GM Says Driverless Cars Will Be Ready By 2018 646
Gregor Stipicic writes "Cars that drive themselves — even parking at their destination — could be ready for sale within a decade, General Motors Corp. executives say. 'This is not science fiction,' Larry Burns, GM's vice president for research and development, said in a recent interview. GM plans to use an inexpensive computer chip and an antenna to link vehicles equipped with driverless technologies. The first use likely would be on highways; people would have the option to choose a driverless mode while they still would control the vehicle on local streets, Burns said. He said the company plans to test driverless car technology by 2015 and have cars on the road around 2018."
Good (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I am bitter. I drive 128 almost every day.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What's the problem? You just need a sensor and a little code that can juggle the special factors involved in Boston driving -- Relative Vehicle Size, Number of dents, Condition of the paintjob. Vehicle with the least to lose in a collision has the right of way. You won't even notice that a robot is driving.
In fact, judging from most of the computer controlled gadgets around here,
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
And you probably thought that was a weird law. California's just ahead of the curve.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, all of the episodes I've seen have them driving the car by Remote control.
Depending on how its interpreted "Remote Control Driver" != "Driverless Car"
Number 1 use (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
Further, what makes you think you can react to road dangers faster than a radar-equipped mesh-networking auto-bot?
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
* Make truckers obsolete
* Allow dropoff/pickup of children without you being present
* Allow pickup of groceries or other goods without you being present
* Make it so you don't need parking near your destination (vehicle can leave, park elsewhere, and return later)
* Greatly increase throughput (autoconvoying, reduction of drag, traffic-aware route scheduling, reduction of human error)
* More green space for a given amount of throughput (same)
* Greatly increase speeds (same)
* Greatly decrease fuel or energy consumed at a given speed (same), helping the environment.
* Decrease costs to consumers (as above) and thus opens up wider travel opportunities/deurbanization.
* Facilitate better integration of the vehicle and the road (example: bridges that know how much capacity they can support and vehicles that know how much they weigh so that they can be built lighter (and thus cheaper) while still being safe by never routing too much weight to be crossing a given bridge at once)
* No speeding tickets
* No drunk drivers
* No need to pay attention to the road -- but those who like to drive could still offroad, go to tracks, etc.
* Greater response time of vehicle and built-in system-aware hardware eases transition to new technologies, such as inductrac maglev roads, powered roads to recharge electric vehicles, or whatnot.
** Above technologies further increase speed, decrease energy consumption, boost economy, and decrease cost to consumers
* Greatly boost the economy (all of the above)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
* Completely kill the fun and independence of the open road for human fun. - No more jumping on your motorcycle for an adventure on the open road. The "iron butt" will become a thing of the past. One more chink out of the independent spirit.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
No need to pay attention to the road -- but those who like to drive could still offroad, go to tracks, etc.
I fully support your right to go have fun driving your vehicle if that's what floats your boat. You don't, however, have a fundamental right to use something constructed by lots of my taxpayer dollars (the public road system) as your personal playground and put me in unnecessary risk while on it. In such a future, if you wanted to drive for fun, you could easily go drive somewhere that's for people who want to drive for fun; however, our tax dollars weren't collected to build you a racetrack.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You forgot....
No need to pay attention to the road -- but those who like to drive could still offroad, go to tracks, etc.
I fully support your right to go have fun driving your vehicle if that's what floats your boat. You don't, however, have a fundamental right to use something constructed by lots of my taxpayer dollars (the public road system) as your personal playground and put me in unnecessary risk while on it. In such a future, if you wanted to drive for fun, you could easily go drive somewhere that's for people who want to drive for fun; however, our tax dollars weren't collected to build you a racetrack.
Excuse me but I pay a fortune to use the roads and should have the right to spend my normal 30-40 hours a week on the roads I paid for without inexpirienced idiots putting me in danger.
The people who cause most accidents arnt truck drivers, taxis or couriers.
Its the person driving to the shops for their weekly shopping or picking their kids of from school that pull out in front of other vehicles on the highway or stall at the lights. These people often spend less than 20hours a week on the road and dont dr
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, you're right. You're right! You pay for it, you should be able to do whatever the heck you want with it. Speaking of that, I should go to an Air Force base and take a free ride on a jet fighter. Hey, I'm paying for it, right? Who cares what the "intent" of the program is. It's all about what "I want" to do with the program, right? Who cares whether the "intent" of the transportation budget is to move people and goods. If you want to use it for your own personal needs, screw the purpose of the transportation budget (moving people and goods), right?
