wopchop
Building Toronto
Robot Trucks don't get distracted or tired and kill 4,000 people a year and cause their owners financial grief because of insurance, settlements, lawsuits, etc.
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Self-Driving Vehicles/Autonomous Vehicle Technology
- Thread starter Mercator
- Start date
crs1026
Senior Member
A simple joystick and a screen showing where the car is thinking it ought to go might be all that's needed for slow speed manouevering or override. The car might still handle the fine details - like not scraping the wall in a confined driveway - but the driver is the one guiding it. My gravel road has a few rocks sticking out, and some muddy ruts. I would feel better if the car knew to avoid these. Puddles are often a judgement call - is it just a little surface water, or a deep hole that is undriveable?
I wonder if the car will detect and respond to the exasperated sigh from the passenger seat that I hear every so often while pretending to know where I am going.
- Paul
MisterF
Senior Member
As rbt explained, yes they can improvise. That's the core of how they work.
Drunk driving is the only reason that seniors would be interested? Really? You're speaking for a lot of people there. What about seniors who can't drive anymore but still want to be mobile without relying on another person to chauffeur them around? There are lots of reasons that people would want an autonomous car. Maybe you want to do work while going somewhere. Or take a nap. Or just not worry about fighting traffic on your daily commute. Current autonomous cars need a human to be there just in case, but that's only because the technology is still in its infancy and hasn't been perfected yet. Eventually the technology will be proven and the legislation will catch up. Then there will be no need for a person to have to take control.
To clarify, my reference to horseless carriages was a semi-facetious reference to cars. Yes they're still on the road, over a billion of them. That's my point. Referring to classic cars that are still driven occasionally, it's anybody's guess how these will be handled. Maybe they'll be grandfathered and still be allowed on roads. Maybe they'll be limited to specific roads only, the same way a horse and buggy can't use a freeway. Maybe there will still be a few roads here and there where people can still drive traditional cars. Maybe they'll be restricted to racetracks.
Your probability of causing an accident may not change, but it will skyrocket relative to all the autonomous cars around you. Insurance rates will be a non-issue once human driving is illegal. And it will be.
Drivers licenses as we know them will become obsolete. And yes, just as very few people know how to control a horse and buggy, I expect that very few people in the future will know how to drive. It will be a niche activity that won't be widespread. Roads will probably be redesigned to make them incompatible with human drivers anyway. Autonomous cars will need less space for example, and there will be no need for signage. I'm sure that Google, Tesla and the rest have exactly the issues with malfunctions you mention in mind in the design and testing of their cars. And that's why they're being tested so extensively and will no doubt be introduced gradually. Even with the current technology autonomous cars don't cause accidents the way that humans do. I did a quick Google search and apparently 1.3 million people die on the roads every year, with another 20-50 million injuries. Self driving cars couldn't possibly be worse than that. It's carnage out there.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Your rates are essentially a measure of your liability compared to the liability of other vehicles on the road.
Driverless cars have liabilities thousands of times lower than that of even the best human drivers. Your rates will change to reflect that.
Heck, driverless cars likely won't even have insurance. They'll be so safe that the manufacturers of the cars will self insure them. If they sell 50 million cars a year and only 50 of their cars are in an at fault collision, it wouldn't make a dent in their bottom line.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
You won't need a drivers license.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
You talk as if full autonomy is a far away go. It'll happen a lot sooner than you're thinking. I'd say 15 years at most.
Driverless cars aren't a niche anymore. Google, Apple, Tesla and every major traditional automaker are racing to achieve full autonomy. Billions of dollars are being invested in this every year. Elon Musk of Tesla claims they'll have it figured out within two years. Other automakers have longer time frames, but still in the very near future (a matter of years). We may very well have fully autonomous cars on Toronto streets before the Eglinton LRT is complete.
Johnny Au
Senior Member
Elon Musk of Tesla once said, "[Car ownership] will be like owning a horse. You will only be owning it for sentimental reasons."
