

I guarantee you that for many decades and probably permanently, self drive vehicles intended for all purposes will have a set of human overriding controls. And that transducer inadequacies, particularly optical ones, will continue to cause accidents.
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Putting down radio emitting cables for traffic lanes ..so called lossy cables is trivial.,and is common place in large manufacturing plants, Having messages sent by traffic lights ,equally simple, front radar detection old hat..I have it in my 8 year old Peugeot..and it is a boon when traveling in fog on motorways. I think you underestimate the capacity of current trandsucers

 

[Woosh]

Motorways are easy as you recognise, but even they suffer serious problems with optical recognition of the marking lines and shiny road surface in reflected sunshine conditions, something I've experienced myself with my car's system. There is no full solution to that, polarisation only works in one plane and over a limited angle even then. It was this of course which caused Tesla's first fatal accident.

Google use Lidar. Cheaper solutions: sub Terahertz optical sensors.
https://www.therobotreport.com/sub-terahertz-self-driving-car-eyesight/

 

[flecc]

Putting down radio emitting cables for traffic lanes ..so called lossy cables is trivial.,and is common place in large manufacturing plants, Having messages sent by traffic lights ,equally simple, front radar detection old hat..I have it in my 8 year old Peugeot..and it is a boon when traveling in fog on motorways. I think you underestimate the capacity of current trandsucers

Of course, but putting down cables and signalling traffic lights isn't the self reliance I was commenting on.

And I'm not underestimating transducer limitations. Having plenty of experience on advanced optical systems I well understand the limitations of optical recognition. And radar has its problems in practical situations as I found out suddenly with a momentary shock in my radar equipped car.

As with all the enthusiastic advocates, you are unwittingly wearing blinkers, since it doesn't take much thought to accept that there are many situations where vehicles operate which cannot be coped with. Remember I said for all purposes, because that is how we use our vehicles and why my post forecast that vehicles for all purposes will always have a set of manual controls for a driver.
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[flecc]

Google use Lidar.

At below milk float speeds.
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[Woosh]

At below milk float speeds.
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Google's self-driving cars become less polite to make trips faster:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/10/10/googles-self-driving-cars-become-less-polite-make-trips-faster/

well, if looks can make up for speed:
(TBH, it looks like an ambulance)

quote:

The company’s autonomous vehicles have driven 5 million miles since Alphabet began the program back in 2009. The first million miles took roughly six years. The next million took about a year. The third million took less than eight months. The fourth million took six months. And the fifth million took just under three months. Today, that suggests a rate on the order of 10,000 miles per day. If Waymo hits their marks, they’ll be driving at a rate that’s three orders of magnitude faster in 2020. We’re talking about covering each million miles in hours.

 

[flecc]

Google's self-driving cars become less polite to make trips faster:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/10/10/googles-self-driving-cars-become-less-polite-make-trips-faster/

well, if looks can make up for speed:
(TBH, it looks like an ambulance)

quote:

The company’s autonomous vehicles have driven 5 million miles since Alphabet began the program back in 2009. The first million miles took roughly six years. The next million took about a year. The third million took less than eight months. The fourth million took six months. And the fifth million took just under three months. Today, that suggests a rate on the order of 10,000 miles per day. If Waymo hits their marks, they’ll be driving at a rate that’s three orders of magnitude faster in 2020. We’re talking about covering each million miles in hours.

Not on our unaltered roads though, and certainly not for all the purposes that we use our vehicle for.

No self-drive car will ever be able to visit the builders merchants yard I've used frequently to collect stuff, for a whole host of reasons. That's why they will always have manual controls or be no use to us as a substitute for what we have now.

These car companies can't even get their automated parking to work at all times, which is why Nissan have removed theirs.
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[Woosh]

that was the picture of a Google Waymo taxi in Phoenix, AZ.
They are running the taxi service for a while now.
I use Southend airport fairly often. I would happily sit in a Waymo taxi to go to the airport.

