Poll
Question:
Assuming that you could afford one, and the technology was mature, would you want a self driving car?
Option 1: Yes
votes: 28
Option 2: No
votes: 10
This topic came up when I was talking with some people from AMTRAK. Their fear is that our product will eliminate the need for conductors on trains. In our case it won't; our product isn't designed to drive a train. The Federal Rail Authority has made it clear that "Robo-trains" aren't likely to be approved to run on the public tracks. Their argument is that a computer cannot replace an experienced conductor. A conductor can recognize when something is out of place, while a computer can only recognize what it's been programmed to.
Given the nature of rail no one is lobbying to have self driving trains. The first robo-train to crash would be a publicity nightmare. People, though, are willing to accept a much greater risk when driving themselves than when riding on a train. Given that, I'm curious if you would want a self driving car; assuming that they were within your budget and statistically no more dangerous than driving yourself.
Yes! I hate driving. I will be so glad when my culture no longer requires people completely incompetent at driving, like me, to drive.
It would be nice to have the option, but not 100% of the time. I like driving sometimes.
Quote from: MadBurgerMaker on April 27, 2016, 01:01:10 PM
It would be nice to have the option, but not 100% of the time. I like driving sometimes.
Yeah.
Quote from: Savonarola on April 27, 2016, 12:54:41 PM
Their argument is that a computer cannot replace an experienced conductor. A conductor can recognize when something is out of place, while a computer can only recognize what it's been programmed to.
wut
I agree. A conductor can make or break a symphony.
As to the topic at hand, sure why not?
No. I'm too much of a control freak. I don't even like automatic transmission if it can be avoided.
I can't see the downside to having the option.
Won't it be like driving an automatic? Lots of comments from real men how you are a fucking sissy boy?
Depends. Are the rest of the vehicles on the road self-driving as well? Makes a big difference to me.
If there aren't, then fuck that; I'm not going to sit helplessly in the equivalent of a bank drive-thru pneumatic tube cannister awaiting my fate while every goddamned bikini wax technician from the Philippines is running the Beltway slalom around me. Christ, just go ahead and launch me into orbit already.
What a helpless nightmare.
Yeah, I guess it depends on the collision algorithm. If it is going to prioritise some texting millennial over me when it comes to a crash, fuck that shit.
Basically no one will own a car when self driving cars arrive.
What is the main incremental expense for a taxi? It is the driver's time. That goes away in a self driving car. Cabs will become extremely cheap. People will just take uber everywhere.
Quote from: Martinus on April 27, 2016, 01:39:33 PM
Yeah, I guess it depends on the collision algorithm. If it is going to prioritise some texting millennial over me when it comes to a crash, fuck that shit.
I wonder if true self driving cars would even sell well if there was a chance it wouldn't prioritize the people inside vs. a pedestrian wandering into the road or something. Who would buy a car that might intentionally kill them?
Sav, I wouldn't be so sure that self driving cars won't impact trains.
They could significantly reduce the demand for passenger rail travel, as uber like bus/van services could compete effectively.
They could also make trucking more efficient, as drivers are no longer needed.
At some stage I would imagine that human operated cars will become illegal except for hobbyists at designated private roads/tracks and so on. They are very dangerous and inefficient to boot.
No thank you. Maybe in the future if every car on the road was self driven.
Edit: Seedy had the same idea as me, but I don't want to be launched into orbit, unless I can pilot my own rocket. ;)
Owning a car right now is already an incredibly ineffecient use of the resource that is a car. The vast majority of the time, it is just sitting there, not transporting anyone.
Sure, but taxis require constant maintenance.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 27, 2016, 01:49:27 PM
Sav, I wouldn't be so sure that self driving cars won't impact trains.
They could significantly reduce the demand for passenger rail travel, as uber like bus/van services could compete effectively.
They could also make trucking more efficient, as drivers are no longer needed.
Self driving cars could impact the demand for trains; that wasn't my point. I meant that self driving trains (on public tracks) aren't going to be allowed in the United States due to restrictions by the FRA. (Most likely they won't be allowed in Canada either since their safety rules are even more restrictive than ours.)
