Cars That Drive Themselves

[EricTheCarGuy]

This is the first of these and I hope to add more. Instead of working through the YouTube comments I plan to start the ETCG1 video discussions here by starting with Cars That Drive Themselves.

Topic

[dave]

as long as they don’t have cars that fix themselves i’ll be happy. :silly:

[EricTheCarGuy]

[quote=”Wrench Turner” post=32679]as long as they don’t have cars that fix themselves i’ll be happy. :silly:[/quote]

++1!

[Aleksander Dabrowski]

Jeremy Clarkson had a good comment about cars that drive themselves.

“While this all very clever, you know that one day someone is going to try to fix one of these navigation systems themselves and they’ll be coming the other way in the opposite lane”

[L67brassCity]

I could see this happening but in designated areas that are deemed safe. Imagine it kind of like the EZ pass tolls. You go through a checkpoint and it communicates with the car allowing it go into an “auto pilot” mode. Probably you’ll have separate or divided lanes. This way you can have both auto and manually driven vehicles on the same highway. As far as having it in the city, I think that’s almost impossible. Too many variables like pedestrians, people on bikes, and construction. What about potholes? If I never avoided potholes I’d be going through front end and suspension parts like water. Well that’s here here in the north east, roads suck.

[Christopher]

What happens when there is a wreck? Whose fault is it? I think that having cars drive themselves could be beneficial as you said but there would be lots of problems. Besides it would take the fun out of driving.

[dave]

there seems to be way too many variables to consider with a self-driving vehicle. pot holes, deer, weather, hydroplaning, ice, blown tire, low fuel level, dtc trouble codes (check engine lights), drivability and engine problems, construction zones, emergency response vehicles and other vehicular accidents being among the top of things to consider. it would take the effort of the world’s top computer scientists to tackle these tough issues. :S

i believe the most viable solution would be a compromise that would result in a “mostly drive’s itself” vehicle, that would be nothing more than an extension of your cruise control in that it can drive itself up to a point of when driver interaction is required. Even with aircraft, ‘autopilot’ is by no means a way of turning total control over to a computer; human intervention is required especially during the most crucial phases of flight. I believe the same theorem will be true when it comes to self-driving vehicles; human intervention should be considered when it comes to the most crucial phases of driving.

[EricTheCarGuy]

[quote=”L67brassCity” post=32688]I could see this happening but in designated areas that are deemed safe. Imagine it kind of like the EZ pass tolls. You go through a checkpoint and it communicates with the car allowing it go into an “auto pilot” mode. Probably you’ll have separate or divided lanes. This way you can have both auto and manually driven vehicles on the same highway. As far as having it in the city, I think that’s almost impossible. Too many variables like pedestrians, people on bikes, and construction. What about potholes? If I never avoided potholes I’d be going through front end and suspension parts like water. Well that’s here here in the north east, roads suck.[/quote]

I think this is the most plausible scenario and makes the most sense. It’s not like we’d have ALL cars driving themselves overnight, I think having the option is the most logical thing. Perhaps it could be 100% in urban areas with the right set up and controls but on the highways I think your way would be the way to go.

[John B Kobberstad]

Looks like more sophisticated and more expensive tools for the tech to have to purchase to be able to fix them.

[John B Kobberstad]

Do you really thing that the kind of people who cause most accidents are going to let a computer drive them around? I don’t think so. Need to come up with a computer to detect those drivers and avoid them.

[dreamer2355]

When i first saw this video, i thought of the movie ‘Demolition Man’, lol.

I think there is a few pro’s and con’s of those supposed vehicles but in short –

Pro’s being less accidents of course, safer road ways, less road rage by drivers…

A big ‘con’ being the service and repair of these vehicles. Those will require ALLOT of education to be able to troubleshoot and diagnose those.

[EricTheCarGuy]

Honestly I don’t think the repair would be anymore than it is today. Think about it, there was a time before fuel injection systems came around and people thought the same thing about computer controlled systems. I really don’t think they’ll be anymore difficult to repair, as I said in the video we already have most of the systems now to implement the system it’s really just a matter of coming up with the software to run it.

[dave]

i think that in order to accommodate a more socially diverse viewing audience, the name of this video should be changed to, “Cars that drive they’selves.”

that is all. banana:

[shca]

I see the Google self-driving cars quite a bit during my commute. They seem to mix quite well with normal traffic, although they seem to irritate some drivers because they tend to drive “too safely.” I’d much rather drive along side one of the Google cars than a good percentage of Bay Area commuters.

As far as the complexity of the vehicle is concerned, I recall reading in the EE Times that the lines of code that comprises even the Chevy Volt’s control systems is greater than that of the 787 Dreamliner. Kinda cool.

[dave]

[EricTheCarGuy]

Thanks for posting that video, it answers a lot of the questions that have been made about this prospect.

[Author]

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