I want to know what people are supposed to do with their purchases if they want to go to multiple stores in an afternoon. Most people put their stuff in their trunk and drive from store to store. But if you're taking a different automated vehicle from store to store then you have to take all your stuff with you as you shop which would be a pain. Especially if you're buying heavy goods like dog food.
In other words, let's say I want to go to Home Depot for some items and then the supermarket. What happens to my Home Depot purchases while I go to the supermarket?
I want to know what people are supposed to do with their purchases if they want to go to multiple stores in an afternoon. Most people put their stuff in their trunk and drive from store to store. But if you're taking a different automated vehicle from store to store then you have to take all your stuff with you as you shop which would be a pain. Especially if you're buying heavy goods like dog food.
In other words, let's say I want to go to Home Depot for some items and then the supermarket. What happens to my Home Depot purchases while I go to the supermarket?
I don't think that would be a major issue. You would probably just be able to pay to keep the same car for the whole trip.
Another fun thing to think about is errands that run themselves. Why transport the person all the hell over the place when what you want to transport is the goods?
That, of course, is if we build the infrastructure and do it right.
Now, this is a mustachian board with a can do attitude that can make this all happen with a cheap enough ride share scheme. However-what about your neighbor? Or anyone else already driving a 4 wheel 4 seat 2000 lb piece of steel 40 miles one way to work? They prefer the convenience over the logic of mustachianism already, so how's that going to change?
Sheer geometry limits how many single-person vehicles you can cram into any travel space: I think the idea that self-driving cars are going to change traffic much for the better are off-target. But when you can run at twice the frequency for the current cost, you'll get at least twice the ridership (since what people hate most is waiting) and you'll be able to increase frequency even more -- it's in mass transit that we'll actually see the most benefit. (And those benefits will be huge, if we're ready to take advantage of them.)
Another fun thing to think about is errands that run themselves. Why transport the person all the hell over the place when what you want to transport is the goods?
Another fun thing to think about is errands that run themselves. Why transport the person all the hell over the place when what you want to transport is the goods?
Isn't that called delivered groceries? Or Amazon?
I see the just-in-time driveless vehicles to lead to higher costs rather than lower costs. Everything leading to convenience leads to extra costs in the USA.
Another fun thing to think about is errands that run themselves. Why transport the person all the hell over the place when what you want to transport is the goods?
...you engineers are smarter than me..heck maybe some of you actually work in this field!
This municipality decides that this will reduce the number of cars so parking lot size requirements are dramatically reduced and developers stop building them (saves $) and garages. Now the self-driving cars have nowhere to park, do they just drive around or are parking/maintenance lots created on the outskirts of the city? Will people accept this?
I definitely think economics alone will solve the parking issue. Parking your car for the day in Chicago is what, $50? It could just drive home and recharge for 50x less money. Heck, it could drive around the city doing NOTHING for about a buck. Who in the world would pay that kind of money just to let it sit. Of course, I think that now but people still do :)...you engineers are smarter than me..heck maybe some of you actually work in this field!
With this coming close (not sure about the smarter part), I'll briefly try and make something clear that no one has really touched on yet. It's not really the engineers that are going to shape this but rather society. What I mean is that as engineers we can design it to be whatever people (ourselves included) dream up. The issue is that this doesn't shape what self-driving cars will become. That is up to society and more specifically two key components: law/regulations & economics.
Let me make up an example which illustrates both in one go. Let's say that the law/regulation at a Federal/National level says that each time you enter a self-driving car it has to announce the probability of a crash, while a regular car doesn't. Figure anyone is going to buy/get into one? If no one if buying them or willing to use one then self-driving cars won't be brought to market.
Now say a municipality decides to ban regular cars on their roads and force the use of self-driving cars. Now there is a market, but maybe only for vehicles that travel locally (no long trips so they'd be designed with this in mind). This municipality decides that this will reduce the number of cars so parking lot size requirements are dramatically reduced and developers stop building them (saves $) and garages. Now the self-driving cars have nowhere to park, do they just drive around or are parking/maintenance lots created on the outskirts of the city? Will people accept this?
Now imagine all of the variations on this. I think it comes down to what will the laws be, will people accept self-driving cars (or what features will they accept), and are they profitable? Thus while very interesting, I think it is much more a question that should be directed towards the fields of Sociology & Law rather than Engineering.
Returning to the delivery question--I think delivery will still involve humans for a long time, because someone has to wrangle the package off the vehicle and into the house. That's one reason I buy a lot online--I live in a second-floor walkup and I want UPS to wrestle that giant box up the stairs for me. But I bet it would be cheaper to operate UPS if you didn't have to find people capable of driving the trucks.
Another way it might change daily life--transporting kids. Some people already use Uber to get their kids to activities, apparently. If you could load your kids into an auto-car and send them off to baseball or Scouts, or school, that would significantly simplify the lives of a lot of people I know. But then how does that intersect with the current protectiveness about children? I bet there would have to be laws passed about what age a child could be alone in a car, etc.
Another fun thing to think about is errands that run themselves. Why transport the person all the hell over the place when what you want to transport is the goods?
With stores already picking things and having them setup for you when you show up at the store, that's just a short step to make to have them load a self-driving delivery vehicle too. Beats the classic online ordering experience of having to wait anywhere from a day to a week. Allows for easy delivery of fresh items.
Another fun thing to think about is errands that run themselves. Why transport the person all the hell over the place when what you want to transport is the goods?
With stores already picking things and having them setup for you when you show up at the store, that's just a short step to make to have them load a self-driving delivery vehicle too. Beats the classic online ordering experience of having to wait anywhere from a day to a week. Allows for easy delivery of fresh items.
I think that this self-driving delivery vehicle phenomenon will massively increase congestion on our roads at all times of day.
Let's say you want to get some clothes from the mall, get some medicine from the vet's office, get a pizza for dinner. Rather than one person making three stops as we do now, in the future you can have three separate vehicles bring all your stuff to your home!
Now scale this up to uses over a large city.
Another fun thing to think about is errands that run themselves. Why transport the person all the hell over the place when what you want to transport is the goods?
With stores already picking things and having them setup for you when you show up at the store, that's just a short step to make to have them load a self-driving delivery vehicle too. Beats the classic online ordering experience of having to wait anywhere from a day to a week. Allows for easy delivery of fresh items.
I think that this self-driving delivery vehicle phenomenon will massively increase congestion on our roads at all times of day.
Let's say you want to get some clothes from the mall, get some medicine from the vet's office, get a pizza for dinner. Rather than one person making three stops as we do now, in the future you can have three separate vehicles bring all your stuff to your home!
Now scale this up to uses over a large city.
Air taxis might be a thing soon too, check out airbus a3. The future is coming!
The air taxis I'm talking about would be electric, and autonomous.Air taxis might be a thing soon too, check out airbus a3. The future is coming!