Cars driven by humans would be used for sentimental reasons a few decades from now and would primarily be on racetracks, just like horses today. NASCAR, Formula 1, and Indy 500 would still exist a century from now, even if all public roadways become fully automated.
Car commercials a few decades from now would advertise its automation and convenience (if cars would continue to have individual owners by then).
MADD is highly in favour of self-driving cars and is partially funding the technology.
Cars driven by humans would be used for sentimental reasons a few decades from now and would primarily be on racetracks, just like horses today. NASCAR, Formula 1, and Indy 500 would still exist a century from now, even if all public roadways become fully automated.
Car commercials a few decades from now would advertise its automation and convenience (if cars would continue to have individual owners by then).
MADD is highly in favour of self-driving cars and is partially funding the technology.
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junior43
Active Member
You misread my post (and I was a bit unclear.) I was comparing seniors to drunk drivers. Both of whom would be unable to drive one from alcohol, one from age or loss of sight, etc. My Dad's a perfect example, he hasn't been allowed to drive in 20+ years because he's legally blind, but once fully autonomous is available, he could again - well sort of, he's just plugging in a destination. And I'd be borrowing his if I'm going to party or bar far away.
Human driving will never, ever be illegal in my lifetime (next 40 years - hopefully) Smoking isn't illegal and it's guaranteed to kill, and they've known that for 50+ years and the best they've done is restrict where you can do it. There's no way they'll make driving illegal for the foreseeable future. (my lifetime) I really don't care how they do it in a century, I'll be long dead.
Roads will be made incompatible with human driving? Seriously? Maybe the 400 series highways, and maybe eventually everywhere but, in like a century. And this would be fine by me anyways, the twisty two lane sideroads are way more fun. We can't afford Subways in this city or maintaining the roads we have properly and you think all of a sudden a whirlwind of change will show up and everything will get repaved to a new system? Who's paying for all that? I'll be long dead when they're complete. And how can they repave a whole system until everyone has an autonomous vehicle? Are they going to mandate everyone must buy a new car within a decade? People would lose it - and all their analog cars would be worthless, so no resale value to put towards the new car. It's not like the government will be able to give everyone rebates and build all new roads in a short period of time (even a decade.)
Although, I guess there'll be a whole lot of truck drivers out of work, so there's a workforce to repave the roads, but you still have to pay them and buy all the new asphalt, or whatever material they make roads out of in the future.
Look, I'm not arguing it's isn't coming, I'm just arguing that it's widespread use isn't coming anytime soon - and the government will never be able to mandate their use, or make driving illegal in the foreseeable future. Again, I don't care what they do in 50 years.
Like I said in my first post, I know I'm a dinosaur, I actually enjoy driving and will continue to own and buy cars without this technology. Heck, I don't even buy cars with automatic, I've only ever owned manual cars. Until they price me out either by insurance, or by gasoline prices, I will continue to drive.
It will also put Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and the rest of the super sports car companies out of business, and insurance companies to a degree. What's the point of having a 'sporty' autonomous car? They'll all be going the same speed.
junior43
Active Member
No, I've said it's widespread use is far away. Everyone can't just decide to buy a 30K car tomorrow, It will take probably 20 years until a majority of cars are autonomous. And we still don't have the first truly autonomous car, so more like 30+ years from now. By then I'm 75+ and may need one anyways.
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junior43
Active Member
Just playing devil's advocate again. What happens if ISIS, Al Queda or Anonymous (or whatever the terrorist group du jour is) tries to hack the entire system, or one brand? These things will be prime targets for that kind of thing.
junior43
Active Member
I was thinking about the racing thing too - how would you find drivers in like 50 years when the system is truly widespread and no one has any experience? The other side of it though is. There may be an autonomous racing league for everyone to test new tech, although that would probably be pretty boring to watch.
crs1026
Senior Member
I do see the government stepping in and mandating vehicle compatibility. Sure, you can continue to drive manually, but your vehicle must be equipped with a defined set of transponders and visual markers to allow the automated vehicles to identify and interact with your '67 Camaro. Think of it as a high tech version of the mandatory orange triangle on the black horse drawn buggies that are still out there. Not prepared to retrofit that Camaro? I can see the government saying, keep it off the roads. When Drive Clean first went in, it forced a lot of good condition older vehicles off the roads because they couldn't meet emission requirements.
