Talking Cars Tuesday: How autonomous do you want to go?
Bringing back a popular offseason feature even if it's not mine to bring back. Today's question: In a world where you could choose between totally autonomous and zero autonomy, and everything in between, and there are no restrictions on the road that might limit certain roads to autonomous cars only, how autonomous is your vehicle? Do you have a Google egg with no pedals or steering wheel? Or are cruise control and automatic transmissions for babies? When do you let the car take over, and when do you want to do the driving, and what features do you like and what can you happily ignore?
February 14th, 2017 at 4:03 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 3:44 PM ^
Very interesting, although right now there are so many people on I-696 and on I-75 from about Troy to Hazel Park that are failing so hard right now. Seeing the entirety of the Mixing Bowl move at a uniform 85 MPH would be interesting though.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:30 PM ^
Here are the times I want to give control to my car:
- Exteneded highway trips (anything > 30 miles)
- Any heavy traffic scenario
- Any parking situation
All other times I would like to keep control.
BTW, that last bullet is the least talked about, but may be the absolute best part of an autonomous car. Driving up to work, the grocery store, mall, wherever and then getting out at the front door and letting your car find a spot for you . . . and having it come back to pick you up when you're ready to go??? Damn.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:34 PM ^
It's probably more talked about than you might think. A popular scenario is one where your car takes you to work, then goes back home to take the kids to school or soccer practice or be available for errands, then comes to pick you up from work at the end of the day.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:44 PM ^
I realize this is the talked about scenario, but isn't the number of miles driven per year (and therefore number of cars on the road at any one time) going to increase?
February 14th, 2017 at 3:24 PM ^
It might. It's a lot to talk through. Another issue is that you'll pile up miles on the car far faster than you would if it sat in the parking lot during your workday. So, would you really save money if you need to buy a new car twice as often? And, while this is often proposed as a solution to the "problem" of a car sitting unused all day, is it actually better if a car is driving all those empty miles with no passengers? That's exactly what trucks try like hell to avoid. And, autonomous electric cars sound great - but they would demand a wireless charging infrastructure, because if they're tooling around all day on their own, they need to be charged and can't do it on their own at a traditional plug station.
Lots of issues, even with the solutions.
February 14th, 2017 at 4:16 PM ^
This is why people talk about a different model of car ownership. You wouldn't necessarily own one car that drove you to work and then drove all the way back home to get your kids. It would be two separate cars that you didn't own (or not independently own), minimizing the driving without passengers thing.
February 14th, 2017 at 8:33 PM ^
familiar with Uber/Lyft/car-sharing networks? It'll be very rare to actually own autonomous cars. People will summon them on-demand for things like getting to work, going to the grocery store, whatever. The network will be highly utilized, more affordable than current car ownership, and will virtually eliminate the need for any parking in densely populated areas. The network operator will service and maintain the fleet.
People might keep a "weekender" manual automobile for joy riding or getting outside of the city, but most mobility in densely populated will be done through the network.
February 14th, 2017 at 9:39 PM ^
I'm not convinced of that. For one thing, there's no "will happen" with autonomous cars, only "might happen" or "could happen."
Second, the idea that cars sit unused 95% of the time, I'm not even convinced that's a problem. This is true for many things we own. Pots and pans, for example. We don't think of renting on demand pots and pans, and we wouldn't even if it cost a penny each time. Why? Convenience, obviously. No on-demand vehicle service can beat the convenience of having your car right there whenever you want it.
How does this work at shift change at unionized plants and shops? Do 500 people all order an Uber at once and wait in line for them all to show up? How does the network handle that? There are obviously more cars on the road at rush hour than at noon, because they're all parked. All these cars still have to exist because they have to take everyone home, so where do they go? A central depot, so that it takes longer for them to show up? As you say, parking is eliminated, so do they just drive around in circles? And at the end of the shift, it's WAY more efficient for everyone to head out to the parking lot to their own car than for everyone to sit around waiting for everyone else to get in their own Uber.
Even worse: Movies. Concerts. Football games. 100,000 people all ordering Ubers at once????? Sure, the getting-out-of-the-parking-lot situation is always a huge pain in the ass. That's only one way. You're telling me we're going to complicate that by having 50,000 cars all show up AND leave at once?? How do you propose to solve that one?