Air taxis have been a thing in São Paulo for years now.
Cars are wasteful enough. The last thing we need is everybody flying everywhere when what we really need is better efficiency.
Another fun thing to think about is errands that run themselves. Why transport the person all the hell over the place when what you want to transport is the goods?
With stores already picking things and having them setup for you when you show up at the store, that's just a short step to make to have them load a self-driving delivery vehicle too. Beats the classic online ordering experience of having to wait anywhere from a day to a week. Allows for easy delivery of fresh items.
I think that this self-driving delivery vehicle phenomenon will massively increase congestion on our roads at all times of day.
Let's say you want to get some clothes from the mall, get some medicine from the vet's office, get a pizza for dinner. Rather than one person making three stops as we do now, in the future you can have three separate vehicles bring all your stuff to your home!
Now scale this up to uses over a large city.
Drone technology seems like absurd overkill for commuting and package delivery, to me. My speculation tends more to an "internet of freight," where boxes of stuff know their destination and are just smart enough to hop off one train or conveyor belt and drive or waddle over to another.
I don't think anything will change dramatically. So let's say you work in a workplace with 2000 other people. Like an hospital or some development campus or production factory. What does it happen when 5pm comes, where do 2000 people go and wait for a car to drive them? Instead of parking you need some kind of huge waiting lane, instead of the parking lot. And how efficiently can you load up cars ? How many will be effectively shared ? And how do you know which car is for you, like if 100 Tesla are coming to pick up 400 people (optimistically 4 per car)..do you need to read registration plate? Screen on the outside? Loudspeaker? And what about the other 1600, still waiting?
I don't think anything will change dramatically. So let's say you work in a workplace with 2000 other people. Like an hospital or some development campus or production factory. What does it happen when 5pm comes, where do 2000 people go and wait for a car to drive them? Instead of parking you need some kind of huge waiting lane, instead of the parking lot. And how efficiently can you load up cars ? How many will be effectively shared ? And how do you know which car is for you, like if 100 Tesla are coming to pick up 400 people (optimistically 4 per car)..do you need to read registration plate? Screen on the outside? Loudspeaker? And what about the other 1600, still waiting?
Why do you need to match particular people with particular cars? Couldn't people just get in whichever car was at the front of the line and tell it where to go once they hopped in? The cars could even know that when you're at a large scale pickup it makes sense to just start driving right away, and then figure out once you're going once you've made room for the next car in line, just like taxi drivers do at some airports today.
Similarly, I would expect that if we're talking a big swam of self driving cars that you'd have some sort of machine learning so the cars would know where dense concentrations of commuters were likely to pop up right around 5 pm, and could start driving there beforehand, so that cars would already be waiting as people walked out the doors.
Ah, gotcha. Yes if you're trying to have strangers ride share together with optimal assortment the logistics of getting the right people into the right cars quickly do start to become a fair bit more complicated. (As does the math of figuring out which people to put together in which cars.)
I don't think anything will change dramatically. So let's say you work in a workplace with 2000 other people. Like an hospital or some development campus or production factory. What does it happen when 5pm comes, where do 2000 people go and wait for a car to drive them? Instead of parking you need some kind of huge waiting lane, instead of the parking lot. And how efficiently can you load up cars ? How many will be effectively shared ? And how do you know which car is for you, like if 100 Tesla are coming to pick up 400 people (optimistically 4 per car)..do you need to read registration plate? Screen on the outside? Loudspeaker? And what about the other 1600, still waiting?
For the majority of car trips (i.e. commuting), it's hard to see how this significantly saves time. If it's just one person, you've doubled the number of trips, if not the distance, for a given trip (because car has to go from depot to your house, to work, to depot, to your work, to house, instead of home -> work and reverse). If carpooling, it's a bit better, but then you're losing time to pick people up and drop them off. Could work for long commutes, but it would be terrible for short to average commutes.
I worked at Google before FIRE, but not on autonomous vehicles (AV), I have no inside info. This is my own opinion.
Like other transformative technology revolutions, autonomous vehicles will change our world in unexpected ways that will seem obvious in hindsight. Few people expected the internet would clobber cable, yet it seems obvious now.
The change will happen much faster than most people expect. The companies working on this are ironing out various issues, but much of the problem is already solved. Once the entire package is working it will deploy rather quickly - just a matter of copying software (zero cost) and installing the hardware (can be done production line). We are hearing about it now but it seems far off, then suddenly there will be driverless car options on the road.
Most people will not own an AV. Large ridesharing companies will maintain fleets of electric AVs, which will be much lower cost to operate than manned ICE vehicles. Competition will ensure these cost savings are passed on to the consumer. The AV manufacturer will assume liability and insurance...I don't see how they can avoid this because their software is effectively the "driver." This will decimate auto insurance companies.
The most dramatic change will be large numbers of families going from 2 cars to 1. The one car will be used for errands, road trips, etc. but will incrementally spend more and more time parked in the driveway. More and more commuters will pool AVs to work - algorithms already exist for batching rides based on time, starting location and ending location. This will greatly reduce costs and allow the AV to use HOV lanes. This will decimate automakers, effectively cutting their market in half or worse -- the single vehicle people own will get less use, hence last much longer.
Congestion will be reduced. Partially because more people will carpool in AVs. Moreso because AVs will be able to communicate with each other in real-time, which means they can broadcast their intentions/actions to surrounding AVs. This will enable AVs to safely link up in virtual "trains" of tightly packed cars - reducing drag and increasing the effective capacity of highways. This will also reduce or eliminate pulsing of congested traffic we see with human drives. This, along with greatly reduced costs (from above) are going to decimate some mass transit systems, especially light rail. Rail in very dense metros will be fine (e.g. NYC) but those in lower density areas (suburbs, sprawling cities) will have a hard time surviving. Bus routes will survive with automated EV busses.
Auto related deaths/injuries will drop rapidly as highway miles driven migrate to AVs. This will decimate personal injury lawyers, but be great for the ~30k people who would otherwise have died in any given year in the US. Life will be much much safer for pedestrians and bikers. Computers don't get fatigued, distracted, enraged, impatient, and 360 degree field of vision (LIDAR and other sensors) means AVs will have no blind spots and be much safer for everyone.
Some security researchers will make a name for themselves finding vulnerabilities in AV software, showing how a hacker could take over or cause a crash. The media will have a field day with the hysteria. These holes will be patched and little will come of it. But expect people to be fixated on the dangers of AVs (because they are new) while ignoring the tens of thousands of people that die because of human driver error. Eventually stats will emerge that driverless cars are much much safer than traditional cars. Anyone remember when people used to be afraid to use their CC online because hackers might steal it? Yeah, no one really worries about this stuff anymore. Same will happen with AVs.