It might make travelling by car more appealing.
I'll probably still prefer a train, though.
I don't see how robot trains are inherently more dangerous than human operated ones, and I don't see how a robot train accident is worse from a PR pov than a human error accident.
I can however see the Amtrak union fighting it tooth and nail.
When I retire, I want to own and live in a self-driving RV. :)
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 27, 2016, 02:40:14 PM
I don't see how robot trains are inherently more dangerous than human operated ones,
Robo-trains run on closed track right now. They're probably not more inherently dangerous than a human operated one; but rail is an incredibly safety-conscious industry, any innovation must go through a very long series of tests before it can be approved to run on open track.
Quoteand I don't see how a robot train accident is worse from a PR pov than a human error accident.
In the long run it probably isn't. The first several crashes involving robo-trains will make prominent mention of the technology.
QuoteI can however see the Amtrak union fighting it tooth and nail.
AMTRAK is small potatoes (though they make the news most often); it's the class one freight carriers and their unions that will drive the future of rail.
Why do you capitalize Amtrak? Is it an acronym?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 27, 2016, 03:11:17 PM
Why do you capitalize Amtrak? Is it an acronym?
Sorry,
deformazione professionale, they always capitalize it in their e-mails.
Quote from: Savonarola on April 27, 2016, 03:15:45 PM
Sorry, deformazione professionale, they always capitalize it in their corresponence.
It doesn't show in your pictures. :console:
Quote from: Grinning_Colossus on April 27, 2016, 02:57:49 PM
When I retire, I want to own and live in a self-driving RV. :)
That would be nicer if the toilets also cleaned themselves.
Being driven by a bot is a small price to pay to have everyone else taken off the wheel.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 27, 2016, 01:45:24 PM
Basically no one will own a car when self driving cars arrive.
What is the main incremental expense for a taxi? It is the driver's time. That goes away in a self driving car. Cabs will become extremely cheap. People will just take uber everywhere.
:yes: Car ownership is extremely inefficient. The car spends most of the time just sitting there parked and rotting. It's necessary when it needs to be near a driver, but otherwise it's an idiotic state of things.
Quote from: Iormlund on April 27, 2016, 03:39:39 PM
Being driven by a bot is a small price to pay to have everyone else taken off the wheel.
Consider that everyone's bot will become a Nazi after 15 minutes.
Quote from: DGuller on April 27, 2016, 03:49:38 PM
:yes: Car ownership is extremely inefficient. The car spends most of the time just sitting there parked and rotting. It's necessary when it needs to be near a driver, but otherwise it's an idiotic state of things.
Do cars that are driven constantly go longer (mileagewise) than cars driven 10-20000 miles a year before breaking down?
Fuck no, I wouldn't want a self-driving car, for largely the same reason I want a computer with a processor instead of just a box that connects to the internet and lets me access the cloud--I don't want the loss of personal autonomy.
What I would want is to be able to afford a chauffeur for the times I don't want to drive myself.
Quote from: Iormlund on April 27, 2016, 03:39:39 PM
Being driven by a bot is a small price to pay to have everyone else taken off the wheel.
:)
Quote from: dps on April 27, 2016, 04:02:32 PM
Fuck no, I wouldn't want a self-driving car, for largely the same reason I want a computer with a processor instead of just a box that connects to the internet and lets me access the cloud--I don't want the loss of personal autonomy.
What I would want is to be able to afford a chauffeur for the times I don't want to drive myself.
Do you wear a seatbelt while driving?
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on April 27, 2016, 03:52:42 PM
Quote from: DGuller on April 27, 2016, 03:49:38 PM
:yes: Car ownership is extremely inefficient. The car spends most of the time just sitting there parked and rotting. It's necessary when it needs to be near a driver, but otherwise it's an idiotic state of things.
Do cars that are driven constantly go longer (mileagewise) than cars driven 10-20000 miles a year before breaking down?
Maintenance costs are probably reduced - some of the maintenance schedules of most cars are based on time. Also - a reduction in exposure to elements is a big deal--I would expect a car that travels 200k miles in a year to have less costs than a car that travels 200k in 20. That is 19 less summers and winters to endure. Plus maintenance can be more efficiently managed through fleets rather than on an ad hoc basis by individual owners. Also cars will stay newer, and more up to date, with the latest safety equipment etc.