 

[jonathan.agnew]

Google use Lidar. Cheaper solutions: sub Terahertz optical sensors.
https://www.therobotreport.com/sub-terahertz-self-driving-car-eyesight/

but is any of it intelligent? it's technically the application of knowledge. but it doesn't feel meaningful or visceral. I prefer cycling myself to the beach on a beat up folder to spending hundreds of hours on the www, or "being driven". it feels redundant, unrelated to quality of life

 

[flecc]

I would happily sit in a Waymo taxi to go to the airport.

I'd rather get there much faster!

I've got a car with many of these capabilities and have suffered the sudden unexpected braking in various circumstances, the loss of lane placement on motorways due to camera dazzle, so I'm very aware of the limitations.

Google themselves own up to the complaints from other road users about the cautiousness of their cars, the sudden abrupt stops etc. Those abrupt stops will get worse as they make the cars less cautious. I know how disconcerting they can be from when one happened on the approach to the Dartford Tunnel, due to an unusual road circumstance causing a radar misreading. And another when I was turning into a side road only to have the car abruptly double brake in quick succession.

The entrance had a brick built railway arch at both edges of the road. The right bridge pillar the radar saw as a sudden obstruction appearing in front as I swung left, then the sonar saw the left pillar as either a vehicle or pedestrian suddenly coming out from the left into my path as the front of the car swung towards it.

Believe me, this sudden unexpected braking scares following drivers witless.
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[oldgroaner]

I'd rather get there much faster!

I've got a car with many of these capabilities and have suffered the sudden unexpected braking in various circumstances, the loss of lane placement on motorways due to camera dazzle, so I'm very aware of the limitations.

Google themselves own up to the complaints from other road users about the cautiousness of their cars, the sudden abrupt stops etc. Those abrupt stops will get worse as they make the cars less cautious. I know how disconcerting they can be from when one happened on the approach to the Dartford Tunnel, due to an unusual road circumstance causing a radar misreading. And another when I was turning into a side road only to have the car abruptly double brake in quick succession.

The entrance had a brick built railway arch at both edges of the road. The right bridge pillar the radar saw as a sudden obstruction appearing in front as I swung left, then the sonar saw the left pillar as either a vehicle or pedestrian suddenly coming out from the left into my path as the front of the car swung towards it.

Believe me, this sudden unexpected braking scares following drivers witless.
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Agreed! it certainly creates excitement if the system hits the brakes and you have a HGV on your back door!

 

[Woosh]

TM unveils new Brexit slogan:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1102569298206310400

 

[Danidl]

Not on our unaltered roads though, and certainly not for all the purposes that we use our vehicle for.

No self-drive car will ever be able to visit the builders merchants yard I've used frequently to collect stuff, for a whole host of reasons. That's why they will always have manual controls or be no use to us as a substitute for what we have now.

These car companies can't even get their automated parking to work at all times, which is why Nissan have removed theirs.
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I cannot speak for your builders providers, but they would have no difficulty with those of Castorama in France. It is all a question of organisation

 

[flecc]

I cannot speak for your builders providers, but they would have no difficulty with those of Castorama in France. It is all a question of organisation

Here it's a question of space, something that organisation needs enough of. None of the builders merchants I know of in South London have anything like enough to properly organise. It's just a case of making do in very difficult circumstances. I think you'd be staggered just how awkward it can be.

But I return to the same point. Self drive cars cannot do and will never do all the things we use our vehicles for. Infrastructure isn't the answer since we could never install it for every circumstance in a world where we can't even repair our heavily potholed roads.

And why would the authorities spend vast sums on it to suit the car companies and enthusiastic politicians, while knowing that almost all drivers don't want self drive anyway. It wouldn't remove all accidents, just reduce them, and given how low our accident statistics are in Britain it wouldn't be financially justified.

To me this whole business is like all the confident predictions we've had for many years about refrigerators that re-order food and homes that clean themselves. Fanciful pipe dreams that will never be realised.

It's far more likely that we will eventually be forced to give up personal cars and use an extended public transport system, perhaps incorporating something like Google cars as part of it. But that of course will not provide anything like all the things we use our cars for, as I've been insisting. Our lives will have been impoverished.
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[oyster]

Phew! They haven't yet sold Wales to a Chinese plastics factory.

 

[anotherkiwi]

we don't create a flawed copy. The method used for building AI mimics human common sense.

Human common sense which gave us ... brexit