I think Grog was talking more about how you could ride share from a mass let out, so randomly grouping people together would not be optimal as there destinations would not likely be near each other. I guess you would need the people sort/locate themselves in predefined areas, ie have pick up spots #1-#50, then from there they would just look for a numbered car - taxis have numbers on the roof. As the person is getting off work they would have to confirm they are leaving now and will need a ride in 5 minutes then they would get a reply text saying "please wait in queue #34 for car 49382".
I think this is assuming that self driving cars resemble modern cars. Why not have driver less enclosed motorcycles. or some variation of a motorcycle? Or perhaps a combination of several vehicle types, like we have now?I don't think anything will change dramatically. So let's say you work in a workplace with 2000 other people. Like an hospital or some development campus or production factory. What does it happen when 5pm comes, where do 2000 people go and wait for a car to drive them? Instead of parking you need some kind of huge waiting lane, instead of the parking lot. And how efficiently can you load up cars ? How many will be effectively shared ? And how do you know which car is for you, like if 100 Tesla are coming to pick up 400 people (optimistically 4 per car)..do you need to read registration plate? Screen on the outside? Loudspeaker? And what about the other 1600, still waiting?
Why do you need to match particular people with particular cars? Couldn't people just get in whichever car was at the front of the line and tell it where to go once they hopped in? The cars could even know that when you're at a large scale pickup it makes sense to just start driving right away, and then figure out once you're going once you've made room for the next car in line, just like taxi drivers do at some airports today.
Similarly, I would expect that if we're talking a big swam of self driving cars that you'd have some sort of machine learning so the cars would know where dense concentrations of commuters were likely to pop up right around 5 pm, and could start driving there beforehand, so that cars would already be waiting as people walked out the doors.
I think Grog was talking more about how you could ride share from a mass let out, so randomly grouping people together would not be optimal as there destinations would not likely be near each other. I guess you would need the people sort/locate themselves in predefined areas, ie have pick up spots #1-#50, then from there they would just look for a numbered car - taxis have numbers on the roof. As the person is getting off work they would have to confirm they are leaving now and will need a ride in 5 minutes then they would get a reply text saying "please wait in queue #34 for car 49382".
I've read a few opinions along the lines of "self driving cars will decimate X industry", but it seems to me people don't take the next step to consider how industries will adapt or what new industries will arise.
The types of insurance arrangements that we have now will surely become obsolete, but what other types of insurance will be needed? Insurance for riders in case they damage or soil a car they don't own. Insurance for AV fleet companies in case of software outage, or a person gets delivered to the wrong address, or are late.
Automakers will find new business models when they aren't selling direct to consumer and don't have to maintain stock of different models with different options. Vehicles might last a long time but a new industry of retrofitting will spring up because everyone will expect an AV provided by a company to have the latest technology and features.
I agree about climate, I was actually looking at the icy roads this morning. A trike, in Canada, is perfectly feasible. We currently have people on bicycles out there pedaling away on ice, its not great but even on two wheels its possible to overcome the weather. Don't forget that with autonomous vehicles you can design them to see more, in the infrared spectrum, its pretty easy to see black ice in the IR spectrum that a regular human eye can't detect. Or perhaps you just have better algorithms that know to slow down appropriately, or otherwise adjust for the weather.
@ Prarie: Definitely but local weather conditions may make trikes less safe; ie icy northern mountain roads vs San Diego.
I agree about climate, I was actually looking at the icy roads this morning. A trike, in Canada, is perfectly feasible. We currently have people on bicycles out there pedaling away on ice, its not great but even on two wheels its possible to overcome the weather. Don't forget that with autonomous vehicles you can design them to see more, in the infrared spectrum, its pretty easy to see black ice in the IR spectrum that a regular human eye can't detect. Or perhaps you just have better algorithms that know to slow down appropriately, or otherwise adjust for the weather.
The air taxis I'm talking about would be electric, and autonomous.Air taxis might be a thing soon too, check out airbus a3. The future is coming!
Air taxis have been a thing in São Paulo for years now.
Cars are wasteful enough. The last thing we need is everybody flying everywhere when what we really need is better efficiency.
https://www.airbus-sv.com/projects/1
Definitely potential to reduce commute times and traffic, if implemented properly.
Oh for sure, I definitely agree that people should live close to where they need to be often, and the air taxis could end up being a giant mess as well. I don't own a car myself and I bike, walk or transit everywhere, and I chose my apartment with that in mind. But I also know that we don't live in an ideal world, most people still own cars, and most don't want to give up their own personal transportation. It's hard to change that mindset and redesign the whole city+suburb model that got so bad due to cars becoming widespread. I would love to see cities designed to prioritize active and communal transport, and at the same time, build more sustainable personal transportation options. Self driving cars, drones, enclosed motorcycles, driving robots and air taxis are all super cool technologies that may or may not be adopted en masse, but anything that can help reduce the use of gas guzzling, wasteful and inefficient vehicles is worth exploring.The air taxis I'm talking about would be electric, and autonomous.Air taxis might be a thing soon too, check out airbus a3. The future is coming!
Air taxis have been a thing in São Paulo for years now.
Cars are wasteful enough. The last thing we need is everybody flying everywhere when what we really need is better efficiency.
https://www.airbus-sv.com/projects/1
Definitely potential to reduce commute times and traffic, if implemented properly.
Electric and autonomous don't change anything except the price to the rider. You still have large energy consumption and noise pollution. You also just move the traffic into the air so you will then have traffic jams blocking out the sun. You'll also get the utter irony of people taking an air taxi to the gym.
Getting people to live closer to where they need to go is the solution, not putting everybody in the air.
Electric and autonomous don't change anything except the price to the rider. You still have large energy consumption and noise pollution. You also just move the traffic into the air so you will then have traffic jams blocking out the sun. You'll also get the utter irony of people taking an air taxi to the gym.
Getting people to live closer to where they need to go is the solution, not putting everybody in the air.
I think Grog was talking more about how you could ride share from a mass let out, so randomly grouping people together would not be optimal as there destinations would not likely be near each other. I guess you would need the people sort/locate themselves in predefined areas, ie have pick up spots #1-#50, then from there they would just look for a numbered car - taxis have numbers on the roof. As the person is getting off work they would have to confirm they are leaving now and will need a ride in 5 minutes then they would get a reply text saying "please wait in queue #34 for car 49382".
Instead of trying to organize many queues in one location it would be easier in most cases to pick people up one by one as people can simply enter the next available vehicle. There's no reason they have to stay in the same vehicle until they reach their final destination. Instead a computer can organize car share rides based on current destinations of cars in use. In smaller parking lots a car could be waiting for your final destination. Your initial car will drop you off next to this car, open the door on the side where the other car is parked and tell you to please move to the car on your right. These cars can be organized dynamically during the one mile ride (or so) from your original destination to the car change location.