A major savings is the reduction in car storage expenses. People won't need garages or driveways. There won't be a need for parking lots, parking decks, or on street parking. During off peak hours, cars can go out of service outside of cities where space is not at such a premium.
Quote from: Habbaku on April 27, 2016, 04:03:27 PM
Quote from: dps on April 27, 2016, 04:02:32 PM
Fuck no, I wouldn't want a self-driving car, for largely the same reason I want a computer with a processor instead of just a box that connects to the internet and lets me access the cloud--I don't want the loss of personal autonomy.
What I would want is to be able to afford a chauffeur for the times I don't want to drive myself.
Do you wear a seatbelt while driving?
Yes, but I'm opposed to laws making it mandatory.
Quote from: dps on April 27, 2016, 04:11:53 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on April 27, 2016, 04:03:27 PM
Quote from: dps on April 27, 2016, 04:02:32 PM
Fuck no, I wouldn't want a self-driving car, for largely the same reason I want a computer with a processor instead of just a box that connects to the internet and lets me access the cloud--I don't want the loss of personal autonomy.
What I would want is to be able to afford a chauffeur for the times I don't want to drive myself.
Do you wear a seatbelt while driving?
Yes, but I'm opposed to laws making it mandatory.
:rolleyes:
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on April 27, 2016, 03:52:42 PM
Quote from: DGuller on April 27, 2016, 03:49:38 PM
:yes: Car ownership is extremely inefficient. The car spends most of the time just sitting there parked and rotting. It's necessary when it needs to be near a driver, but otherwise it's an idiotic state of things.
Do cars that are driven constantly go longer (mileagewise) than cars driven 10-20000 miles a year before breaking down?
I don't know that for a fact, but I would be extremely surprised if it weren't the case. Not all wear-and-tear is a function of miles. Some of it is a function of time (rubber rots), and a lot of it is a function of the number of cold starts a car goes through.
Yes. I've driven the semi autonomous cars of today and I didn't miss anything e.g. when just leaning back in a traffic jam.
Ok, but what about distance between passengers? A privately owned car will be parked right where the owner needs it. No matter how advanced the system, nor how heavy the usage, the public car will have to travel to pick people up. This can be a large portion of its mileage, especially when people are just going to the grocery store a couple miles away.
We've had self driving trains here since the 1980s, I think they are quite common elsewhere too, mainly light rail. No accidents as far as I know.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on April 27, 2016, 04:24:10 PM
Ok, but what about distance between passengers? A privately owned car will be parked right where the owner needs it. No matter how advanced the system, nor how heavy the usage, the public car will have to travel to pick people up. This can be a large portion of its mileage, especially when people are just going to the grocery store a couple miles away.
How long does an Uber car travel to pick up the passenger? How will automated cars be different?
Quote from: DGuller on April 27, 2016, 04:29:09 PM
How long does an Uber car travel to pick up the passenger?
No idea. Never used it. I'd assume it won't need to go so far downtown as it does outside the beltway.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on April 27, 2016, 04:24:10 PM
Ok, but what about distance between passengers? A privately owned car will be parked right where the owner needs it. No matter how advanced the system, nor how heavy the usage, the public car will have to travel to pick people up. This can be a large portion of its mileage, especially when people are just going to the grocery store a couple miles away.
If there are fleets of taxis all over the city, that distance should not be large. Also, even in the current world, where the uber/lyft fleets are a small minority of cars on the road, there are experiments with ride sharing. It seems likely that will be an option--you say you want to go from your suburban house to the city center at rush hour, you can be matched with people taking similar trips at the same time and reduce the cost.
ET, this is an unusual line of argument you are taking. If people have a chance to avoid purchasing a very large and bulky ~$25k piece of machinery because they can rent one when needed at even roughly the same long term cost (though I suspect it will be less), they will do so.
