U.S. clears way for truly driverless vehicles without steering wheels

[montenope]

I just can't believe a car without a steering wheel can be a good thing.
What hell were these people thinking?

With some of the new technology in some cars hackers have hacked into the systems and controlled them from their living rooms.

Can you imagine someone hacking into a vehicle with the whole family inside on their way to say Disney land for a wonderful time and some punk ass kid takes control while laughing his head off and the driver cant do a **** thing to steer it but must watch the car being driven head on into an 18 wheeler at 65mph? Or on a windy road and driven off of the cliff?

I mean come on, do we really need this kind of tech? My answer is NO.
Just look at the track record of what's out there now.

 

[PandaBear]

I just can't believe a car without a steering wheel can be a good thing.
What hell were these people thinking?

With some of the new technology in some cars hackers have hacked into the systems and controlled them from their living rooms.

Can you imagine someone hacking into a vehicle with the whole family inside on their way to say Disney land for a wonderful time and some punk ass kid takes control while laughing his head off and the driver cant do a **** thing to steer it but must watch the car being driven head on into an 18 wheeler at 65mph? Or on a windy road and driven off of the cliff?

I mean come on, do we really need this kind of tech? My answer is NO.
Just look at the track record of what's out there now.

You can do that without driverless car tech. The safest you can do is split up the bus physically between the driving circuit and the entertainment or internet connection, etc.

I think it is already done just to make sure you cannot crash the engine or transmission on a human driver car today from a loophole inside the infotainment (say someone softmod a trojan on a mp3 disk).

I think eventually one day we will have legit driverless car without steering, to prevent reckless teen driving their parents supposedly driverless car and crashing it, and then insurance company denied to pay for the claim.

 

[Spyderman24_7]

All vehicles being level 5 only will mean 0 deaths from drunk drivers, 0 deaths from drivers on drugs, 0 death from bad drivers, and basicly reducing the number of yearly deaths from vehicle accidents to less than 1% of what they are now.

Considering that now that figure is around 30,000 deaths in the US alone each year, that is the saving of MANY lives.

Read into it however you'd like, but that reads like government control when it's all said and done. I'm not reading much into anything as that sort of technological B.S. won't be perfected (if ever) in my lifetime.

 

[Spyderman24_7]

Imagine the government telling you where you can turn right and where you can't turn right and what time to go home

As well as being able to track every move you make

I don't think the future driverless car would throw everything and the kitchen sink at the problem like we do today. Paying $7k-10k worth of silicon just for fun doesn't make sense when the hype goes away either. The way I see it we can lower our driverless AI need by going 1) slower, 2) when there's no traffic around (mid night), 3) laying down standard markers on the road, 4) limit the usage on well defined road (divided highway).

Since practical technology has to make a profit on its own, this means they need to replace paid labor instead of your own time you must spend while driving anyways.

So that means we will first see this on long haul truck going at mid night between warehouses, slow enough to save fuel and AI need, and if something happen just crash the truck away from other vehicles instead of deciding which pedestrians to hit.

Or if you must do it quick and dirty, have these driverless car or truck follow another human driver in the vehicle in front like a trailer. This should be pretty easy to do with drive by wire sending all the signals to the back (or even a physical wire if you want). You can even roll it out today so people can just go on road trip with 2 small cars instead of a crew cab or SUVs, and still get the same cargo capacity and passenger space with the fuel economy for daily commutes.

Most importantly, once we have critical mass of commercial driverless trucks we will start seeing special road markers to help them out, even if it means the industry pay for the roll out. Then once that happen we no longer need these statistics and vision based AI to drive, just follow some special markers on the road that's design for driverless guidance.

Then when a power grid goes, wireless communication is disrupted it all goes to hell rather quickly... That sort of thinking is making the human in us more dependent on technology and less with our own instincts. The world and everything in it will never be perfect and people should stop trying to push for that. For me driving is a privilege that I've always appreciated/respected and **** sure won't have some lame AI system trying to do it for me.

IMBHO this sort of car related technology is getting like the modern cellphone. Yeah look at how much can be done with the modern phone compared to say 8-10 yrs ago. Then look as how pathetic battery life is as well as function/longevity as these days even with moderate use/great care it's tough to get the latest/greatest phone to last 3-4 yrs if you're lucky.

 

[PandaBear]

As well as being able to track every move you make

Then when a power grid goes, wireless communication is disrupted it all goes to hell rather quickly... That sort of thinking is making the human in us more dependent on technology and less with our own instincts. The world and everything in it will never be perfect and people should stop trying to push for that. For me driving is a privilege that I've always appreciated/respected and **** sure won't have some lame AI system trying to do it for me.

IMBHO this sort of car related technology is getting like the modern cellphone. Yeah look at how much can be done with the modern phone compared to say 8-10 yrs ago. Then look as how pathetic battery life is as well as function/longevity as these days even with moderate use/great care it's tough to get the latest/greatest phone to last 3-4 yrs if you're lucky.