Electric and autonomous don't change anything except the price to the rider. You still have large energy consumption and noise pollution. You also just move the traffic into the air so you will then have traffic jams blocking out the sun. You'll also get the utter irony of people taking an air taxi to the gym.
Getting people to live closer to where they need to go is the solution, not putting everybody in the air.
Yes!!! We should be moving to places where we actually want to spend most of our time. I would hate it if all this tech advancement makes us move further away from the places where we actually want to be. I guess the main problems to people actually doing this are 1)cost of housing 2)real/perceived crime in cities 3)"quality" school districts. 4) people love big yards
Although a high-speed, across the country self driving network would be pretty cool. (oh wait...airplanes? they are not self driving, but are very high speed!)
I think Grog was talking more about how you could ride share from a mass let out, so randomly grouping people together would not be optimal as there destinations would not likely be near each other. I guess you would need the people sort/locate themselves in predefined areas, ie have pick up spots #1-#50, then from there they would just look for a numbered car - taxis have numbers on the roof. As the person is getting off work they would have to confirm they are leaving now and will need a ride in 5 minutes then they would get a reply text saying "please wait in queue #34 for car 49382".
Instead of trying to organize many queues in one location it would be easier in most cases to pick people up one by one as people can simply enter the next available vehicle. There's no reason they have to stay in the same vehicle until they reach their final destination. Instead a computer can organize car share rides based on current destinations of cars in use. In smaller parking lots a car could be waiting for your final destination. Your initial car will drop you off next to this car, open the door on the side where the other car is parked and tell you to please move to the car on your right. These cars can be organized dynamically during the one mile ride (or so) from your original destination to the car change location.
Hi @Christof I've been travelling and am just catching up on this thread, but I just wanted to say that this is brilliant solution. I don't know if it'll ever catch on or not (as others have discussed this depends on the economics of ride sharing. But is certainly addressed the logistics of picking up large numbers of unsorted individuals from a confined space. And it'd be really cool to get the chance to participate in such a system at some point: "Passenger #3, please prepare to exit this vehicle and board the green car immediately to the left to continue your journey in 4... 3... 2..."
The biggest threat to automakers is losing their ability to build brand value and identity in the mind of the consumer. The auto market is highly segmented, much of this is in the mind of consumers. Volvo == affluent, educated, liberal. Subaru == liberal, green, outdoorsy, educated. Toyota == middle class, practical. And so on. This is all the product of intensive and carefully curated marketing, and it means they build brand loyalty, get people to "upgrade" every few years, and make a lot more profit than they would otherwise. However, when you really get down to the nuts and bolts, there's very little difference between most vehicles. B2B marketing is a lot tougher than marketing to consumers, because businesses tend to make decisions more rational whereas consumers are more emotional.
The biggest threat to automakers is losing their ability to build brand value and identity in the mind of the consumer. The auto market is highly segmented, much of this is in the mind of consumers. Volvo == affluent, educated, liberal. Subaru == liberal, green, outdoorsy, educated. Toyota == middle class, practical. And so on. This is all the product of intensive and carefully curated marketing, and it means they build brand loyalty, get people to "upgrade" every few years, and make a lot more profit than they would otherwise. However, when you really get down to the nuts and bolts, there's very little difference between most vehicles. B2B marketing is a lot tougher than marketing to consumers, because businesses tend to make decisions more rational whereas consumers are more emotional.
I feel like this is my exact point. When the auto industry started, I'm sure everyone said, "Car makers aren't going to be able to do business like horse traders do. A car is a car is a car. With horses you got different breeds, personalities, pedigree...".
Yet somehow, car makers managed to convince us that a Subaru is fundamentally different from a Volvo, or Toyota...
It just seems naive to think that millions of motivated salespeople aren't going to be able to find a way to differentiate their products in the autonomous vehicle world. Likewise that millions of motivated insurance actuaries aren't going to very quickly find ways to get the data they need in a new business environment.
In the transportation as a service model, the millions of insurance and vehicle sales folk will be cut out.With an autonomous vehicle its expected there will be a sharp reduction in crashes, you can add auto-body repair to the list of affected professions.
I'd like to see that article. Waymo is already running level 4 autonomous vehicles (no driver, pedal, or steering wheel) in Phoenix, AZ. So I wouldn't say it's very far away at all.
I think long-haul trucking will probably be one area of great cost savings. Especially for trips that are from one warehouse near a freeway to another near a freeway. It's the last mile where a human driver will still be needed, at least for a while. Think about a UPS or FedEx trucking going from one warehouse to another. They'll be able to make each end of the trip very easy. Another solution I've heard is that as the truck gets to the freeway off-ramp it switches over to a remote human drive who guides it from there to the warehouse/destination. A few drivers could handle hundreds of vehicles around the country if they were staggered efficiently.This is similar to what Tesla wants to do with their semi-truck. They'll have the capability to drive multiple in a row in a convoy, with only the first vehicle manned (somewhat like a train, I suppose).
The last 1% of issues they need to solve are proving to be far more challenging than the first 99%.
I think long-haul trucking will probably be one area of great cost savings. Especially for trips that are from one warehouse near a freeway to another near a freeway. It's the last mile where a human driver will still be needed, at least for a while. Think about a UPS or FedEx trucking going from one warehouse to another. They'll be able to make each end of the trip very easy. Another solution I've heard is that as the truck gets to the freeway off-ramp it switches over to a remote human drive who guides it from there to the warehouse/destination. A few drivers could handle hundreds of vehicles around the country if they were staggered efficiently.
By 2021 there will be 51,000 autonomous vehicles on roads worldwide, according to a new forecast from IHS Markit, with sales projected to rise to nearly 1 million by 2025 and an estimated 33 million by 2040.
As it pulls up, the small SUV greets you with a computer voice: "Hello, Mr. Jones." You punch in a code on the door; it unlocks and slides open.
Halfway there you realize you have no cash and remember that the restaurant you’re heading to doesn’t accept credit cards. You press a button overhead that connects you to a human attendant, who says, "How can I help you, Mr. Jones?"
If a robotic delivery van takes to the highway—unlikely in the early stages of deployment—it would probably travel in a dedicated lane to avoid snarling traffic with its slow-moving ways.
You’ve just picked up your bags from baggage claim, and now you’re making your way to the rental car counter. Even though the vehicle you borrow won’t yet be automated
I think long-haul trucking will probably be one area of great cost savings. Especially for trips that are from one warehouse near a freeway to another near a freeway. It's the last mile where a human driver will still be needed, at least for a while. Think about a UPS or FedEx trucking going from one warehouse to another. They'll be able to make each end of the trip very easy. Another solution I've heard is that as the truck gets to the freeway off-ramp it switches over to a remote human drive who guides it from there to the warehouse/destination. A few drivers could handle hundreds of vehicles around the country if they were staggered efficiently.