The people who cause most accidents arnt truck drivers, taxis or couriers.
But they *do* cause accidents. Drunk drivers only cause ~40% of accidents [car-accidents.com]. ~42,000 people die per year in auto accidents. Put 9-11, our troops lost in Iraq, and all of those sorts of things in perspective: 42,000 *per year*. Car accidents are the *leading cause of death* for people between ages 6 and 27. 394,000 large trucks were involved in crashes in 1999. 5,203 people died and 127,000 were injured. The economic damage of the accidents was a staggering $150 billion, just in 1999. Let's put that into perspective: Hurricane Katrina did only $81 billion.
This is not something trivial. You not only want the American public to pay for your entertainment, pay *huge amounts of money* for your entertainment, but you want to keep us in a system that injures half a million people a year, kills several tens of thousands per year, and does almost twice the economic damage as Hurricane Katrina each year. For your entertainment. Pardon me if I'm a wee bit hostile to the notion.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
To get people and goods to a destination, not for "fun". They're not there to be a personal racetrack. If they were, we'd be widely building publicly financed racetracks for community use as well.
I don't think my street cruiser is really set up for a dirt track somewhere...
Then drive on a non-dirt track. Any other puzzlers you've got?
And if I'm driving safe
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
What, you don't think you'll be able to tell the computer where you want to go? Or give it commands like "turn left up ahead" or "stop here"? Personally I'd love to be able to really look at the scenery on those country drives rather than dividing my attention between it and the road, and then at the end of the day just tell the car "home, James" and sit back and snooze.
Hell, they could even put in a steering wheel and pedals so that you think you're in control, but the computer just takes those inputs as suggestions.
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Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're truly willing to give things up, then you can have what you want. Figure out a way to get a job where you can work from home. Sell the car. Move somewhere with really cheap housing where you can walk to the grocery store. It sounds like I'm being glib, but I'm dead serious. Do it.
I did it. My wife and I both took 50% pay cuts to find work at home jobs. We sold one car and used it to pay off the other. We fill up our remaining car about once every 2 months or so. We had many expenses before that we no longer have, including about $150 USD/mo in toll roads and about $250 USD/mo in gas, and our car insurance is super cheap now with 1 car fully paid off instead of 2 cars. Plus, we both recovered about 2 hours per day each on commute times, which we now use to enjoy our happier less stressful lives.
Seriously-- if you're honestly willing to make sacrifices to not sit in traffic, then do it. You're in charge of your life, right?
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Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
* Not door-to-door service. Rules out the weak, the disabled, many of the elderly, many of the young (safety), and the vast throngs of able-bodied people who, whether you think the reason is justified or not, simply don't want to walk a dozen blocks to make all of their connections every day because they:
* Have "better things to do" than spend an extra 5-10 minutes each way walking several blocks, or
* "Don't want to" walk several blocks
* Need to be transporting goods (dry cleaning, groceries, etc) long distances by hand. I'm in good shape, but even I'd hate to haul, say, a 40 pound bag of water softener salt plus a couple gallons of milk, a few quarts of juice, and all of the other stuff I might happen to pick up at a grocery store.
* Greatly increased travel time. I can drive to the grocery store in three minutes, but it'd take about an hour get there via bus -- at peak service times. Even if they 10xed funding to make busses run 10 times as often, it'd still take three times as long to get there. And this excludes the aforementioned time to walk to the bus stop. Busses, light rail, and rail are simply a poor fit for going from specifically point A to specifically point B. They do great on long stretches, but simply can't cater to the individual needs of their many passengers.
* Has economic penalties (greatly increased transit time is not free to an economy)
* Has leisure time penalties (as above)
* Lacks individualism (something Americans tend to prize)
* Lacks the ability to leave things of yours in a vehicle.
* Lacks the ability to maintain (or not maintain) the vehicle in the shape you find acceptable, or to modify it to your liking
* Lacks room for transporting goods -- both everyday goods (groceries, dry cleaning, etc) and non-everyday goods (a refrigerator, a desk, etc). Especially important on "goods" that aren't allowed to be transported in public transport -- pets, dangerous chemicals, etc.
* Requires a much greater degree of pre-planning for trips to get your route and timing down.
* Has serious time penalties if you miss a connection.
* Lateness (above) has serious economic and leisure-time penalties.