Similarly I can see the government going to virtual traffic signs. Again, want to drive an old car? Just buy a module that sits on your dash that reads and presents them all. The module may give you warnings, and you may or may not be able to switch the warnings off. It may even record data and download it automatically to the police if you drive out of spec.
It will be interesting how speed is handled. The autonomous car may be allowed to go faster on the open highway, as its inherent ability to stop and react to conditions may be greater. But it will also insist on slowing down in conditions that many drivers unwisely ignore, such as whiteouts and fog. I wonder if human nature will be patient when the car chooses to slow down. It may take a generation to weed out the older drivers who are habituated to ignoring the parts of the rules that they find inconvenient.
I do suspect that autonomous vehicles will be less than 100% perfect. We will hear on the news about cases where they froze at the wrong moment, or drove off a cliff, or something. But it will be handfuls of fatalities, which is better (if still terrifying) than today's thousands of vehicle deaths each year.
- Paul
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TheTigerMaster
Superstar
It might be a lot faster than 20 years.
Consider that many people use their cars essentially as simple shuttles from point A to point B in the city, rarely carrying heavily loads in their vehicles. For these people, using a autonomous vehicle sharing service, for reasons previously discussed, would immediately save them thousands of dollars a year over traditional car ownership, even if autonomous cars need to be insured. I'm not going to guess what percentage of car users have this usage patterns, but these people will be the first to adopt autonomous cars. It shouldn't take more than a few years for them to transition over, whether they select shared or autonomous vehicles, since the economic incentives are so high. The only thing that should be holding these people from switching is the nostalgic factor of driving.
Beyond that, within a few years of autonomous cars becoming widespread and us having a good understanding of how much safer these vehicles are than human driven cars, insurance companies will need to react by increasing insurance rates on human driven cars. These traditional cars will become more expensive to own by the year, as a greater proportion of vehicles on the road are autonomous. Furthermore, autonomous vehicles will likely require no insurance policies, as they'll be self-insured by the manufacturers. These factors will create significant incentive for people to switch to autonomous. When traditional cars cost $18k to insure per year, while autonomous vehicles cost $0 to insure, people will shed their traditional vehicles real quickly.
These factors will accelerate the average retirement age of cars, which currently sits at 10 years.
The last holdouts will be people who use their vehicles for heavy commercial work, and public transit vehicles.
junior43
Active Member
Ironically enough, you just defined me. I work from home and use the GO if I have to go downtown. My car's basically a grocery getter and weekend trip deal, but I still wouldn't give up my car (but apparently I'm a rare bird)
In the city, sure, I can see a much bigger zipcar style setup. In the 905 though (and that's half the population of the GTA), they'll still own their cars. They've all got 2 car garages that would be for no reason. I guess they could convert them to another room, but they'd sure look funny.
You may have also addressed my other thought on no ownership cars in the city. My concern was for condo owners and the fact they'd have a parking space they paid 30-40-50K for that's now useless and unsellable. But if ZIP car style does go huge, those companies may buy your obsolete parking space off you. You'd still have to park all these autonomous cars somewhere.
junior43
Active Member
That'll never fly in America, the whole big brother thing. They love their freedom and all that. Terence Corcoran had a column in the National Post that touched on that point, but that guy is a crank in the first place, so it's hard to take him seriously. I'd post the article, but it was really bad. It sort of had no point, and the headline didn't really match the article.
What the heck it only takes a couple mouse clicks:
http://business.financialpost.com/f...ther-is-riding-shotgun-in-your-driverless-car