Quote from: DGuller on April 27, 2016, 03:49:38 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on April 27, 2016, 01:45:24 PM
Basically no one will own a car when self driving cars arrive.
What is the main incremental expense for a taxi? It is the driver's time. That goes away in a self driving car. Cabs will become extremely cheap. People will just take uber everywhere.
:yes: Car ownership is extremely inefficient. The car spends most of the time just sitting there parked and rotting. It's necessary when it needs to be near a driver, but otherwise it's an idiotic state of things.
Despite inefficiency, I think there will still be plenty of demand for owning cars, even if the reasons are just:
- Cooties: plenty of people don't want to park their butt where thousands of others have, if they don't have to. And will pay a premium for that privelage.
- Independence: the ability to just get-up-and-go, without waiting for a car (no matter how short that time is), or dealing with some 3rd party that has to jumble with pricing plans, liability, etc, whatever)
- Hubris: you know that in a world where owning one's own car becomes less common, the more of a status symbol owning one will become. Plus, chicks.
And to call out a bad movie example, I think Schwarzenegger's The Sixth Day probably has the most realistic future for self-driving cars. At least in the near term.
Sad people that do not love their vehicles. :( Sad people that don't love to drive their awesome vehicles are sad. :( Sadly they have made up arguments online to justify their sadness and I'm sad that I did not ignore their sad waste of time. Sad. Sad. Sad. :(
Quote from: lustindarkness on April 27, 2016, 05:12:04 PM
Sad people that do not love their vehicles. :( Sad people that don't love to drive their awesome vehicles are sad. :( Sadly they have made up arguments online to justify their sadness and I'm sad that I did not ignore their sad waste of time. Sad. Sad. Sad. :(
And there will never be practical, self-driving vehicles that can do the awesome off-road/semi-off road that FJ Cruisers do. :cool:
Quote from: Tonitrus on April 27, 2016, 05:14:35 PM
Quote from: lustindarkness on April 27, 2016, 05:12:04 PM
Sad people that do not love their vehicles. :( Sad people that don't love to drive their awesome vehicles are sad. :( Sadly they have made up arguments online to justify their sadness and I'm sad that I did not ignore their sad waste of time. Sad. Sad. Sad. :(
And there will never be practical, self-driving vehicles that can do the awesome off-road/semi-off road that FJ Cruisers do. :cool:
Precisely. Curbs are simple suggestions.
Quote from: lustindarkness on April 27, 2016, 05:12:04 PM
Sad people that do not love their vehicles. :( Sad people that don't love to drive their awesome vehicles are sad. :( Sadly they have made up arguments online to justify their sadness and I'm sad that I did not ignore their sad waste of time. Sad. Sad. Sad. :(
Wanting a self-driving car has no impact on being able to drive one's own vehicle for pleasure.
Quote from: dps on April 27, 2016, 04:11:53 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on April 27, 2016, 04:03:27 PM
Do you wear a seatbelt while driving?
Yes, but I'm opposed to laws making it mandatory.
What happens when little Jenny Smith flies off the window and face plants a local kid crossing the street crushing his back?
The insurance won't cover stupid muppets who refuse to use safety devices. The Smith's estate doesn't have enough money to pay for a lifetime disability scheme for the local, now paraplegic, kid. Does the taxpayer have to foot the bill?
Quote from: Iormlund on April 27, 2016, 05:22:49 PM
Quote from: dps on April 27, 2016, 04:11:53 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on April 27, 2016, 04:03:27 PM
Do you wear a seatbelt while driving?
Yes, but I'm opposed to laws making it mandatory.
What happens when little Jenny Smith flies off the window and face plants a local kid crossing the street crushing his back?
The insurance won't cover stupid muppets who refuse to use safety devices. The Smith's estate doesn't have enough money to pay for a lifetime disability scheme for the local, now paraplegic, kid. Does the taxpayer have to foot the bill?
That seems rather farfetched. And liability insurance does cover damage caused by bad decisions, it would be pretty useless if it didn't.
The simple reason why we need seat belt laws is that too many people are just too dumb to use them voluntarily. Not because they're making a rational cost/benefit decision, they're just too dumb or too macho to do it. And this macho behavior can be contagious, and make other people now hesitant to appear weak.