* Forces people to be in close proximity with other people (laugh if you want, but the hypochondriacs, agoraphobes, racists, and vast throngs of people who merely want to be left alone won't be laughing)
* Doesn't make use of our vast amount of existing infrastructure (only applies to rail and light rail, not busses)
The overwhelming majority simply won't vote for any candidate who would eliminate personal transportation for public, and any transportation proposal needs to deal with the reality that there are many, many reasons, both good and bad, that it's not a general purpose solution.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Not around here. Around here, the primary users are the able-bodied poor.
Those are the groups that are the least likely to a) be capable of driving, and b) be able to afford the cost of owning, maintaining, insuring, and fueling a vehicle.
And, more importantly, walking several blocks to the nearest bus stop multiple times on each trip. I have a good friend with muscular dystrophy. She drives a car. The concept of her walking everywhere to catch busses, especially in winter, is almost laughably bad.
Healthy adults are the people who take transit the least, for the simple reason that they're the ones that can afford cars and have both the mental acumen and physical health necessary to operate them.
Tell that to gardeners, construction workers, factory workers, and all other "manual laborers". Tell them how wealthy they are. Go on. Because, at least around here, those are the sort of people you see on the bus. Them and students.
That's what an iPod and a book are for.
How nice for you that this is all you need to be unaware of everyone else around you.
Even the most obnoxious of the homeless insane wont try to talk to someone protected by such an overpowering barrier of leave-me-the-fuck-alone.
Funny, because I've had, on multiple occasions, homeless insane (or at least seemingly homeless and insane) people carry on one-sided conversations with me for my entire ride on the bus while I'm programming on my laptop the hole time, and I don't even ride it that often.
The grocery is that close, but you can't walk?
I don't know about you, but I don't exactly feel like needlessly losing 40 minutes of my day a twice a week and carrying back half a dozen bags of groceries weighing dozens of pounds total (sometimes more) in my arms. Or should I tow a little red wagon with me? Any more annoyances you'd like to pile onto my life for no particular reason?
that means your grocery store is at most 1.5 miles away. A reasonably healthy person can walk that in about 15 minutes.
It's actually 1.3 miles, 4 minutes drive, according to google
I'm sorry but 6 miles per hour is not a "walk". That's jogging. So, now what am I to picture -- you want me to jog with a dozen bags of groceries in my arm? What's next -- do you want me to juggle and play harmonica at the same time?
Anyone who's actually used public transportation at all (as opposed to the people who go around making up bullshit about how unsuited it is for everyone except healthy adults) knows that for short trips, it's usually easier to walk.
Um, excuse me, but I used to ride the bus daily. Don't lecture me about "anyone who's actually used public transportation".
Youths generally can't afford cars, so they depend on public transit.
I said the "young". As in children. As in "American parents don't typically want their kids riding alone on a bus and would rather just drop them off somewhere".
The elderly frequently can't afford cars and are often incapable of driving, so they depend on public transit.
If they're incapable of driving, I bet walking a dozen blocks with groceries in their arms is a blast, isn't it?
Not owning a car is a sign of being poor, not elderly.
The disabled are one of the lowest income groups in any society, especially American society with its disdain for social services. Do you really think that they can afford cars?
My friend Cathy has one. It's a junker probably worth less than a thousand dollars, but it drives just fine. It's fitted with hand controls so she can run it properly. Before she was able to get that car, she was part of a car co-op. Again, think for a second: person who can hardly walk, and you want her to *carry things* for *several blocks* each way to get to a bus stop? That's positively ludicrous.
Not to mention the fact that many disabilities directly prevent people from driving.
You really don't know anyone who's disabled, do you?
Re:Good for safety (Score:3, Informative)
Humans make a lot of mistakes including the stupid excuses "I didn't see you". With computer controlled stuff, the software will *see* everything down to a given size all the time. It doesn't get distracted or starts the 'stare into oblivions', both of which result in the same scenario.
Cars and SUVs and trucks are the largest obstacle to safety for cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists. Remove the recklessnes
But the big question is... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:But the big question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, they need to just throw in the towel if they can't compete with their core product, because if they can't even do plain old cars decently, they're certainly not going to succeed at anything more grandiose.
GM's cars suck, and have sucked for a very long
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I certainly don't want my car running Windows CE. If it can't keep my phone from crashing cars are out of the question.
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They might if Microsoft writes the software and they try to exit from the wrong off ramp. There are people dying in flying cars all the time!
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I started collecting a list of things that people have said that should happen on a certain date or year in the future. So far 4 dates on my list have passed and none of them has happened.