I wonder how long it will take for people to automate intermodal shipping so that a container can be put on the back of a truck, transfer itself from truck to ship, ship to train, then back to truck. That might make shipping a lot more fuel efficient since it would make it very easy for the long-haul portion of the trip to be by train or boat. As is, moving items by truck on the highway consumes way more fuel than by train or especially water.
I don't think so... If people can save a buck or two, they are willing to go downstairs to pick up a package once notified on their phone. Once the technology is available, Delivery companies will first give a rebate for using automated delivery, and later charge a premium for their human based premium delivery service.
Many packages here are already delivered to central locations, either small neighborhood shops or kind of a locker (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packstation). Personal delivery isn't the default anzmore.
True, but getting those individual packages into a locker inside a building will take more than a self-driving truck. There would need to be a way for the truck to back up to some exterior port to load packages into a building. That's not really feasible in many places where everything is designed for trucks to pull up on the street.
True, but getting those individual packages into a locker inside a building will take more than a self-driving truck. There would need to be a way for the truck to back up to some exterior port to load packages into a building. That's not really feasible in many places where everything is designed for trucks to pull up on the street.
I don't think we will see lockers inside a building that are automatically filled. Instead the delivery van becomes the locker. When a package arrives, you are notified and go downstairs to pick it up. After a tour some of these vans might park in known locations where you can pick up your package later that day. Maybe some of them will modular, so they just put down one module filled with packages and pick up an empty one much like a container.
The service already exists ,you can pay people to pick up parcels for you.True, but getting those individual packages into a locker inside a building will take more than a self-driving truck. There would need to be a way for the truck to back up to some exterior port to load packages into a building. That's not really feasible in many places where everything is designed for trucks to pull up on the street.
I don't think we will see lockers inside a building that are automatically filled. Instead the delivery van becomes the locker. When a package arrives, you are notified and go downstairs to pick it up. After a tour some of these vans might park in known locations where you can pick up your package later that day. Maybe some of them will modular, so they just put down one module filled with packages and pick up an empty one much like a container.
What about the elderly and disabled? My apartment building has a handful of older and disabled people who are homebound. What about people who aren’t home when the truck arrives? What about heavy packages that the recipient can’t get from the truck to their home? How will you prevent people from looting the truck after they get access to it?
I don’t think the delivery man is going to disappear. They may not drive the truck and their wages will be lower because of that but I think people prefer having a human carry the package to the door or lobby of the building. And it is much faster for the human to bring ten packages into the lobby of a building than have the truck sit there and wait for ten people to come downstairs and fetch the packages themselves.
Making people be available for a delivery and go outside is a step backward from what we have now. My two cents.
Am I the only one who works for a company that lets everyone get stuff delivered to work? we get 1 personal package per 5 to 10 employees most days. is really not disruptive. Only problem we might have in future is if we start getting one off deliveries all day long from the amazon direct delivery contractors. I know this is not a universal solution but cant it be the norm?
Am I the only one who works for a company that lets everyone get stuff delivered to work? we get 1 personal package per 5 to 10 employees most days. is really not disruptive. Only problem we might have in future is if we start getting one off deliveries all day long from the amazon direct delivery contractors. I know this is not a universal solution but cant it be the norm?
An automated package delivery car doesn't look like a truck with all parcels on one heap. It looks like lockers with small and large doors, with deliveries to one person behind each door. Only one door opens when you approach the truck.
I'm also not saying the delivery guys go away. I'm saying that you will be able to pick standard automatic delivery and premium delivery to your door. At least in Germany the majority would rather save money than pay for premium delivery. So yes, elderly and disabled will have to pay more.
The car wouldn't wait a long time. It's working with your phone. You get advance notice to be ready just in time when your parcels are delivered. If you don't move, the truck doesn't even stop for you.
It also really depends on what kind of surrounding you have. Houses here have no lobby that you could safely deliver packages to and most houses have less than 20 parties. If you are talking about skyscrapers with a hundred, or more apartments, the economy changes completely.
Leaving stuff unguarded is reality here... your package get delivered to your backyard or some safe deposit place. Delivery services ask for permission, either permanently or for just one delivery. The most expensive part of deliver (aside from gas, tear and wear) is spending time and not delivering.
I wonder how long until new houses are built with a little closet on the front porch with a locking door to accept packages?
Similar scenario, what if you are approaching a 4 way stop and it appears the guy behind you isn't going to stop, and is going to rear end you? If you had control, you could slow down to 20 KM/h and proceed if no other cars are present, would the self driving car do the same?
An automated package delivery car doesn't look like a truck with all parcels on one heap. It looks like lockers with small and large doors, with deliveries to one person behind each door. Only one door opens when you approach the truck.
I'm also not saying the delivery guys go away. I'm saying that you will be able to pick standard automatic delivery and premium delivery to your door. At least in Germany the majority would rather save money than pay for premium delivery. So yes, elderly and disabled will have to pay more.
The car wouldn't wait a long time. It's working with your phone. You get advance notice to be ready just in time when your parcels are delivered. If you don't move, the truck doesn't even stop for you.
It also really depends on what kind of surrounding you have. Houses here have no lobby that you could safely deliver packages to and most houses have less than 20 parties. If you are talking about skyscrapers with a hundred, or more apartments, the economy changes completely.
Leaving stuff unguarded is reality here... your package get delivered to your backyard or some safe deposit place. Delivery services ask for permission, either permanently or for just one delivery. The most expensive part of deliver (aside from gas, tear and wear) is spending time and not delivering.
I wonder how long until new houses are built with a little closet on the front porch with a locking door to accept packages? Maybe the UPS/FedEX/USPS computer the delivery folks carry would unlock it wirelessly.
I am allowed to have things delivered to work but always worry about the appearance factor: I accept packages for my employer's projects all the time. If I accept personal packages and then move them to my personal vehicle then it sort of looks bad.
I just have them sent directly home and run home at lunch to move them inside if they are especially valuable (a rare thing). In the past if the package was valuable the delivery person will leave a ticket and I have to drive to the depot to pick it up in person and I'm fine with that (like when I ordered a computer).
Getting back on topic:
My thoughts when it comes to self driving cars;
How are they going to handle snow? Sure most will have winter tires, at least in this neck of the wood, but I find you need the right touch now and then in bad conditions. I'm sure the self driving car will recognize it's snowing and/or the roads are slippery, but does that mean it's going to slow down to half the speed limit? Will the self driving car be too "confident" and zip along at normal speed, and hit that patch of black ice and end up in the ditch? Either way, overall better than human drivers I guess.
Very random and low frequency situation: What if you're in an active shooter situation as your car is slowly navigating a parking lot, and you just happen to be heading at the shooter at low speed? I guess you just duck and hope for the best? I highly doubt there is going to be a "Warp factor 10 Mr Sulu!" button to get out of nasty situations. Similar scenario, what if you are approaching a 4 way stop and it appears the guy behind you isn't going to stop, and is going to rear end you? If you had control, you could slow down to 20 KM/h and proceed if no other cars are present, would the self driving car do the same?