At that point you can either choose to stick religiously with the ideology, even though it clearly results in suboptimal outcomes, or make a pragmatic policy choice that saves thousands of lives each year.
At least here not all bad decisions are covered. For example, AFAIK if you don't pass the mandated car check when stipulated your insurer can refuse to cover you.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 27, 2016, 04:45:44 PM
ET, this is an unusual line of argument you are taking. If people have a chance to avoid purchasing a very large and bulky ~$25k piece of machinery because they can rent one when needed at even roughly the same long term cost (though I suspect it will be less), they will do so.
Some people. But that's not the argument I was talking about, it's the claim that costs would be reduced. Having (briefly) worked for a courier service, I'm not very confident that there will be high efficiency regarding mileage driven with customer/total mileage- and that number will go down the farther from city centers one gets.
For sure. I hate driving. The only reason I drive is to be able to get from point A to point B. If a computer can take me there, so much the better. The computer will do a much better job than me in driving the car.
Quote from: Iormlund on April 27, 2016, 05:56:40 PM
At least here not all bad decisions are covered. For example, AFAIK if you don't pass the mandated car check when stipulated your insurer can refuse to cover you.
That's pretty dumb then. Liability insurance is there to protect the other party. Whether the person at fault is stupid or unlucky, the other party is injured just the same. I'm sure there are some exclusions, but they have to be pretty gross violations and probably involve fraud (and even then the insurance company can be liable extra-contractually).
Quote from: DGuller on April 27, 2016, 05:41:28 PM
The simple reason why we need seat belt laws is that too many people are just too dumb to use them voluntarily. Not because they're making a rational cost/benefit decision, they're just too dumb or too macho to do it. And this macho behavior can be contagious, and make other people now hesitant to appear weak.
At that point you can either choose to stick religiously with the ideology, even though it clearly results in suboptimal outcomes, or make a pragmatic policy choice that saves thousands of lives each year.
I think most people use their seatbelts because it makes sense to, not because it's against the law not to. And the idea that "people are too stupid to do it voluntarily" is the worst reason to pass legislation regulating private, individual behavior.
DG is in the pocket of Big Seatbelts.
No.
More laziness
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on April 27, 2016, 05:59:33 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on April 27, 2016, 04:45:44 PM
ET, this is an unusual line of argument you are taking. If people have a chance to avoid purchasing a very large and bulky ~$25k piece of machinery because they can rent one when needed at even roughly the same long term cost (though I suspect it will be less), they will do so.
Some people. But that's not the argument I was talking about, it's the claim that costs would be reduced. Having (briefly) worked for a courier service, I'm not very confident that there will be high efficiency regarding mileage driven with customer/total mileage- and that number will go down the farther from city centers one gets.
It is possible that miles driven would increase because of what you are saying.
But think of some of the sources of savings:
-Huge reduction in costs of parking. Take a city like Atlanta. Say 6 million people. Maybe 3 million cars. The vast majority parked at any one time. All these parked cars are wasted space.
-Insurance--those 3 million cars need millions of insurance policies, which must be marketed, sold, and customized for the customer. Imagine if all the cars in Atlanta were effectively owned by 5 companies. The business of insurance would be less costly, even ignoring the theoretical safety benefits of self driving cars.
-Gas stations. People need gas stations near where they live. Lots of prime real estate is dedicated to gas stations. This would be unnecessary with self driving cars that could be based outside the city center.
-Maintenance. Imagine how much more efficient and effective maintenance would be if rather than having it overseen by millions of individual drivers it was managed professionally by a central entity? How much car damage is caused by skipped maintenance, and how much is wasted by unnecessary maintenance? For a simple example, just think how many fewer resources would be dedicated to emissions tests if all the cars in Atlanta were stored in a couple dozen locations.
-Avoiding obsolescence. Say a car lasts 200k miles and is driven 10k miles / year. How many cars from 1996 are still around? In the US it wasn't even mandatory to have airbags on both sides of the front seat until 1998. I suspect a not insignificant number of cars are being scrapped not because they hit a mileage number beyond which the car breaks down too much, but because they are obsolete or are breaking down from improper maintenance.
