Self Driving Autos

[JMO]

Originally Posted by MC_montecarlo

This week's Economist included a Special Report on autonomous vehicles that I'd highly recommend. The lead article is here but there are 7 in total, all worth reading. They quote UBS and BCG estimates that robotaxis will begin to take off in urban environments in 2025, with serious traction by 2030.

I read a few of the articles. And they kept reminding me of 1950's/60's science fiction.

Wasn't there a Dilbert cartoon in which his boss asked him for a list of unanticipated problems that might arise in the current project?

[Sredni Vashtar]

Originally Posted by JMO

I read a few of the articles. And they kept reminding me of 1950's/60's science fiction.

Wasn't there a Dilbert cartoon in which his boss asked him for a list of unanticipated problems that might arise in the current project?

You're thinking of the ERM text.

[JMO]

Originally Posted by Sredni Vashtar

You're thinking of the ERM text.

I was born too soon, and never took any ERM exams. So I couldn't have been thinking of that.

[twig93]

Between Levandowksi’s role at the center of Uber’s bruising legal fight with Waymo and a trademark lawsuit, Uber dropped the Otto name last year.

I really hope the trademark lawsuit was with Paramount.

[Vorian Atreides]

It Otto be.

[Sredni Vashtar]

I've noticed that all the supercars are finally jumping into self-driving tech.

Here's an Aston Martin straight out of Star-Trek.

Spoiler:

[r. mutt]

That doesn't actually look like very much legroom.

[Kenny]

Originally Posted by r. mutt

That doesn't actually look like very much legroom.

Legroom? Where we're going we don't need legroom.

[campbell]

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...eid=ba8edf1c0d

Rage against the machine: self-driving cars attacked by angry Californians
Local residents are hitting back at their new robot neighbors – literally – as reports detail assaults on driverless cars

[examsarehard]

Originally Posted by examsarehard

By 2019, GM plans to produce self-driving cars without steering wheels and pedals, and deploy them as taxis:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/12/1...auto-show-2018

Follow up, GM is testing its cars in San Francisco, and is having trouble:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03...-driving-cars/

"Cruise cars frequently swerve and hesitate," Efrati reports. "They sometimes slow down or stop if they see a bush on the side of a street or a lane-dividing pole, mistaking it for an object in their path." In one case, Efrati says, Cruise employees trimmed a bush ahead of a demonstration for journalists to make sure the car wouldn't swerve while driving past it.

Cruise employees have the option of riding in Cruise vehicles as they travel around San Francisco, but there's a big downside to doing so: self-driving car rides are often slower than a ride in a human vehicle—sometimes as much as 10 to 20 minutes slower. A big reason for that: "some San Francisco intersections and streets are 'blacklisted,' in some cases temporarily, and the cars must take circuitous routes around them."

An intersection might be blacklisted because its traffic light is too faint, because it has a complex roundabout, or because it requires a difficult lane merge.

According to the report, Cruise vehicles "can't easily handle two-way residential streets that only have room for one car to pass at a time. That's because Cruise cars treat the street as one lane and always prefer to be in the center of a lane, and oncoming traffic causes the cars to stop."

Other situations that give Cruise vehicles trouble:

Distinguishing between motorcycles and bicycles
Entering tunnels, which can interfere with the cars' GPS sensors
U-turns
Construction zones

On the other hand, GM did say they were testing in Arizona as well, which is much easier for self-driving cars.