But no worries, because after year 2024 we can wait forever for these to happen: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/03/164257&tid=191&tid=14 [slashdot.org]
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The possibilities are endless! (Score:5, Funny)
"Drive to Pathmark"
"Pathmark is overrated. Destination modified to Walmart." *doors lock*
Re:The possibilities are endless! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The possibilities are endless! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The possibilities are endless! (Score:5, Funny)
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And monkeys might fly out of my butt (Score:2)
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The technology not only exists for autonomous cars, but have been implemented in various forms already. California made a special HOV lane 10 years ago [wikipedia.org] that allowed specially equipped cars to drive themselves in those lanes close to each other. The project was apparently abandoned due to political pressure, not due to technical reasons.
There will not be a mass-produced flying car though. That simply requires too much energy and we have a large enough energy problem as it is. Unless you want to use a deri
Re:And monkeys might fly out of my butt (Score:4, Funny)
You don't read enough. There already exists a perfectly good sky car [moller.com]. 20mpg on pure, clean-burning ethanol, and completely safe computerized navigation and flight control. And it's quiet. And it goes well over 200mph, and can take off and land vertically, right in your yard. I can't believe you don't know about this vehicle. It's even red!
Too bad... (Score:3, Funny)
Does this mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
...that someone will have to come up with maps that are accurate? I don't mean ones that have pinpoint accuracy on the locations of roads, but thoroughfares with special conditions. I'd hate to riding in a car in autopilot that decided it could turn the wrong way down a one way street because the map data didn't show it.
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Of course, security on all this stuff needs to be tight - imagine if some guy hacks his car to spit out messages like "I'm an ambulance, get out of the way!"
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Funny, I went back to TFA to see if I missed something. Doing a search on "sign" doesn't return any results (other than being part of the word significant). Are you finding this in another related article? Or are implying that this will be part of cars being able to "talk with highway systems?"
There's a high degree of confidence in presuming that some form of roadway infrastructure improvements will be necessary, but the details didn't come through in the linked article, as far as I can tell. And con
Sounds about right. (Score:5, Funny)
If I believe anyone, I believe GM (Score:5, Interesting)
I will remain pseudonymous, but I will say that my current area of research (I am a graduate student) is tangentially related to this field, related enough that I've looked into trying to convince GM to give me funding (so far nothing has materialized). Specifically my research looks deals with programming language design (e.g., making less-than-Turing-complete-but-still-useful programming languages structured in useful ways) to aid in static analysis. The aim is at safety-critical code (nuclear power plant code, industrial controller code, automotive software) such that you can say "barring hardware failure, this code is 100% guaranteed to meet hard realtime constraints", etc.
Anyway, at least publicly, GM is probably the most impressive car company in terms of researching these sorts of things. I feel kind of bad for GM. I hear they're selling terribly and are even selling at a loss on many cars, but their research department really is something impressive. Maybe they're a little bit Microsoft-ish in that their research department is heavily insulated from the rest of the company, I don't know. But GM is doing a lot of cool stuff and funding a lot of cool stuff with regards to "correct" software.
If it were some other random company, I would probably roll my eyes and say "oh they'll probably just test it really really heavily and then tell us that it works", but more than most companies, I trust GM to develop cool technology (such as novel static analysis techniques) to get this to work. Their R&D [gm.com] is active in a lot of areas, 99% I'm sure will never amount to anything, but I wouldn't doubt it if they could get the technology together to get auto-driving cars in 10 years.
Disclaimer: as I mentioned before, my efforts to get GM funding are still unsuccessful, and consequently I'm not on GM payroll in any imaginable way. I don't even drive a GM car (or any car). In fact their cars look kind of lame in general, but their R&D department in Cool.
GM's problem: (Score:3, Informative)
GM's had 30 years to bring fuel efficiency & milage to the forefront of their goals. I have no sympathy for its demise.
What about flying cars? (Score:2)
It's a good thing GM is doing this.... (Score:2)
already done - it was called the Pontiac Aztec (Score:2, Insightful)
dont need customers without drivers (Score:2)
Culpability (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In any case GM is wr
Really? (Score:2, Funny)
Apparently there'll be a copy of Duke Nukem Forever in the glove box.
GM assumes liability for driverless car accidents (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct me if I'm wrong.
It seems to me the only way this technology ever winds up on the road is if the owner of the car signs a waver at the car dealership to hold GM harmless and assume all responsibility for driverless mode accidents.
Re:GM assumes liability for driverless car acciden (Score:5, Interesting)
Now who can handle the insurance policy on that?