-Car selling costs: far more cost effective to just sell to a few fleet providers rather than millions of individuals.
It would far more efficient if all restaurants were Taco Bell.
Quote from: dps on April 27, 2016, 07:50:26 PM
Quote from: DGuller on April 27, 2016, 05:41:28 PM
The simple reason why we need seat belt laws is that too many people are just too dumb to use them voluntarily. Not because they're making a rational cost/benefit decision, they're just too dumb or too macho to do it. And this macho behavior can be contagious, and make other people now hesitant to appear weak.
At that point you can either choose to stick religiously with the ideology, even though it clearly results in suboptimal outcomes, or make a pragmatic policy choice that saves thousands of lives each year.
I think most people use their seatbelts because it makes sense to, not because it's against the law not to. And the idea that "people are too stupid to do it voluntarily" is the worst reason to pass legislation regulating private, individual behavior.
As I said, you can stick to ideology, or you can stick to what saves lives. In this case, can't do both.
I would at least like to have the option.
I love how you guys assume a self-driving car will be glitch-free, and immune to viruses or hacks.
Quote from: derspiess on April 27, 2016, 11:19:50 PM
I love how you guys assume a self-driving car will be glitch-free, and immune to viruses or hacks.
I love how you assume that "those guys" assume things that they have not assumed.
Quote from: derspiess on April 27, 2016, 11:19:50 PM
I love how you guys assume a self-driving car will be glitch-free, and immune to viruses or hacks.
Link?
Your support for it is enough.
Retraction accepted.
Being able to control your car for fun drives/off-roading is essential.
There is also great utility in being able to sit back and relax while your car self-drives that 3-hour Thanksgiving trip to grandma's.
Car layouts will have to change considerably, though. I imagine that 3-hour trip still being pretty tedious if you're stuck in the current, standard car seating position. Cars will have to become bigger to allow for captain's chairs and moving-about space (and this will extend that seatbelt/safety debate, no doubt).
Quote from: derspiess on April 27, 2016, 11:19:50 PM
I love how you guys assume a self-driving car will be glitch-free, and immune to viruses or hacks.
Cars are already vulnerable to glitches and hacks. Self-driving or not, pretty much everything that happens in a car goes through a computer.
No.
If I need to commute by car it is a sign I have failed in life.
Cars controlled by humans kill, what, hundreds of thousands of people every year on a worldwide basis? I think self-driving cars won't be perfect, but they should be much better than humans in avoiding accidents.
Your car driving you home when you are drunk. Enough said.
I love driving, it actually relaxes me, but I am also not an insecure male, so I wouldn't feel like my dick gets chopped off if I have a software as my chauffeur.
Quote from: Monoriu on April 28, 2016, 01:41:42 AM
Cars controlled by humans kill, what, hundreds of thousands of people every year on a worldwide basis? I think self-driving cars won't be perfect, but they should be much better than humans in avoiding accidents.
1.3 million per year.
http://asirt.org/Initiatives/Informing-Road-Users/Road-Safety-Facts/Road-Crash-Statistics
Re the efficiency savings. On longer trips cars could form virtual trains and drive very close to each other in the slipstream of the car in front, this would greatly increase fuel efficiency. It would also increase the carrying capacity of the road..............fewer traffic jams and less new roadbuilding required.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 28, 2016, 02:25:44 AM
Re the efficiency savings. On longer trips cars could form virtual trains and drive very close to each other in the slipstream of the car in front, this would greatly increase fuel efficiency. It would also increase the carrying capacity of the road..............fewer traffic jams and less new roadbuilding required.
That's called "platooning" and is already tested on real roads with real trucks. The slipsteam effect there is much stronger.
https://www.eutruckplatooning.com/default.aspx
A big road-train of trucks will annoy human car-drivers of course. Imagine that you want to turn off the motorway in 2 miles but there is a 12-truck platoon ahead of you, you could either speed to get ahead of them in time or drive relatively slowly behind them till your turn-off.