How are they going to handle snow? Sure most will have winter tires, at least in this neck of the wood, but I find you need the right touch now and then in bad conditions. I'm sure the self driving car will recognize it's snowing and/or the roads are slippery, but does that mean it's going to slow down to half the speed limit? Will the self driving car be too "confident" and zip along at normal speed, and hit that patch of black ice and end up in the ditch? Either way, overall better than human drivers I guess.
Very random and low frequency situation: What if you're in an active shooter situation as your car is slowly navigating a parking lot, and you just happen to be heading at the shooter at low speed? I guess you just duck and hope for the best? I highly doubt there is going to be a "Warp factor 10 Mr Sulu!" button to get out of nasty situations.
Similar scenario, what if you are approaching a 4 way stop and it appears the guy behind you isn't going to stop, and is going to rear end you? If you had control, you could slow down to 20 KM/h and proceed if no other cars are present, would the self driving car do the same?
I work on enough computers to see the many ways they fail. I read last night how an engineering firm was cycle testing battery packs for EVs. Computer got stuck (typical Windows fashion), overcharged the batteries, and caused a fire. Nobody was hurt though apparently it burned up an expensive battery pack.
I work on enough computers to see the many ways they fail. I read last night how an engineering firm was cycle testing battery packs for EVs. Computer got stuck (typical Windows fashion), overcharged the batteries, and caused a fire. Nobody was hurt though apparently it burned up an expensive battery pack.
How many battery packs have burned with humans at the controls vs. computers? My bet is that computer operators have a much better record because humans get fatigued, bored, distracted, etc. Actually, I doubt there are any instances of human operators to compare against...humans would do a terrible job controlling charging. Similarly, computers will be much better drivers than humans, especially humans who think they can do better (mostly likely due to their opinion that the computer is driving too slowly when in fact it's driving the correct speed for the conditions).
I don't know how good AI is right now, but will it really be able to tell the difference between, say, a pedestrian loitering near the edge of the curb because they stopped to look at their phone, and one loitering because they're about to run out into the road? I'm not convinced.
I don't know how good AI is right now, but will it really be able to tell the difference between, say, a pedestrian loitering near the edge of the curb because they stopped to look at their phone, and one loitering because they're about to run out into the road? I'm not convinced.
Not sure many humans can tell the difference. I know I usually can't.
But the dilemma is that riding at 65mph in a vehicle with no physical controls will be terrifying. We have yet to see ordinary people accept riding in a vehicle with no physical controls because one has yet to be built yet. Every "driverless" car to date has a steering wheel, pedals, and a driver ready to take over the second that traffic gets annoying.
I don't know how good AI is right now, but will it really be able to tell the difference between, say, a pedestrian loitering near the edge of the curb because they stopped to look at their phone, and one loitering because they're about to run out into the road? I'm not convinced.
And what jobs will all the people whose previous job was trucker/delivery driver/bus driver/taxi driver/etc get now?
Correct, there will be no steering wheel in autonomous cars. Everyone is a passenger, which is why it's not terrifying. It's no different to being on a bus/train/plane. You'll be to busy doing your own thing you won't care what the AI "driver" is doing.
Correct, there will be no steering wheel in autonomous cars. Everyone is a passenger, which is why it's not terrifying. It's no different to being on a bus/train/plane. You'll be to busy doing your own thing you won't care what the AI "driver" is doing.
Yes it is different. Buses and trains and airplanes all have drivers.
Next time you're driving alone at high speed on an expressway, imagine you're in that car with no way to control it. Put on cruise control and take your hands off the wheel and feet off the pedals. Suddenly you're hyper-worried about every single movement by other cars and any irregularity in the road. It's going to be scary as hell, and possibly the critical human flaw in the entire driverless scheme.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/12/gm-fully-autonomous-car-no-wheel-2018/ (https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/12/gm-fully-autonomous-car-no-wheel-2018/)
GM is releasing a fully automated car in 2019.
Correct, there will be no steering wheel in autonomous cars. Everyone is a passenger, which is why it's not terrifying. It's no different to being on a bus/train/plane. You'll be to busy doing your own thing you won't care what the AI "driver" is doing.
Yes it is different. Buses and trains and airplanes all have drivers.
Next time you're driving alone at high speed on an expressway, imagine you're in that car with no way to control it. Put on cruise control and take your hands off the wheel and feet off the pedals. Suddenly you're hyper-worried about every single movement by other cars and any irregularity in the road. It's going to be scary as hell, and possibly the critical human flaw in the entire driverless scheme.
Correct, there will be no steering wheel in autonomous cars. Everyone is a passenger, which is why it's not terrifying. It's no different to being on a bus/train/plane. You'll be to busy doing your own thing you won't care what the AI "driver" is doing.
Yes it is different. Buses and trains and airplanes all have drivers.
Next time you're driving alone at high speed on an expressway, imagine you're in that car with no way to control it. Put on cruise control and take your hands off the wheel and feet off the pedals. Suddenly you're hyper-worried about every single movement by other cars and any irregularity in the road. It's going to be scary as hell, and possibly the critical human flaw in the entire driverless scheme.
I feel very different from you. I think it will be relaxing. Especially knowing that many of the other cars on the highway are also driven by computers, not human drivers checking their phones, rushing to get somewhere, yelling at their kid in the backseat, etc. There are so many accidents every year caused by human error. I'm not delusional enough to think I can outperform a computer.
I don't know how good AI is right now, but will it really be able to tell the difference between, say, a pedestrian loitering near the edge of the curb because they stopped to look at their phone, and one loitering because they're about to run out into the road? I'm not convinced.
Not sure many humans can tell the difference. I know I usually can't.
Fair enough. To be clear, I think the most likely programming won't be that they crash into pedestrians, but rather that they err on the side of caution and stop for ridiculous things, and people will end up yelling at their car, like, "That's not a pedestrian! That's a statue/tree/parking meter, you stupid vehicle!" Or that the car will slow down because a pedestrian was just walking along the pavement, in a clearly walking/jogging along the pavement trajectory.
Don’t Worry, Petrolheads. Driverless Cars Are Still Years Away
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-09/toyota-to-hyundai-say-pump-brakes-on-hopes-of-robo-car-s-arrival
Today, GM unveiled the first image of its upcoming autonomous fourth-generation Bolt EV-based vehicle – the “first without a steering wheel or pedal.”
The automaker also says that it filed a petition asking the DOT permission to deploy the vehicle as soon as next year.
The move represents an accelerated self-driving timeline for the company, which could potentially leapfrog most other companies working on the technology since the most common timeline is a commercial launch in 2020-2022.