Then, of course, inane regulation.
Never mind that these will be safer and less obstructive than 95% of drivers. Never mind that they'll end the problem of drunk driving. Never mind that they will massively increase productivity. Everyone has to get their piece.
Insurance would change drastically (Score:4, Informative)
far, FAR fewer than what we see today. Owning a self-drive capable car might even LOWER your
insurance payments as you're taking the human out of the equation. Think about what causes most
accidents. Hardware failure ? Um. . no.
Usually it's stupidity on the drivers part. Driving too fast, ( or too slow in the wrong lane )
didn't see the vehicle next to them, drunk, racing, rubbernecking, on the phone, whatever.
Remove the driver from the equation and 99% of the traffic fatalities will probably go away.
Once the tech arrives, it would probably take 5-10 years to get the changeover completed. Once
that happens, most of the accidents and the reasons behind them would vanish. Talk all you wish on
your phone. Eat your breakfast and rubberneck till you are blue in the face. The computer won't run
the light, blow the stopsign or try to race the idiot next to you. Freeway traffic will likely be
self-drive ONLY.
Hell, they may even RAISE the speed limits. The ones we have now have to factor in the idiot
equation. Remove the human problem and higher speeds navigated via computer will be just as safe
( if not safer ) than the lower ones driven by their flesh and blood counterparts.
the lower ones.
With my drive testing the limits of my sanity on a daily basis ( ~80 miles roundtrip to the office
through the worst traffic Houston has to offer ) I'll be first in line if / when this tech becomes
available.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, which is why the problem is greatly curtailed -- drunk merely has to be able to say, "God damn I'm wasted. Car, take me home." I'm willing to bet that most drunk people who get in a car will gladly take this option in preference to risking a DUI.
You are correct, of course, that part of the problem i
Re:GM assumes liability for driverless car acciden (Score:2)
GM touts driverless car with collision avoidance software
drunk person slams into car.
GM gets sued for not avoid the drunk.
...Probably (Score:5, Interesting)
With the speed with which processing power and sensors become cheaper and more widely available, I think 10 years is definitely attainable. The tech is here, most of the problems are solved, we just have to wait for the price point to come down.
/.ed. ;)
[1] I was going to put our URL here, but the IT dept will kill me if the servers get
It's the surprises that scare me (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I'll believe it when I see it, and even then I think I'll be
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'd trust a computer over most drivers. Traffic engineers model traffic off completely unintelligent fluid dynamics. And they have to adjust because humans are less efficient that particles (yes, I'm saying that the average driver is more stupid than a molecule of air). With a computer driving, conditions that require slowing down ahead will result in slowing before you have
Just in time! (Score:2)
His father in law said the same thing about indoor plumbing.
Are we there yet?
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Actually, a driverless car might be just in time for a lot of the Baby Boomer generation as they get into their 60's and 70's, just as their mounting health problems take their toll on driving skills. Accident rates tend to be lowest for drivers in their 40's and 50's, when mature judgment backed by decades of experience more than compensate for slower reaction times and loss of motor skills they had in their youth. Accident rates start rising again as people get on into their 60's and the effects of decrea
Other great predictions (Score:2)
"Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.
"Read my lips. NO NEW TAXES." George Bush, 1988
And plenty of others...
It's About Time! (Score:4, Insightful)
Would legal/insurance issues kill it? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like ALL the cars on the road will be driverless. Who is responsible for a crash that occurs while you aren't driving and are reading or asleep (why else would you want a driverless car)?
They might have better luck putting driverless "taxis" in crowded downtown areas where traffic moves slowly - that would reduce the damage and injuries associated with accidents at higher speeds.
Never let reality temper imagination
Re:Would legal/insurance issues kill it? (Score:5, Insightful)
But I do agree fully with you that legal/insurance-problem might be the biggest dealbreaker.
They're just covering (Score:2)
MS Software (Score:2)
1. Run the bastard of the road?
2. Sideswipe him into a bush?
3. Scare the crap out of him?
Yay! (Score:2)
Now where's my driver-less flying car? I mean it, flying cars won't ever get anywhere unless they're "driver-less".
Tech 10 years off isn't sci-fi? (Score:4, Interesting)
In my book, if you an't roll something out within 18 months, it's vapor. Talking about something you think is a decade away is just lip service clearly trying to generate some PR and drve up stock a few cents for the day.
The Next Format War (Score:2)
One Thing not well-addressed in TFA (Score:2, Insightful)
Automatic control (Score:2)
This interests me but purely from a technological and safety point of view. I work in aviation, most aircraft have some form of "autopilot" even if it just automatic stabilisation.