February 15th, 2017 at 1:27 AM ^
that allows a car to go from point A to point B safer than a human with 99.9 percent certainty, it's just a matter of when. You keep coming up with corner cases that a human brain is better at navigating, currently, but there is nothing a human can do when it comes to driving that a computer with sensors can't be taught to do better. It might be 20, 50, 100 years but the path to get there is very clear.
How the technology gets integrated and whether people will want it is certainly up for debate , which is what I thought this thread was about, not whether we think autonomous will be possible.
In densely populated urban areas (the place where these networks make sense), for many people, it is vastly more convenient to get picked up and dropped off exactly where you want to go rather than worrying about parking. My wife and I went from two cars to one because it is so much more convenient to car share that we weren't even using the cars we were paying for. I dread any occasion for which I have to take my car and worry about parking it. Driving cars in an increasingly urbanized world is an inconvenient experience that car-sharing networks improve upon.
Cars in the network needing to park themselves would not be eliminated. The need for a human driver to park the car (because he doesn't own it) is eliminated. At any given time there will be cars in the network parked in the depots (can efficiently distribute these cars with just a fraction of current parking structures repurposed as depots) waiting for the rush hour demand surges but there will still be far fewer vehicles sitting idle and far fewer total miles driven.
How do hundreds or thousands of people arrive to any of these events in their own cars around the same time? Lots of pain, lots of annoyance, lots of time in lines. Not everyone currently shows up and leaves to all these things at the same time, otherwise it would be complete mayhem. Car-sharing networks certainly wouldn't add to the mayhem of these instances if you assume the network can handle the exact influx and outflux of vehicles at the same time. And there is the potential to make it more efficient through optimized route-planning of car pools, repurposing parking lots as pick-up zones based on what direction you're going, etc.
I'm not saying this implementation is inevitable (sorry for the implication) but the potential is there and there's a reason why everyone, every company with anything to do with mobility is planning for this.
Next topic: who's going to go to movies and concerts in 50 years when entertainment will be better experienced through virtual reality/holograms?
February 15th, 2017 at 11:06 AM ^
Couple of points:
If people wanted to car-pool, they'd do that now. All the advantages of it - less need for parking, less money spent on gas - already exist. For individuals, they would actually exist less with driverless Uber carpools. Convenience is why they don't. Being required to leave work at a specific time is very difficult for a lot of people. Flexibility to leave when they want is important. For people like shift workers, they're likely to prefer going straight home instead of picking up the rest of that day's carpool and then dropping them off all in different places.
So carpooling is not likely to greatly increase in a driverless Uber world - which means that the number of vehicles sitting idle doesn't decrease and miles driven actually goes way up, since those vehicles sit idle somewhere other than the office or factory parking lot. At best, those cars can go pick up people who aren't at work and run their errands, but there had better be enough to take everyone home when they want to go home, otherwise people will just keep having their own cars.
For things like football games and concerts, people do all show up at different times, but they all leave at once. It's bad enough when all the traffic flows one way. With a driverless Uber service, they have to come in and out. You would either be waiting an hour or more for your car, as all 100,000 people at the game try to find the one they ordered, or the cars would show up during the game ready to take people home - in which case the benefit of not having parking lots is totally lost.
The final question: Who actually owns all these vehicles? The biggest fleets in the country are rental companies like Hertz, and they have roughly a couple thousand cars in any given metro area. The driverless Uber fleet you're talking about has to comprise millions of cars in any given metro area. The only companies with the size, cash flow, revenue, infrastructure, etc. to own all these cars are the manufacturers themselves. For anyone else to pick up the slack, there would have to be hundreds of these companies. And in order for that business model to work, they recognize revenue for a car when it rolls out of the plant. Changing to a model where they get that revenue $5 at a time does not suffice to pay for building those cars.
February 14th, 2017 at 3:18 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 1:31 PM ^
There are too many bad drivers for me to want anything else at this point. I have sat behind enough traffic jams just because people are looking at another fucking accident on the opposite side of the interstate. People who text and drive can eat a huge back of dicks as well. They are worse than drunk drivers.