The transition to driverless will generate a lot of similar frustrations I'm sure.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 27, 2016, 10:21:44 PM
It is possible that miles driven would increase because of what you are saying.
But think of some of the sources of savings:
-Huge reduction in costs of parking. Take a city like Atlanta. Say 6 million people. Maybe 3 million cars. The vast majority parked at any one time. All these parked cars are wasted space.
-Insurance--those 3 million cars need millions of insurance policies, which must be marketed, sold, and customized for the customer. Imagine if all the cars in Atlanta were effectively owned by 5 companies. The business of insurance would be less costly, even ignoring the theoretical safety benefits of self driving cars.
-Gas stations. People need gas stations near where they live. Lots of prime real estate is dedicated to gas stations. This would be unnecessary with self driving cars that could be based outside the city center.
-Maintenance. Imagine how much more efficient and effective maintenance would be if rather than having it overseen by millions of individual drivers it was managed professionally by a central entity? How much car damage is caused by skipped maintenance, and how much is wasted by unnecessary maintenance? For a simple example, just think how many fewer resources would be dedicated to emissions tests if all the cars in Atlanta were stored in a couple dozen locations.
-Avoiding obsolescence. Say a car lasts 200k miles and is driven 10k miles / year. How many cars from 1996 are still around? In the US it wasn't even mandatory to have airbags on both sides of the front seat until 1998. I suspect a not insignificant number of cars are being scrapped not because they hit a mileage number beyond which the car breaks down too much, but because they are obsolete or are breaking down from improper maintenance.
-Car selling costs: far more cost effective to just sell to a few fleet providers rather than millions of individuals.
I generally agree with your arguments, but it will be interesting to see how well those fleets of self-driving cars would balance in reality. At rush hour, you would still need way more cars than at other times of the day and you would need them in certain locations, which would still need lots of space. With current fleets that only works in densely populated areas as otherwise the cars idle too much to be profitable.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 28, 2016, 03:09:48 AM
A big road-train of trucks will annoy human car-drivers of course. Imagine that you want to turn off the motorway in 2 miles but there is a 12-truck platoon ahead of you, you could either speed to get ahead of them in time or drive relatively slowly behind them till your turn-off.
The transition to driverless will generate a lot of similar frustrations I'm sure.
I can't find the video right now, but the trucks can make space for cars at on- and off-ramps.
Quote from: derspiess on April 27, 2016, 11:19:50 PM
I love how you guys assume a self-driving car will be glitch-free, and immune to viruses or hacks.
No, I just assume that there will be fewer glitches, viruses or hacks then drunk, tired or crazy drivers.
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 27, 2016, 08:21:05 PM
DG is in the pocket of Big Seatbelts.
You mean he's a Nader Bro?
Is it a bit easier to rob a self-driving convoy as there is no need to deal with the drivers? Park something in front of the convey to stop it, and help yourself with the goods.
And what about loading the convoy with bombs and sending it on a suicide mission without the need to hire suicide drivers?
Robbing a self-driving truck would be nearly impossible. Just put a sensor on the rear doors and inform law enforcement when the sensor is tampered with. The fleet operator would always have perfect information on where the truck is and in what status it is. Internet of Things is quickly becoming reality.
Quote from: Monoriu on April 28, 2016, 06:45:17 AM
And what about loading the convoy with bombs and sending it on a suicide mission without the need to hire suicide drivers?
Would never work. Not enough panache.
In general I would think that highway robbery is less of a concern than thieves stealing from parked trucks at night. No driver means the truck is always on the road.
Quote from: Gups on April 27, 2016, 04:27:43 PM
We've had self driving trains here since the 1980s, I think they are quite common elsewhere too, mainly light rail. No accidents as far as I know.
Light rail is a closed track; we have that in the United States as well. The FRA (probably) won't allow us to run self driving trains on open track, that is where multiple carriers run over a track owned by one carrier or another entity. The rail system I worked on in Colombia (http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,12988.0.html) is an open track, FeNoCo owns the line and the mining companies run their trains on it.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 28, 2016, 06:55:46 AM
Quote from: Monoriu on April 28, 2016, 06:45:17 AM
And what about loading the convoy with bombs and sending it on a suicide mission without the need to hire suicide drivers?