One of the rotary wing aircraft I work on had an analogue system (around 30 years old) that was capable of applying one third of the control required to correct in the time it took a human pilot to notice a percievable change in attitude.
A growing trend now is to assume that the computer is less likely to make a mistake than a h
If history is a guide (Score:2)
GM doesn't watch Top Gear I guess (Score:2)
Wasn't the (original) KITT a GM product? (Score:2)
Why bother having it drive door to door? (Score:3, Interesting)
Better yet, it could slip behind another cars slipstream and take the energy savings for granted. Half-second gaps between cars, with sensors in front and narrowbeam transmitters on the back to alert for stationary vehicles up ahead. Modulate that AM transmitter, and you've got yourself traffic information to plot a better route, and could be encrypted to prevent mis-use.
Why hasn't this been done? And if it has (even if a different system than AMRF) why hasn't it been implemented for economy long-distance driving?
priorities, priorities (Score:3, Funny)
Slightly better fuel efficiency by 2020, only 30 years after it was first proposed.
Government actually requiring that cars not be totally dependant upon gasoline, which would be practical? Crystal ball can't see that far ahead.
If GM says 2018, toyota will offer it in 2013 (Score:3, Interesting)
Just make the system, prove in some spectacular way how safe it is, and then sell it. I can't wait to see the movies where cars are pushed to their absolute limit to avoid a whole series of accidents, all of it happening too fast for a human to register.
Obviously, most countries will initially make sure this is illegal, but there will always be some small country that goes the other way just to be different, and the first manufacturer of these cars for that country will get some major publicity.
Pun warning! (Score:2)
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*shudder*
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I think you're right. The uncomfortable part, though, is that when you're driving the car, you feel that you have the control over avoiding problems and accidents (I say you *feel* because in reality, there are some accidents you can't avoid). On the other hand, if the software BSODs and drives you off the bridge, you had nothing to do with it at all. Every time you get into one of these cars, you're putting your life into the
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Re:WHY are these bozos spending money on this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, how can you even ask this question? Have you ever heard of the broken window fallacy?
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Then they'd have to sit in the parking lot because there wouldn't be a male relative to escort them in public.
So why are they spending all this money on this nonsense?
My bet is some GM execs saw "I, Robot".
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Personally, I can't think of a single reason. [alcoholalert.com] I'm certain that all people everywhere will begin paying designated drivers rather than spend that last $20 on 3 more shots of Jager. Besides, these first models won't work perfectly which obviously means they never will. Such pie-in-the-sky endeavors should never even be considered.
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Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
- It wouldn't race to the next red light, but infuriate you (like I do my passengers) by taking its virtual foot off the virtual gas pedal as soon as the light ahead turned red
- It wouldn't waste gas idling at the green light with its finger up its ass
- It wouldn't go east to get west (unless Microsoft made its nav system)
- It wouldn't pick the route with the most stop signs
You can already improve your mileage on the interstate (or autobahn) by using your cruise control.-mcgrew
Re:Right... (Score:5, Interesting)
Once cars can really drive themselves, they should be in contact with other cars, road signs and such to maintain the best traffic conditions possible.
There will be no real reason for stop signs, traffic lights, speed limits, yield signs and such, all of this can be avoided once cars are driving themselves.
Of-course this requires an overhaul of the infrastructure and assumes all cars are driverless and communicating with each other, the road signs and such and that there are no others (pedestrians/animals/other obstacles) on the roads.
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I don't think that better fuel economy is neccesarily a given - cars currently support a very minimal set of electrics and on many cars there is no surplus of power - a lot of small european cars for example noticeably dim lights when electric windows are engaged.
There also comes the issue of redundancy which is not currently an issue, as well as the increased weight if the control components and sensors.
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Actually, this may be part of that solution. For the most part the guy behind the wheel causes his own problems with gas mileage by driving like a 12 year old jackoff who's high on Jolt cola. In this age, the more control we take from the driver the better off we probably are. We'd exceed the 1 mpg/year claim that a lot of environmentalists make by getting Joe Sixpack to sit back and enjoy the nice music instead of having him ride the ass of the car in front
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This can be done, there are object classification algorithms that can make the determination, especially if the toddler is crawling.
* Seeing well in the rain.
This can be done using near-IR cameras, in fact they can see better than you probably could.
* Telling the difference between a dishwasher carton (which might not have to be bra