I just want a world without traffic jams at this point. Anything to get that done is fine. Including abducting and forcing all people who text and drive to live in Siberia and the tundra of Canada.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:47 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 1:34 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 1:39 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 2:11 PM ^
Except, as pointed out below, it will take decades for full autonomy to appear in a critical mass of cars and even longer for them to work through the market. Something like 70% of American adults have smartphones. This is a technology that turns over every couple years or so and costs half a percent the price of a new car.
Until the very distant future, autonomous cars have to drive in a human-driving world, which means the speed limits will stay put for a long time.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:15 PM ^
How will the speed limits go up? We could totally have 110mph speed limits today if we wanted to. We do not. The main reason? Our roads are absolute shit. Self driving cars aren't fixing potholes anytime soon. We would need a massive influx of cash to do anything about increasing speed limits.
Germany has perfect roads and no speed limits. And higher taxes to pay for it. And vehicle safety inspections. Etc. Humans there drive fast just fine. Everyone also follows the rules. No passing on the right, no sitting on the left. Both are ticketed offenses.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:39 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 1:46 PM ^
What happens in those video games before you get used to what the AI will do though? I know the answer for me is lots of crashing.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:40 PM ^
when there is nothing. I would be really annoyed if my car braked for times like that.
I like driving a lot for the most part. driving up north last week was really nice, and I like to race around my mazdaspeed 3. Cruise control is great though.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:43 PM ^
I thought the roads were already full of fully autonomous vehicles. How else are all of these people I'm driving by texting, eating, putting on make-up, shaving, etc.?
February 14th, 2017 at 1:45 PM ^
Full automation for long trips. I wouldn't mind leaving the driving to someone else under those circumstances. I worry, though, that my stellar ability to sense roadside whitetail deer cannot be replicated by a mere computer.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:49 PM ^
I'd like the option. I don't particularlly like driving at night so it would be awesome to let the car handle that. But I spend a lot of time up north in the middle of nowhere on dirt roads and two tracks. I'm not sure how well a fully autonomous car would handle that. How would you tell it to pull off the two track and park in space between the trees?
I'm also curious how they will handle routes where you don't know exactly where you are going. A lot of this stuff presupposes that all our driving is from Point A to a well defined point B. Anyone who has dealt with Google Maps more than a few times knows that is always the case. And there are time when you just don't know exactly where you want to go until something catches your eye, whether its a restaraunt or the aformentioned gap in the trees where you want to park so you can go fishing.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:48 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 2:02 PM ^
The first definition you have listed applies to the autonomy of vehicles. An autonomous car performs actions independently. Further, the second definition is just the condition of being autonomous. The definition of autonomous from the same source you are quoting states:
3. (of a vehicle) navigated and maneuvered by a computer, without aneed for human control or intervention under normal road conditions:autonomous vehicle.
Maybe I'm missing your point.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:03 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 1:55 PM ^
I think it will be very hard to have an in-between. Fully autonomous cars will probably require the ability to communicate with all cars on the road. I think you lose many of the advantages and increase liability without it.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:56 PM ^
How do you get there? Do you retrofit the millions of cars on the road today? Because you aren't flipping the fleet in under 20 years.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:12 PM ^
http://news.ihsmarkit.com/press-release/automotive/average-age-vehicles…
I'm surprised and thought with all of the new technologies and rapidly increasing efficiencies that your comment would be off, but you're spot on.
If we could just hold gas at $6.00/gallon (many places we could put the tax revenue), I do think the consumer would be more likely to turnover their cars, or look to alternatives.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:18 PM ^
Average transaction price for a new car is over $30K. Typically the second largest purchase for people, besides houses.
I think we desperately need to raise the gas tax in this country, but that's a separate topic. (Cliff's notes - could pay for infrastructure and push consumers to get more efficient vehicles. Today we mandate auto suppliers make efficient cars, that no one buys because gas is cheap)
February 14th, 2017 at 2:13 PM ^
You can't depend on V2V communication for autonomy. The vehicle has to do it with just the sensors it has. With V2V you can get more information and perhaps makes the virtual driver easier to build with extra information.