Don’t Worry, Petrolheads. Driverless Cars Are Still Years Away
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-09/toyota-to-hyundai-say-pump-brakes-on-hopes-of-robo-car-s-arrival
Yes it is different. Buses and trains and airplanes all have drivers.
Yes it is different. Buses and trains and airplanes all have drivers.
For all those people who think they'll be able to take over, here's a question; what makes you think cars will have steering wheels? For one, you can save manufacturing costs. Next, its safer to not have them impaling drivers in crashes, so even if there's an accident, you'll be far more likely to survive.It would be cool to have the seats facing each other so you could interact more easily with the others in the car instead of everyone facing the front. Also having reclining chairs so you can nap. Or swivel chairs, so you can see in any direction, although that might be risky in case of a crash. Without a human driver, there are so many possibilities!
Here's another strange part, why are car seats forward facing if you aren't needed for driving? My infant is put into vehicles in rear facing seats because its safer. In the event of a crash, rear facing seats are more likely to reduce injury than forward facing. If we assume cars still have accidents, perhaps a tree falls on them, wouldn't it make sense to rearrange the interior configuration?
For all those people who think they'll be able to take over, here's a question; what makes you think cars will have steering wheels? For one, you can save manufacturing costs. Next, its safer to not have them impaling drivers in crashes, so even if there's an accident, you'll be far more likely to survive.
Here's another strange part, why are car seats forward facing if you aren't needed for driving? My infant is put into vehicles in rear facing seats because its safer. In the event of a crash, rear facing seats are more likely to reduce injury than forward facing. If we assume cars still have accidents, perhaps a tree falls on them, wouldn't it make sense to rearrange the interior configuration?
What if you're trying to move your car to point the headlights at something you're working on. Or driving it along a dirt road, or no road at all? 99% of the time we get in our car and go from point A to point B but there will be some situations when you'll still need manual control. I suspect it will be many years before regular consumer vehicles completely eliminate all manual control. I can certainly see vehicles that are used as taxis being completely automated and designed in a totally different way that isn't constrained by the need to face forward and have a steering wheel and clear lines of sight for seeing to the sides.
General Motors plans to mass-produce self-driving cars that lack traditional controls like steering wheels and pedals by 2019...They’ll be deployed as ride-hailing vehicles in a number of cities...
Yes it is different. Buses and trains and airplanes all have drivers.
Many trains are driverless and sometimes have been for decades already. Take a look at London which started in 1987 or Nuremberg in 2008.
Uhhhh, has any of that migrated to the States? It seems all of our trains are still "driven." We had a train decide to climb an escalator at O'Hare airport because the train operator fell asleep.
I work on enough computers to see the many ways they fail. I read last night how an engineering firm was cycle testing battery packs for EVs. Computer got stuck (typical Windows fashion), overcharged the batteries, and caused a fire. Nobody was hurt though apparently it burned up an expensive battery pack.
How many battery packs have burned with humans at the controls vs. computers? My bet is that computer operators have a much better record because humans get fatigued, bored, distracted, etc. Actually, I doubt there are any instances of human operators to compare against...humans would do a terrible job controlling charging. Similarly, computers will be much better drivers than humans, especially humans who think they can do better (mostly likely due to their opinion that the computer is driving too slowly when in fact it's driving the correct speed for the conditions).
There is also the difference between released systems utilized by the public, debuging engineering systems.
Headlights - maybe a phone app? lights can swivel already and most cars will be linked to your phone already for locking, tracking etc. If you need it moved, just tell the car to go to a spot that you pick on your google map on your phone. There's no need for cars to have people in them to swivel headlights around or move to let a car out that's blocked in.For all those people who think they'll be able to take over, here's a question; what makes you think cars will have steering wheels? For one, you can save manufacturing costs. Next, its safer to not have them impaling drivers in crashes, so even if there's an accident, you'll be far more likely to survive.
Here's another strange part, why are car seats forward facing if you aren't needed for driving? My infant is put into vehicles in rear facing seats because its safer. In the event of a crash, rear facing seats are more likely to reduce injury than forward facing. If we assume cars still have accidents, perhaps a tree falls on them, wouldn't it make sense to rearrange the interior configuration?
What if you're trying to move your car to point the headlights at something you're working on. Or driving it along a dirt road, or no road at all? 99% of the time we get in our car and go from point A to point B but there will be some situations when you'll still need manual control. I suspect it will be many years before regular consumer vehicles completely eliminate all manual control. I can certainly see vehicles that are used as taxis being completely automated and designed in a totally different way that isn't constrained by the need to face forward and have a steering wheel and clear lines of sight for seeing to the sides.
Just yesterday the auto trans in our car had issues that I assume were caused by the extreme cold. Car begins shifting hard from 1st to 2nd, no other gears available even if I use the paddle shifters. Required me restarting (rebooting) the car. The interesting thing was there were no warning lights indicating a problem, the transmission just quit shifting.
I'd like to think any driving computers would be paired with other computers which would watch to make sure the driving computer wasn't stuck and thus unable to make decisions. The driving computer might not be able to throw a warning light on the dash but the nanny computers would.
Oh yeah - you are correct. I am very familiar with the mechanical differences. Still - computers. Computers fail. Computers get hung up. No big deal with netflix crashes. It is a big deal when the family hauler crashes because a computer gets stuck and the car fails to make a curve.
I work on enough computers to see the many ways they fail. I read last night how an engineering firm was cycle testing battery packs for EVs. Computer got stuck (typical Windows fashion), overcharged the batteries, and caused a fire. Nobody was hurt though apparently it burned up an expensive battery pack.
How many battery packs have burned with humans at the controls vs. computers? My bet is that computer operators have a much better record because humans get fatigued, bored, distracted, etc. Actually, I doubt there are any instances of human operators to compare against...humans would do a terrible job controlling charging. Similarly, computers will be much better drivers than humans, especially humans who think they can do better (mostly likely due to their opinion that the computer is driving too slowly when in fact it's driving the correct speed for the conditions).
There is also the difference between released systems utilized by the public, debuging engineering systems.
While I generally agree - I won't just happily become a passenger in my car when the self-drive option is available in regular cars.
Just yesterday the auto trans in our car had issues that I assume were caused by the extreme cold. Car begins shifting hard from 1st to 2nd, no other gears available even if I use the paddle shifters. Required me restarting (rebooting) the car. The interesting thing was there were no warning lights indicating a problem, the transmission just quit shifting.
I'd like to think any driving computers would be paired with other computers which would watch to make sure the driving computer wasn't stuck and thus unable to make decisions. The driving computer might not be able to throw a warning light on the dash but the nanny computers would.
Oh yeah - you are correct. I am very familiar with the mechanical differences. Still - computers. Computers fail. Computers get hung up. No big deal with netflix crashes. It is a big deal when the family hauler crashes because a computer gets stuck and the car fails to make a curve.