Vehicle to vehicle communication is on a different band (I have to check which one FCC allocates for it but it is not cell phone use), point to point, instead of to the carrier tower then back to another vehicle.

You also can use a cord going from one car to another car, like, your tow hitch and brake light signal, you know? It is not a big deal having a wire going from one to another and make it a virtual trailer. You can probably have the turn signals and rear view camera of the last car shown on your dash just like when you are backing up, it is actually pretty useful if your rear view mirror won't see that far.

Battery life is a matter of what you buy. If you get a cheap $100 phone for free when you sign a contract, don't expect good battery life. Your car battery is fine for 5 years right? Do you want to go back to crank starting or push it to a running start in 2021? What makes you think self driving car (with gas engine) will run into battery life problem?

This phobia is why the driverless car will go commercial vehicle first, you can never argue with money and profit but people wants the good ole days to stay forever will always argue with you. Will human driver be perfect? I'll not bet on that but I know if I can avoid drunk drivers I would do it. I would probably be happy if a drunk driver can let his car drive him home instead of trying his luck and end up crashing into someone. If one lane on the highway have checkmarks for driverless car to read, and they stay 3 seconds away from human driver, with no pedestrians to look for, I don't see why would we not be able to get it working already today.



Oh, the government already track every move you make, from traffic cam and red light camera, and speed trap, and your past traffic violation history, and insurance claim, and every gas station has security camera these days, and E911 knows your location, and local cell tower knows where you are at approximately, and your EZ pass records, and the toll road you got on and off. It may save your life if you drive drunk one day and fell off a rural mountain road. Maybe your apple watch or iPhone would call 911 for you if detects a car accident (throwing the phone around inside the car, must be an accident, call 911 asap and tell them), and save your life. It's not all bad.

 

[Spyderman24_7]

Vehicle to vehicle communication is on a different band (I have to check which one FCC allocates for it but it is not cell phone use), point to point, instead of to the carrier tower then back to another vehicle.

You also can use a cord going from one car to another car, like, your tow hitch and brake light signal, you know? It is not a big deal having a wire going from one to another and make it a virtual trailer. You can probably have the turn signals and rear view camera of the last car shown on your dash just like when you are backing up, it is actually pretty useful if your rear view mirror won't see that far.

Battery life is a matter of what you buy. If you get a cheap $100 phone for free when you sign a contract, don't expect good battery life. Your car battery is fine for 5 years right? Do you want to go back to crank starting or push it to a running start in 2021? What makes you think self driving car (with gas engine) will run into battery life problem?

This phobia is why the driverless car will go commercial vehicle first, you can never argue with money and profit but people wants the good ole days to stay forever will always argue with you. Will human driver be perfect? I'll not bet on that but I know if I can avoid drunk drivers I would do it. I would probably be happy if a drunk driver can let his car drive him home instead of trying his luck and end up crashing into someone. If one lane on the highway have checkmarks for driverless car to read, and they stay 3 seconds away from human driver, with no pedestrians to look for, I don't see why would we not be able to get it working already today.

Regarding battery life with a phone, far from cheap... talking the flagship(s) from Samsung. Phones are like anything else... more technology comes with a cost, lesser longevity due to being pushed for that last bit of performance, that sort of thing. We all have different opinions/expectations and I think the focus being placed more on AI is simply a joke at best.

 

[PandaBear]

Regarding battery life with a phone, far from cheap... talking the flagship(s) from Samsung. Phones are like anything else... more technology comes with a cost, lesser longevity due to being pushed for that last bit of performance, that sort of thing. We all have different opinions/expectations and I think the focus being placed more on AI is simply a joke at best.

I am pretty bad with statistics, so I don't trust AI. I've worked with optical sensors in the past so I know they can be iffy.

However, I am a firmware guys with a lot of prior work on automation, something that goes on a rail with mechanism to make sure it won't drop off a track going from one side to another, vacuum suction holding it and flipping it over then dropping it in a box, opening and closing a lid with a lock then lift it from one shelf to another, etc.

I know a reliable system for driverless car will be build, and can be build, just like those airport shuttle between terminals without human operator already run reliability for decades. All it take is some tweaks to our existing systems, but nobody wants to pay for marking roads for cars to follow and nobody was even trying to have cars following another (which is really easy in the drive by wire days), they all just want toys like what Tesla does. This is my beef with the current driverless car tech.

I am hopeful one day we will see driverless car, on designated road, staying in pact, keeping a safe distance from human drivers, knowing when the light will turn red and green, and hypermiling without changing speed or hitting any red light. We will get there I'm sure, and the road will evolve with the cars along the way just like they did when we start driving and stop riding horses.

 

[HemiBenny]

They'll be controlled by SKYNET-Cyberdyne Systems Corporation. It'll be so much fun,...especially when they become self-aware.
Cheers!

 

[Kjmack]

They'll be controlled by SKYNET-Cyberdyne Systems Corporation. It'll be so much fun,...especially when they become self-aware.
Cheers!

It will give the passengers opportunity to virtue signal as they watch the world go by

 

[PandaBear]

They'll be controlled by SKYNET-Cyberdyne Systems Corporation. It'll be so much fun,...especially when they become self-aware.
Cheers!