Also to your point, by the time you get the fleet switched over, there will be some new technology for V2V. DSRC now, 5G next. You can never depend on all cars talking the same to all other cars.
Do autonomous driving depending soley on your own sensors. Use other V2V information if you have it to make your job easier. Autonomous vehicle != connected vehicle.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:27 PM ^
Urban areas and high density traffic will need V2V communication to maximize the benefit. I think they will have to standardize the communication across the industry like wireless internet. A newer car may have newer technology, but it would still have the ability to talk with older standards.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:21 PM ^
I think the fastest way to do it would be to offer a credit to get older cars out of circulation. Possibly the government could help subsidize it based on savings they would theoretically make with self-driving cars? I also wonder if insurance companies would make or lose money with self-driving cars. There would be far fewer accidents and claims but wouldn't companies have to charge a lower rate?
I think local municipalities that rely on traffic tickets will take a big hit with self-driving cars, but I guess traffic ticket revenue has already been dropping in many places already.
February 14th, 2017 at 9:30 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 1:55 PM ^
I will never trust cars that drive themselves. I'm a very aggressive driver, but also very good. I'm very aware of what's going on, but, well, let's just say I cannot stand it when people go exactly the speed limit or under. It's the slow drivers who cause traffic jams.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:05 PM ^
With self-driving cars, you would be able to avoid the issues that create traffic by having cars that communicate with each other. This would also allow you to increase the speed limits.
I am not a proponent for switching to self-driving cars now as I believe it should be an all or nothing proposition. And I would need to see that they have enough evidence that these systems are able to handle snow-covered roads and other inclement conditions where decreased visibility affects camera and sensor performance. I know Ford has been working on some systems that get around this. The other issue is what happens if the system goes down? Most people will probably be terrible drivers with self-driving cars because you only maintain a skill like that with practice.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:55 PM ^
Debating a thread, but with the hoops team's recent success I've held off.
No autonomy for me. The average car in the US is now 11 years old. Even if every new car was offered fully autonomous, we'd have decades before the whole fleet switched over. Having autonomous cars and non-autonomous cars on the road together will be a huge mess (which it will be anyway). M City is wonderful because it can finally test these things in the winter. How does an autonomous car drive on a road that hasn't been plowed? How does it tell where the road is? We're decades away from me trusting those computers fully.
Give me 3 pedals or give me death!
February 14th, 2017 at 1:59 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 1:59 PM ^
I enjoy driving - so fully autonomous wouldn't be my preference. That being said - I would want something autonomous for the commute to and from work, that way rather than staying in the office an extra hour to wrap stuff up and then driving an hour to get home, I would be able to use the commute time to do work (two birds with one stone)
February 14th, 2017 at 2:01 PM ^
Alll care will be uber self drivers and the like.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:07 PM ^
Great for the "average" use. That's the problem with nearly every starry vision of the future. Oh, the average commute is X miles, so an electric car with a certain range is fine for everyone. Elon Musk is a big one for doing this. Oh, our Teslas will take you so many miles from San Francisco, then you can stop, charge up, have a coffee, a nice little rest, and then you're in Los Angeles. He likes to act as if everyone's trip is from SF to LA and back.
Unless you need to do X, Y, Z, A, B, C, etc. 300 million people in the country, 300 million possible uses for a car. Uber shuttles would be fine for commutes - not so much for camping in the backwoods or hauling a boat.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:13 PM ^
We'll control you, provide your transport if needed, etc.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:09 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 4:36 PM ^
As an aside, I wonder whether there would need to nearly as many paved roads in the future. Instead of investing the money in hard surfaced roads, maybe there is a fleet of autonomous road graters that continually prowl the dirt roads and keep them in decent shape. We invest in better suspensions for the cars and voila! Also might require less infrastructure to handle storm water run off as dirt roads would, at least better than paved roads, absorb some of the rain.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:11 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 2:21 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 4:52 PM ^
until the system gets hacked. And with each automobile likely being a network node that could be a nightmare to protect.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:22 PM ^
I want cars to be easy to repair and maintain.
All you should need is a jack, a tool box and volt-meter/test light.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:24 PM ^
Well put. This applies to the Sprite I talk about below.