Heh. My wife *hates* being a passenger in a car. (Not because of my driving, I'm a very good driver, clean record, honest!) I always let her drive, when we're together, because making her ride, without the steering wheel in her hands and the pedals at her feet, is just too obviously cruel. I'm all enthusiastic about autonomous vehicles, but I don't know if you'll ever get her into one. You'll probably have to get our generation into the grave before you can complete the transition.I fully expect my local province will charge driverless cars cheaper insurance rates, in the range of $500/year lets pretend. The actual number is debatable, but its likely to hold true that its lower since they will have fewer crashes (statistically overall, not just you personally).
Heh. My wife *hates* being a passenger in a car. (Not because of my driving, I'm a very good driver, clean record, honest!) I always let her drive, when we're together, because making her ride, without the steering wheel in her hands and the pedals at her feet, is just too obviously cruel. I'm all enthusiastic about autonomous vehicles, but I don't know if you'll ever get her into one. You'll probably have to get our generation into the grave before you can complete the transition.
Heh. My wife *hates* being a passenger in a car. (Not because of my driving, I'm a very good driver, clean record, honest!) I always let her drive, when we're together, because making her ride, without the steering wheel in her hands and the pedals at her feet, is just too obviously cruel. I'm all enthusiastic about autonomous vehicles, but I don't know if you'll ever get her into one. You'll probably have to get our generation into the grave before you can complete the transition.
Oh yeah - you are correct. I am very familiar with the mechanical differences. Still - computers. Computers fail. Computers get hung up. No big deal with netflix crashes. It is a big deal when the family hauler crashes because a computer gets stuck and the car fails to make a curve.
Control software for vehicles is engineered to much more exacting standards compared to something like the Netflix client. Commercial airplanes have been fly-by-wire, i.e. completely dependant on computers, for many years now. Many cars already make use of certain drive-by-wire functions, such as brake-by-wire...your life already depends on the reliability of computers more than you realize :)
Did the bikes to in front of the car to trigger the autobrake system or was it triggered by bikes behind the car? I am having trouble seeing the benefit of an automated system proactively braking before being rear-ended.
i saw this today:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/abu-dhabi-tour-organisers-blame-automatic-brake-sensor-for-cavendish-crash/
And it begins.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/30/waymo-thousands-chrysler-pacifica-minivans/
1,000 cars this year. And i'd predict self driving cars to increase by a factor of 10 each year until we reach global market saturation:
10,000 cars in 2019
100,000 cars in 2020
1,000,000 cars in 2021
10,000,000 cars in 2022
100,000,000 cars in 2023
Like in the average US school? Tell me, if I'm wrong (I'm from Germany, so I don't have practical experience), but isn't this done by finishing school at different times per grade, have everyone queue on the street instead of a parking lot and discourage other means by letting those wait till the end that want to walk home on their own.In my experience as a school worker: you have the children queue for an hour and a half, because no one cares about wasting children's time and I'm paid by the hour.
Am I the only one who works for a company that lets everyone get stuff delivered to work? we get 1 personal package per 5 to 10 employees most days. is really not disruptive. Only problem we might have in future is if we start getting one off deliveries all day long from the amazon direct delivery contractors. I know this is not a universal solution but cant it be the norm?I, for one, work in a prison. Before that I worked in a university (no office) and a middle school. At none of these places would it have been feasible (theft risk, number of employees, lack of a 'front office') to store deliveries at my work space. Furthermore, I wouldn't have had anywhere to keep the package if it was brought to me.
How are they going to handle snow? Sure most will have winter tires, at least in this neck of the wood, but I find you need the right touch now and then in bad conditions.Related: I order my AV to keep the meter running, I'll only be about 15 minutes. In that time, a couple of inches of snow fall. Now the car is stuck in the snow! It's tires spin uselessly w/o traction How will the car be freed? It is not my car, not my responsibility to dig it out, and besides, if the car does not come with it's own sand and shovel, what could I do about it?
I feel very different from you. I think it will be relaxing. Especially knowing that many of the other cars on the highway are also driven by computers, not human drivers checking their phones, rushing to get somewhere, yelling at their kid in the backseat, etc. There are so many accidents every year caused by human error. I'm not delusional enough to think I can outperform a computer.I think we're referring here to the transitional phase where your choice is to drive yourself or be driven knowing that every other car on the road is being driven by humans. Call it fall of next year: if AV's aren't able to interpret human being's terrible driving in practice as well as other, terrible, human drivers, then no one will want to ride one. Meaning that the terrible drivers will keep right on driving, meaning no one will want to ride one. Meaning...
When you’re on a bus, you are not looking at the road ahead judging every decision the driver makes. The hurdle for some will be trusting the computer the same way you trust a human.The primary objection of many of the drivers I know to public transportation now (i.e. the reason they won't ride buses) is that they aren't driving the bus, and do spend the whole ride "judging every decision the driver makes". These are the people who will insist on driving their own cars right up until the bitter end.
Technician will show up with a new control module. Out with old, in with new, good to go.Error code 503: Vehicle bricked while taking curve, now in thousands of pieces.
It would be cool to have the seats facing each other so you could interact more easily with the others in the car instead of everyone facing the front. Also having reclining chairs so you can nap. Or swivel chairs, so you can see in any direction, although that might be risky in case of a crash. Without a human driver, there are so many possibilities!This was tried in the 50's. I'm told the problem is that sitting at any kind of an angle except facing straight forwards gives motion sickness to people who don't normally get car sick.
I see a possible future state where all cars are autonomous. I see no way to get through the intermediate state where there is a mix, some autonomous some not. Human drivers are yet too unpredictable to build a model to react to. I do look forward to bullying autonomous cars; “oh look there’s a Nissan Leaf, I know I can just pull out in front of it and it will stop and I can cut in line” that sort of thing.
I see a possible future state where all cars are autonomous. I see no way to get through the intermediate state where there is a mix, some autonomous some not. Human drivers are yet too unpredictable to build a model to react to. I do look forward to bullying autonomous cars; “oh look there’s a Nissan Leaf, I know I can just pull out in front of it and it will stop and I can cut in line” that sort of thing.
Autonomous vehicles will have the advantage of being able to react quicker which means they can safely follow closer and keep from letting you in.
But playing chicken with human drivers is probably the biggest challenge for autonomous vehicles.
I see a possible future state where all cars are autonomous. I see no way to get through the intermediate state where there is a mix, some autonomous some not. Human drivers are yet too unpredictable to build a model to react to. I do look forward to bullying autonomous cars; “oh look there’s a Nissan Leaf, I know I can just pull out in front of it and it will stop and I can cut in line” that sort of thing.
Autonomous vehicles will have the advantage of being able to react quicker which means they can safely follow closer and keep from letting you in.
But playing chicken with human drivers is probably the biggest challenge for autonomous vehicles.
I'm talking things like 4 way stops.