On the contrary, with all the idiots burning 5G cell towers in the world this will likely never happen. It will have to be onboard control but rely on some marking, just whether it is a designated marking for driverless car or whether it is for human driver that AI has to understand.

 

[JimPghPA]

Rebelling against the future where AI vehicles can transport people from place to place with much less than 1% of the death rates that we accept today as normal and not something to worry about and citing some garbage about big government taking over control, is about as smart as someone many years ago who use to drive a horse and buggy getting mad about a future of horseless carnages that have to stop sometimes at intersections that have traffic lights.

The motor vehicle caused death rates of (30,000 +/- a few thousand, repeatedly, each and every year, in the US alone, and also the many additional deaths each year in other countries) and the very real high number of serious injuries many of which last the rest of the injured person's life, are why spending money on AI vehicles is a very good ROI. Many of these lives that are taken away from us with our existing system of human driving are totally innocent and have done nothing wrong, when a speeding, or drunk, or someone driving an unsafe vehicle such as tires not good enough for conditions, or bad brakes as an example, caused the vehicle they were in to be hit so hard they were killed.

I have seen on the tv news way too many times the reports of people being killed who were doing nothing wrong, and only traveling at normal speed or even stopped in a vehicle that was hit. Sometimes even entire families wiped out by a speeding driver (often one that was running from the police). And I have heard stories of passengers who were riding in a vehicle who were killed because the driver of the vehicle they were in made a careless mistake, and these passengers were doing nothing wrong. Would you feel safer about your teen age child being in a vehicle driven by some teen-age driver you do not even know, or of them being in a vehicle driven by AI that is actually safer than any human driver can be.

 

[Slow Car Sport Mode]

This is the direction we are headed , like it or not. Of course it is not all that simple to just make these vehicles available. As long as you have a mix of driverless and driven vehicles on the roads together there will be issues.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/11/us-clears-way-for-driverless-vehicles-without-steering-wheels.html

Oh no.

 

[Kjmack]

Rebelling against the future where AI vehicles can transport people from place to place with much less than 1% of the death rates that we accept today as normal and not something to worry about and citing some garbage about big government taking over control, is about as smart as someone many years ago who use to drive a horse and buggy getting mad about a future of horseless carnages that have to stop sometimes at intersections that have traffic lights.

The motor vehicle caused death rates of (30,000 +/- a few thousand, repeatedly, each and every year, in the US alone, and also the many additional deaths each year in other countries) and the very real high number of serious injuries many of which last the rest of the injured person's life, are why spending money on AI vehicles is a very good ROI. Many of these lives that are taken away from us with our existing system of human driving are totally innocent and have done nothing wrong, when a speeding, or drunk, or someone driving an unsafe vehicle such as tires not good enough for conditions, or bad brakes as an example, caused the vehicle they were in to be hit so hard they were killed.

I have seen on the tv news way too many times the reports of people being killed who were doing nothing wrong, and only traveling at normal speed or even stopped in a vehicle that was hit. Sometimes even entire families wiped out by a speeding driver (often one that was running from the police). And I have heard stories of passengers who were riding in a vehicle who were killed because the driver of the vehicle they were in made a careless mistake, and these passengers were doing nothing wrong. Would you feel safer about your teen age child being in a vehicle driven by some teen-age driver you do not even know, or of them being in a vehicle driven by AI that is actually safer than any human driver can be.

No thanks , I will command my destiny , not a computer chip .

 

[HemiBenny]

On the contrary, with all the idiots burning 5G cell towers in the world this will likely never happen. It will have to be onboard control but rely on some marking, just whether it is a designated marking for driverless car or whether it is for human driver that AI has to understand.

It was meant to be a joke.
Oh well, tough crowd. Cheers!

 

[HemiBenny]

It will give the passengers opportunity to virtue signal as they watch the world go by

 

[ecotourist]

We're a long way from having independent driver-less vehicles (ie not having steering wheels and other controls). But given time, it will come.

When driver-less vehicles have become the norm, drivers and driven vehicles may become effectively uninsurable because of their much higher accident rate.

The other possibility is that driver-less vehicles are able to interact safely with one another but driven vehicles become a danger That could be due to tight spacing (a few inches apart at 100 MPH), rapid coordinated acceleration or braking, very high speeds, etc.

I can see there being a transition period or even transition zone where rural areas permit driven vehicles but cities become strictly driver-less. Kind of like riding your horse to the city. You could ride your horse to town but it's not really practical to ride it down 7th avenue.

 

[PimTac]

People didn’t like it much when the first cars started running on the roads, much as they were.

 

[Saabist]

E911 knows your location, and local cell tower knows where you are at approximately,

How do you figure that?

 

[PimTac]

How do you figure that?

Triangulation.

 

[Saabist]

Triangulation.

Still not sure exactly what you mean. Perhaps you are laboring under the mistaken idea that everyone has an active cellular telephone on their person at all times, or a car that communicates with the outside world.