Would never work. Not enough panache.
It wouldn't be a suicide mission then. Just a bombing.
Quote from: Savonarola on April 28, 2016, 08:51:57 AM
Quote from: Gups on April 27, 2016, 04:27:43 PM
We've had self driving trains here since the 1980s, I think they are quite common elsewhere too, mainly light rail. No accidents as far as I know.
Light rail is a closed track; we have that in the United States as well. The FRA (probably) won't allow us to run self driving trains on open track, that is where multiple carriers run over a track owned by one carrier or another entity. The rail system I worked on in Colombia (http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,12988.0.html) is an open track, FeNoCo owns the line and the mining companies run their trains on it.
Yeah, that's understandable. You'd have to have 100% certainty on the interface between the train and the signals.
Quote from: Savonarola on April 27, 2016, 12:54:41 PM
This topic came up when I was talking with some people from AMTRAK. Their fear is that our product will eliminate the need for conductors on trains. In our case it won't; our product isn't designed to drive a train. The Federal Rail Authority has made it clear that "Robo-trains" aren't likely to be approved to run on the public tracks. Their argument is that a computer cannot replace an experienced conductor. A conductor can recognize when something is out of place, while a computer can only recognize what it's been programmed to.
Given the nature of rail no one is lobbying to have self driving trains. The first robo-train to crash would be a publicity nightmare.
I would see from a good eye an auto-pilot like airplanes, something you can disengage at will if there's a problem.
Quote
People, though, are willing to accept a much greater risk when driving themselves than when riding on a train. Given that, I'm curious if you would want a self driving car; assuming that they were within your budget and statistically no more dangerous than driving yourself.
I think I'd like that, but like a plane's auto-pilot, I want to take control of my machine sometimes, in case something totally unexpected happens.
If you're talking about a 100% automatic car where there's no driving wheel, than no, I would not want that.
Trains seem to be fairly easy to automate completely. There is much less variance than in road traffic. If the train encounters an unclear situation or signal loss, just stop it and let a remote controller take over.
Quote from: Zanza on April 28, 2016, 12:00:46 PM
Trains seem to be fairly easy to automate completely. There is much less variance than in road traffic. If the train encounters an unclear situation or signal loss, just stop it and let a remote controller take over.
Yes, that is true. The problem is that trains can't be just as safe as cars; they have to be much, much safer. In the United States over 30,000 people died in automobile accidents; people are willing to risk death when they drive a car. A train wreck, even if there are no fatalities, is national news. People aren't willing to risk injury when they ride the train.
Quote from: Tamas on April 28, 2016, 01:55:01 AM
Your car driving you home when you are drunk. Enough said.
I love driving, it actually relaxes me, but I am also not an insecure male, so I wouldn't feel like my dick gets chopped off if I have a software as my chauffeur.
:)
Yeah, a train seems like a much narrower problems space with radically greater amounts of control.
Planes are even more complex than cars, but have the advantage of a much more rigorous environment to operate in as far as controls on other aircraft.
Quote from: Berkut on April 28, 2016, 03:00:01 PM
Planes are even more complex than cars, but have the advantage of a much more rigorous environment to operate in as far as controls on other aircraft.
They also have a much simpler environment to navigate.
No need for a self-driving car, I commute by public transportation. :)
Quote from: Zanza on April 28, 2016, 06:52:17 AM
Just put a sensor on the rear doors and inform law enforcement when the sensor is tampered with..
No reason I can see that you couldn't do that with the trailer of a big rig today. No need to wait for self-driving cars.
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on April 28, 2016, 03:28:18 PM
No need for a self-driving car, I commute by public transportation. :)
I'm a mostly happy public transit user, but other than getting to and from work it isn't practical in most cities to rely only on public transit. I still need to be able to buy groceries and other large / bulky items and transport them to my home, I may need to get to areas that aren't well covered by public transit, or on evenings / weekends when public transit runs rarely.
Quote from: Barrister on April 28, 2016, 03:55:59 PM
I still need to be able to buy groceries and other large / bulky items
OK katmai.